“bias makes you stupid”

Unethical Quote of the Month: Lawrence Martin

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“The greater likelihood is that extremes of free speech will continue to be tolerated, creating a pathway for more Donald Trumps.”

—Washington, D.C.-based journalist Lawrence Martin, a Canadian journalist, bemoaning how the “elites” no longer control the limits of free speech because of the internet, and the results are disastrous in a column titled, “Excessive free speech is a breeding ground for more Trumps.”

Even though this guy could be classified as a Canadian journalist, make no mistake: he is stating out loud how a large component, even a majority perhaps, feels about freedom of speech when it doesn’t stop with letting  journalists and their favorite politicians and glitterati say, state and opine about what ever they want in the public square. This is exactly what “saying the quiet part out loud” means.

For that, I suppose we should be thankful to Martin. I would say we should also be thankful that he almost exclusively writes for Canadian publications—you know, the ones that cover the Great Stupid infected country to the north that is seriously considering a law,  Bill C-63, that would establish life sentences for “speech crimes.” Oh, don’t worry: Martin feels that the bill goes “too far.” That’s nice. Based on his screed, I’m sure he favors lesser sentences. Continue reading →

Now My OTHER Alma Mater Has an Anti-Semitism Problem…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This story raises the question of when pure anti-Semitism breaches the protection of academic freedom, or if it ever does.

Georgetown Law Center maintains an online “Scholarly Commons,” a portal where faculty members can post law journal articles, completed or in progress, and other papers and materials. Professor Lama Abu-Odeh, who teaches two courses at GULC on “conservative legal thought,” posted “working papers” to the portal with no academic citations, which presumably would be added if the papers ever develop into scholarly treatises. Their subject is what Abu-Odeh calls the “genocide in Gaza,” and her rhetoric frequently crosses into classic anti-Semite tropes

“Gaza Shoah: Zionism’s Efficacious Role as Ideological Supplement in the US,” for example, uses the familiar anti-Israel slur that it is “an apartheid state.” The paper also endorses “resistance to the Zionist project,” excusing Hamas, and even denies that Hamas terrorists raped Israelis during the October 7 terrorist attack. Another anti-Semitic trope that Professor Abud-Odeh embraces is the claim that Jews manipulate the American media and bribe U.S. politicians. “It is true that the American political class, Democrats and Republicans alike, is on AIPAC’s dole,” Abu-Odeh writes. “It is also true that legacy media is dominated by Zionist Jews.”

Continue reading →

Another Democratic Party Strategy to Save Democracy: Blocking “More Choices on the Ballot”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I keep thinking some day, Democrats with ethics alarms and functioning cerebral cortexes are going to wake up, slap themselves sharply in the face, and shout, “This entire party is based on lies, deception, and hypocrisy! What the hell have I been doing?”

If today’s New York Times story titled “Democrats Prepare Aggressive Counter to Third-Party Threats” doesn’t have that effect, however, I wonder if anything will.

Since the Times here is carefully trying to inform readers about an organized effort by their readers favorite party that should be received as an indictment on its face, the article proceeds as if there are legitimate arguments pro- and con. “An army of lawyers aims to challenge the steadily advancing ballot-access efforts of independent candidates, who Democrats fear could peel votes away in swing states,” begins the Times. “The aim ”is to ensure all the candidates are playing by the rules, and to seek to hold them accountable when they are not,’ “the Times explains quoting one of the leaders of the party’s efforts. It doesn’t mention that this is pure deceit, as the paper has already explained the motivation for the assault on ballot access:

Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Don Surber

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Don Surber is a former journalist and current conservative pundit whose blog and substack I occasionally peruse, usually without too much alarm. However, he has issued a substack essay that, if I had to summarize in three words my objections to it and any culture wars guerilla who cited him as authority would be, “This doesn’t help.” A longer version follows.

Surber’s piece is called “In praise of ties” and carries the subheading, “They helped build a society that we are destroying.” If Glenn Reynolds had not endorsed the link, I would have stopped reading right there. I know ties are going to be used as a metaphor for the decline of elegance, respect, adulthood, civility, dignity, elan and eclat, blattity-blah, but still. Don’t insult my intelligence. This is the equivalent of “In praise of stovepipe hats,” “In praise of spats,” “In praise of derbies” or “In praise of bustles.” These are all fashions, and fashions rise and fall like steam and autumn leaves. We get used to them, if they hang around long enough, and yes, sometimes their demise are linked to cultural factors that have little to do with fashion. Nonetheless, longing for a time when men wore ties as a matter of societal conformity makes one seem like Grandpa Simpson, screaming at clouds. Worse, in fact.

Surber writes, “Chuck Berry always wore a tie. Gas station attendants wore them. You could trust your car to the man who wore the star because he had a tie on. Men wore ties to ballgames because men were civilized. Ties were important because they gave a sense of authority but ties also showed that a man wants to belong in society. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.”

Sure, Don. I always thought those pictures of men wearing ties at baseball games were ridiculous. Ted Williams, one of my father’s heroes whom he passed on to me, famously refused to wear a tie: he had a very long neck and didn’t think ties looked good on him. Ben was right, but when the tie as a symbol of wanting to appear formal and serious wane—it hasn’t waned completely —then people will adopt other ways of “dressing to please.” It is the way of the world, and there is nothing about these transitions to lament.

But Surber was just getting started. Here he is at full speed:

Continue reading →

Stop Making Me Defend Donald Trump Especially When He Just Barely Deserves To Be Defended!

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Ugh. How many times will we have to go through this farce? Trump says something off the cuff using gratuitously inflammatory language, Democrats and the Trump Deranged pretend he meant the words in the worst way imaginable, and the biased and dishonest mainstream media tries to bombard the public with the latest “Trump is dangerous and a threat to democracy!” narrative. Will it happen ten more times? Fifty? A hundred?

The current Axis fake-freakout is typical of the script. Trump was riffing yesterday about how countries like Mexico and China are making money from President Biden’s electric vehicle obsession. “Mexico has taken, over a period of thirty years, 34% of the automobile manufacturing business in our country. Think of it, it went to Mexico,” Trump told the crowd. “China now is building a couple of massive plants where they’re gonna build the cars in Mexico and think, they think that they’re gonna sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.”

“Let me tell you something. To China, if you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal,” he continued. “Those big, monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re gonna get that, you’re gonna not hire Americans; and you’re gonna sell the cars to us — no. We’re gonna put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you’re not gonna be able to sell those cars. If I get elected — now if I don’t get elected, it’s gonna be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. Its gonna be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it. But they’re not gonna sell those cars, they’re building massive factories,” Trump said.

So “bloodbath” clearly meant a financial and commercial bloodbath, using the term metaphorically, like the news media does all the time. They even used it last week: Multiple outlets described the change in leadership and subsequent layoffs at the Republican National Committee (RNC) as a “bloodbath.” What? You mean they were actually claiming that the GOP was slaughtering people? Of course not, but never mind: the Democratic Party-bolstering news media has no shame, so they immediately pretended—and wrote—that Trump had threatened a literal blood bath if he lost the election again.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The RBG Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

This quiz could be fairly paraphrased, if in vulgar fashion, as “Who’s the asshole?“

Established in 2019, the RBG Leadership Award is supposed to honor “trailblazing” men and women of distinction, with “distinction” having a rather broad and vaguely defined meaning, as the pronouncements of officials connected with the awards made clear. “Justice Ginsburg became an icon by bravely pursuing her own path and prevailing against the odds,” said Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr., chair of the RBG Award. “The honorees reflect the integrity and achievement that defined Justice Ginsburg’s career and legend.” “Justice Ginsburg was a legal entrepreneur who innovated and took risks in ways that rewarded us all,” said Matthew Umhofer, president of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which administers the awards. “In a world that sought to define and limit her, she found ways to challenge and change the system, armed with nothing more than a brilliant mind and a powerful pen. Her impact transcended the law, and society is better off for it.” “Such is the spirit that defines the honorees of the RBG Award,” adds the award’s website.

This year, it was decided that the awards, which were originally limited to women of distinction (because Ginsburg was an iconic feminist and women’s rights advocate), should be awarded to men as well. “Justice Ginsburg fought not only for women but for everyone,” said Julie Opperman, Chair of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “Going forward, to embrace the fullness of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy, we honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best.” 

[Can you see what’s coming? Diversity-obsessed progressives were set up to be hoisted on their own petard!]

When this years’ honorees were announced, it is fair to say that the late Justice Ginsburg’s family flipped out. The awards went to…

ELON MUSK – Entrepreneurship
SYLVESTER STALLONE – Cultural Icon
MARTHA STEWART – Industry Leadership 
MICHAEL MILKEN – Philanthropy
RUPERT MURDOCH – Media Mogul

…and the family’s and assorted Ginsburg admirers’ collective heads exploded. Jane C. Ginsburg, a law professor at Columbia University, said the choice of winners this year was “an affront to the memory of our mother.” “The justice’s family wish to make clear that they do not support using their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s slate of awardees, and that the justice’s family has no affiliation with and does not endorse these awards,” she said.

Trevor W. Morrison, a former dean of New York University School of Law and one of the justice’s former law clerks, condemned the choices in a letter addressed to the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful, rigorous analysis and to fair-minded engagement with people of opposing views,” he said “It is difficult to see how the decision to bestow the R.B.G. Award on this year’s slate reflects any appreciation for — or even awareness of — these dimensions of the justice’s legacy.” Shana Knizhnik, an author of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ” spat out, “Honoring Elon Musk, who uses his platform to promote anti-feminist and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments, and Rupert Murdoch, who has used his immense power to undermine democracy, dishonors what Justice Ginsburg spent her career standing for.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Who is being unethical (unfair, disrespectful, incompetent irresponsible and/or breaching trust), the administrators of the awards, the critics of the awards, neither, or both?

Continue reading →

Fani Wallis Scandal Footnote: A ‘Bias Makes Legal Ethicists Stupid’ Moment

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is disheartening, though not unexpected.

I have written about how thoroughly my colleagues in the legal ethics field are politicized, biased and frequently rendered unable to see the ethical issues through the fog of their peer-reinforced distortions. Yesterday, as my legal ethics expert listserv was buzzing with commentary on the judge’s “split the baby” response to Fulton County Fani Willis’s screaming conflict of interest, prosecutorial misconduct, race-baiting and stunning arrogance. One prominent lawyer in the field, a woman whose commentary is usually perceptive, wrote this in part…

Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Points Out How Terrible RFK Jr.’s VP “Short List” is; Kamala Harris says “Hold My Beer!”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

What a shameless demagogue.

I am immediately torn, because every Kamala Harris head-exploding utterance raises a Julie Principle issue: OK, an elected official who has conclusively proven herself to be dumb, irresponsible and ethically inert says something that is dumb, irresponsible and ethically alert. Why is that worth complaining about or criticizing? Nevertheless, some of Harris’s outbursts are just too despicable to be ignored. Like this one, today, as she visited abortion providers and staff members at a clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota to cheer on women putting the unborn to death for the crime of complicating their mothers’ lives:

“These attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral,” she thundered. “How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest. We have to be a nation that trusts women.”

Nice. Kamala had previously used the “How dare they!” stunt to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court for daring to do their jobs, which includes striking down bad decisions that made up constitutional rights that didn’t exist. The abortion-fanatic’s dishonest defense has always relied on pretending that only one life is involved in an abortion, though the state has a valid interest in protecting all lives, including unborn humans who their mothers want to kill. When does an abortion in Harris’s world suddenly involve more than just the woman’s body? Six weeks? 15 weeks? 9 months? Never, if her words mean what they appear to mean. “Plain old immoral” has always included “Thou shalt not kill”: what weird definition of “immoral” is Harris alluding to? It must be really old; Sumarian, maybe? Ancient Aztec?

Continue reading →

Announcing the First “Imagine” Award! And the Winner Is…Marxist British Solicitor Ghuffar Usman

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Hit it, John!

(Yecchh.)

The “Imagine” Award will be periodically bestowed here upon the public figure, pundit , journalist or academic whose pronouncements most reflect the fatuous and infantile virtue-signaling of the late John Lennon, who also wrote “Give Peace a Chance.” This is the category where aging Sixties veterans, fact-challenged pacifists, incompetent progressive activists and the historically ignorant will cluster, advocating policies that are literally impossible and have been proven so over centuries. An Ethics Alarms principle is that advocating or promoting some ideal solution to a problem is unethical when that solution is delusional: the aspiration only wastes time and misleads the gullible. Right now, the political Left is addicted to such fantasies. No, we cannot end hate, racism, hunger, war, greed and criminal punishment, among other natural consequences of human existence.

Grow the hell up.

Continue reading →

Weird Tales of The Great Stupid: O Canada!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I suppose it’s comforting to know that the U.S. isn’t quite as infected with the toxins of The Great Stupid as Great Britain or Canada. Yet.

The Goodfellas Wood Oven Pizza on Old Mill Dr. surprised diners recently with this at the bottom of the bill:

A 2% “carbon fee” ! For what, exactly? The bill explains:

Oh. Canada’s restaurant czars told reporters that the fee was legal since it wasn’t called a tax and that because the establishment’s website informs consumers that this is what they are in for, diners have to pay it. My reaction would be “Bite me!” If you are so fearful of the climate effects of eating, then don’t run a restaurant.The website explains in more detail, “what we eat fuels climate change. Goodfellas uses certified D.O.P products from Italy to remain true to the brand, and it’s not always possible to buy local. Adding 2% to every restaurant bill to invest in carbon capture will help offset our carbon footprint.”

The Toronto Sun’s article about this overt nickel-and-diming, virtue-signaling exercise says that the diners they interviewed said that the charge didn’t upset them. Canada, Land of Woke Weenies. The charge is unethical, obnoxious, and dumb. Anyone with any self-respect who hasn’t been indoctrinated and beaten into loving Greta Thunberg like Winston Smith loved Big Brother would refuse to pay the charge and dare the restaurant to have them arrested. Or say,”Fine: I’ll reduce my tip by three dollars.” Better yet, eliminate the tip entirely because the place had the gall to attempt this scam.

I don’t know how Canadians got this way, but it reminds me of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I think we need to start paying more attention to our northern border to keep these pod people out.