“bias makes you stupid”

“The Meat Axe”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I had some amusing bloody meat-axe graphics all ready to go for this post, but it is really about flat learning curves: the Democratic Party’s, the Axis news media’s, and maybe, frighteningly, the public’s.

Yes, once again we have a looming test of just how stupid the public really is. Democrats are betting their very existence on the public being as dumb as a box of Joe Bidens, and the biased, anti-Trump news media, having already been completely exposed as the enemies of the people Donald Trump said they are, have predominantly fallen back to the same tactics that served them so well in Trump 1.0. The unethical “advocacy journalists” are gambling that propaganda will prevail, and that the 2024 election was just a blip because the Democrats ran a babbling fool—but a historic one!—for President.

Trump’s tsunami of executive orders along with the relentless DOGE assault has the Axis searching for a magic bullet or two. They settled on two old unethical stand-bys: ad hominem attacks, aka. “kill the messenger,” and “It’s a constitutional crisis!” Trump being elected at all was a constitutional crisis for the Angry Left, and the phony “He’s breaching traditional democratic norms!” trope was core to both impeachments and the “Trump is Hitler” campaign refrain.

Elon Musk is being vilified by using classic Democrat class warfare tactics: he’s been successful and is rich, so obviously he’s only helping Trump cut spending because he greedy and he’ll make money from it somehow. How dumb does someone have to be to buy that logic? If there is anyone in the world who can be trusted not to be serving his country for the money, it’s Musk. I heard some mouth-foaming contributor on CNN screaming this morning that “Trump is a liar and criminal” and “Musk wasn’t even born here!,” an odd argument from a defender of illegal immigrants.

But the EA “Flat Learning Curve” graphic is up there because I heard Chuck Schumer—is he really an idiot or does he just play one on TV?—say that sure, everyone agrees that there is too much waste in government spending, but “this is a meat-axe!” Yup, it sure is, Chuck, and if you don’t know by now that the only way to seriously address systemic corruption, waste, incompetence, dishonesty and obstruction is with a meat-axe (or blow-torch, or metaphorical nuclear bomb), you’ve never successfully managed anything.

Experienced managers know this, and both Musk and Trump are experienced managers as well as successful ones. Good leaders know it too. Heck, I know it.

What Schumer is really saying is, “We don’t want to solve this problem, we want to look like we want to solve this problem, and we are confident that you out there listening are so uneducated, inexperienced, naive and gullible that you’ll fall for it…again.”

When a system is broken, corrupt and incorrigible, and because of its dysfunction causing constant harm, the technique of carefully trying to extract the jewels buried in the shit pile never works. It takes too long. Every inch of the shit will have advocates claiming that it isn’t really shit. Paring down the bureaucracy gets delegated to the bureaucracy, and improvement is minimal if you are lucky. Most of the time, the inefficiency, waste and corruption just gets worse. Nobody can deny that this is the futile path the United States government has been treading.

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Stop Making Me Defend Georgetown Law Center!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

My law school alma mater—I also worked as an assistant dean there for several years—has been depressingly high on the list of ideologically-obsessed law schools along with Stanford, Yale and many others. Ethics Alarms has never held its fire on GULC based on any sense of misplaced loyalty. However, this time, as the school is being assailed for sponsoring a controversial speaker, I have to take its side for a change. Which is nice.

The Jewish Insider reports that a Georgetown University Law Center student group, a chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, will host Ribhi Karajaha (above) as a speaker next week on February 11. Karajaha is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the U.S. government designates as a terrorist organization. He is planning to speak about “arrest, detention, and torture in the Israeli military system,” an Instagram post says. Karajaha spent three years in an Israeli prison as part of a plea deal after he admitted to knowing about a terrorist bomb plot that killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl and injured her brother and father.

GULC is being criticized for allowing him to speak. On the contrary, it may be very instructive for law students to hear his point of view and to observe how he answers critical questions. This is known as “education.”

I heard Angela Davis speak when I was student. Davis was a radical Marxist, a domestic terrorist and a criminal. Listening to her was an invaluable experience. She was charismatic and obviously brilliant, but she didn’t brainwash me with laser eyes. I witnessed first hand and in person what fanaticism looks and sounds like. Education.

Georgetwon law student Julia Wax Vanderwiel told Jewish Insider that Karajah’s presence on campus “threatens the security of all Jewish students.” What, is he going to morph into Palestinian Hulk and run amuck? He’s going to talk. Words should not make anyone feel unsafe, and if they do, even then the words are still conveying useful information. The unsafe speaker myth has been embraced by the Mad Left as a way to censor speech and muzzle political opponents.

If Georgetown law students are wise and ethical, they will allow the terrorist to speak without disruption. Unfortunately, they have been attending an institution whose Dean has endorsed partisan and political censorship, so I will be genuinely surprised if that is how this episode plays out.

“Reason” Thinks The “60 Minutes” Deceptive Edit of the Harris Interview Was Just Fine [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s hard for me to use a publication as a news source after it does something this ethically obtuse. I often find Reason, the libertarian magazine and website, insightful and useful, especially since the Volokh Conspiracy hangs out there now. But the site has not one but two essays claiming that CBS and “60 Minutes” were “vindicated” by the unedited transcript of Harris’s infamous interview, and all I can say in response is, “What’s the matter with them?”

Well, not all I can say. In an earlier post I pointed out how egregiously CBS cherry-picked relatively coherent pieces of Harris’s typically garbled responses, indeed taking middle-of-the-answer sentences and then middle-of-the-sentence portions to make Harris sound less like the dim-witted empty suit than she is. Jacob Sullum frames his “It isn’t what it is ” piece by repeating Trump’s rant about how the editing was “illegal” and should lose CBS its license. Yawn. Gee, Trump exaggerates. He was nonetheless correct that it was attempted election interference and “fake news.”

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Today’s Sad and Desperate Argument From a Facebook Friend Who Once Was Too Smart To Post Something This Stupid…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Unbelievable.

That idiocy was posted by a lawyer, former law dean and law professor. How is this possible?

It is like saying that if you believe the French Revolution was a human and political disaster, you should have to explain why you object to each section of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.” It is like saying that it’s a cop-out to claim that “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Free” is a hateful call for the eradication of Israel, unless you explain: “What’s so bad about starting at the river? What’s so wrong about going to the seashore? What do you find so objectionable about freedom?”

Whoever thinks this meme is a devastating rebuttal of opposition to DEI as a social, employment, and organizational policy doesn’t comprehend a foundational principle of language, which is that words in particular contexts and combinations often mean something entirely different from what the words mean individually and in a vacuum.

Sure, diversity can be nice, but not as an enforced value, and not in every context. I don’t see anyone advocating more racially diverse NBA teams, for example. Most of the time diversity isn’t even an ethical value, just a feature that may or may not have benefits to a group. Equity, the only concept of the three that I see on my wall as one of the ethical values, means fairness. But fairness is extremely subjective, making it one of the more tricky ethical values, and when it is used as it is used in the context of the DEI Division of The Great Stupid, what it means is “equal outcomes for all.” That is Marxist Cloud Cuckoo Land garbage. Life doesn’t, shouldn’t and can’t work like that. There are winners and losers; enterprise, talent, diligence, intelligence and skill matters, as well as luck. Trying to fight that fact of existence is a fool’s errand, or, more often a con artist’s scam.

“Inclusion” is the weird one: what it means in context of the DEI movement is that all exclusion is malign and sinister, the result of deliberate discrimination on the basis of invidious factors. False.

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Ethics Dunce: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC.)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

During a House Oversight Committee meeting, Rep. Nancy Mace used the derogatory term “tranny” in discussing legislation aimed at various aspects of the contentions transgender issue. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, objected. “The gentlelady has used a phrase that is considered a slur in the LGBTQ community and the transgender community,” he said.

That is correct. Moreover, this is not a new development: “tranny” is an old slur, and unlike some terms that have been declared slurs after once being considered acceptable (I forget: is “queer” a slur now, or isn’t it?) that term for a transexual has always been used as an insult.

Nevertheless Mace, emulating the outburst that ended Dr. Laura’s radio career (Except that she said, “Nigger, nigger, nigger!”), spat back, “Tranny, tranny, tranny! I don’t really care. You want penises in women’s bathrooms, and I’m not gonna have it. No, thank you.”

For this illogical and needlessly uncivil response, Mace has been cheered by some conservative pundits. Now that’s transphobia and bigotry. “Tranny” is in the same ugly category as nigger, spic, gook, retard, fag, dyke, cunt, and other indisputably denigrating terms that have no redeeming feature. Their purpose is to demonstrate hatred and contempt for the group or individual being described. Such a purpose is per se unethical: disrespectful, unfair, cruel and uncivil.

Connolly replied, logically enough, “To me, a slur is a slur, and here in the committee, a level of decorum requires us to try consciously to avoid slurs.” He was right.

Connelly continued, “You just heard the gentlelady actually actively, robustly repeat it; and I would just ask the chairman that she be counseled that we ought not to be engaged — we can have debate and policy discussion without offending human beings who are fellow citizens. And so, I would ask as a parliamentary inquiry whether the use of that phrase is not, in fact, a violation of the decorum rules.”

Mace, putting in her entry for Asshole of the Year, refused to submit. “Mr. Chairman, I’m not going to be counseled by a man over men and women’s spaces or men who have mental health issues dressing as women.”

That response, like her previous one, made no sense, but still, some conservative pundits applauded. Matt Margolis, for example, argued that “tranny” isn’t really a slur. Bologna. I knew the word was a slur decades ago. He lionizes Mace for refusing to submit to a Democrats because, he claims, “everything” is a slur to progressives now. That might be a justifiable exaggeration in some cases, but not when a real, undeniable slur like “tranny” is involved. Connolly is 100% correct: there is no excuse for members of Congress to deliberately use terms that only exist to offend and marginalize minorities. To do so gives a license to citizens to behave hatefully, because our elected representatives are supposed to be role models and to exemplify the best conduct in public, not the worst.

I say this with full recognition that my ethics, decorum and civility standards for members of Congress is so alien to so many current members today that it is almost futile to keep insisting on it. Just watch the ridiculous spectacle House members and Senators made of themselves protesting against Elon Musk yesterday.

A civil, responsible elected official should be able to make her points without stooping to gutter slurs.

UPDATE to “Can Anyone Think of an Innocent, Ethical Explanation For USAID’s Giving $8.1 Million to Politico? Because I Can’t”: It’s Even Worse Than That…

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

At this point, my head is metaphorically spinning as new revelations about the money-laundering, journalism-bribery and astounding abuse of U.S. taxpayer funds just under a single bloated, unaccountable, Democratic ideologue-infested agency are coming out left and right, from credible sources and marginal ones, as the crumbling Axis denies, obfuscates, screams, threatens, and throws up dust. I confess: I don’t have the time or the skills to gather all of the information, vet it, and explain it. That’s not my job, either. I resent the fact—actually “resent” is not a strong enough word—that our most prominent journalists who should be informing the public regarding the USAID/Politico scandal are doing anything but.

Thus the thread on the post yesterday introducing the topic includes among the most recent of its 60 comments (as of this moment), a sincere reader offering this: “I just spent some time today since this hit the news on the USASPENDING site and confirmed Politico only received two awards, one for 20 thousand, the other for 24 thousand dollars from the USAID. So it does appear your post is wrong.”  No, what’s wrong is that the actual expenditures have been disguised, hidden, mis-labled, and been examined through so many disparate sources that it is impossible for even well-intentioned readers to answer the question, “What’s going on here?” The Axis propaganda media news site Mediate made the same claim as the commenter, quoting Politico’s management that the “subscription” support was as pure as the driven snow. As with the other “usual suspects” like CNN’s hack media ethics watchdog Brain Stelter, the current strategy is to pretend this is much ado about nothing. Stelter’s defense: Why isn’t DOGE going after waste in misspent funds in the Defense Department?

Who can you trust? Apparently nobody. And that’s dangerous and frightening. AND I have no idea what to do about it.

I would have once expected the Columbia Journalism Review to be a source that might give definitive intelligence on this matter. Here, after hundreds of words attacking Trump, Musk, and DOGE, it tells us,

$268 million [of the now frozen USAID funds] was earmarked to fund “independent media and the free flow of information” this year. In the recent past, USAID had boasted of supporting more than six thousand journalists, around seven hundred independent newsrooms, and nearly three hundred media-focused civil society groups in thirty or so countries…

Including ours? “Independent” journalism being funded by a U.S. agency with a political agenda is an oxymoron anywhere. What would U.S. pundits say if it learned that, say, Russia, Ukraine or Israel was sending funds to the New York Post or some of its reporters to encourage them to be “independent”?

Most of the revelations about the USAID-Politico connection have come from social media, requiring a click obsession to track the sources down, with the main reporting on the developments coming from sources like this New Jersey publication, which wrote yesterday in part,

Documents revealed that from 2024, under the Biden administration, Politico received approximately $9.6 million in funding over just over a year. This funding was distributed across various branches of the organization, though the exact purposes of these funds have not been publicly detailed by Politico or the government agencies involved….Political analysts and media watchdogs have been quick to comment on the implications of such funding. “The revelation of government funding to media outlets like Politico raises serious questions about editorial independence and the potential for conflicts of interest,” said media critic David Smith.  “[I]t’s a stark reminder of how governmental financial support can influence, or at least be perceived to influence, journalism.”

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Addendum To “Groundhog Day Ethics Update: Post-Election Freak-Out and More!” [Item #8]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Phooey. Missed it by that much! When I searched my Facebook feed this morning for one of my FBF’s freakouts, all I could find was a relatively tame rant about Republicans giving tax cuts to the rich. Then, just a few hours later and after I had posted “Groundhog Day Ethics Update: Post-Election Freak-Out and More!,” this masterpiece was posted by someone whom I have known since 1978. After her name, there were over a hundred signatories.

Comments are solicited.

Enjoy!

***

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Ethics Observations on a Hollywood Controversy I Could Not Possibly Care Less About

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This story gets a Kaufman, the Ethics Alarms label for a topic that rates George S. Kaufman’s famous assessment of his interest in Fifties crooner Eddie Fisher’s difficulties finding younger women to date. (Eddie, you may recall, was the husband Elizabeth Taylor divorced to hook up with Richard Burton, and who earlier, with Debbie Reynolds, fathered Carrie Fisher.) Kaufman said, when posed with Fisher’s dilemma on a TV panel show,

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope. The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

And yet there have been dozens of news stories and social media posts about the current story, and I feel compelled to comment.

“Emilia Pérez” is a 2024 Spanish-language “French musical crime comedy” about a Mexican cartel leader who enlists a lawyer to help her disappear so that she may transition into a woman. [Comment: Well, other movies with insane premises have managed to be good…] At the 97th Academy Awards, “Emilia Pérez” will have 13 nominations, including Best Picture. Karla Sophia Gascón, who plays the cartel leader, is the first openly trans woman to be nominated as Best Actress.

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Cognitive Dissonance Scale Lesson For Senate Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I have mentioned here frequently that one of two things I learned in college that have been most useful in my life and career is Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Scale. The concept illustrated by the scale is also one of the most useful tools for ethical analysis, often essential to answering the question, “What’s going on here?” the entry point to many perplexing situations. Check the tag: it just took me 15 minutes to scroll though the posts that got it. I was surprised to find that I didn’t use the tag until 2014, when the scale helped me conclude that the Tea Party, then in ascendancy, was “doomed by a powerful phenomenon it obviously doesn’t understand: Cognitive Dissonance.” Heard much about the Tea Party lately? See, I’m smart! I’m not dumb like everybody says… I wrote then,

As psychologist Leon Festinger showed a half a century ago, we form our likes, dislikes, opinions and beliefs to a great extent based on our subconscious reactions to who and what they are connected with and associated to. This is, to a considerable extent, why leaders and celebrities are such powerful influences on society. It explains why we tend to adopt the values of our parents, and it largely explains many marketing and advertising techniques that manipulate our desires and preferences. Simply put, if someone we admire adopts a position or endorses a product, person or idea, he or she will naturally raise it in our estimation. If however, that position, product, person or idea is already extremely low in our esteem, even though his endorsement might raise it, even substantially, his own status will suffer, and fall. He will slide down the admiration scale, even if that which he endorses rises. If what the individual endorses is sufficiently deplored, it might even wipe out his positive standing entirely.

The implications of this phenomenon are many and varied, and sometimes complex. If a popular and admired politician espouses a policy, many will assume the policy is wise simply because he supports it. If an unpopular fool then argues passionately for the same policy, Festinger’s theory tells us, it might..

1. Raise the fool’s popularity, if the policy is sufficiently popular.

2. Lower support for the policy, if he is sufficiently reviled, and even

3. Lower the popularity of the admired politician, who will suffer for being associated with an idea that had been embraced by a despised dolt.

This subconscious shifting, said Festinger, goes on constantly, effecting everything from what movies we like to the clothes we wear to how we vote.

Here, for the heaven-knows-how-many-th time, is the scale in simplified form…

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Again: How Does One Ethically Respond When One’s Friends Are Slipping Into The Throes Of Madness?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Nah, the Trump Deranged aren’t losing their frickin’ minds…

That’s the most recent cartoon from Ann Telnaes, that witty, subtle, objective and non-partisan political cartoonist who quit the Washington Post who didn’t think her juvenile submission was worth publishing. So now she’s operates from her substack, issuing brilliant art like that. Incredibly, one of my oldest and most accomplished friends posted that crap—it’s the equivilent of a schoolboy drawing of the unpopular kid with blacked out teeth and horns—with approval on his Facebook page, where his decision was roundly praised as he revealed that he subscribed to her visual hate-fests. This is the equivalent of someone announcing that he has decided to subscribe to the “Turd of the Week” service. Another equally rational, intelligent Facebook friend until he went bonkers posted a long, irrelevant quote from the Nuremberg trials about the nature of fascism, and everyone metaphorically nodded and applauded as if it has anything to do with current events.

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