This is the first new rationalization added to the rationalizations list in a long time, though I have at least two others I have been pondering for a while. Rationalization #31 A, however hit me like Pete Buttigieg’s imaginary maul when a respected legal ethicist wrote on the listserv for the Association of Professional Liability Lawyers today that “Lefties” like him were suddenly embracing state’s rights in response to the need to “resist” President Trump, and attempted to justify this reversal by shrugging, “Any port in a storm!”
And there it was. I could hardly believe that wasn’t on the list already, but it wasn’t. I assigned “The Hypocrite’s Balm” as a sub-rationalization to the infamous #31, The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now.” I also could have placed it under #25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!,” but it is distinct from both.
#31 stands for brutal Utilitarianism, “the ends justify the means.” #25 is the whine of someone who is too cowardly to make the kind of tough ethical choice that has unpleasant non-ethical consequences. But “Any port in a storm” is the motto of activists who decide that their minds are made up, facts and logic no longer appeal to them, and they are willing to ally themselves with beliefs, organizations, individuals and missions that they have previously reviled in order to avoid admitting they may have been wrong, or that they should reassess their position based on new information, experience, or the metaphorical ice water of reality being thrown in their faces.
Rationalization #31 A describes the warped, desperate and destructive mindset of the Axis of Unethical Conduct today along with the Trump Deranged. So obsessed are they with their hatred of Donald Trump and the fact that he has at least temporarily derailed the Mad Left’s march to single party, nanny state, multicultural, anti-American DEI dominance that they are willing to anchor themselves in “ports” sane liberals would have avoided like ebola in the recent past.
Ethics Alarms 
Because the federal government does have limited powers under the Constitution.
Still, the only lawful forms of resistance are lobbying and pursuing litigation, which states have done with this and past federal administrations with varying degrees of success. Actual obstruction is still illegal, and still going all in.
how ironic that Mr. tribes name relates to his fundamentalproblem of absolute tribalism.
I thought that was almost poetic, having a last name Tribe.
Let’s propose 31B “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” as an ethics rationalization.
The hard left has allied themselves with Islamist in many countries. Omar and Tlaib in Congress. Mamdani as mayor of NYC. Anti-Israel protesters harassing Jews at college campuses right after October 7th, 2023 where radical Muslims and hard leftists were marching together.
Oh, lets not forget radical Muslims and hard leftists marching together in Tehran in 1978, to help bring down the regime of the Shah!
Let’s propose 31B “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” as an ethics rationalization.
But that maxim is strategic, not ethical. You team up with your enemy’s enemy until your enemy is vanquished, then you turn on that new enemy.
The hard left has allied themselves with Islamist in many countries. Omar and Tlaib in Congress. Mamdani as mayor of NYC. Anti-Israel protesters harassing Jews at college campuses right after October 7th, 2023 where radical Muslims and hard leftists were marching together.
When all perception and understanding is reduced into strict binary categories, no other options are allowed except the favored one. This is all part of the”ideological capture” and “narrative capture”. The object of a propagandized intellectual environment, and a mass-culture with almost zero intellectual capacity to reason, is to reduce all questions to strict binary choices and then to force mono-choices pre-determined.
In the intellectual, social and political environment of today (in America) it is becoming necessary to limit and control speech and expression of dissent.
I am curious what you have to say about the ‘gist’ that is expressed in this compilation?
https://youtu.be/oxYoB7UMum4?si=E45i9ctF_dKgiDcF
What are the implications?
The video compilation contains statements, attitudes and plans that are alarming to any person who hears or reads them. But here is the problem: Powerful actors within the Zionist world have declared with an absolute certainty that to have an anti-Zionist or Zionism-critical position is antisemitic. And the accusation of antisemitism is understood to be deadly. Just as they are saying in the compilation: Get the label, get destroyed. You think you live in a ‘free-speech republic’? Think it over again because, obviously, you do not. And here’s the weird thing: You will accept this without counter-argument (that is a general ‘you’). You will remain silent. Because sorting through the issues requires far too much genuine ethical and moral thought.
(I am reminded of Steve Witherspoon’s declarations about the reality of indoctrination and how genuine indoctrination, thoroughly successful indoctrination, convinces the individual that he or she is not indoctrinated! It is literally Orwellian).
Here, on this blog, among those who define themselves as ‘Conservative’ and as genuine patriots, yet here is a strange, discomfiting truth that is like a wrench in the mechanism. The present war against Iran, as with the various other wars, is being fought as an extension of the Zionist project. This is so much a fact that it is not possible to deny it. But here is the thing: Zionism is not Judaism. That is what they say however but it is completely false. And the emphasis on Zionist ideology is actually terribly destructive to Judaism principles. Zionism — simply refer to the compilation — must exert power over ‘the nations’ and must make people subservient to it. It does not matter what ethics and morals or Constitutional guarantees are violated or annihilated in pursuit of the aim. And when you have a State with such operative principles, and a military and intelligence apparatus, and dedicated soldiers of Zionism within your own nation — well: do the math. This is what many people see and object to, but the perception is made illegal and as ‘deeply immoral’.
And to the exact degree that people associate Judaism and a Jew with the Zionist project, is exactly the degree that they arouse anti-Jewish sentiment. What is happening, though little reported, is that average and largely secular Jewish youth begin to turn away from Zionism. Because they see exactly what is happening with it and they cannot go along with it. How then can they align with the ‘victims’ of the Zionist project without, simultaneously, adopting the principles of bizarre and twisted religious ideology?
Long, long ago, had there been a will to do so, it is likely, probable at least, that the State of Israel could have taken another path in relation to its neighbors. Even especially in regard to Palestinians. But they did not take that route. What if the US had not meddled in Iranian politics and brought a coup against the elected president that installed the Shah? A figure hated by ‘the people’ and who inspired a revolution? Who examines history from such angles? Is it worthwhile to do so? I think it is, but it does not help one to become an ideological fighter in this present.
My view of the present war on Iran is that I definitely hope that the war is successful. It is folly to get trapped in “opposition mode” like so many on the Left and find oneself defending what is indefensible. But the likely outcome (it is the desired outcome of Israel) is the mire Iran in endless civil conflict.
Lawrence Tribe really wrote Sotomayor ‘wasn’t smart enough and had an “inflated opinion of herself”’? Excuse me while I roll around on the floor and laugh for a while. But I think I recall you writing about it when he first said it. In other words, an inferior student going onto the court was acceptable as long as she was a leftie. So much for intellectual ability mattering on the Court or anywhere in the judiciary.
For my money, the Dems switching from getting the District Court to stop Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio from enforcing immigration law to stopping ICE from enforcing immigration law is the most hypocritical move the Dems have made without even a smidgeon of shame. Snarkily saying, “Any port in a storm!” pretty much covers it.
(Isn’t Tribe still an icon at HLS and throughout the left?)
As seems obvious, to me at least, I need to study this one more.
My initial inclination is that it is close to “It’s not the worst thing”. As, for example, when we choose to vote for a decidedly flawed candidate. If the choices are either to let the ship be endangered to the verge of sinking by a terrible storm or to enter a hostile port, we might choose that port. Likewise, we might choose a highly undesirable candidate over one who (metaphorically) might sink the ship of state.
Developing ethical maxims and examining how they could be applied to real-world situations is well worthwhile. Examining those previously established is a worthwhile exercise as well.
Okay, Back to thinking about any port.
I’ve missed you.
One obvious example
allying with Communists to defeat Nazis
I just proposed “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” as an ethics rationalization in an earlier comment.
However war, or the necessity of survival, create the situations where use of rationalizations are justified and become rational.
True. But it had disastrous endgame consequences for Eastern Europe, and the fact that we avoided a nuclear war with our “ally” was pure moral luck.
“But ‘Any port in a storm’ is the motto of activists who decide that their minds are made up, facts and logic no longer appeal to them, and they are willing to ally themselves with beliefs, organizations, individuals and missions that they have previously reviled in order to avoid admitting they may have been wrong, or that they should reassess their position based on new information, experience, or the metaphorical ice water of reality being thrown in their faces.”
AKA The Unholy Alliance?
PWS
Well, from the list of “open borders, racism, censorship, crime, nullification, anti-Semitism, legislating from the bench, lawfare, indoctrination in the schools, child abuse, incivility, fraud, violence and terrorism”, only open borders and perhaps child abuse are new to the Democratic Party. The rest have been well used tools for that party for over 150 years.
I have made note of this way of thinking several times recently in response to demands that Barron be drafted to fight in Iran.
they hate Trump so much that they will abandon any principle they have.
-Jut