I have a two-hour session on professionalism and legal ethics to teach this morning, so I’m going to ask readers to submit and discuss their own ethics stories, issues and observations a day early. Surprise!
Pop Quiz: Without cheating, can you identify the handsome Confederate general above, and why he’s an appropriate symbol of today’s Open Forum?
Ethics Alarms 
Wondering where this fits on the Apology Scale:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/josh-hawley-rips-into-social-media-ceos-during-heated-senate-hearing-on-child-exploitation/article_cc12f492-c061-11ee-bf9f-135f7cfb7a19.html
It almost looks like a Number 8 (A forced apology for a rightful or legitimate act, in capitulation to bullying, fear, threats, desperation or other coercion.), except that Zuckerberg is not apologizing for a rightful or legitimate act. The Legislators were ascribing acts to him when he did nothing.
It also looks like a 10 (An insincere and dishonest apology designed to allow the wrongdoer to escape accountability cheaply, and to deceive his or her victims into forgiveness and trust, so they are vulnerable to future wrongdoing.), except that, again Zuckerberg is not apologizing for something he did.
I think the Apology Scale needs another collateral entry that does not actually fit on the scale: The Appeaser’s Apology: A forced apology offered in response to a baseless accusation of wrongdoing because the person demanding the apology is too stupid or self-righteous to bother reasoning with.
-Jut
I like the “Appeaser’s Apology.” Well done. Maybe the “Appeaser’s Grovel”?
jvb
Thanks.
But, part of me may have given Zuckerberg too much credit.
I suppose the Appeaser’s Apology could also be given by someone not smart enough to know he did nothing wrong.
-Jut
The phrase “All the Caucasians” trending on twitter followed by ‘to the back’ and looks better immediately. I don’t really think anything needs to be said about this other than this is seen as good discrimination when it is in fact outright racist.
I remember that many groups trying to get child porn pages taken down from Facebook were simply told that they don’t violate Facebook (or Instagram’s) community standards. I do believe that, but it is still aggravating. I mean, they were refusing to take down content that was illegal, but they gleefully took down perfectly legal political speech they didn’t agree with. I don’t care about Zuckererberg’s apology. Asking him for an apology is stupid. It is like demanding an apology from the pope for being Catholic. If the pope does and it is sincere, he has to stop being the pope before giving the apology. If he gives an apology and stays pope, he doesn’t believe it. If you don’t like that analogy, consider asking Donald Trump for an apology for being rude.
I understand why people want such an apology, much like they want to ban after-school Satan club and the Bathomet statue. However, the proper response isn’t to ban such things, but to publicize them and explain why they are wrong. What kind of parent would let their children associate with kids going to after-school Satan club?
Jubal may have occasionally been late, but he was always Early!
One of my dad’s Army buddies from Korea was named for the general, and that family visited us often from North Carolina during my youth.
You are CORRECT, sir!
Here is an opinion piece worth commenting about.
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.politics.guns/c/wjC2CJVchdA/m/OLZZeZkoAQAJ
I went shopping in Ohio in 2021, and felt like a titan walking out of a Walmart-knockoff carrying groceries in 40+ plastic bags with no cart. It was stunning how easy moving food was, grocery bags having been mostly banned in CT by then.
(Incidently, CT tried to cash in by “phasing out” plastic bags by charging a $.10 tax. They hoped to collect millions. People refused! I’d see people juggling in the parking lot to avoid paying the tax. I think the state even paid more to implement the temporary tax than it ever collected – glorious to watch this scheme fail!)
When we moved to Ohio in 2022, we stayed first at a rental in Cleveland proper. Near there was a Giant Eagle that decided, in late April or early May, that they would go the route of making everyone use their own bags, and would no longer provide paper bags. And already, they charged 10 cents for each one of those paper bags. When we reached our new home in the suburbs, all the local grocery stories used plastic bags. Giant Eagle, though, still wanted people to use paper bags and charged 10 cents a bag. So the creep is infecting Ohio, especially in the liberal inner cities. Of course, one could ask the question of how this impacts the poor people in the inner cities, since this is yet more cost on top of inflated food prices. One could ask, but I doubt there would be an answer forthcoming…
These environmentalists hate the First world lifestyle!
Here is an article from the New York Times.
https://archive.is/57pIb
This phrase alone should be a giant, Sol-system sized red flag!
https://reason.com/2024/01/31/aclu-sues-ronald-mcdonald-house-for-refusing-to-house-people-convicted-of-assault/
The Great Paul Harrell Crusade.
Paul Harrell is a dental hygienist who has a firearms channel on YouTube. He is not one of the tacticool ones, he isn’t high speed, low drag. Harrell gives fundamental advice wearing his trademark vintage Sears-Roebuck hunting jacket with a calm, Shatneresque delivery. Despite his military experience, Harrell focuses on firearm ownership, safety and use from a civilian hunting and common man self-defense perspective. Only Paul Harrell would assemble a bed with pillows, sheets, etc on a gun range to discuss and evaluate the reality and options of the ‘bump in the night’ scenario and do so with a completely straight face with a completely serious delivery and mostly serious content.
Paul Harrell has pancreatic cancer. He hasn’t given a lot of details about it, he seems to be a pretty private person, but it doesn’t look good. Many YouTube gun channels have decided that Paul Harrell deserves the gold button you get when you reach 1 million subscribers. Harrell had about 850,000 subscribers at the time and many YouTube channels got out the word that if you haven’t subscribed to his channel yet, you should at this time. They did it. I just checked and he is at 1.05 million subscribers.
I left this comment on an article by Baude and Paulsen.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/02/fighting-the-meaning-of-section-three/?comments=true#comment-10427042
He makes a great point.
Because, if Section 3 is self-executing, then the military would be duty bound to overthrow a President they deem disqualified, because they took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which supersedes laws against mutiny.
Vivek Ramaswamy pointed this out.
(link removed)
“Now imagine that political opponents of President Carter in 1980 or President Reagan in 1984 had filed challenges to their eligibility under Section 3, predicated upon the notion that each man had deliberately pursued a policy of delivering dangerous weapons to a group of dangerous men who intended— once they had gained the necessary capability—to attack United States government and civilian targets (which, tragically, did in fact come to pass). In short, the complaint would allege that these administrations had intentionally “given aid or comfort to the enemies” of the United States, with deadly consequences. U. S. Const., Amdt. 14, §3. Although the long-term effects of this bipartisan policy may not have been clear at the time (and were not intended by either Reagan or Carter), the inherent risks are obvious in hindsight.”
Could the military have overthrown Carter or Reagan back then? After all, Section 3 is superior to laws against mutiny.
An example I would add is the CIA-backed assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. This had the effect of destabilizing the South Vietnamese government, which clearly aided and comforted the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese.
Was it right for Lee Harvey Oswald to kill JFK? After all if Section 3 is self-executing, then Oswald had as much authority to execute Section 3 as the military does and as that Maine secretary of state does.
So, if a Marine private, believing earnestly that Section 3 is self-executing, attempts to depose FJB, and is apprehended and court-martialed for mutiny, are Baude and Paulsen willing to represent the private pro bono?
An “Early” forum…is that a kind of pun now or something else?
Less than an hour after its installation, boys in a Connecticut high school tore down a tampon dispenser in their restroom.
https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2024/02/01/lol-boys-destroy-tampon-dispenser-in-boys-bathroom-because-theyre-boys-n2392456
Who is the ethics hero or villain (or idiot?), the boys, the State of Ct., or the school principal (pronounces “he, him” noted on his email regarding the event), who called the act “…the most egregious instance of vandalism and destruction of property in recent weeks” and promised “consequences” for the “list of suspects”?
“in recent weeks”?
That strikes me as a pretty low bar. If he’d said, in the past 10 years or since I became president, or … that might have more effect. On the other hand that might lead one to conclude that he presides over a pretty tame high school if tearing down a tampon machine is the worst thing that’s ever happened.
Maybe they should have included some supplementary instructions such as “Pretend you’re a Navy Seal and you can use these to plug up bullet holes.” Of course, if that’s a valid use, it does raise other questions as to what’s going on in that school.
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More to the point and seriously — what the hell did they think was going to happen? Why are they surprised?
A propos of absolutely nothing, here is the new song/video by The Warning, “Sick”:
Enjoy.
jvb
Is the FBI systemically corrupt and creating more problems than they solve to maintain the gravy train post Patriot Act?
Curious as to whether your mystery quiz subject could have been some point of inspiration for the fictional similarly-named Dogpatch Confederate “hero”, Jubilation T. Cornpone, I found that there doesn’t appear to be any original connection, though they share a later common fate (or rather an avoidance, I suppose). Statues of the real and fictional Confederate generals appear to have both escaped destruction: https://www.times-news.com/opinion/it-wasnt-worthless-but-home-to-a-national-hero/article_f4058d2c-7921-11e7-b910-bf4547222b11.html
That’s a great theory, and I bet you’re right! Al Capp probably did get the idea for Jubilation from Jubal.