For some reason, the debate in the comments to the recent post about the proper use of “ad hominem” ended up about Rush Limbaugh, who has been dead for a while now. The issue was whether Rush’s referring to then-Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke, briefly a media star for her argument that birth control should be free, paid for by taxpayers, as a “slut” was an ad hominem attack or not. Ryan Harkins, in his Comment of the Day, decided to arbitrate the dispute, and did so with his usual logic and objectivity.
I do have a couple of points I want to make in this introduction to Ryan’s COTD. He admits that he never listened to Rush, and that’s a problem. As I kept emphasizing in the discussion in the comments, Rush Limbaugh was primarily an entertainer, though he was one with a political agenda and clear ideological orientation. (He was also was master of the slippery “clown nose on/clown nose off” device, like Jon Stewart.) I don’t think he can be fairly analyzed without that context. Ryan says that the use of slut has no place in “honest argumentation,” but Rush Limbaugh’s routines were no more intended as honest argumentation than a Lewis Black set or a Louie CK rant.
Nor can his work be fairly assessed second or third hand. There are several posts about Rush on Ethics Alarms; my wrap-up on his career and legacy is here.
I also neglected to mention in my lengthy exchange with jdkazoo123 that I did designate Rush’s “slut” comment about Fluke as “the worst of Rush.” That still doesn’t make it “ad hominem.” Limbaugh also apologized for that insult, something he didn’t often do, but it was pretty clearly a forced apology, though he said it was sincere. His show was losing sponsors over the controversy. Fluke refused to accept the apology.
Watching this exchange, I’ve had to consider a couple of things. First, I never listened to Rush, so I don’t know how his monologue progressed. But I would have to agree that throwing out the term “slut” would poison the well. Compare the following statements:
Stories like this one remind me just how deep and complex the ethics void is becoming in our society and institutions. The hackneyed way of describing it would be “Why we can’t have nice things.” It is an ethics mess, rather than an ethics train wreck, just an icky, stinky, pile of unethical goo emanating from people and places that can’t be trusted.
Let’s pick our way through it. Get your gloves and Lysol, and put a clothespin on your nose…
News Item:“Fast food outlets in California…have slashed almost 10,000 jobs in response to the state’s newly implemented $20 minimum wage. The figure was released by the Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank affiliated with Stanford University…The law, first introduced in September 2023 [which came into effect on April 1, 2024. requires restaurant chains with 60 or more locations nationwide to raise their hourly wages from $16.21 to $20. Major chains such as McDonald’s, Burger King and In-N-Out Burger have increased their prices to compensate for the wage hike…. Many have reduced employee hours, and others are accelerating the transition to automation.”
I wrestled over which of the clips from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive best fit this infuriating story. I settled on Major Clipton’s final words that end “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” reserved for “when an incident or argument makes no sense whatsoever, or that drives me to the edge of insanity,” but was also tempted to use the old knight’s “He chose poorly” from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (“Commenting on a particularly incompetent, irresponsible, or otherwise unethical decision with disastrous consequences“), or that Ethics Alarms standby, Sheriff Bart’s eloquent description of the good citizens of Rock Ridge from “Blazing Saddles,” “You know…morons!”
Mistake, stupidity, or insanity? I finally chose the latter, because there is no question that the progressive Democrats who voted for this irresponsible law and the governor who signed it knew exactly what the results would be, knew that it would be a disaster, and did it anyway.
“What exactly do people think they are supporting?”
—“Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, inexplicably expressing astonishment at a the CBS poll result above.
Why isn’t this an “Unethical Quote of the Week”? I call it an ethics quote because it has both ethical and unethical implications and vibrations. For one thing, the question should be asked and answered, even if she, and civically literate citizen, should be able to figure it out. It is disturbing, and speaks of bias and incompetence, that Brennan’s tone suggested that she really didn’t know the answer. Asking the question was still the right thing to do.
The people in the majority are supporting, Margaret, the concepts, core to any nation, that laws should be obeyed, that breaking laws should have consequences, that borders should be enforced, and that those who defy our immigration laws should not benefit from doing so, meaning that they must lose the advantages and benefits their defiance has acquired for them.
What is disturbing is that only 62% comprehend this, and, apparently, Brennan doesn’t.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get unethical.”—Me. Also, in election year 2024, Machiavellian and disgusting.
These are repulsive people. When I saw the Rolling Stone headline, “Justice Alito Caught on Tape Discussing How Battle for America ‘Can’t Be Compromised,'” I thought, “Oh-oh.” Then I read the story. Alito was tricked by a left-wing James O’Keefe imitator (Ethics Alarms’ verdict on O’Keefe’s methods and conduct has been consistent and unequivocal from the beginning: he’s an unethical journalist, dishonest and untrustworthy, whose methods have occasionally uncovered hidden agendas that can’t be ignored) posing as a conservative admirer at an event. Attending the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner on June 3, Lauren Windsor, a progressive documentary filmmaker, introduced herself to Alito as a religious conservative. Then she proceeded to ask him leading questions and offer her own “opinions.” What she learned was that Alito was nice to strangers, and that with a stranger who seemed to admire him in a social setting, he chose to be agreeable rather than confrontational.
Here is the exchange: Windsor approached Alito at the event and reminded him that they spoke about political polarization at the same function the year before (who knows if they did or not, but if Alito didn’t remember, he wasn’t going to argue about it). In the intervening year, she told Alito, her views had changed. “I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end,” Windsor said. “I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.” Alito’s reply: “I think you’re probably right. On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
You will see from this that the Rolling Stone headline is misleading and deceitful. Alito’s comment could have been made from either side of the ideological spectrum: it shows agreement with neither side. Moreover, it begins “You’re probably right,” which could easily mean, “You’re full of crap, but you’re welcome to your opinion, and I’ll make you feel like a Supreme Court Justice agrees with you because I’m a nice guy and now you can tell your friends, ‘Justice Alito agreed with me!'”
I have often wondered about this phenomenon, reflecting back on my lucky hour-long conversation with Herman Kahn when he was widely regarded as the smartest man alive. He was an unpretentious, kindly, engaging individual, and throughout our conversation made me feel like I had expressed theories and ideas that he thought were perceptive and valuable. Maybe he left that meeting and told a friend, “Boy, I was just trapped talking to an idiot for an hour!” But he made me feel good, which is an ethical thing to do.
And I wasn’t secretly recording him so I could leak to the Washington Post my comments as his revealed beliefs.
Next Windsor told Alito: “People in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that — to return our country to a place of godliness.”
“I agree with you. I agree with you,” Alito replied. Rolling Stone adds at that point that he “authored the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which reversed five decades of settled law and ended a constitutional right to abortion.” Oh! I see. Alito voted to end Roe “to return our country to a place of godliness” ! He’s a religious fanatic! He helped end Roe because of his religious beliefs!
Read the words, as Sir Thomas More might say. All Alito says is that he agrees that people need to fight for what they believe. He doesn’t even say that he believes in God. He also just says, “I agree with you. I agree with you,” which under those conditions might mean, “Now, nice talking to you, but stop monopolizing my time and let me meet some other people.” There is no rhetorical smoking gun in this conversation and nothing illuminating or newsworthy, except perhaps that the desperate left is stooping to emulating an unethical conservative fake journalist to discredit the U.S. Supreme Court, and unfairly victimizing Joseph Alito for the third time in two weeks.
These are, I repeat, disgusting people.
The New York Times, I must note, was hardly better than Rolling Stone. It also treated this manipulated, unethically recorded and ambiguous conversation as news worthy, and had a deceitful headline of its own: “In Secret Recordings, Alito Endorses Nation of ‘Godliness,’ Roberts Talks of Pluralism.” That implies that Alito (and Roberts) were aware of the recordings, and worse, Alito did NOT endorse a nation of “godliness.”
More of the accumulating evidence that our society’s standards and ethics are rotting from the head down…
Comedian George Lopez walked off the stage at Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville, California mid-way through his stand-up set when hecklers and inebriated members of his audience made it impossible for him to continue in his judgment. (He oughta know, after all.)
The comic gave the group three chances to quiet down, and when they did not, put the microphone back on the stand, said, “That’s cool, thanks,” waved goodbye and walked out. It was not cool, of course, and Lopez accused the casino of failing to provide adequate security and management. “It’s the venue or casino’s job to provide a good experience for both the artist and the fans, but the casino failed in this regard. The audience was overserved and unruly, and the casino staff was unable to provide a safe and enjoyable experience for the artist and guests,” Lopez’s representative said. “George is not obligated to perform in an unsafe environment. He feels badly that those who came to see the show were unable to do so as a result.”
Indeed. I would think that goes without saying, which is our way of saying “res ipsa loquitur.” Naturally, however, as is the growing trend among those in positions of responsibility these days, the casino management refused to accept responsibility, blaming Lopez.
Burn and desecrate all the American flags you want, but don’t you dare mar the “Pride Flag”!
In Spokane, Washington, police arrested three people for using their cycles to put skid marks on the large “Pride” flag painted on a street. Then Lime, the ostentatiously woke e-bike distributor, resolved to punish anyone who used one of its vehicles for a similar activity, announcing,
There are few topics I have vowed to flag every time they raise their ugly metaphorical heads. The fake statistic about women earning only “76 cents” for every dollar a man earns for the same job. The implication that lawyers are endorsing the conduct or character of their clients. The lie that Al Gore won the 2000 election but that the Supreme Court “handed” the Presidency to George Bush. “Hands up, don’t shoot!” More recently, I have resolved to not let media hacks get away with the statement that the claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” is “baseless.” The rampant misuse of the term “ad hominem” is another one.
The annoying issue came up again in the exchange with an EA reader I referenced in this post (#7). He accused me of being a “phony ethicist” because I criticized Clarence Thomas’s flagrant breach of ethics in his accepting (and not disclosing) copious gifts and financial benefits from a well-known conservative billionaire, and yet, he claimed, didn’t criticize Present Biden’s complicity in the profitable influence peddling of his ne’re-do-well son. Of course, I have done the latter, multiple times, and in response to my tart message back that he didn’t know what he was talking about and couldn’t tell an ethic from a writing desk, he shifted his argument to saying I was a “fake ethicist” because I never wrote about Justice Sotomayor’s failure to recuse herself in Greenspan v. Random House.
I didn’t recall whether I had commented on that case or not (the complainer didn’t know either), but it didn’t matter. I resent being told that I am neglecting my mission because I didn’t write about what some reader wanted me to write about. My two standard answers to that complaint are 1) “Start your own damn blog!” and 2) “Bite me.” As I explained in my response,
Over the weekend the announcement came out that Caitlin Clark was not on the roster for the USA women’s basketball Olympic team for the games in Paris. This seemed, and seems, strange to put it mildly. Clark, a rookie this season, is by far the most famous, publicized and popular professional women’s basketball player of all time, as well as the most important. Her stellar performance as a college player led her to be the obvious #1 first round draft pick in the WNBA draft, and her presence in Indiana Fever games has led to a significant spike in attendance, TV ratings and public interest. The Olympic Games are mostly publicity for the league and the sport: once professionals were permitted to play, the U.S. women’s team has been unbeatable for decades. It would win the gold if the Olympics team coach picked the names of the team member out of a hat. But having the league’s charismatic rookie play would guarantee more interest in the sport during the Paris Games this summer, which logically should translate into more attention—popularity, TV ratings, money—for the sport itself.
I saw this ridiculous thing in the latest Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue. It costs $20,000, and the description says it is great for teambuilding and conferences.
Suuuure.
Ethics Alarms has stated many times that nobody’s legal use of their own resources that isn’t aimed at causing harm can be called unethical if it doesn’t cause the purchaser to default on other obligations. I believe that.
I must say, however, that I would have a difficult time wrestling my contempt to the floor for anyone, or any company, that couldn’t find a more productive use for $20,000 than buying that ugly piece of junk. It’s only good for a conference if the conference has exactly 7 people involved, and even that’s giving the theory the benefit of more doubt than it deserves. Spending $20,000 on something as trivial and useless as a “seven person tricycle” is just broadcasting a message that says, “Look at me with awe, peasants! I have money to burn, and I’d rather burn it than use it to accomplish anything worth accomplishing!”
I don’t like people who think like that, and I never will. Yes, it’s a bias.
Ethics Alarms 