Around the World

Two For The “Shut Up And Act” Files

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The ethical formula is to concentrate critical evaluations on the message rather than the messenger, but celebrities using their popularity and influence to push for policies they are unqualified to evaluate and activism they are too corrupt to promote have to be in a separate category. They use their cognitive dissonance scale weight to make irresponsible positions seem reasonable to those sad and numerous members of the public who assume that being rich, beautiful and talented automatically makes one wise.

I know the temptation for these stars of both the glittering and the shooting- variety is great, but it is their duty to resist it except in the rare instances where they have more practical experience and knowledge of an issue than the average airport show-shine stand proprietor, and fully functioning ethics alarms. (Remember: Hollywood shorts out ethics alarms .)

Two prominent actresses in recent days have illustrated the principle.

1. Kate Winslet

Winslet is one of my favorite actresses, but unfortunately she’s British. The British don’t understand or support freedom of speech and expression, as anyone who watched the anti-monarchists being hauled away by police at King Charles’ coronation can attest. Accepting a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for her performance in a show about the dangers of social media, Winslet said,

To people in power and to people who can make change, please criminalize harmful content. Please eradicate harmful content. We don’t want it. We want our children back.”

Shut up, Kate.

Who is “we”? What is “harmful?” Dim bulbs like Winslet, waving the “Think of the Children!” banner, will lead us right to Big Brother’s door. If you’re worried about what your children see online, set rules for them and enforce them yourself. Better yet, teach them about what social media is and how to avoid its many perils. Monitor what they are hearing from their teachers in school, if you want them “back.” Educate yourself, and then educate them. It’s your job, not the government’s.

2. Natalie Portman

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A Ripley From Canada: Barking Is Banned At A Dog Park

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This would also qualify as an Ethics Alarms res ipsa loquitur file item, but the EA category reserved for conduct so astoundingly stupid that it beggars belief is the right place for this one.

Imagine: according to a new sign posted on the gate to the long-standing dog park at the corner of Jean-Talon Street and Provencher Boulevard in Montreal’s Saint-Leonard borough…

…. “it is forbidden to let your dog bark, whine, or howl.” Violators —well, the owners of the violators—could be fined between $500 and $2,000.

Will Canadians put up with this? The totalitarian virus seems to have gained a stronger foothold in Canadian culture than in the U.S., and thank heaven for that. However, the City of Toronto installed similar no-barking signs at dog park in March but had to remove them after a strong negative reaction from the public. The difference is that at this point no local U.S. government would dare put up such a sign in a dog park. I offered the hypothetical to the owners of some of Spuds’s pals, and the reaction to the idea bordered on violent.

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Res Ipsa Loquitur: Our Incompetent News Media

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

During today’s historic coronation of King Charles III, covered live by all of the news networks, the American reporters on ABC, NBC and CBS all referred to Charles being “coronated.”

The proper term is “crowned.” Dozens of sources would have so informed them—if they had done minimal research. No, it is not a big thing. It is just one more example of how negligently and lazily our journalists perform their jobs.

And thus once again I have to ask: Why does anyone trust these people? How can anyone trust these people? Journalism is no longer a profession in the United States. It is self-indulgent, privileged club.

Hallelujah! Sen.Kennedy Puts On The Record The Irrefutable Evidence That Democratic Climate Change Policies Are Incompetent, Dishonest, And Irresponsible…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La) questioned Department of Energy Deputy Secretary David Turk today before the Senate committee on appropriations to discuss the 2024 budget request for the Department of Energy.

The following remarkable exchange ensued during the testimony, and it should be used to confront every climate change activist, believer, hysteric and expert, constantly and repeatedly, until they are forced to admit the truth:

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Res Ipsa Loquitur: When “Bite Me!” Is The Ethical Response

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Please, God, have somebody this woke-deranged knock on my door.

The father in the video erred by continuing to tolerate this outrageous example of rude and unjustified interference with his legitimate parental authority, even to the extent, at the beginning, of huminahumina-ing justifications, of which he owed none and none were necessary. Had he been exploiting his child (as he would if he had her carrying a political message) or harming his child (by making her wear a mask), the woman would have at least had a colorable reason to intervene on the child’s behalf.

But being told that dressing the toddler in pink is somehow an offense mandates a quick and effective response: “Bite me!” followed by closing the door sharply in the meddler’s face. Anything more extensive or polite conveys gravitas to the confrontation that it does not deserve.

Who ARE these people?

Ethics Dunce: National Guardsman Jon Lynch

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

There is no excuse for this.

New Hampshire-based Air National Guardsman Jon Lynch made a promotional ad for the social media platform TikTok, announcing,

“My name is Jon Lynch, and I’m a member of the National Guard. I use my TikTok channel to spread helpful and useful information to benefit military members and their families. TikTok allows me to give other military members and other families these experiences to appreciate this life that they’re in.”

TikTok is a popular app that allows users to upload their short videos, sometimes leading to lucrative social media stardom. It is owned by the China-based ByteDance technology company. TikTok is believed to be a source of data on Americans and American institutions for the Chinese government, as well as a potent propaganda vehicle.

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In Spain, Putting Little People Out Of Work In Order To Save Them

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The cognitive dissonance created by the use of little people, aka. dwarfs and midgets, to make normal size people laugh has bothered me for a very long time. I remember attending the final game of Baltimore Orioles great Brooks Robinson in 1977 (he retired when he decided he could no longer play up to his standards, rather than hanging on and collecting his contract salary to the bitter end. Those were the days…). As a part of the ceremony, the crowd was treated to the spectacle of a 3’8″ man wearing Robinson’s number re-enacting some of his most famous fielding plays at third base.

The audience roared; my family and I were appalled, but then, that was Baltimore. I decided, after pondering the matter, that eventually the bad taste of such performances would make them obsolete, which would be a boon to civilization, but if height-challenged individuals consented to participating in the acts and were paid, the “entertainment” was at least arguably ethical. It wasn’t unethical. And sure enough, when the Orioles franchise was sold a few years later, the use of Little People as gags and mascots ended.

Now comes the news that Spain’s parliament last week banned bullfighting featuring dwarfs in costumes, including routines where the the Little People pretended to be bull-fighters. In those instances, they “fought” small bulls and calves but didn’t hurt them, unlike the full-size matadors who stab and kill the full-size bulls. Little People also have entertained bull-fight crowds in Spain for decades by performing like American rodeo clowns, chasing and being chased by the bulls. As with the Baltimore Orioles’ small performers, the practice is slowly losing support and popularity.

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Ethics Quote Of The Day: Ethics Villain Dr. Anthony Fauci

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“Man, I think, almost paradoxically, you had people who were on the fence about getting vaccinated thinking, why are they forcing me to do this? And that sometimes-beautiful independent streak in our country becomes counterproductive.”

—Dr. Anthony Fauci, major architect of the Wuhan virus lockdown catastrophe, in a discussing how the government’s dictatorial vaccination policies caused a drop in pubic trust of all vaccinations.

I have a lot to write about Dr. Fauci’s long interview in the New York Times, as well as some of his other jaw-dropping comments last week, but I’m lacking time and energy right now, and this quote demands immediate attention.

Fauci, who used his reputation and influence to trap the United States into a disastrous course of action that caused lasting harm to the nation, its culture, its economy, its children and society, articulates above the totalitarian’s lament about the United States of America. We are hearing this a great deal of late, as the Democratic Party, now the locus of totalitarian aspiration here, is increasingly open and candid about what so many of its leaders hate about America. Too many people just refuse to take orders from the smarter, more virtuous, more social justice-minded in power. Clearly, something needs to be done about it.

There’s nothing paradoxical about the phenomenon Fauci’s whining about at all. The lying, manipulation, false “facts” and abuse of authority used by health officials, Fauci prominent among them, eventually became apparent. Americans, who call themselves that rather than United Kingdom citizens because a nation was organized around the bold theory that the people—not kings, not unaccountable groups, not “experts”— have the right and duty to decide what’s in their best interest, returned to core values. Millions of people moved here to embrace the new experiment, and as a result, the independent streak is more deeply embedded in the culture than our native fans of dictatorship seem to comprehend. Decades of indoctrination from the now fully complicit news media and most of the education sector have weakened it and threaten it, but like the flag over Fort McHenry, it’s still there.

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Easiest Ethics Verdict Of The Month: Using A Car To Win A Marathon Is Cheating

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Joasia Zakrzewski finished third in the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool 50-mile race on April 7. It was subsequently discovered that she traveled by automobile for about two-and-a half miles of the course, since she was tracked on GPX mapping data as bridging one mile of the race in a minute and 40 seconds. That’s fast, man!

The 47-year-old Scottish runner, who has won several championships and set records, surrendered her medal and fully cooperated with officials. She would have looked better in the ethics files, however, if she had just confessed to cheating and left it at that.

She can explain, you see. Zakrzewski had arrived the night before the race after flying for 48 hours from Australia, where she now lives. She said she became lost on the course near the half-way mark and one of her legs began hurting. She saw a friend on the side of the course and accepted a ride in his car to the next checkpoint where she planned to tell officials she was quitting the race. But when Zakrzewski arrived, the officials told her that she would “hate herself if she stopped.”

Oh! Then I guess its OK for me to continue, she apparently thought, even though I’ve been riding in a car.

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Ethics Dunce: The United Nations

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

In a March report, three United Nations entities, the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ), UNAIDS and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated,

“Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law. The enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in matters concerning them. Pursuant to their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18 years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due regard to their age, maturity, and best interests, and with specific attention to non-discrimination guarantees.”

The United Nations is deliberately endorsing the rationalizations used by every teacher that seduces a student, every sexual predator who rapes a boy, every religious cultist who takes a child bride, and every father who has incestuous relations with his teenage daughter. As with workplace sexual harassment,the only ethical system that works to prevent child sexual abuse is absolutism. That means no exceptions. An adult’s superior power and presumed authority must be presumed to render consent from a child under the age of 18 invalid. The “Love is Love” platitudes are simply slippery slopes to rampant molestation. This isn’t an issue that can be decided on a case by case basis.

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