Month: May 2025

Yes, My Conservative Facebook Friends Can Be Just As Irrational As the Progressives…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A usually wise and measured conservative Facebook friend posted with approval a tweet by conservative pundit Matt Walsh, complaining about the father of a 15-year-old school shooter who killed two people and injured six others being charged after the tragedy. The killings (the girl shot herself as well, and died) occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, in December.

“Let’s just be honest about the pattern here,” Walsh wrote. “This is the third time that a parent has been charged for violence committed by their child. In every case, the parent has been white. There is violence committed in the streets of every major city every single day. You could blame the crappy, neglectful parents in literally all of those cases. And yet none of them have ever been charged.”

Wow, talk about the wrong hill to die on! Both of those other cases involved criminally negligent parents, and the father of the late shooter in Wisconsin may have been the worst of the three.

Continue reading →

Pope Leo Says “Ramalama-Ding-Dong” In His First Sunday Blessing [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Okay, what he really said was “Never again war.” Same thing.

The reference is to the immortal episode of “The Simpsons” when Lisa heard her father singing along with a popular recording containing a gibberish chorus that is really “Join the Navy” backwards. “You gotta love that crazy chorus,” said Homer. “What does it mean?” asked Lisa. “Eh, it doesn’t mean anything,” he replied. “It’s like “ramalama-ding-dong,” or “give peace a chance.” I have referred to the exchange frequently on Ethics Alarms.

Why? Because empty virtue-signalling is unethical. It is dishonest, cynical and substitutes sentiment for substance. When the Pope said the equivalent of “Give peace a chance,” or “Make love, not war,” or “Let there be peace on earth” or “War is Hell” or FDR’s “I hate war!,” the assembled thousands cheered. It’s an applause line. If the Pope isn’t going to do better than applause lines, what good is he?

The only way to end wars is to end nations and religions, just as John Lennon said in his other fatuous hit, “Imagine.” The only way to do that, is to have a world dictator who is also, unlikely as it seems, benevolent….well, like a Pope! Brilliant!

Influential world figures admired and regarded as serious and thoughtful abuse their position by defaulting to such useless nostrums. They are supposed to make people wiser, not naive and confused. War will not go away, and the Pope knows that, unless he’s an idiot. He is not an idiot.

Raising false hopes and seeking popularity by seeming to advocate the impossible is not ethical behavior. It is the equivalent of a lie.

I officially award Pope Leo the second ever “Imagine” Award, unveiled here, which will be periodically bestowed upon the public figure, pundit , journalist or academic whose pronouncements most reflect virtue-signaling of the late John Lennon.

Ethics Quote of the Month: Yeah, It’s Bill Maher, Much As It Pains Me To Admit It

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“If the thought leaders in the Democratic Party keep encouraging and not rebuking the idea that America is cringe and the people who run Gaza are great,” he warned, “the Democrats are doomed.”

—HBO’s “clown nose on/clown nose off” comic Bill Maher on his weekly political commentary and discussion show “Real Time.”

I have made it clear in the past few months that I do not take professional asshole Bill Maher’s recent criticism of progressives and the Democratic Party to be sincere or particularly admirable. He is obviously making self-serving calculations regarding where his own best interests lie, and the comic is smart enough (not as smart as he thinks he is, but smart enough) to recognize a declining brand when he sees one. Nevertheless, we should always try to judge a message independently of a flawed messenger.

Maher is right. Last month a Harvard poll found that only 24% of young Democrats said they were proud of being American compared to a 76% of young Republicans. (I find it alarming that a quarter of young Republicans aren’t proud of the U.S.). The poll surveyed 2,096 Americans from 18 to 29 years old nationally, and among Democrat respondents, an amazing 54% said they are embarrassed to be Americans while 21% said they were neither proud not embarrassed. With Republicans, it was 8% embarrassed and 16% neither proud nor embarrassed

Yeah, yeah, “polls” and “Harvard.” Still.

In addition to his Quote of the Month, Maher told his audience after citing the results,

“Seriously, this is a serious problem for Democrats,” Maher said during his Friday monologue. “Less than 1 in 4 Democrats under 30 say they’re proud to be an American. 54% say they’re embarrassed by it. Embarrassed? Like America is your mom picking you up at school? You’re embarrassed to be an American? Well guess what — the feeling’s mutual, because you have no perspective. Is America perfect? No, of course not. No country is. But the US is leagues ahead of the rest of the world on most of the progressive issues that are important to young people.  America has 14-million women-owned businesses. Seventeen percent of black women are starting businesses, which is faster than white women or white men. Gay Americans are free to marry and 49% of them own property. Yes, in America gays buy buildings. In other places, they get thrown off them….And we proudly live in a land where every TV commercial features a mix-raced couple, including the ones where it makes no sense. Mom’s black, dad’s white, and the kid’s Asian.”

Well, I’m embarrassed by that last part, but Bill’s over-all analysis is valid.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that the Children of the Left hate America, because for decades our education system, news media-celebrated activists and elected leaders have been assiduously indoctrinating children from kindergarten through college to believe that the U.S. is defined by slavery, racism, colonialism, bigotry, murder, unjust wars and robber barons. And for much of that period, Bill Maher and his ilk have been cheering the anti-Americanism on. But New Bill is absolutely correct about the Democrats committing cultural suicide and trying to lead the public off the cliff with them.

Whether he means it or not.

Mother’s Day Morning Ethics Bouquet, 5/11/2025

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Happy Mother’s Day to all those who should be so greeted on May 11. I’m never quite sure, myself. Thinking about the four mothers in my immediate family, three of whom are gone now (and one is bitter about how her children turned out), makes me sad. Mother Grace was cynical about the celebration, in part because she always said that she was a lousy mother (she wasn’t), in part because she missed her own mother (who died in our home after we converted it into a hospice for her), and in part because “it’s a fake holiday invented by the greeting card industry.” Is it? If I were Ann Althouse, who appears to be going nuts again (she’s been obsessed with having conversations with Grok lately, the Twitter/X AI bot), I would muse about why it’s “Mother’s Day” and not “Mothers Day” or even “Mothers’ Day”. Mother Eleanor, my mother, regarded Mother’s Day as an opportunity to be appreciated when she tended to feel unappreciated (middle child hangover, I have decided). Dad always made a big deal out of the day—he cared so deeply about her—and would remind my sister and me about it weeks in advance.

Meanwhile…

Continue reading →

“The Ethicist” and Ethics Alarms Agree For Once. The Topic: Registered Sex Offenders

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A none-too-bright inquirer and perhaps an officious busy-body who wants to ruin people’s lives writes “The Ethicist” (Prof. Appiah to his friends and students at NYU)…

“I recently reneged on an offer to buy a house because I discovered that a registered sex offender lived across the street….Now that I know about it, should I keep it a secret…? ….I feel uncomfortable telling my friends the truth about why I dropped out of the contract that I had entered for this house, because I feel I have discovered private information that I should keep secret. In the end, I think I would rather not have made this discovery in the first place.”

That last sentence is what strongly suggests that the writer is an idiot. It’s a childish sentiment: in “War Games,” the teen who discovers that a rogue computer program is about to start W.W. III says that he wishes he didn’t know, and that he would just be suddenly fried in the coming nuclear Armageddon. But because he does know, the kid is able to stop the disaster. More knowledge, even knowledge that creates dilemmas and conflicts that must be dealt with, is preferable to ignorance and misapprehension.

The writer’s reaction to learning that the individual (whom he has never met and knows nothing else about) is to be feared and shunned is also an ominous sign. It has been 14 years since Ethics Alarms delved into the problem of registered sex offenders. My coverage of the topic reached its climax with a guest post, from a friend, who authored, “’I Am One of Those Untouchables’ : The Unethical Persecution of Former Sex Offenders.” My introduction read, “No ethical person can read this and conclude that such treatment by society is fair, responsible, compassionate or American. It is the ethical duty of every citizen who believes in our society’s commitment to the freedoms guaranteed by the Declaration and the Constitution to oppose efforts to persecute former sex offenders, because our elected officials will not oppose them. It is, in the end, a matter of choosing national integrity over bigotry and fear.”

Continue reading →

Short Version of Ethics Verdict on Pentagon’s Elimination of Race, Gender and Ethicity As Legitimate Considerations For Admission to the Service Academies: “Good!”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The Washington Post’s snotty headline is “Hegseth escalates targeting of race, gender in military’s academic settings.” That’s because he’s a racist and sexist, see, like all of the Trump allies, appointees, voters and supporters.

Oh, dear. “[T]he nation’s prestigious military academies” have been ordered “to end consideration of race, gender and ethnicity in their admissions processes” and ‘begin a purge….of educational materials focused on those “divisive concepts,” gasps the Post, as if this isn’t a completely practical and fair policy. The military’s job is to protect the nation and, when necessary, to fight and fight effectively. Race, gender and ethnicity are completely irrelevant to the capability of performing those tasks, so it should be beyond debate that such considerations have no place in the determination of who should gain admission to the military academies.

There is a much stronger case to be made that “diversity” is deleterious to military morale, cohesiveness and performance, but okay, discrimination is contrary to the culture and national values, so we won’t say that women categorically don’t belong in male battle units. But they better be as capable as any of the men.

Continue reading →

Joe Biden Takes the Lead In The Ethics Alarms “2025 Asshole of the Year” Competition

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Ethics Alarms assessment of Joe Biden as the Worst U.S. President Ever looks better and better as more information regarding his disastrous Presidency comes out (after either his corrupt government tried to hide it or the corrupt news media refused to report it).

For example, remember that idiotic pier Biden ordered to be built in Gaza? You know, the plan to send “humanitarian aid” to the people in the region that the U.S. was handing over dollars and weapons to help Israel devastate so it would get rid of its Jew-hating terrorists? The brilliant maneuver that was akin to the U.S. sending humanitarian aide to Berlin during World War II if FDR had been insane or Sherman handing out CARE packages to Atlanta residents during his army’s “March to the Sea”? That stunt? As stupid, wasteful and cynical as it seemed at the time, the reality was even worse. One American soldier assigned to the job, Sgt. Quandarius Stanley, was injured in the process of Biden’s virtue signaling (to his anti-Semitic base) and died five months later for the injuries: that was reported. Now it has been reported that 62 more soldiers were injured during the construction of a floating pier that cost U.S. Taxpayers $230 million to build, that was operational for barely twenty days, that damaged millions of dollars worth of equipment, that was supposed to help the murderous enemy of a U.S. ally that we were supporting while it tried to defeat that enemy, and that literally accomplished nothing.

Continue reading →

Twin Ethics…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

When I read this story in the New York Times, I checked to see what I had posted in the past regarding twin ethics and was shocked that I could find only two essays on the topic. After all, twins deliberately impersonating each other for their own benefit has been a theme from ancient Greek comedies and Shakespeare right through to “The Jackson Twins” comic strip, “The Parent Trap,” and “The Patty Duke Show.”

There was a “Columbo” episode where twins used their ability to impersonate each other to pull off the “perfect murder,” which naturally Columbo solved anyway. But just because twins switching identities can be clever, funny, effective, or cute doesn’t make it ethical.

The first of my twin ethics posts involved a twins who impersonated his brother to win $50,000 in a contest. The other one came from Brazil, where twin brothers had used their resemblance to impersonate each other and date as many women as possible, and then defend themselves from allegations they were cheating on girlfriends. These twins were ducking child support one of them owed by refusing to say which one of them had fathered a child (DNA tests proving inconclusive because they their were identical twins)  assuming they would escape having to pay. It didn’t work: a judge ordered that they both had to pay child support and that the names of both men ended up on the girl’s birth certificate.

Continue reading →

So….the Cardinals Couldn’t Find a Pope Who WASN’T Part of the Predator Priest Scandal? [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Good to know, don’t you think?

I’m stunned that Robert Prevost, who just became became the American pontiff, had been accused by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) of failing to act upon allegations of abuse in the U.S. and Peru. The group says that Prevost ignored allegations of sexual abuse by predator priests in Chicago after Augustinian priest Father James Ray was allowed to live at the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park despite being removed from ministering to the public over credible evidence that he had sexually abusing children. SNAP says Provost didn’t notify the heads of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic school, an elementary school half a block from the friary on the grounds that Ray was being “closely monitored.”

You know, like the Church closely monitored all of its priests to make sure they weren’t molesting altar boys.

Continue reading →

Open Forum (With a Pope Note…)

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Funny, after watching “Conclave,” I found myself wondering when the Roman Catholic Church would select an American pope, not that I really cared. The New York Times saw yesterday’s surprising decision as justification for more Trump-bashing and an appeal to authority (a logical fallacy) that the Times’ acolytes—Democrats—overwhelmingly don’t acknowledge as an authority. Thus we got “The Pope Appears Uneasy With Trump Immigration Policies: Before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost became pope, a social media account under his name shared criticisms of the Trump administration’s positions on immigration. “I…Don’t…Care,” and no one should care even if the social media posts in question came from the guy, which is unlikely. Sharing any opinions or positions without one’s own commentary is lazy, ambiguous social media conduct. But apart from that, becoming Pope creates a hard, black border around whatever the individual elected may have thought, said or done before becoming Pope, making all of that “non-operative,” as the used to say in the Nixon Administration. Furthermore, if this Pope tries to interfere with U.S. law, policy and values like the last one did, the proper response of Americans ought to be the same as I expressed here. The short version: “Mind your own business.”

I was amused yesterday when three waggish baseball pundits were discussing which Chicago baseball team Pope Leo followed, as he hails from the Windy City. The White Sox, one of them claimed. “No, his team is the Cubs!” another insisted. “I’m pretty certain he roots for the Angels,” said the third, ending the debate.

They forgot about the Padres!

Enough from me: This is your post…get opining.