“bias makes you stupid”

Why Fake Ron Howard Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About, The Final Chapter…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

We are finally at the last installment of the Make Fake Ron Howard Eat His Words Ethics Alarms Challenge, and it is the longest and most thorough of all. Again,I would be impressed greatly if one of our progressive-minded readers would rise in “Ron’s” defense, but “his” facile, talking-point besotted declaration of liberal pride is as indefensible as much as it is pandering to the Left’s fondest delusions—as the four posts including this one demonstrate. Fake Ron’s manifesto is here; rebuttal #1 is here, #2 is here, and #3 is here.

Now you have #4, a thorough fisking by John Paul, masterfully done.

Take that, Fake Ron!

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I’m a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does.

Good for you? But I’m willing to bet 95% of the time, I know exactly what it means. Studies (I can cite them if you want) often show I know you a lot better than you know me. The big problem with a statement like yours is that your views are often highlighted and celebrated, while republican views are not.

Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for.

The same, but see point one. If you don’t like this characterization, maybe you should do a better job of reigning your side in. If people actually cared about things, they should spend more time looking inward than outward.

 Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

True. No one is the same. But giving where this is going, I’m having a hard time not seeing you about to do what you accuse us of doing.

I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.

Great in theory….You do know republicans do this? But that really isn’t the issue. The issue is how it should be done. The biggest question: Who’s gonna pay for it?

I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.”

No, its not. As far as I know, never in human history has it been. Since you’re claiming it is, the burden of proof is on you. You can’t just make a statement. Also PERIOD? What are you five?

“I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

Strawman. Has any republican ever said this? There was a lot of (justified) critiques of the ACA (not to mention subterfuge). Also, if you don’t know better critiques of cheaper healthcare, you’re not listening to them. Additionally, everyone has access to it. You can walk into any ER and get anywhere in the country, but that’s not what you’re talking about, is it? I bet you’re also talking about Hormone therapy and abortion. But I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Tell me how you would get healthcare cost down without making someone do their work for cheaper/free. This is going to be a problem with one of your later arguments.

I believe education should be affordable. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

Setting aside the big problem with a significant number of colleges, the short answer: it can be. Trade schools, community colleges, military, are alternative methods to higher education that don’t break the bank. I’m willing to bet 999/1000 an employer doesn’t care where you went to college, only if you can do the job. I know one of Charlie Kirk’s talking point was almost 50% of people working aren’t in a field they got their degree in (I’ll admit, I don’t know if this is true). Still, this is you’re talking point. I also understand (Maybe I’m doing exactly what you accuse me of doing earlier) that colleges are one of liberals sacred institutions. If you think there is a problem, maybe, as I suggested earlier, you look inward towards a solution instead of asking for the government to step in and fix it.

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Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Update, 9/21/2025

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I have to say that I’m pretty sick of hearing and reading about Charley Kirk. The hagiography on the Right and the desperate spinning from the Left, which fears, with considerable justification, that the activist’s assassination will be a devastating tipping point that will doom their prospects in the 2026 election, are both relentless. The Kirk memorial service i is being compared to a state funeral, and that diminishes the tradition and the status of state funerals. Whatever Kirk was, he was not a national public servant. He wasn’t Charles Lindbergh either. The Democrats approached this level of creating exaggerated status when they held a Capitol Rotunda viewing for a Capitol police officer on the pretense that he was killed by the mob on January 6, 2021. He wasn’t, but the charade was all part of the coordinated effort to demonize Republicans, just as the deification of Kirk, a partisan organizer, is a Republican effort to show that the American Left approves of and encourages violence as a political weapon. (It does, you know.)

The obvious comparison is with George Floyd, but like most obvious comparisons, it’s not valid. To begin with, there really are good reasons to mourn Kirk. George Floyd was a blight on society, if an insignificant one. His ambiguous death was brilliantly exploited despite the fact that it signified nothing except that some cops aren’t very good at their jobs (we knew that). Floyd’s death didn’t result from racism or bigotry. Sure, the lifetime petty crook and drug addict’s life “mattered,” but it didn’t matter enough to him to do something positive with it. Also, to state the the most vivid distinction, conservatives didn’t use Kirk’s murder to go on a destructive nationwide “mostly peaceful demonstration” spree resulting in billions of dollars in damage, over 30 deaths, and the disruption of daily life for Americans who had nothing to do with Floyd’s demise.

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Unethical Quote, Ethics Dunce, Incompetent Elected Official…the Usual EA Designations Are Inadequate For Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s Latest “It Isn’t What It Is” Idiocy

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Rep. Crockett—-remember, she’s considered a “rising star” in the reeling Democratic Party—actually said this:

“And so I do want people to know that just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn’t make them a criminal.”

Interesting. The definition of “criminal” is literally “a person who has committed a crime” or the equivalent in every dictionary in existence, but never mind: this is the totalitarian Left of 2025, for which Big Brotherish denial of reality—you know, like “War is Peace” “or “Biden is as sharp as a tack” or “Harris ran a flawless campaign” is foundational.

Lest you think I have pulled Crockett’s latest nonsense out of a context where it is defensible (I can’t imagine what that would be, though), here is her whole rant, from an appearance on the podcast “Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness.” Incidentally, you know everything you need to know about Van Ness to avoid him and his podcast like the plague by the fact that her statement didn’t prompt him to say, “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

Here’s Crockett’s whole statement:

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Why Fake Ron Howard Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

This is the second of the Ethics Alarms commentariate’s critique of the smug and facile defense of Progressive World offered by “Ron Howard,” placed in his metaphorical mouth by someone who thinks that the popularity of the messenger is more important than the quality of the message. Sadly, the fallacy is too often borne out.

#2 is the work of DaveL, and it is notable for its succinctness. Part I is here. “Ron’s” screed is included in my original post. Now here’s Dave:

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The piece as a whole tends to suffer from 4 main flaws in its thinking, all of which are related to one another:

  1. External locus of control: The piece refers in many places to the idea of the strong helping the weak, the wealthy helping the poor, etc. But it doesn’t ask where rich and poor people, or strong and weak people, come from. They’re assumed to just be. Some mysterious force beyond mortal ken makes them that way. Sometimes that’s the case – often it’s not. Which leads to:
  2. Ignoring effects of the second order and beyond: You want regulations to make things “safe”, but what does that do to make housing affordable? What does it mean for a job to be well-paid when so much of your earnings are diverted for the use of others? What happens when you make it more comfortable to be dependent, or more of a strain to be a contributor?
  3. Refusing to see tradeoffs: These things they want are often interrelated in a way that makes them actually oppose one another. You don’t get to have everything you want, only to choose where to strike a balance. Which leads into…
  4. Black-and-white thinking: You want housing to be “affordable” but also you want regulations to make them “safe”. How “safe” is “safe?” How “affordable” is “affordable?” One reason they can’t see tradeoffs is because they collapse these ideas from continuums to dichotomies.

Why Fake Ron Howard Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About, Part 1

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I posted about the “why I am a liberal” social media post that has been surfacing on Facebook and challenged the Ethics Alarms commentariate to dissect its rampant generalities, facile assumptions, and logical fallacies. As I wrote in the post, some previously intelligent people of my acquaintance have been reposting and praising the thing, attributing its authorship to Hollywood nice guy director Ron Howard. He didn’t write it, so this is a textbook “appeal to authority,” especially since the arguments “Ron” makes are flawed at best. They are, however, typical progressive talking points. There is no reason to believe the real Ron Howard has any political science or philosophical acumen or expertise, as he has spent literally his whole life in front of cameras or behind them.

Four EA comment stars took up my challenge, and they all shined. As promised, I am posting all four, each of which would make an excellent civics class topic, if there were high school civics classes that didn’t focus exclusively on leftist cant. (Are there any any?)

You can review Fake Ron’s manifesto here. Rebuttal #1 is by Gamereg; his numbered points correspond to “Ron’s”:

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I May Have To Retract My Official Dislike of Memes in the Wake of the Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The internet memes below mocking the Axis of Unethical Conduct response to the Charlie Kirk assassination and the hypocrisy of its Jimmy Kimmel firing protestations are devastating. I’m wrestling with myself not to post them all to Facebook with the legend, “Suck on this, you deluded fools!” just to watch about 250 Trump-Deranged Facebook friends’ (including poor Curmie) heads blow-up, and have them all unfriend me, thus ensuring that I live out the rest of my days lonely and unloved, but satisfied.

The conservative Powerline blog, under the administration of lawyer John Hinderaker, provides a collection of the best of the week’s memes every Saturday. He has taken over the feature since his original Meme Master quit or left or died or something, and it hasn’t been as exhaustive or as reliably hilarious since, but this one, dubbed the “The Week In Pictures: Party of Peace Edition,” is a classic: funny, merciless, and best of all, true. Not every meme included is a gem, but from the documented hypocrisy of Kimmel himself and his defenders, to the joy of watching the Left turn on Disney, to, oh, so much more that is nauseating as the “party of peace” tries to spin its way out of its accountability, collectively they deliver a…well, let the Duke illustrate:

I’m still wrestling…but in the meantime, below are the featured Kirk-Kimmel memes. They have many uses: if your Trump-Deranged relative or freind can’t see these and admit that they raise legitimate points, call 911. The whole thing is here.

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It’s Come to This: a Majority of House Democrats Chose To Avoid Angering Their Radical Trump-Deranged Base Over Appealing To Sane Americans

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

To be fair, Republican had Democrats in a metaphorical head-lock and the assassination of Charlie Kirk gave the Elephants a perfect “gotcha!” Then again, the Democrats and the rest of the Axis of Unethical conduct were begging for their just desserts and are getting it good and hard.

Well, good. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving party.

House Speaker Mike Johnson introduced House Resolution 719 this week and with over 100 co-sponsors, all Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass., and Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D- Cal.) all sucked it up and supported the resolution, which, with a sane party, should have been easy. The relevant text read,

Resolved, That the House of Representatives

(1) condemns in the strongest possible terms the assassination of Charles “Charlie” James Kirk, and all forms of political violence;

(2) commends and honors the dedicated law enforcement and emergency personnel for their tireless efforts in finding the suspect responsible for the assassination of Charlie Kirk and urges the administration of swift justice to the suspect;

(3) extends its deepest condolences and sympathies to Charlie Kirk’s family, including his wife, Erika, and their two young children, and prays for comfort, peace, and healing in this time of unspeakable loss;

(4) honors the life, leadership, and legacy of Charlie Kirk, whose steadfast dedication to the Constitution, civil discourse, and Biblical truth inspired a generation to cherish and defend the blessings of liberty; and

(5) calls upon all Americans—regardless of race, party affiliation, or creed—to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values, and respect one another as fellow Americans.

Only ninety-five Democrats had the sense to back the resolution even though the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t read the text and would just see it as a routine rejection of political violence and an expression of regret over the death of a murder victim. Thirty-eight Democrats voted “present,” 58 voted against the resolution, and 22 did not vote at all. That’s 117 who objected to the existence of Charlie Kirk so much that they were unwilling to support a resolution condemning political violence.

In June, the House unanimously passed a resolution honoring Minnesota House Democrat Leader Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark after they were murdered, while also condemning political violence. There were no Republican dissenters. But the Hortmans hadn’t played a part in defeating a grand scheme to remake the nation, the government and its culture like Charlie Kirk had. The Mad Left hated him and hates him still, hence today’s vote. Res ipsa loquitur.

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Stop Making Me Defend (Ugh) Jimmy Kimmel!

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I have used that headline. I also used it in 2017 in a post I began thusly: “I detest Jimmy Kimmel. I loathe him. He is the most revolting of all the Left-Licking late night and cable progressive comics, worse than Colbert, Maher, Samantha Bee, all of them. All of them combined. He is an ongoing blight on the ethics of American society, and yet he is self-righteous in the process.” My opinion of Kimmel has, if anything, deteriorated since I wrote that.

Nonetheless, fair is fair and ethics are ethics, and Kimmel’s suspension by ABC for a comment that was so much less objectionable than his biased, unfunny, obnoxious blather nightly is cowardly and indefensible.

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Comment of the Day: “An Ethics Alarms Hat Trick!Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) Earns Ethics Dunce, Unethical Quote of the Month, and Incompetent Elected Official of the Month!”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This Comment of the Day on the recent EA post about the unethical, irredeemable embarrassment Rep. Greene is—there have been several of them—by CEES VAN BARNEVELDT is sufficiently long and self explanatory that I won’t delay your appreciation of it. Here you go…

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Marjorie Taylor Greene is not a great student of history either. President Lincoln did not agree to a national divorce; he secured the unity of the United States at the great cost of 650,000 human lives.

Personally I am quite uncomfortable about the unity talk I am hearing from politicians. Unity is not an abstraction. Unity does not exist on its own; it has a focus, center, and purpose. Proper unity can only be based on a foundation of truth.

During the Civil War slavery was abolished, and after the Civil War the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendment secured rights for the former slaves. The unity that Lincoln restored could only be based on the foundational truth that slavery is evil and has no place in the USA, and that the rights mentioned in founding documents of the USA also apply to the former slaves.

That means that if we need to preserve the unity of the United States we cannot skip the issue of truth, and after the funeral of Charlie Kirk simply go over to the order of the day. The assassination may have a similar political importance as the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by Representative Preston Brooks in 1856. The subtitle of the book “The Caning” by Stephen Pulio” is “The Assault That Drove America To Civil War”.

I do not intend to be apocalyptic with all the Civil War references, because I do not believe that we are there yet. And to stay within the marriage metaphor used by MTG in her unintelligent ramblings, I do not believe that the GOP is required to act like the battered wife who meekly returns to her abusive husband. So no kumbaya solution that leaves everything unresolved.

Here is the take from John Daniel Davidson from the Federalist today:

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Ethics Alarms Reluctantly and Sadly Reports That The Trump Derangement Virus Has Eaten Curmie’s Brain…

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments

I really feel badly about this, and I find it terrifying, frankly. I know Curmie. I like him; I think of him as a friend, even though he metaphorically kicked me in the teeth by abandoning his column here and fleeing the blog without so much as an explanatory email or a “by your leave” after years of my promoting him and his blog on Ethics Alarms.

But cowabunga! Curmie posted that junk above on his Facebook page three days ago, and it is beyond stupid and beneath contempt. This very intelligent, analytical, learned, sensitive and rational man has embraced one of the most desperate alternate reality spin narratives of the Axis as it tries to somehow avoid the wave of recognition across the nation and the world of what American progressives have become.

First, he is appealing to the authority of the Democratic Socialist Party. Second, the post he is pointing to is deceitful: yes, Granny did say that, but it is a non-sequitur. It is like arguing that FDR was really a Republican because Teddy was. The fact that the “alleged assassin” has a MAGA family proves nothing about his motives or political orientation at all. And Curmie knows this, because Curmie is smart, or was.

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