Ugh. I always forget that the Olympics inevitably sparks lots of ethics controversies that I have to cover here despite finding the spectacle boring, corrupt and annoying. So I’m bound to miss some juicy issues—like this one, Australian swimming coach Bret Hawke accusing the Chinese team of cheating because a swimmer’s performance in the pool was “not humanly possible.” They used to say that about the four minute mile, if I recall. Or is this just more “Don’t trust China; China is asshole” stuff?
You don’t have to write about Olympics ethics, of course. But the starting pistol is loaded…
Ethics Alarms 
When is Joe Biden going to be removed? Are we supposed to be content with not having anyone as president? It’s as if Kennedy has been shot and no one is made president. “Sorry folks, just sit on your hands until this coming January. The Deep State has got this. We never liked having an elected idiot nominally in charge and telling us what to do anyway.”
We need a bigger supply of “Mike Johnson for VP” signs to put in the yard.
October. Surprise!
Or maybe if by some miracle Harris loses, and they need to install her to pardon Joe and Hunter and Jim and Jill and sign a bunch of executive orders and hand out all sorts of money before Trump is inaugurated. Hmm.
What crime do you think *Jill Biden* committed? That’s a new one for me.
What crimes she is guilty of depends on if a prosecutor gets creative enough.
We are in a era were prosecutors can effectively prosecute ex post facto laws, by coming up with creative interpretations of criminal law and applying them retroactively.
[I banned “GUY” on another thread. All time fastest banning ever, and one of the most obnoxious commenters who has ever surfaced here. Don’t respond if a comment slips by for a few minutes. What an asshole…)
I don’t think “JJ” and “GUY” show up here in good faith. They are mercenaries. Run of the mill lefties don’t read EA, never mind comment here. There’s no point in their doing so. These are just talking point forwarders policing social media. They’re here to reassure any lefty that might run across EA that EA is disinformation. Nasty business.
But why do you assume that?
The manner in which they argue is so predictable. They instantly default to talking points that no normal person would even think of throwing into the ring. Sparty would actually engage in give and take and even concede points. These pros never, ever concede a point, they simply spout pre-approved talking points, usually deflections along the lines of “Yeah, but Trump does [this or that]. And they are relentless because they’re getting paid. A normal person would make their point and stop. They never stop.
Two bannings in a single day! JJ and Guy. These come in bunches. I sure wish we could get more genuine, civil, progressives here who are capable of honest argumentation—it really gooses traffic. Something is in the Chris Souza even sneaked on yesterday to call me a racist. I sense that the Woke Totalitarian Mob sees the 2024 election as Custer’s Last Stand, and Trump is Sitting Bull.
If you want more viewpoint diversity on the blog, you may want to enforce that the commenters treat those who disagree with respect, regardless of the nature of the disagreement. It’s more effective to ask people about their reasons for disagreeing rather than assuming that they’re just ignorant, short-sighted, selfish, or otherwise deficient of character. I find I’m more likely to find paths forward we can both support if I suspend my assumptions about what someone needs to change their mind about.
The latest version of the Values Reconciliation Workshop is just about ready, if anyone’s interested. It makes it much easier to establish mutual understanding, respect, and trust. From there, it provides a foundation for building on common ground to find mutually agreeable approaches to problems.
Contact me via the homepage to set something up! https://www.visionaryvocabularies.com/
I think the Harris campaign has loosed a lot of paid social media monitors who have been directed to amp things up with all the money they’ve received now Joe’s out to pasture (or confined to his stall) and this weird surge in the polls continues.
I’m assuming she’s been in on the Biden family grift for years. Mrs. Bob Menendez stuff.
Here is an article worth commenting about.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/01/senator-schumer-goes-nuclear-with-no-king-act/
One obvious cost is that pardoning would put Presidents at risk of prosecution for obstruction of justice.
If this law passes, Congeess would not need to criminalize or regulate pardons.
All it takes is a prosecutor creative enough to argue that pardons obstruct justice.
Pardons are an important safety valve and this law would lock the safety valve.
There are of course other ways in which prosecutors could argue that the exercise if other core powers, like vetoes, firings, or nominations, can be crimes.
They wouldn’t get far. The Constitution gives the President the freedom to pardon. A prosecutor that tries to argue that a Presidential pardon obstructs justice should be reprimanded in any court. Whether he would be reprimanded would, I suppose, now depend upon where the court is located and who the target of prosecution is.
That is the beauty of Democratic judges. Since the DOJ is merely an instrument of the Democratic Party, and almost all lawyers are Democrats, this removes 1/2 the population from having any say in the government. Voting in candidates that support the policies that you want is useless now. If the candidates don’t support the Democratic policies, they can now be imprisoned.
This would result in Civil War. This is clearly politicizing the judiciary beyond the pale. At this point, you either submit to slavery or die fighting to remain free.
I know that my longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, would fight.
As for the Olympics, it looks like the women’s boxing will have two men in the finals vying for gold and silver. This goes beyond the ‘Strong Woman’ South Park episode. This is the plot of the Daily Wire’s ‘Lady Ballers’. I have my money on the guy from Taiwan. I think his long reach will make the difference over the guy from Algeria.
This one could turn into a more interesting ethical question, depending on how the facts shake out. Some reporting is that the Algerian was identified as female at birth, with corresponding genitalia, and has lived as such all her life, only later tests showing XY chromosomes (and higher testosterone), an unusual but real situation. Is this an unfair advantage? This sort of thing has been discussed before. Many successful athletes have some sort of non-typical physical advantage, like height, etc. When does a significantly unusually advantageous natural condition disqualify one from competition?
I’m going to write about this. It’s not a trans situation, and the boxer isn’t a “biological male” like Lia Thomas. It’s more like the Caster Semenya case, which I’m written about here a lot. But intersex runners aren’t going to kill anybody….
But intersex runners aren’t going to kill anybody.
And why can’t we just say to these few people with this condition: “Sorry, you’re a complete outlier. It’s not fair to let you compete against people who aren’t. Ever played chess?”
Any comments on this Quora answer?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-on-pro-life-individuals-adopting-unwanted-children-instead-of-protesting/answer/Yullan-Valor?comment_id=423979041&comment_type=2
Yes: a dishonest question promoting dishonest answers. Believing that the laws should protect nascent human beings from being killed is simply standing up for civilization and respect for life. It doesn’t obligate anyone to solving the problems of the would=be killers.
some could point out that not everyone who objects to murdering the homeless takes the homeless into their homes.
I think Yullan’s answer is incoherent, and is a typical dodge. Pro-lifers are not the ones who put women in the position of having an unwanted pregnancy. That remains true even if pro-lifers managed to make all forms of contraceptives illegal. The reason a woman gets pregnant is because she had sex when she was in the fertile phase of her cycle. End of story. Yes, she might have been raped, at which point that is terrible for her whether or not it resulted in a pregnancy.
His blurb about banning Viagra, male enhancements, and whatnot is a complete non-sequitur. There are legitimate reasons for helping male fertility issues, just as there are legitimate reasons for helping female fertility issues.
But the question itself poses a false dichotomy, and is ignorant of just how many pro-lifers would absolutely adopt an unwanted child. It is the same completely absurd reasoning that abortion advocates use when they say “pro-lifers are really only pro-birth, because they don’t care what happens after the child is born.” An honest survey of the support of pro-lifers for all kinds of help for needy people of all walks would, in a sane world, put that argument to rest.
Yullan is really trying to pull a “these people don’t want these kids either, so they’d stop opposing abortion if they had to take care of them” argument. I would address him that his very premise is flawed, because he can’t understand that pro-lifers actually do want children.
Its either a question based on ignorance or deliberate poisoning the well.
The strongest pro-life advocates I know are volunteers at crises pregnancy centers who spend vast amounts more time counseling, providing diapers, formula and toys to struggling mothers than protesting.
Try finding those things at an abortion clinic, then decide who supports women.
I could easily write that pro-choicers really do not care about choice, as they supported the COVID vaccine mandates.
Let’s apply this logic to other situations:
Theft: When will these Republicans stop trying to keep people from stealing? If they are really upset about it, why don’t they just buy replacement items for the victims of theft or give thieves money to buy the things they wanted to steal?
Murder: When will these Republicans stop getting upset about murder? If they really want to stop murder, they should be willing to take the desired murder victims and send them across the globe, never to be seen again by the murderer. The life insurance money, etc should still be paid.
Rape: When will these Republicans stop trying to get rapists to stop raping people? If they are really upset about it, they should provide their own wives and daughters (or themselves) for the rapists to rape.
Yes, the logic of the left. This explains the West Coast pretty well.