I don’t know when I’ll have access to my blog tomorrow, so to allow the ethics wisdom to flow unabated, I’m declaring an Open Forum right now.
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Ethics Alarms 
Here is an article woeth commenting about.
Turley has been getting more and more exasperated at some of the shenanigans prosecutors are pulling lately. The idea that the DA would lead a grand jury to think it’s a good thing to indict some of those people — Lindsey Graham? Sheesh — is really disturbing. It does help explain why that grand jury foreman was so giddy during her media tour earlier this year.
I think Turley feels kind of that the DA left out some of the folks who it would be insane to actually indict and settled for only the crazy stuff.
Any interest in discussing ethics and parenting? In light of the recent events in Utah. https://people.com/ruby-franke-mom-influencer-charged-six-counts-child-abuse-7966033
I’m always interested in discussing the ethics of parenting, but Jack talked about her a while back and covered most of the salient points, I thought. Is there anything specific you thought needed to be brought up for additional discussion?
Recently, some discussion of appearances of impropriety by various members of Congress and the SCOTUS and the behaviors were judged to be unethical by some and rationalized by others.
Today Dick Durban stated that no one is advocating putting sexually explicit materials in grade school libraries and he was proud that Illinois was the first state to ban book bans.
Why is it not unethical for a member of Congress to willfully mislead the public with respect to controversial topics. To me it violates Kantian ethics because if all elected leaders purposely mislead voters for the benefit of one constituency then it could be expected that eventually no one will believe anything or each unique constituency will be at war with another.
Why do we tend to focus on appearances of impropriety if we are unwilling to call out politicians who purposely mislead the voting public.
I know we call out those on the other side for lying but we rarely if ever charge them with an ethics breach. Perhaps if House and Senate ethics rules allowed for sanctions against objective misrepresentations then maybe civility might erupt.
I am tired of being put on this team or that team. We should be one team
There are two teams, it just isn’t the teams most people focus on. The two teams are the elites and everyone else. We focus on what the elites want us to focus on because they own all the institutions: news, media, tech, academia, government, Hollywood, publishing houses. They get to set the topics of conversation. The elites don’t want people talking about some things, so they use their institutional ownership to bombard the population with nonsense topics that don’t matter.
And boy is it ever annoying as hell.
NP.
As usual I agree about the makeup of the teams; each with its own fan base I would like to see the everyone else start demanding that politicians be required to give truthful answers to direct questions without obfuscation or mendaciousness. Every politician should be required as part of their oath of office an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If we are going to sanction that which merely appears to be unethical we should definitely sanction that which is per se unethical.
I agree, politicians should have to tell the truth. Of course, elected officials already take an oath to uphold the constitution and then run around scheming up ways to get away with violating that oath the entire time they are in office. Add to that the fact that most politicians seem like they wouldn’t recognize the truth if it walked up and bit them in the ass, and I’m not sure such an oath would mean much.
It would be nice if voters held politicians accountable for their lies but most voters seem to actually prefer being lied to. I suppose it helps them continue believing things that require magical thinking to believe.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/press-releases/lawsuit-filed-to-remove-trump-from-ballot-in-co-under-14th-amendment/
“lawsuit filed today by six Republican and unaffiliated Colorado voters including former state, federal and local officials, represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ….”
Seems to me like 6 people and a non profit from Washington DC blocking any presidential candidate is shady at best. Kayne West was on the ballot for president last time and no one stopped that. I’m guessing this isn’t the only lawsuit like this.
More recent update on the drama…
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4196268-colorado-official-on-trump-ballot-lawsuit/amp/
“Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) called former President Trump a “liar” after he suggested a recent push to use the 14th Amendment to keep him off the ballot in the state was “election interference.””
Non profits from out of state pouring money into state issues bothers me. He’s not likely to win Colorado, he didn’t the last two times, so it seems like a waste and I can’t understand why they’d bother here. I don’t think it’s a lie to call this lawsuit election interference.
(Sorry for the late posting—this was stuck in moderation for some reason, and I just now got back to the office.)
The only threat to democracy I can see is a willingness to prevent voters from choosing a candidate these 14th amendment advocates find objectionable.
Exactly what are they afraid of? If Trump can’t win according to them why are they hell bent on keeping him off the ballot. And, if they think he can win then how is this any different than what they claim is a threat to democracy?
Oh, it’s looking increasingly possible that Trump CAN win, and that scares them witless.
A few weeks ago, I wrote on an Open Forum about a job offer I got from MSM Holdings. It seemed suspcisious due to the unorthodox nature of having purchase agents make purchases with their own credit cards.
I recently found their web site was off-line, so I did a web search. Here is what I found.
https://www.justanswer.com/consumer-protection-law/mt3x0-senior-citizen-looking-work-home.html
Any business that asks you to use your credit card upfront should send up red flags.
I’m sorry the person in your post got scammed.
In the e-mail telling me that they were offering a job, Amye Fox had written, ” You
will be given the company’s funds upfront at the beginning via a check
mailed to your home address.”
Also, in one of the attachments, I would not receive company equipment until after passing the two-week probationary period.
Upfront company funds via check and no equipment until after a two week period? Nah, if they don’t trust you with equipment, you can’t trust their check.
It is not unusual for those writing books on history to give some historical context prior to launching into the meat of the narrative. I have been aware – or hyperaware or, perhaps, even paranoidly-hyperaware – of attempts within the last couple of decades to try to make what I term “Snarky Contemporary Political Commentary” in books about historical events.
Today I started “The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill” by Brad Melzer and Josh Mensch. I should have known better. I’ve read some of Meltzer’s stuff before.
In a book about a plot to kill the Big Three in 1943, we get a whole chapter on the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s “bold, aggressive action” to combat it, American isolationism, Lindbergh and the German-American Bund. Tell me, astute readers, why I stopped after the following paragraph to check the published year of this book:
“At his huge rallies, Hitler, surrounded by patriotic flags and accompanied by martial music, worked his supporters into a frenzy with bombastic speeches that promised to restore German strength; he spewed anger at ‘domestic enemies’ – immigrants and minorities, mostly – whom he blamed for the nation’s problems.
As a solution, Hitler and the Nazi Party demanded a return to ‘traditional values’ and a renewed pride in ethnically ‘pure’ Germans. Along with its racism and xenophobia, Nazism despised intellectuals, urban elites, and progressive ideas like women’s liberation. Party leaders sometimes distilled their ideas into a single term, ‘nationalism,’ which loosely combined pride in one’s country with a fear or hatred of immigrants, nonwhite minorities and foreign influence. As Hitler declared in 1940, the concept of nationalism was ‘one strong new idea…which would make Germany great again.'”
Sure enough, the book was published in 2022.
You angry because it immediately makes you think of President Biden’s Reichstag speech? Yeah, me too…
Actually…
I’m annoyed because the wording of those two paragraphs is written to draw parallels between Hitler and Donald Trump. Or, at least, the so-called Resistance’s characterization of Donald Trump.
Note that it points out patriotic flags. It also refers to the Nazis singling out “immigrants and minorities” – shockingly failing to specify Jews and Communists (which it does further down the page) – in order to get the reader thinking about Trump’s alleged racism against immigrants (illegal immigrants, that is) and brown & black people. In the second paragraph, it specifies the Nazis’ opposition to Intellectuals (academics? scientists?), urban elites and progressive ideas like women’s liberation (something even the United States and the other Allies weren’t necessarily rushing to pay fealty to either).
Let’s not overlook the quote at the end of the segment quoting Hitler about making German great again.
This is what I call Snarky Contemporary Political Commentary. This book is about a plot to kill the Big Three. This chapter is about making sure the reader sees Donald Trump and his supporters. The stereotypes and tropes the Democrats and their allies have used for years are too obvious to ignore.
I might be late to the party on this Open Forum, but here goes nothing:
I watched a bit of the MTV Video Music Awards last night and really wished I hadn’t. I watched because I recently stumbled on this Mexican hard rock band called “The Warning” and they are kind of my new favorite band, since my beloved Rush has retired having lost the drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, to a very aggressive brain tumor in 2020.
Now, understand that I fully appreciated Rush’s retirement and honored the fact that they stepped down from their lofty perch when they realized that the ravages of time would diminish their legacy – performing a three+plus-hour hard rock/progressive metal concert at their respective levels of expertise must be physically demanding and touring as they did must be exhausting, taking toll on the body. I also was deeply saddened for Rush, Peart’s family – especially for his second wife and young daughter, knowing that their grief must have been terrible. Losing Peart (for me, anyway) was like losing that special something that has always been central to my world – knowing that Rush just might release another record and tour has been a deep source of joy for me, so that was hard. Rush’s remaining members, have carried on but not as Rush, keeping true to their motto that Rush involves the three members and that it would cease as an entity without one of the others. Ethics and all . . . .
Back to the VMAs. I understand that pop music has always skirted, if not stepped over, the lines of what social convention considers is appropriate. I mean, Elvis shocked the world by shimmering his hips on national TV and Hendrix burned a guitar at Woodstock and Pink Floyd flew inflatables around stadium concerts and Madonna kissed a woman live on TV (I forget who the other woman was). But, the little I watched left feeling, for lack of a better word, confused. The performers, who were supposed featured artists, didn’t even try to fake that they were not performing live. One such artist sang a song on stage, all the while dancing and cavorting with back-up dancers gyrating in provocative outfits and simulating sex on stage, and yet, the performer didn’t miss a note, a tune, or even sound winded. Odd, ¿eh? Shakira, an amazingly talented artist, did the same. I was dutifully impressed by their fitness. I sprained an ankle just getting up from the couch. Another performer must have had problems with her mic as there were a number of long “bleeps” masking the words of her song. I am not sure that the sound system was working all that well. I hope the sound engineers didn’t get fired because so many words were bleeped out. The singer must be terribly disappointed being on an international show like that . . .
Then, all of the performers and other announcers had to promote some Alphabet Soup Advocacy group, and had to be flamboyant about it. I didn’t follow the cross-dressing male band I only remotely heard of running around on stage in various women’s dresses and/or stiletto heels. Me? I thought, who cares? This whole extravaganza was simply boring and oversexualized. Remember, I watched to see The Warning perform. Apparently, I didn’t get the message that they had already performed on some other stage that was not broadcast on TV so my viewing was a waste of time. I caught their show on YouTube, which I must say was phenomenal.
These three sister are interesting: They are very accomplished musicians and are developing their own style. They started out as a band making videos covering popular hard rock and heavy metal staples. Yet, they earned a strong following on social media, especially YouTube, as a result of their obvious talents. They have released four CDs, but have done it through a “DYI” ethos including crowd-funding and word of mouth . . . erm . . . social media. As a result, they have a growing, dedicated fan base and have gotten the attention of some heavy hitters – when Metallica released the Thirtieth Anniversary box set of their “Black” album, they requested The Warning perform “Enter Sandman” (which is what brought The Warning to the attention of social media in the first place considering that the guitarist was 14, the drummer 12, and the bassist 9 or 10). Metallica gave them and other artists free reign to cover the songs anyway they liked. The Warning’s version made it on to the package and it is an interesting interpretation of the song (I am not a huge fan of the song but their rendition offers a compelling revisitation [sp?] of the original – I can see why Metallica liked it).
While The Warning’s music is demonstrably different from my Beloved Rush, I see parallels to their work and musical ethic – they are making their way on their terms without the control of Agent/Industry Overlords telling them what and when to perform and what skimpy outfits to stuff themselves into to gain attention. Which leads me back to the VMAs. I figured a live appearance on that show would give them a much-deserved boost in exposure. I am not sure if they got that exposure by being on a separate stage but, when I watched the YouTube show, it was obvious they played lived, in front of a live audience, and performed some of their heaviest songs in that time frame, winning over an enthusiastic crowd. If I had known that they were not a featured artist on the live broadcast, I wouldn’t have wasted my time.
jvb
Here is a video of their song “Evolve” last night:
jvb