Author: Jack Marshall

Unethical Quote Of The…What, Year? Decade? Millennium?…Donald Trump!

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

—-Former President Donald Trump, simultaneously making a fool of himself and fulfilling Democrats’ most extreme scaremongering regarding his candidacy on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Maybe he reads Ethics Alarms, and sensed that I was beginning to question my hasty designation of him as the 2022 Asshole of the Year after Kanye West’s sudden emergence as a Hitler fanboy and a Holocausr denier. If that was Trump’s objective, he succeeded: that statement laps West, in part because Ye is just a publicity-seeking, unstable rapper with a insatiable thirst for publicity, and nobody should pay much attention to him. Trump is far, far more influential, but is just as reckless in abusing his prominence.

That statement is signature significance and res ipsa loquitur; the latter, because no one should have to have explained to them why it is irresponsible, unhinged, and stupid, and the latter because only a politician who has lost all contact with reality would say something like that, ever, even once. And I’m not going to explain it. If you’re smart enough to come here, you’re smart enough to figure out what wrong with Trump’s quote without assistance.

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A Christmas Music Ethics Spectacular! [Second Stanza: Lyrical Incompetence]

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

In the first installment of this year’s Christmas music ethics review, I only plumbed the depths of the insulting lyrics in the Unethical Lyrics category. A much larger and more irritating sub-category lies ahead: incompetent Christmas song lyrics.Before I start, I must mention a lyric that now ruins a wonderful Christmas hymn for me, thanks to my sister. When we were children, she commented after hearing a rendition of the 19th century carol “O Holy Night,” “Why would I want to fall on my knees? It hurts to fall on your knees!” Then, year after year, every time we heard the song, she would interject a loud “OW!” after the lines,

Fall on your knees!O hear the angel voices!

I can’t hear the song now without hearing the “OW!” as well. But that lyric isn’t the lyricist’s fault. These are… Continue reading →

Further Updates And Observations On The Musk-Taibbi Twitter Revelations [Updated Further!]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This is going to be only one post when it ought to be about five. I’m restraining myself; here is another example of a story that has me in a self-flagellating mood because I have so mismanaged my life, time, opportunities and talents that I am reduced to fulminating futilely on an obscure blog that does nothing to effect any substantive change, at a period in our culture’s journey when ignorance and malevolence threaten the nation’s essence.  Meanwhile, the likes of Alyssa Milano, Milo Yiannopoulos, and social media “influencers ” have millions of followers who heed their “wisdom.” Continue reading →

Musk Reveals What Caused Twitter To Bury The Hunter Biden Laptop Story, And Trump’s Claim That The 2020 Election Was “Stolen” Is No Longer “Baseless” [Updated!]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

So far, not surprisingly, the mainstream media isn’t covering the story encompassed by Musk’s internal records about how Twitter helped bury the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. It is continuing to concentrate on Kanye West’s Nazi affection and his banning by Musk as its Twitter story of the day. This reflects poorly on Trump, you see. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

Today Musk sent the relevant Twitter records to ex-Rolling Stone substack journalist Matt Taibbi, who tweeted lengthy Twitter-burst about what they show. I hate reading those 10 part Tweet-streams, so here is what they say put together:

“Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: ‘More to review from the Biden team.’ The reply would come back: ‘Handled.'”

As in this attachment, from Musk’s documentation:

Taibbi continued,

“Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However… This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives…there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen” that the federal government had a role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop …the decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde [That’s her above] playing a key role. …Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography. White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.” This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams: Strom’s note returned the answer that the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy. 

They just freelanced it,’ is how one former employee characterized the decision. ‘Hacking’ was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

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A Christmas Music Ethics Spectacular! [First Stanza]

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Ethics Alarms barely touched on the wide and deep topic of Christmas music last year, relegating it to a “warm-up” intro and a re-post from 2015, so in the interests of tradition as much as anything—and the holiday season is all about tradition, after all—Here comes an ethics post, here comes an ethics post, right down Ethics Post Lane!

1. Unethical Lyrics

A. There are several sub-categories here. One which only fits the single Christmas song  I just referenced, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” which is a lyric that violates the unwritten but important Christmas Music Separation Clause, which holds that a song can be about the religious holiday or it can be about Santa Clause and the secular holiday, but mixing the two is forbidden. Early in the song, one that Gene Autry wrote and sang, children are told to say their prayers, suggesting that if they don’t, Santa will not drop by, and then the song ends:

He’s a miracle come to all if we just follow the lightSo let’s give thanks to the Lord above, ’cause Santa Claus comes tonight!

I bet you thought I was going to complain about “Santa Claus Lane,” didn’t you?

B. Insulting lyrics. The ethical value being trashed in these songs is respect. Any time a Christmas song lyric makes the listener think, “Wait a minute, does the singer think I’m an idiot?” the lyricist has crossed a line. In this ugly category:

  • “Little Saint Nick,” a Beach Boys effort by Brian Wilson, contains the lyric, “Christmas comes this time each year.” This annoyed me the first time I heard it, and has ever since. Yeah, Christmas comes at Christmastime. When else was it going to come? Mike Love actually sued to be given joint credit for this song.
  • “Holly Jolly Christmas,” the Burl Ives ditty by Johnny Marks, contains another statement of the obvious:

Ho ho the mistletoeHung where you can see Continue reading →

Worst of Ethics Award 2022: Most Unethical Lawn Sign Or Car Sticker. And You Thought “Baby On Board” Was Bad…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I’ve been steaming about this one for a while.

That’s not exactly the sign I saw stuck on the rear window of an automobile with Virginia tags that was in front of me for about 20 miles last month; the one I had to look at had the heart in place of “love.” I also couldn’t find anywhere online that sells such a thing, which is encouraging.

I found myself wondering what kind of person would display that message. It is virtue-signaling of the worst variety, simultaneously obnoxious, arrogant, stupid and self-defeating. It is self-defeating because there is nothing virtuous about someone who would proclaim “I love an autistic child.” What does this jerk want, applause? Pity? “Awwwwwww!”? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Elon Musk

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I’ve never seen this before: the Ethics Alarms Ethics Hero of the Year making an Ethics Dunce of himself the same month I awarded him the honor. Depressing. Not entirely surprising in Elon Musk’s case, but depressing.

In the catalyzing development, Kanje West (or “Ye”) has set out to also make Ethics Alarms look foolish by awarding Donald Trump its 2022 “Asshole of the Year” award. West, who is disqualified from that distinction because he is clearly mentally ill, decided to visit Alex Jones and babble on about how much he liked Hitler, who had done some “good things.” Being roundly condemned for this revolting opinion wasn’t enough for the allegedly genius rapper: he then posted the design above on his recently restored Twitter account, a Nazi swastika entwined with the Star of Israel.

Quick like a bunny, Musk tweeted,

“I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

I assume that Musk’s reaction was impulsive, because he constantly is impulsive. However, he had stated that he is a free-speech absolutist within reasonable parameters, and condemned the arbitrary, left-biased moderation policies of the previous Twitter regime. He did not “try his best”; Musk’s principles broke down the first time they were seriously challenged. West did not violate the rule against incitement to violence; in fact, I would not be surprised if he posted the ambiguous symbol to see if Musk could control himself. Continue reading →

It’s Called Sacrificing Individual Rights For “The Greater Good.” Jefferson Would Hate It, And So Should Any Ethical American

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yet this is what progressives and Democrats increasingly argue for to solve problems.

Exhibit #1: David Brooks

It hard to believe that David Brooks was once considered to be a conservative. Spend enough time in the New York Times culture, apparently, at least if your character, principles and integrity are as weak as David’s seem to be, and you will emerge from your chrysalis as a new, collectivist, proto-totalitarian.

Here’s Brooks on PBS talking about what he’d like to see installed to address gun violence:

President Biden spoke about red flagging, that you would find somebody you think is potentially dangerous, and we would be able to — authorities would be able to go in and take guns away.

That would take a gigantic cultural shift in this country, a revamping of the way we think about privacy, a revamping of the way we think about the role government plays in protecting the common good. I think it’d be something I think would be good not only for — to head off shootings, but good to live in a society where we cared more intimately about each other.

And I would be willing to give up certain privacies for that to happen. But, for many Americans, that would just be a massive cultural shift to regard community and regard our common good more frankly, in a European style. I think it would benefit our society in a whole range of areas, but it’s hard to see that kind of culture change to a society that’s been pretty individualistic for a long, long time.

Observe what “conservative” pundit Brooks is advocating here. The government decides someone is “dangerous” and can then take away Second Amendment rights. What would stop the government from taking other rights away that it might believe are “dangerous” in the hands of someone it fears? This is pre-crime. This is open-ended government control over individual liberty based on subjective standards. And David Brooks says he’d “be willing to give up certain privacies for that to happen,” because he knows that he would probably not be a target of such government oppression. After all, he’s now on the “right’ side.

The United States, he says, is “pretty individualistic,” meaning too individualistic, by European standards. Yet the United States of America was created expressly to reject the limitations on individualism placed on its citizens by European cultures and governments.

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It’s Asshole vs. Jerk vs. Troll, And May The…No, Let’s Hope They All Lose

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It now appears that the controversial dinner former President Trump had with suddenly radioactive wacko Kanye West and racist, sexist, proto-fascist Nick Fuentes was a diabolical trap set by the “deliberately offensive former Breitbart editor, alt-right cheer-leader, misogynist and professional troll Milo Yiannopoulos, whom Ethics Alarms foolishly assumed was kicked to the curb for good (and I do mean good) when a tape surfaced of him making light of pederasty in an interview. Milo lost a book deal and his star status on the Conservative Creep Speaking circuit as a consequence. In declaring his professional demise, I wrote (in 2017), “Society and political discourse will be better off and more ethical without Milo’s hateful bile polluting them. That is a good thing.”

What do I know? Milo got himself hired as a staffer by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, herself an Ethics Alarms designated waste of space. Ethics Alarms, 2021: “This, my friends, is a crazy person, and no party can ignore or tolerate a House member who embodies the worst and most fevered stereotypes spread by that party’s opposition. Rep. Greene…needs to be marginalized and isolated in Congress so that not only can she do as little damage as possible, but so that when she says ridiculous and offensive things, nobody can say that this loose cannon speaks for the party.”

Milo, who is also apparently “Ye’s” Presidential campaign manager (of course he is!), takes full responsibility for setting up the dinner that has even former Trump lackeys calling the hopeful Presidential candidate a fool for hosting. Milo:

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