Around the World

Yeah, I Think It’s Fair To Say That Tricking a Guy into Having Sex-Change Surgery So You Can Marry the New Her and Gain Control of Her Family’s Property is Unethical….

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

As weird as things have gotten in the U.S., much weirder stuff goes on abroad, and I ignore most of it. This story, however, requires that attention be paid.

Mujahid, a 20-year-old from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh–that’s India—claims a hospital staff performed a sex change operation on him without his consent. A man named Omprakash, the alleged victim claims, had been harassing him for years and deceived him into believing that he was suffering from a serious medical condition. He then offered to take him to Mansoorpur hospital, where he was sedated and then operated on. “He brought me here, and the next morning I had an operation. When I regained consciousness, I was told that I had been changed from a boy to a girl!” a sobbing Mujahid told NDTV reporters. “When I woke up, Omprakash told me that I am a woman now and that he would take me to Lucknow to marry me. He threatened to kill my father if I resisted.”

Yeah, definitely unethical, in my expert opinion.

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No, Doctors, “Do No Harm” Does Not Mean “Make Anti-Israel/Gaza War Statements in Your Hospital”…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

We knew, or should have, that the medical profession was not immune from the ethics rot brought upon us by the advent of The George Floyd Freakout, the 2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck, The Great Stupid (and its DEI sub-cult) and the rest. Here is a throbbing example.

At the University of California, San Francisco, one of the nation’s most respected medical schools and teaching hospitals, medical students and doctors have been protesting the war in Gaza. Chants of “intifada, intifada, long live intifada!” could be heard by patients in their hospital rooms at the U.C.S.F. Medical Center. It doesn’t really matter what the chants were: they could bebeen “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” (one of my personal favorites.) Medical personnel should never promote political views in a hospital. Why isn’t that obvious?

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This Headline Tells You Everything You Need To Know About the Progressive Wing Of The Democratic Party…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Jamaal Bowman. This Jamaal Bowman. The lying idiot who pulled a fire alarm to stall a floor vote in the House of Representatives and flagrantly lied about it, claiming he thought the “Pull” handle on the wall was there to open the door. After security footage showed him taking down the signs that contradicted his absurd story. And this Jamaal Bowman. He’s a star in the firmament of progressive Democrats. What must the rest of the metaphorical sky look like?

Yet the story quotes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) saying, “I cannot think of a single race that better exemplifies the battle, frankly for our democracy, between everyday people choosing their representation and big money coming in and choosing it for them.” Yes, there we have the strange progressive definition of “democracy”: a member of Congress who stoops to sabotaging a legislative vote that his forces will lose, who lies about it, and who is given The King’s Pass by colleagues like AOC when he should have been prosecuted and censured. It’s not big money making the voters’ choice easy between Bowman and his Democratic primary foe, who is trouncing him in the polls. It is the inescapable fact that Bowman is incompetent, dishonest, unprofessional, not very bright, and a Hamas ally.

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Now THIS Is Pandering…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Ugh. These are not the only corporations playing this dishonest and cynical game, as you know. There are so many ethics alarms this junk sets off it’s difficult for me to keep the clanging straight–oooh, can I still say “straight”?

1. The robotic response of companies and organizations falling into lockstep during “Pride Month” (and Black History Month, and…yada yada) has the stench of forced speech about it, like everyone flying swastikas in 1930s Germany. Are the companies afraid not to demonstrate the mandated rainbow obeisance? What does BP have to do with sexual orientations and non-standard sexual practices? Why should a company like that have any input into the conversation at all? Shut up and drill.

2. These phony gestures also indicate obedient mass participation in cultural propaganda and indoctrination. It is an abuse of power and influence, and it doesn’t matter whether the organizations are endorsing kittens or cannibalism. I feel my arm being twisted. I resent it.

3. If these rainbow logos really represented the companies’ values, then they wouldn’t hide them in nations where intolerance reigns. In fact, those are the cultures where the advocacy is most needed and might do the most good.

The bottom line, as those companies’ VPs might say, is that their management and ownership have no genuine values, other than the desire to make money. That’s fine: capitalism works, and the profit motive makes it work, but these facile, empty gestures should be reminders to all that the pandering organizations cannot be trusted or believed whether they are lining up to bow to BLM, DEI, #MeToo, the stupid Wuhan lockdown, or whatever the latest woke fad of the moment happens to be.

The Pope Used A Word So Horrible That It’s Newsworthy, But Not So Newsworthy That Readers Can Be Told What The Word Is

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I know I’ve written about this before, but it drives me crazy. It also shows how incompetent and infantile our hallowed institution of journalism has become.

Pope Francis, we were told in stories across the web, “has again used a homophobic term after apologizing last month for saying gay men should not be admitted to church seminaries because ‘there’s already too much f*****ry….he used of the word ‘frociaggine’, a vulgar Italian term roughly translating as ‘f*****ness’, on May 20 during a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops.

Wait…what does the word mean again? Nobody would print it. Using the word was so newsworthy everyone was writing about it, but our public censors refused to reveal it. What is “f*****ness? Why should I have to play “Wheel of Fortune” to learn the key elements of a news story? The New York Times refused to translate “frociaggine” into English, but the Italian word means nothing to me and most Americans. It sounds like some kind of ragu. All the Times would reveal was that it was an “anti-gay slur,” a “homophobic slur,” or just a “slur.” If the Times prints all the news that’s fit to print, then why won’t it print the key element of such fit news? Personally, I couldn’t care less what the Pope says, but I do object to having to visit multiple web sites to find out what should have been revealed in every published report.

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Saturday Ethics Inventory, 6/8/2024

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Once again, a pile-up on Route Ethics has me doing another Saturday multi-story post. These take twice as long as most posts to prepare, and generally attract less than average traffic and minimal comments. Nonetheless, they are necessary, for me if not anyone else, just to come closer to covering the topic.

Sooooooooooo,

1. Starting off lightly, with more evidence from “The Ethicist” that people are indeed getting ethically dumber: Today’s inquirer literally asks, “Is lying ethical?”

2. The D.E.I. Ethics Train Wreck hasn’t stopped yet, Harvard notwithstanding. The University of California, Los Angeles, was accused by a whistleblower of discriminating on the basis of race in violation of California and U.S. law. Black and Latino applicants. it was alleged, are held to lower standards than whites and Asians on exams and other measurements of competence. The dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, denied the claims and said that students and faculty “are held to the highest standards of academic excellence.” Hiring and admissions decisions are “based on merit,” not race, “in a process consistent with state and federal law.” Oopsie! Dubinett himself directs a center within the medical school, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute, that includes an illegal a race-based fellowship.

3. More on UCLA: You can read about how far UCLA’s medical school has fallen here. The take-away from the report is that both admissions and graduation standards are being lowered for minorities. One professor claimed that “a student in the operating room could not identify a major artery when asked, then berated the professor for putting her on the spot.” “I don’t know how some of these students are going to be junior doctors,” another UCLA professor said. “Faculty are seeing a shocking decline in knowledge of medical students.”

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Signature Significance: China’s Fake Waterfall

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Why would anyone—any nation, any organization, any business or individual—trust a nation that would do something like this?

A major tourist attraction, Yuntai Falls, at the Yuntai Mountain scenic resort in China’s central Henan province, has been promoted as China’s “tallest uninterrupted waterfall” to its millions of yearly visitors. But this week a hiker’s video revealed that the falls are fed by a secret network of water pipes. In a statement, officials admitted that they added water to the cascade to improve the viewing experience for tourists. OK, technically the waterfall admitted that it was phony, as the statement said, “Depending on the season, I cannot guarantee that I am in my best condition whenever my friends come to see me.”

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Ethics Villains: Ireland, Norway, and Spain

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This revolting development tempts me to write a dark parody of “Abraham, Martin and John” called “Ireland, Norway and Spain.” it would end with…

Anybody here not like terrorism?
Would you care to explain?
I guess it’s OK as long as it kills Jews
Say Ireland, Norway and Spain…

Spain, Norway and Ireland announced this week that they would recognize an independent Palestinian state. The coordinated announcements from the leaders of the three countries said that Palestinian independence should not have to wait for a negotiated peace deal with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel immediately condemned the announcement as validating Hamas terrorism, which it undeniably does. Netanyahu has always held that the establishment of a Palestinian state would pose an “existential danger” to Israel, called the decision by the three nations “a prize for terrorism” that would “not stop us from reaching a victory over Hamas.” Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, said that Spain, Norway and Ireland had decided “to award a gold medal to Hamas terrorists.” The announcements were made just days after the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on suspicion of war crimes.

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Regarding the Fanaticism, Anti-Semitism, Historical Ignorance and Fascist Inclinations of Today’s Pro-Hamas Campus Protesters: Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Yes, the giant monster chickens have come home to roost. The academics who have used the past decades to indoctrinate malleable students into their victim-obsessed, intersectional ideology while undermining core American values have spawned mutated anti-Semites who regard terrorism as social justice. If this social pathogen didn’t threaten damage far beyond the campuses of woke educational institutions, I would be tempted to respond, “Good! You broke it, you pay for it.” Unfortunately, what’s going on here is far more ominous and potentially destructive.

Just take the time to read the bonkers manifesto of The Drexel Palestine Coalition (DPC), which set up an encampment on the Drexel campus four days ago. You have to read the whole thing to truly appreciate the dishonesty and delusions of this mob, but here are a few highlights to whet your taste for what George Floyd, cynical wokism, the Squad and a feckless President have wrought inflicted on our society;

  • “Label what is happening in Palestine for what it is: a 76 year long genocide and settler-colonial occupation by the State of Israel”
  • “Criticisms of Israel and Zionism will not be mischaracterized as antisemitic or hateful. Furthermore, speech and imagery that express support for Palestine, Palestinians, and Palestinian liberation must be explicitly characterized as acceptable and supported under the University Code of Conduct.”

In other words, “It isn’t what it is.”

  • “Immediately terminate Henry Israeli, professor of Literature of Genocide and the Director of Jewish Studies…”
  • “Immediately terminate Drexel’s chapter of Hillel, a global zionist campus organization, whose primary purpose, funding, and operations are to facilitate birthright trips to Occupied Palestine”
  • “Abolition of DUPD – Drexel Public Safety should not utilize a police force, private or otherwise, given a demonstrated bias against people of color, specifically Black and brown students and (Black Bottom) community members who are primarily low income Black residents.”
  • “Closure of the Starbucks Cafe located in the Lebow Business School”

Close STARBUCKS???? OK, now they’ve really gone too far.

Demands

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Comment of the Day: “A Careful Conversation With An Old Friend”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

See? An Ethics Alarms Comment of the Day does not have to be the length of an honors thesis to qualify for the honor.

This one, courtesy of A.M. Golden, resonated with me the second I read it. The post commented upon was about my discussion last night with a very dear friend—one of those relationships in which it doesn’t matter how long you are apart, it picks up, unchanged, from exactly where it was whether it’s after five minutes or 20 years—who was noticeably wary about expressing a clear opinion on the Hamas-Israel War Ethics Train Wreck in our conversation. Here’s the Comment of the Day, on the post, “A Careful Conversation With An Old Friend,” and I’ll elaborate after you read it….

***

We’ve had more than one careful conversation with a family member here and there myself.

Isn’t it a shame that your Jewish friend felt he had to test the waters before expressing his opinion, though?

We’re losing something precious in this country.

***

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