“bias makes you stupid”

Monday Ethics Madness, 10/3/22: Remembering O.J., And More

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

October 3 is another date that lives in infamy…ethics infamy, legal infamy, celebrity infamy, race relations infamy. On this day in 1995, the sensational, infuriating trial of O.J. Simpson ended with his acquittal of the double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman. After 252 days, jurors decided that Simpson’s guilt had not been proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” despite more than enough evidence to convict just about anyone else who didn’t have an all-star team of criminal defense lawyers. Among the many ethics alarms set off by and during the trial:

  • The imbalance between the resources available to the state in high-profile criminal cases and what a wealthy defendant can use to defend himself stood out in sharp contrast to the situation in typical cases, where the imbalance is reversed.
  • The influence of the Rodney King riots and the deft manner in which Johnny Cochran turned the trial into racial payback perverted justice and the culture—but was the epitome of zealous representation, the lawyer’s creed.
  • A weak judge, Lance Ito, allowed the defense to engage in unethical and otherwise questionable tactics, but in a setting where lawyers are arguably obligated to exploit every advantage a trial judge lets them get away with.
  • Prosecution incompetence, exemplified by such decisions as not asking for a different venue, seeking to seat African-American women on the jury, insufficiently vetting Mark Fuhrman, and the infamous gloves debacle, literally allowed Simpson to walk free from a double murder.
  • The weakness of the jury system was exposed, as the Simpson jurors proved easy to confuse regarding complex and technical scientific evidence.

And much more.

1. More college loan ethics! The Consumer Financial Protection Board ruled last week that colleges that lend directly to their students cannot later refuse to release a student’s transcript as a way of forcing them to make loan payments. The issue arises with for-profit colleges that can make their own loans to students.  The bureau said transcript withholding as a tool to collect these debts is “designed to gain leverage over borrowers and coerce them into making payments,” and are therefore abusive and excessively punitive.

“Faced with the choice between paying a specific debt and the unknown loss associated with long-term career opportunities of a new job or further education, consumers may be coerced into making payments on debts that are inaccurately calculated, improperly assessed, or otherwise problematic,” the bureau wrote. Continue reading →

Stop Making Me Defend Kamala Harris!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Ugh. Even the trustworthy right-ish media misled inexcusably on this one, and, of course, “Republicans pounced.”

Two days ago, Indian actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas asked Harris at a Democratic National Committee event about the Biden administration’s goals as a “global influencer” on climate policy when it comes to poorer countries.

“It is our lowest-income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making,” Harris replied. “And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity.”

How did this become a statement by Harris about how aid would be distributed to communities in Florida and South Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Ian? Let’s see:

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Serial Killer Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Like the questions discussed today posed to “The Ethicist,” I view the dbate over whether a community should create a public memorial to the victims of a serial killer, in this instance Jeffrey Dahmer, an easy ethics call. Unfortunately, for people who can’t distinguish between emotional reasoning and common sense, determining what is “the right thing’ is remarkably difficult.

Toward the end of the Netflix series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the actress portraying a Dahmer neighbor is shown inquiring at a Milwaukee city office regarding a proposed park memorial to be built at the former site of the Oxford Apartments, where Dahmer committed most of his grisly murders. A sober message appears on the screen stating, “No park or memorial to Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims was ever built on the site of the Oxford Apartments.” 

To which the appropriate response is “Good!”

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Now Washington, D.C. Wants To Cheapen Citizenship

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Of course it does.

this week, a D.C. Council committee unanimously approved a bill to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, and just to make sure the intent was clear, an amendment was added including illegal immigrants to the voting rolls as well. Oh, the term used is “undocumented’ or some other cover-word to avoid the sorry truth, but you know what’s going on.

Several towns in Maryland and Vermont already give non-citizens municipal voting rights. Non-citizens vote in school board elections in San Francisco, and cities in California, Maine, Illinois and Massachusetts have similar legislation on the drawing board. The inclusion of illegal aliens is more unusual, but D.C.’s elected officials apparently felt the need to virtue-signal after reacting like stuck Swamp Creatures when a few hundred illegals were bused to their metaphorical shores. Like Martha’s Vineyard, the “sanctuary city”-preening District loves illegals as long as the vast number of them have to be cared for and paid for by Texas, Florida, Arizona…you know, the where Little People dwell.

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The President Sees Dead People: Ethics Observations

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

The most important observation may be that the mainstream media is covering this disturbing episode rather than burying it.

From the New York Times:

President Biden looked in the audience on Wednesday for Representative Jackie Walorski, Republican of Indiana, during a White House conference on ending hunger, apparently forgetting that Ms. Walorski had died last month.

“Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” Mr. Biden said as he thanked lawmakers who had sponsored legislation on the hunger issue. The president appeared to be confused at her absence and said something under his breath about whether she had planned to be at the event.

In fact, Ms. Walorski was killed on Aug. 3 in a car accident in her district, along with two of her congressional aides, when a vehicle she was in collided head-on with another. The driver of the oncoming car was also killed.

Mr. Biden did not correct himself during the remarks, but the incident quickly went viral on Twitter and other social media platforms, with some people seizing on the moment as evidence that Mr. Biden, who is 79, lacks the mental capacity to be president.

“Some people”? Not to throttle a theme, but why just “some people”? Isn’t forgetting that someone is dead (when you made a public statement about her death just a month earlier) a classic sign of dementia? And why is this a surprise to anyone who has been paying even a little attention to Biden since before he was handed the Democratic Party’s nomination?

Of course, after that straightforward and factual account, the Times slipped back into familiar “Republicans pounce” territory. “The president’s political opponents have been pushing that attack since he took office.,” the news item says. It’s not an attack! It’s a legitimate concern for any American when it becomes obvious that the leader of the nation is sliding into senility. Again: why aren’t Democrats and the President’s supporters equally alarmed? Integrity? Honesty? Responsibility?

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Today’s Dumb Woke Hollywood Casting Question: “Why Does Hollywood Keep Using Fat Suits?” [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The New York Times today decides to try a new frontier in the woke casting double standard adventure—you know, the incoherent theory that minority actors should be considered for all roles and all character types regardless of sex, race, size or physical characteristics, but it is unethical for white performers to play any character that they have to act and use make-up to evoke. You know, like good Hollywood liberal Tom Hanks claimed when he issued his recent  mea culpa for playing a gay, AIDS battling lawyer in “Philadelphia.”  So, using the same logic, Tom must have been equally hostile to “diversity, equity and inclusion” when he took a role away from some brilliant, unknown actor with a 75 IQ to play Forrest Gump, just as an autistic actor should have starred in “Rain Man” instead of Dustin Hoffman.

Suuuure. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Great Stupid often has that effect on me. Sorry.

The Times’ query, in the headline to a column by Arts Section pundit Farah Fleurima, is “Why Does Hollywood Keep Using Fat Suits?” Gee, it’s a mystery! And come to think of it, why does Hollywood keep using make-up? Special effects? Fake blood?

Here’s a much tougher question: why does the New York Times let people who know nothing about performing, entertainment, business, audiences, comedy, and casting write columns like this? Continue reading →

This Is Comforting: “The Great Stupid” Is Greater And Stupider In Canada, As You Can See…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

But for how long?

That’s a male, Oakville High School (about 20 miles from Toronto) “transitioning” shop teacher, parading with his, or her—it really doesn’t matter— gigantic prosthetic boobs. The Halton District School Board defends “her” completely voluntary appearance and attire in the name of “gender rights.” Meanwhile some students have skipped class, some are protesting, and parents are objecting.

My heavens, what could they be upset about?

“This teacher is an extremely effective teacher,” the board’s chair told the media. (Other than creating a completely unnecessary distraction by choosing to wear fake breasts twice the size of his head, of course—picky, picky...)The school board is creating a “safety plan” to ensure this serious professional can continue teaching without incident.

Yes, this Canadian variant of The Great Stupid virus could spread over the border. Continue reading →

A Magnificent Jumbo! “Partisan Bias? What Partisan Bias?”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) exposed Colleen Shogan, Biden’s nominee to lead the U.S. Archives, as both a deep-dyed partisan and a lying Jumbo-ist, and not a very deft one at that. In the video above, he brings up a 2007 academic article she wrote for the American Political Science Association, titled “Anti-intellectualism in the Modern Presidency: Republican Populism.” Shogan resolutely denies that she wrote what she wrote, then that she meant what she wrote, and finally, that she can’t be trusted to behave like someone who would write what she wrote.

She looks and sounds insincere, dishonest and untrustworthy, because she is insincere, dishonest and untrustworthy. On the basis of character alone, no Senator of either party should vote to confirm her.

Jimmy Durante, when he replied (in “Jumbo”) to the sheriff’s query “Where do you think you’re going with that elephant?” with “Elephant? What elephant?,” at least had the sense not to begin his futile deflection with, “Thank-you, Sheriff, for that question.”

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: CNN/MSNBC Contributor Tristan Snell

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

To be fair, I’m sure Ken Burns would approve.

Snell is a lawyer, which is how he gets on TV to spout Democratic Party talking points, on the theory that biased, irresponsible propaganda is somehow more credible when a lawyer issues it. Still, lawyers aren’t supposed to lie or deliberately deceive the public. No, Tristan, you idiot, that is not a Nazi salute. I am hardly a frequent church-goer, but even I’ve been at services where the congregation was urged to raise hands exactly like this.

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Ethics Villains: Documentary Maker Ken Burns And PBS

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

What, you well may ask, is a photograph of Dylann Roof doing in Ken Burns’ latest documentary, “The US and the Holocaust”? Good question.  The answer is, frankly, disgusting.

In the last of three parts in the film, shown tonight on PBS stations nationwide, the now familiar Burns historical story-telling is converted into a partisan, negative, political campaign ad, and not even a fair or respectable one compared to the ugliest attack ads you will see in the coming month. Apparently the tax-payer funded pubic broadcasting corporation decided that the perils facing of its patron Democratic Party in the upcoming election were dire enough to justify turning a legitimate and mostly admirable piece of documentary craft into supplementary material to Joe Biden’s indefensible attack on Republicans as fascists and “clear and present dangers” to democracy.

Burns, to his eternal shame—I will not watch any future Burns works—agreed to betray the trust of his viewers and the integrity of his art by using the last 10 minutes of “The US and the Holocaust” to draw an intellectually dishonest and virtually libelous analogy between the anti-Semites in Roosevelt’s State Department that blocked European Jews from escaping to the U.S. before Hitler sent them to the showers, the Nazis themselves, and those who oppose pro-illegal immigration policies in the U.S. today. Continue reading →