Barack Obama may not be the Worst President Ever, but I am slowly reaching the conclusion that he is the Worst Former President Ever, though Bill Clinton and John Tyler are tough competition.
Incredibly, Obama said, during the opening of his library, “The founders fell terribly short of the Declaration’s promise.” His case, which requires ignoring history and documentation, is the old leftist lie that they should have banned slavery and foreseen the women’s movement. So days before the United States marks its 250th anniversary, an ex-President, whose contribution to the United States, its politics and culture, were overwhelmingly negative, has the hindsight chutzpah to insult men who were wiser, smarter, and braver than he.
Does Obama know how wrong that Unethical Quote of the Month is? I’m guessing that he does. Obama thinks the public and especially the Democratic Part’s base are stupid and frames his rhetoric accordingly. Everyone who has studied the issue knows that insisting on banning slavery would have meant no Constitution at all, just as Jefferson had to strike an anti-slavery section from the Declaration for there to be a revolution. Most of the people O was addressing probably still think the Founders’ three-fifths compromise was an expression of racism, when it was designed to set the stage for slavery’s eventual elimination. As the late Gordon Wood explained here, the Founders had reason to believe that slavery was on the way out, and that it was not the metaphorical hill let democracy die on.
But enough of one of the three most over-rated U.S. Presidents and the only one who is still yapping (JFK and Woodrow Wilson are playing Trivial Pursuit in Hell).
Ethics Alarms 
Try this here this time:
https://x.com/RealBrittHughes/status/2066996315104710761?s=20
Quick ethics observations:
1) Simple conversations can bypass a lot of societal rules established to govern interactions between strangers.
2) It’s well understood that parents of opposite gendered (there’s only two) children have to make an arbitrary choice what bathroom they’ll accompany their younger children to.
3) It’s obligated that parent to make sure the bathroom is clear of anyone else before entering, otherwise wait.
4) It’s obligated that parent to try to ensure no one else enters the bathroom while it’s “awkwardly” occupied.
5) It’s also obligated that the parent try to minimize the duration of the awkward arrangement.
6) It’s almost obligated that anyone who seeks to enter such an atypical situation, to wait patiently for the bathroom to return to a “normal” status.
7) In this video: are the girls old enough to handle themselves in a bathroom alone…? Maybe…I’m not convinced it’s a closed case that they are, even while some kids may be.
8) In this video, lacking context before it began: we don’t know what kind of basic conversation (see point 1) occurred before the episode began.
9) Assuming the dad did the basics (see points, 1, 2, 3, and 4) it would seem the “angry man” ignored point 6 and is in error here.
10) That being said: it also seems pretty clear that the dad slowed down his efforts, letting pride get in the way of resolving the awkward accommodation, see note 5.
11) The dad should have also just left the locale as soon as he and his daughters were done, there was no reason to continue interacting with the “angry man”.
12) The dad was, at this point in societal disfunction, probably OK recording the event to make sure anything going south could be proven.
13) The dad was, probably not OK publishing this event outside of any court-room needs – because now, “angry man”, who could have been acting inappropriately after experiencing an exceptionally bad day, is now *permanently* associated with an event that would have ordinarily been forgotten by tomorrow. “Angry man” has been fired.
Can we talk about the reflecting pool on the National Mall?
My social media is full of memes and pictures of the recent algae problem that has resurfaced, apparently due to some residual stuff in the pipes. By all accounts, the problem has been fixed, but the level of mockery involved is becoming grating.
When Republicans, Conservatives and Normal, Decent Americans complain about Trump Derangement, this is exactly the type of situation we mean. There was nothing wrong with fixing the plumbing in the pool, painting it and cleaning it.