Ironically, I am doing one of these collection posts not because I received TWO emails from the assembled today telling me that I write too many posts, but because of the reason I write as many as I do. I don’t have the time (or the resources) to accomplish my mission as it is, which is to focus ethical analysis on the ethics issues all around us that should be thought of in that context, but seldom are. Why aren’t they? The answer is that they are seldom analyzed in an ethics context because most of our journalists, pundits, educators, politicians, lawyers, and “experts” don’t think about ethics very often, and neither do most of our friends, relatives and colleagues.
Today I felt bombarded with ethics stories and questions, and suffered ethics brain lock that stopped me from doing some important paying consulting work and meeting looming deadlines. Tomorrow I have a Zoom ethics seminar to teach (I hate Zoom) for two hours smack dab in the middle of the day. I’d love to write full posts on all of these, but I can’t. So here are some short versions…
1. There is a long, excellent Comment of the Day by Sarah B that I intended to get up today. Tomorrow, Sarah. I promise.
2. The Murdough Murders. South Carolina’s high court today overturned the murder convictions against Alex Murdaugh, the disbarred, thieving lawyer a manipulated jury had found guilty of murdering his wife and one of his sons in one of those “sensational” trials. The State Supreme Court found that “shocking jury interference” by a court clerk who oversaw jurors during the 2023 trial meant that Mr. Murdaugh’s convictions had to be thrown out.
Ethics Alarms figured out that the trial and the verdict was a farce and said so in 2024, here.
The State says it will retry Murdaugh, which will cost the state millions and achieve nothing even if he is convicted of murder again, and he shouldn’t be. He is already serving a prison term (for financial crimes) that will amount to a life sentence. The State’s claimed motives for the two killings are bats, automatic reasonable doubt with a thinking jury.
Ethics Alarms 
#3) I’ve read several articles that state that it takes approximately one to two weeks to produce enough weapons-grade uranium (90% enrichment) for a single nuclear device starting from a 60% enriched stockpile. Iran has 60%% enriched uranium. Little boy was an enriched uranium gun-type bomb and was not tested before deployment. You just fire one mass of enriched uranium into the other mass of enriched uranium. Whether Iran has a nuclear bomb or is close is still just speculation but it is possible. The Fat Man design was a plutonium implosion device tested first, the Trinity Test in New Mexico.
Just for perspective: Little Boy used 64 kg of enriched uranium (80% enrichment).
RE #3. We have known for a long time that they had about 340 kg of 60% enriched U235. The IRGC stated they have enough material to develop 9 nuclear bombs.
We should bear in mind that 90% enriched U235 can make a big boom and kill a lot of people quickly they can also make a number of dirty bombs that don’t vaporize people and buildings they just contaminate areas and cause slow painful deaths. That is the real terror.
7. How could Bass win? She has the black vote plus the white liberal vote. The latter would never not vote for a black woman. Plus, she’s a Democrat running against a Republican white guy. Plus she’s got SEIU and the teacher’s union voting for her. She pays their salaries. That’s how she wins.
“The latter would never not vote for a black woman.”
Recent Republican candidate for Virginia Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a black woman, would beg to differ. All that matters to Democrats is the “D”. The rest is just gaslighting.
–Dwayne
3. I have some questions about whether the links are correct. The NY Post article does not make any reference to statements by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
I have been a skeptic about the war strategy and the criteria for victory on EA. I would like to believe Brit Hume, but if Iran indeed manages to create nuclear weapons then it is hard to see how we have achieved any strategic goals, such as toppling the regime, eliminating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and keeping open the Street of Hormuz.
The statements by administration officials from the President on down (including Chris Wright) do not give me a lot of confidence. The main reason why the USA lost wars against Vietnam and Afghanistan is that ideological zealots are willing to accept any sacrifice and hardship to meat their objectives, and have all the time. The Taliban adage was, “You have the watches, but we have the time.” The staying power of the USA is limited by public opinion, which is needed to win elections. As it stands now, the Democrats are rooting for Trump to loose the war, and they are also those on the right who just simply want the war to stop by just calling it a victory, or because they believe that Trump broke a campaign promise.
The temptation for news media on the right is to call the war a success based on how much Iran material is destroyed and how many leaders were killed. This sounds like what McNamara did during the Vietnam war, focusing only on metrics. Things that are immeasurable such as morale may be much more important.
The last time that the USA was all in on a war till its conclusion was WWII. USA entered that war only after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; only after that day FDR was able to convince the people of the necessity of war. I am afraid that only a successful nuclear attack on the USA by Iran could convince both political parties and the American people to do what is needed to achieve a strategically meaningful victory in Iran.
I am afraid that only a successful nuclear attack on the USA by Iran could convince both political parties and the American people to do what is needed to achieve a strategically meaningful victory in Iran.
I have felt the same way. Today’s Americans have never really had to sacrifice much of anything during conflicts. My parents weathered WW2 with ration stamps and I grew up in the duck and cover drills in school. Now, if gas prices simply rise to Biden era amounts we seem to want to surrender to a regime that is bent on our destruction who is financed by a our geopolitical foes that want to exert global dominance. Maybe Americans should be the serfs to some foreign government that will dictate what they can think, what they can do, where they can travel and with whom they can associate or face legal sanction. Wait to all those “protectors of democracy” no longer have any choice as to who they can vote for.
Iran will not need to nuke an American city or any other city for that matter when it develops nuclear weapons it merely needs to threaten that it will if the world does not acquiesce to their demands. When they have even one bomb they can close the Strait of Hormuz until the world bends to its will. Are we willing to preemptively nuke them before they nuke one of their neighbors and what will China and Russia do if we do?
I will say that there is historical precedent for leaving figure head leaders in place after complete capitulation. Hirohito is the one example but whether or not the civilian president is worthy of such a distinction is debatable. What is not debatable is that non of the IRGC can exist as a part of the government.
The main hindrance to winning the war in Iran is the American people. Or shall I say, winning any war. The Americans as a people do not have the fortitude as the generation that endured the Great Depression and World War II. The USA has become decadent as a whole, from the seats of power in Washington DC, to our entertainment culture and social media, to the daily lives that includes family breakdown and drugs.
Many are more concerned with the gas prices than with Iran, or with the depredations and slaughter the Iranian people have been facing at the hands of the IRGC. In the meantime the stock market is doing well. This indicates to me that any sacrifice is too much for many Americans.
It blows my mind that the Democrat Party including much of their base have so much sympathy for Hamas and so much hate for Israel, as witnessed as soon as the day after the October 7th, 2023 atrocities. A commission investigating the massacre of October 7, 2023, with a focus on the sexualized terror—including against the hostages—has released its report, and it is shocking. The same day the New York Times deflects from this news by an unbased counter story at the hands of Nick Kristof telling that Israel trains dogs to rape Palestinians.
Let’s assume the Iran in the near future is successful in developing nukes, and we have a Democrat President and Democrat controlled Congress. I will bet that this Democrat administration will resume the failed approach as the Obama administration, give Iran everything they ask for including lots money and the right to control Hormuz, and allow to let them keep the nuclear capabilities. This will be sold as a victory. Israel will be dropped like a hot potato. What if Iran uses nuclear weapons against Israel? I do not want to bet on the USA or Western Europe to come to Israel’s help.
The allies of the USA (Israel, Gulf states) will realize that the USA is not a reliable partner for the long term, due to the fickleness of the political situation in Washington DC. China and Iran know it too, and they know that all they have to do is wait for the right time.
This has happened before, in Vietnam. According to the metrics used by McNamara it appears that the USA was winning. The Tet offensive was in hindsight a battlefield success for the USA. Walter Cronkite led the mainstream media to call the Tet Offensive a failure, and the mood shifted. Nixon was able to force the North Vietnamese to the negotiation table, resulting in the Paris peace accords which ended the war.
“However, a Democrat Party that controlled both the House and the Senate immediately banned US bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and withdrew funding for ARVN (the Army of the Republic of Vietnam), the South’s regular army. Abandoned by the Democrats, the result, two years later, was the fall of Saigon. US media and the Democrats had turned victory into defeat.“
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/will-trumps-leftie-foes-turn-iran-victory-into-defeat/
Given where we stand now, with not enough popular support and the midterms looming, I am afraid the same thing will happen again. If the Democrats win Congress the Trump administration simply has no time to continue the war, busy as they will be with the next round of impeachments. Instead Trump will be tempted to call the war on Iran a victory on metrics alone, and not on meeting strategic objectives that matter (IRCG gone, nuclear disarmament of Iran, opening the strait of Hormuz).
That’s the impediment to winning any war. It’s why the US tightly controlled the news media during World War II, and if it hadn’t, I doubt that we would have finished the job. Especially since most of the public was anti-Semitic.
We left California 5 years ago because of all the Karens running the state into the ground. I don’t know what it will take for Californians to wake up and vote these morons out of office. New teeth for meth addicts is another wasteful government expense that cannot be justified on any level. It is not the right thing to do, it is the stupid thing. How many working families who struggle to pay for kids’ orthodontia will appreciate higher taxes to pay for a mouthful of implants for meth addicts? Yet they still vote against their own self-interest.
When households and businesses feel an economic squeeze, they analyze spending and make cuts. Liberals in government never do …. they imagine they can tap the well indefinitely. There is a trickle of blowback from billionaires and business owners moving to more friendly states, but the left is somehow successful in villainizing these people.
There is an article about a MoneyLion* study that analyzes the cost of essentials in all 50 states. California has the second highest annual cost of living at over $73,000, while the popular state of Florida is estimated to cost just over $44,000. West Virginia was the lowest at jut over $29,000. This tracks with our experience in New Mexico of a roughly 40% cost of living savings.
A bit of the higher cost relates to market pressures – California is a beautiful place to live so demand is high. But taxation and regulation drive costs up dramatically. For example, the total of all fees and taxes on a gallon of gas is close to $2, far higher than any other state, driving costs on almost everything produced or sold.
A smart mayor or governor would find ways to attract jobs and businesses by streamlining the tax and regulatory burdens that disincentivize growth and investment. But as you frequently point out, Jack, you can’t fix stupid.
*MoneyLion is a financial tech firm, and their study focuses on monthly budgets for retirees and how cost of living impacts the need for savings to supplement social security benefits.
That’s the impediment to winning any war, GL. It’s why the US tightly controlled the news media during World War II, and if it hadn’t, I doubt that we would have finished the job. Especially since most of the public was anti-Semitic.
2. Word around the community is that the retrial is being held where I live. Wondering if I should look it up, or avoid it in case I get called for jury duty.