Month: July 2023

Flagrant Virtue-Signaling Of The Century: Ben & Jerry’s

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

This tweet is so astoundingly transparent and stupid that it isn’t even worth boycotting the ice cream over, though apparently some people are.

It is a core tenet at Ethics Alarms that demands, plans, assertions and proposals that are impossible to realize are not ethical, but are instead incompetent, irresponsible, intellectually dishonest and a waste of everybody’s time, as well as conduct that makes already stupid people dumber yet. “Imagine” is the universal anthem for such statements.

Assuming that the authors of that tweet are not literally morons—and who knows, really—the thing is simply a cry for applause from Woke World. Oh, aren’t these people wonderful! They want to remedy injustice!

To be fair, the suggestion that the U.S. return all of its land to the Native American tribes is only a bit more absurd than slavery reparations, or as Rationalization #22 puts it, “There are worse things.”

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring AND You’re A Moron: The Roman Colosseum Vandal

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

First, the moral: Cultural literacy is a life competence obligation both at home and abroad. Now the tale:

I had been planning on a post about the manhunt in Rome for the unethical tourist caught on video carving “Ivan + Hayley 23/6/23” into a brick on a wall of the Colosseum. Authorities went looking for “Ivan;” meanwhile, not only is destruction of natural and historical sites an occasional Ethics Alarms theme, but in this case the video-taker’s conduct was also questionable: he was more interested in taking a viral video than he was in stopping the vandalism.

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From The Ethics Alarms Mail Bag: The Case Of The Abandoned Beanie Babies

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Now and then people contact EA privately for some ethics guidance, which I usually supply free of charge. Yesterday an inquirer spun this tale:

Her neighbor decided to clean house, and get rid of all of her now grown and out children’s abandoned toys. Among these were dozens and dozens of Beanie Babies, the toy fad of the Nineties. My inquirer said that neighborhood parents and pre-schoolers were just scooping the things up, and so she asked her neighbor if she could have three, two for her granddaughter, now 4, and one for as a future stocking-stuffer. Receiving a positive response, she chose three that she thought a little girl would like.

She swears it didn’t occur to her at the time that Beanie Babies are collectibles, but when she got home, she was moved to investigate. She was shocked at what some of the old stuffed animals are worth, and was particularly shocked to see that one of the BB’s she had chosen at random and that appeared to be in mint condition is considered rare and valued at $70,000. Her question: what is the ethical course to pursue at this point?

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From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Can’t handle criticism, can’t take a joke, believes that effective rhetoric that counters their assertions should be silenced.

In short, PETA reveals itself as typical of progressive activists in 2023.

Ethics Quiz: The Cruel And Dishonest Grandfather

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

This is a different sort of Ethics Quiz. Usually we consider whether particular conduct is ethical or unethical, but not in this instance. The conduct this Ethics Quiz examines is unethical by definition.

Ethics Alarms last looked at the nauseating saga of little Navy Joan Roberts [Biden] in January, here. She is the 5-year-old love child (or at least one of them) of President Biden’s wastrel son Hunter, of laptop and Burisma fame. That means she is also President Biden’s granddaughter. There is no way around it: that’s a fact, established by science, which we know Joe worships.

This week, the lawsuit and paternity dispute regarding Hunter, Navy Joan and her mother, Lunden Roberts were resolved in a settlement that involved Hunter agreeing to a new level of child support and Lunden agreeing not to legally change Navy’s last name to Biden. Everything about this case reveals new vistas in Hunter’s creepiness, but really, we knew that, and the fact that a Presidential offspring is an embarrassment is neither relevant to assessing the character of the father nor especially unusual. What is unusual is Joe Biden’s cruel treatment of a little girl who has done nothing to deserve it, and that does reflect on the President’s character.

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quotes For The Fourth: On Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy” (Parts 1 &2)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Tom P‘s Comment of the Day on the 4th of July begins by noting that “if the principles depicted in the above quotes were taught in our schools and supported by the populous,” many of today’s most contentious issues would not be the battle grounds they are. I think that’s right. Unfortunately, not only are the vast majority of those quotes not taught, almost none of the speakers and writers who issued them could be identified by the average citizen. The second group is a bit more challenging, but minimally educated Americans should at least know Clarence Darrow, Daniel Webster, George Orwell and William O.Douglas. Do they? I doubt it. I supposed it would be too much to add Thomas Sowell to the “must recognize” list. I hope, but am far from sure, that Thomas Jefferson’s famous opening to the Declaration of Independence would be known to all, but then Joe Biden, President of the United States, recently confused it with the Constitution, so I have my doubts.

In Part 1, I would say that basic civic and cultural literacy mandates recognition of the names and significance of Presidents Adams, Lincoln, Carter, and Wilson, Ben Franklin, Herman Melville, John Marshall (if I do say so myself), yes and George Bernard Shaw and Jimmy Durante too, dammit!

Here is Tom P’s Comment of the Day on the posts, “Ethics Quotes For The Fourth: On Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy” (Parts 1 &2):

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If the principles depicted in the above quotes were taught in our schools and supported by the populous, there would be no necessity for cramming LGBTQ propaganda down everyone’s throat. Affirmative Action, DEI, Critical Race Theory, and the 1619 project; none of these divisive concepts could gain any serious traction. The liberty-stealing, totalitarian progressive movement would have been stillborn.

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Ethics Quote Of The Week: “George The Atheist”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“I’m not doing this. Enough is enough. Leave me alone. Period. I’m not doing this. Fine me if you want. I don’t care. Catch the car thieves and check-washers first.”

—-New York Times commenter “George the Atheist” responding to an article about New York City’s new mandatory food waste composting law.

God bless George. This is classic American civil disobedience, and nothing demands it more than useless and futile anti-climate change virtue signalling burdening citizens who have real problems to worry about. Big Brother thinks it is entitled to just keep piling more and more obligations, expenses duties, routines and annoyances on citizens, and will keep doing so, ratcheting up the basic burdens and expense of daily life in the process, until sufficient numbers of people stand their ground, say “No,” and reverse this toxic trend.

Sadly, there aren’t enough Georges in Democratic-run cities and states, not nearly enough. This is why one has to avoid piles of human fecal matter in San Francisco, and watch shop-lifers operate without fear in most major cities, and why so many woke school boards continue to program ideological indoctrination in the public schools. It’s also why I still see young people, not just elders who might (but probably don’t) have a valid reason other than being fearful Democrats, wearing masks while riding bicycles, jogging alone and driving solo in their own car. Most people—even most Americans, who live in an embedded (but weakening) culture that emphasizes suspicion of authority and reverence for personal liberty—are inclined to just knuckle under to the abuse of power, because they lack the integrity, courage and certitude to say “No.” They are weenies. Those who wield power rely on them.

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Pointer: Althouse

 

 

The “Axis Of Unethical Conduct” Really And Truly Does Want The Government To Block Speech, And Can No Longer Credibly Claim That It Doesn’t

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The “Axis” is, in Ethics Alarms parlance, “the resistance,” or those who believe that the existential threat of Donald Trump justifies suspending laws, traditions, fairness, standards and the Constitution; Democrats, who believe that their path to permanent power must be achieved by any means necessary, and the news media, which has become the propaganda arm of both entities and an active participant in the restriction and control of political speech.

All three groups were horrified yesterday when Judge Terry Doughty, Chief U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, delivered a sweeping ruling in Missouri v. Biden in which he issued an against what he called “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

Doughty declared that “in their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.” He restricted the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms regarding their decisions on which content should appear online, explaining that “Plaintiffs allege that Defendants, through public pressure campaigns, private meetings, and other forms of direct communication, regarding what Defendants described as ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ have colluded with and/or coerced social-media platforms to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content on social-media platforms.”

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Ethics Zugzwang And High School Theater

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I have no idea what can be done about this now, but it is among the saddest consequences of the culture wars and The Great Stupid, and, as is so often the case, the casualties are children….which means that in the long-term, the casualty will be American society itself.

Ethics Alarms has periodically chronicled the sagas of high school theatrical productions halted or distorted by various politics- or ideology-based complaints and protests, but I never focused on what a tightening strangle-hold on cultural education this phenomenon represents. The New York Times examined the problem here, and though the Times slant seeks to blame it all on conservatives (you know, those meanies who also want to “ban books”), the description of the problem is accurate and gloomy. A sample:

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Ethics Quotes For The Fourth: On Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy [Part II]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

US-original-Declaration-1776

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

—-The Declaration of Independence

“It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever. “

—-Daniel Webster, U.S. politician and orator

“Liberty is the soul’s right to breathe, and when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight.”

—-Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist.

“Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense – the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.”

—- Senator William Borah (R-ID), 1917

 “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

—-George Orwell
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