“bias makes you stupid”

The Ethics Conflict In The Daniel Penny Case

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

With yesterday’s developments in the Daniel Penny trial, it is appropriate to ponder the various ethical issues involved.

Below I have reposted the 2023 essay titled “Ethics Quote Of The Month: Heather MacDonald.” Its main thrust was to highlight MacDonald’s excellent article about how his arrest and prosecution reflected another outbreak of the “Black Lives Matter” bias of presumed racism. Penny is white, the violent lunatic who was menacing NYC subway riders when Penny stepped in and, the prosecution claimed, murdered him in an act of vigilantism, was black. It is highly doubtful that any prosecution would have followed the incident if the races were reversed. For example, the colors were reversed in the Ashli Babbitt shooting by a Capitol cop on January 6, 2021, and the black officer was not only exonerated but given a promotion.

Yesterday, Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the second-degree manslaughter charge against ex-Marine Penny in the death of Jordan Neely at the request of prosecutors after jurors said they were deadlocked on the primary charge. He then told the jury to continue deliberating on  the lesser charge of whether Penny committed criminally negligent homicide when he put the black, disturbed, homeless man in a choke-hold resulting in his death. The dismissed second-degree manslaughter charge carried a maximum 15-year sentence; criminally negligent homicide carries a four-year maximum sentence. While this was happening, Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) told reporters that he was planning to introduce a resolution to award Daniel Penny the Congressional Gold Medal. “Daniel Penny’s actions exemplify what it means to stand against the grain to do right in a world that rewards moral cowardice,” said Crane, a retired Navy SEAL.  “Our system of ‘justice’ is fiercely corrupt, allowing degenerates to steamroll our laws and our sense of security, while punishing the righteous. Mr. Penny bravely stood in the gap to defy this corrupt system and protect his fellow Americans. I’m immensely proud to introduce this resolution to award him with the Congressional Gold Medal to recognize his heroism.”

You can hardly highlight an ethics conflict in brighter colors than that. Penny could be found guilty of a crime, and at the same time be officially recognized as a hero. An ethics conflict is when two equally valid ethical principles oppose each other and dictate a different result. That’s the situation here, and the answer to the starting point for ethical analysis, “What’s going on here?“

The racially biased motivation for charging Penny may be another example of authorities doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. If you listen to Fox News regarding the trial, you will hear laments that the prosecution sends the wrong message to Americans. One commentator cited the 60-year-old Kitty Genovese incident, which Ethics Alarms has frequently referenced. A woman was murdered as many residents of a nearby apartment complex heard her screams, but none of them called the police or sought to intervene. The prosecution of Penny validates their non-action, the commentator said. It encourages passive citizenship and rejects the duty to rescue.

No, that’s an analogy too far: the man threatening passengers on the subway was right in front of Penny; the people who ignored Genovese’s screams only had to pick up a phone. Nobody held them to blame for not running out to rescue the woman and fight off her attacker. They didn’t perform the minimum acts of good citizenship required in such a situation. Penny’s trial raises the legitimate question of when maximum intervention is justified, and what the consequences should be if something goes wrong.

Does society want to encourage and reward vigilantes? The “Death Wish” movies explored that issue, albeit at an infantile level. At very least, shouldn’t part of the message sent to citizens be that if you choose to intervene in a situation that would normally be handled by law enforcement, you had better be careful, prudent and effective or else you will be accountable for what goes wrong as a result of your initiative? After all, isn’t it certain that a police officer whose choke-hold killed Neely under the same circumstances would probably be tried, or at very least sued for damages (as Penny will be, if he is ultimately acquitted)? Indeed, based on the George Floyd fiasco, Neely’s death at the hands of an over-zealous cop might have sparked a new round of mostly peaceful protests and Neely’s elevation to martyr status.

As a society and one that encourages courage, compassion, and civic involvement, we should encourage citizens to intervene and “fix the problem” if they are in a position to do so and have the skills and judgment to do it effectively. Yet a society that encourages vigilantes is courting chaos and the collapse of the rule of law.  I absolutely regard Penny as a hero, but even heroes must be accountable for their actions. What is the most ethical message to send society about citizen rescuers?

I don’t think it is as easy a question as Penny’s supporters claim.

Now here’s the article from past year:

***

“When government abdicates its responsibility to maintain public safety, a few citizens, for now at least, will step into the breach. Penny was one of them. He restrained Neely not out of racism or malice but to protect his fellow passengers. He was showing classically male virtues: chivalry, courage and initiative. Male heroism threatens the entitlement state by providing an example of self-reliance apart from the professional helper class. And for that reason, he must be taken down.”

—Heather Mac Donald, in her scorching essay, “Daniel Penny is a scapegoat for a failed system”

That paragraph continues,

A homicide charge is the most efficient way to discourage such initiative in the future. Stigma is another. The mainstream media has characterized the millions of dollars in donations that have poured into Daniel Penny’s legal defense fund as the mark of ignorant bigots who support militaristic white vigilantes.

There is no way law enforcement can or should avoid at least exploring a manslaughter charge when an unarmed citizen is killed after a good Samaritan intervenes in a situation that he or she sees as potentially dangerous. Nevertheless, what appears to be the planned vilification of ex-Marine Daniel Penny by Democrats and the news media to put desperately-needed wind back in the metaphorical sails of Black Lives Matter and to goose racial division as the 2024 elections approach graphically illustrates just how unethical and ruthless the 21st Century American Left has become. (I know, I know, we don’t need any more evidence…). Mac Donald’s essay is superb, as many of hers often are. Do read it all, and them make your Facebook friends’ heads explode by sharing it.

Here are some other juicy and spot-on excerpts:

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Trump-Deranged Exploding Axis Head of the Week: LA Times Senior Legal Columnist Harry Litman

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I’m going to send you over to Harry Litman’s substack to read his whole rant against Donald Trump and the LA Times: who knows, some of you may want to subscribe. As for me, “Why I Just Resigned From The Los Angeles Times” just fills me with sympathy for the poor guy, and hope he finds some help. He’s not an idiot, or wasn’t: he’s a lawyer with an impressive CV, and has all the markers of a normal, functioning citizen like you and me. This is what living in California, allowing yourself to be lobotomized by the Axis of Unethical Conduct’s Big Lies, and and being blind to the misconduct and flaws of your own party will do to you. Litman just metaphorically set himself on fire to protest Trump’s election and signs that his trade, which has completely disgraced itself over the past decade, might be slowly reforming.

The thing is more than 2000 words, almost all of them you have read or heard before from Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid, The View, Charles M. Blow, Jonathan Capeheart, Van Jones, the Lincoln Group, among others, including…

…you know. Here are some choice excerpts:

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Unethical Tweet of the Week: “The View” DEI Hispanic, Ana Navarro-Cárdenas 

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Navarro, a fixture on ABC’s “The View,” has been an embarrassment to all of her media employers; they have just been too foolish to realize it. She’s a fake Republican/conservative, initially hired by CNN as a token so she could bash Donald Trump and claim objectivity. She isn’t witty, analytical or smart and has a speech impediment: if she were a white male, she would be defending DUI cases.

That tweet is special. She’s allegedly a lawyer, and she doesn’t know what a precedent is? The precedent is a President giving a suspiciously extensive pardon including crimes that haven’t been charged yet that the President might have directly benefited from to his son. That’s never happened before because it directly benefits the President and has the appearance of impropriety.

The whole tweet, moreover, is based on a passel of rationalizations falsely applied, like “Everybody does it” (#1) and “There are worse things” (#22). “Every President” doesn’t pardon their immediate family. The closest analog was Bill Clinton pardoning his half-brother for a cocaine conviction, but Roger’s crimes were neither as numerous nor as serious as Hunter’s, nor did anyone think Bill had any connection to them.

Saying that Trump also appointed his father-in-law as French ambassador is as relevant to Navarro’s argument as writing, “And he has bad breath, too!” That factoid has nothing to do with the pardon.

Additionally, citing Wilson, Clinton and Trump as Presidential role models in a matter of ethics is idiotic strategy. They are three of the most ethically-inert of all our Chief Executives, and those pardons match their proclivities. Defending Biden by comparing him to that trio is desperate.

I saved the best for last, though: Navarro-Cárdenas is making Americans dumber by spreading Presidential fiction. Woodrow Wilson had no brother-in-law named “Hunter DeButts,” so he couldn’t have pardoned him.

This pure fiction, the results of Navarro being hoaxed or the victim of an AI “hallucination”: either way, it’s irresponsible journalism. She obviously didn’t check her facts before making a false statement, one that impugned a President (though one who earned a lot of impugning).

Regarding Whether Canadians Are “More Free” Than Americans…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a government agency, decreed that the township of Emo must pay damages to Borderland Pride, a Canadian LGBTQ+ activist group, for refusing to proclaim “Pride Month” in 2020. Borderland Pride had “requested” that Emo declare June of that year as Pride Month—now it is clear that this was no mere request— and display a rainbow flag for one week. The township refused, the bigots. How dare they! Now it must pay the organization $10,000 with the other $5,000 coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker. The tribunal also ordered McQuaker and the Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality to complete a “Human Rights 101” training course offered by the Ontario Human Rights Commission within 30 days.

In case you missed a class or two, the damages are called “compelled speech,” a cornerstone of totalitarianism. The “Human Rights 101” training course is called “re-education,” or “brain-washing.” In the United States, such a result would be unimaginable, or at least is right now, since Kamala Harris wasn’t elected.

Whew! Close call, eh?

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“Wicked”: A Review (Part 2: Politics and Propaganda)

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” became a critical and financial success by merging the Frank L. Baum children’s series with contemporary issues and values, notably discrimination, prejudice, the abuse of power, and corruption. The still-running Broadway musical “Wicked” softened the preaching and propaganda a bit, but it has come back with full force in the movie adaptation now playing at inflated prices in theater near you. (I purchased a box of Junior Mints and regular size coke. They cost 15 bucks.)

In the novel and the musical, the witch-to-be is born green, leading to a life of being the victim of hate and discrimination. The movie cast not just a black woman in the role, but one with pronounced African features (in contrast to, say, Halle Berry) making it nearly impossible not to experience the plot as a thinly veiled Critical Race Theory brief. Though there are black actors and actresses in Oz here and there, only the white characters are seen to be repulsed or frightened by Elphaba (Maguire gave her a name), because the director correctly calculated that in his film, the character is as much black as green. We see her rejected and cast aside (to be raised by a bear) by her father the moment he sees her skin shade, so it is clear where this is going: Elphaba is going to be forced to fight against the cruel culture that rejected her. Thus we know that she is a personification of the Black Lives Matter riots within the first ten minutes of the movie.

Just as early in the movie we know we are in the grip of sensitive wokism obsessions when we we find ourselves in Munchkinland and the Munchkins pretty much look like anyone you know. The movie “Wicked” is obsessed with, the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz,” had the Munchkins played by the Singer Midgets, a little people performing group. In the Baum book that started it all, they are described as being about the same size as Dorothy, who is about 10, but one way or the other, we know the Munchkins are small. Ah, but Disney’s endlessly delayed “Snow White” movie got into trouble after the most famous acting dwarf, Peter Dinklage, declared that the whole idea of portraying the Little People of the familiar fairy tale was offensive, so Disney eliminated the dwarfs entirely. That was also attacked by Little People activists—erasing them, you know. Similarly, Peter Jackson got in trouble for using computer magic to make a full size actor look like he was a a yard or so tall in the “Lord of the Rings series.” So “Wicked” director Jon M. Chu punted and just made the Muchkins normal size and boring. And that wasn’t all: to make sure Dinklage didn’t find some reason to take shots at his movie, the Little Actor was hired to provide the voice of a talking goat.

This is DEI at its silliest. The film gets credit for hiring an “under-represented minority” who was personally responsible for the film not hiring many more members of the same minority. Furthermore, while I like Dinklage (who became famous in “Game of Thrones”) as much as anybody, the only reason he’s a star is because he’s so short. Sure, he plays lawyers, doctors, gangsters, but no matter what he plays, he plays it as a dwarf. That’s the only thing that distinguishes him from hundreds of other equally able actors. It makes no sense at all to hire Peter Dinklage as a voice actor. His unique feature can add nothing to such a gig. The film took away another talented vocal actor’s job so it could be “inclusive” and hire a dwarf for his voice alone.

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A Nelson For All The Progressives, Democrats and Trump-Haters Freaking Out Over Biden’s Pardoning His Son

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Didn’t everyone know that Joe would eventually pardon Hunter? The fact that they didn’t shows the depth of Woke-World’s delusions.

EA had an Ethics Quiz on this topic yesterday but the point was to determine what Biden’s most ethical course was, not to suggest that it wasn’t obvious what he would do despite all of his “promises.” I stated that for me the ethical course was clear: the President has an obligation to do what is in the best interests of the nation regardless of its effects on his family or himself. Just as I was preparing a post on how the EA ethics decision-making systems would help the President to the right thing, I heard about the pardon, rendering the issue moot, or at least too moot to justify an hour of my time.

The Axis really exposed its stupidity on this one. Here’s a supercut of the Left’s propaganda merchants praising Biden’s integrity for promising not to pardon his son..

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Obnoxious and Unethical Post-Election Reaction #1: Comedian Jim Gaffigan

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Shut up and be funny, Jim.

Jim Gaffigan can be a funny stand-up comic, but whoever it was at CBS who invited him to write a political op-ed piece should be fired. Here it is, with a few comments from me…

“How are you holding up? Are you over it? I’m over it. I’m fine. At least, at times I think that. It’s obviously not what I wanted but that’s life. I’m not going to lie. It been an adjustment, but the world continues to spin.”

It’s an election, you fool. Just because you hang out with people who are Trump Deranged and think anything short of woke insanity, mandatory political correctness and free “gender-affirming care” for illegal immigrants in prison is fascism doesn’t mean this or any election is something you have to “hold up” after. This kind of talk spreads panic, paranoia, division and craziness. Shut up.

“And I’m an adult. I have children that are counting on me. I mean, they don’t listen to me, but I can’t just curl up in a ball and mope.”

Then you’re not an adult.

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If There Was Any Doubt That “The Ethicist” Is Pandering To NYT’s Trump Deranged Readers, There Is No Longer…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Since last week, in succession, “The Ethicist” who hangs out at the New York Times Magazine has chosen to answer “My Mom Voted for Trump. Can We Let It Go?,” then “Am I a Hypocrite for Calling Donald Trump a Liar?” (which was too stupid for Ethics Alarms to even make fun of) and now comes the brain-melting “Shouldn’t Trump Voters Be Viewed as Traitors?”

“Name Withheld” writes, “From my perspective, the attack on the Capitol spurred on by Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, the efforts to nullify the results of the 2020 election with false electors and unfounded court cases and the persistent effort to discredit those election results without evidence amounted to an attempt to overthrow a pillar of our democracy. More to the point, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 includes crimes against the nation described as treason, misprision of treason, rebellion or insurrection, seditious conspiracy and advocating the overthrow of government. I hold anyone voting for Trump at least morally guilty for the consequences of Jan. 6 and everything that follows the recent election. Would you agree that people who vote for Trump in light of these circumstances are themselves guilty of treasonous acts?”

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From the Harris Campaign, a Post Mortem That Will Stand As a “Bias Makes You Stupid!” Monument For the Ages…

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

A social media commentator called Caesar listened to a long, long podcast exploring the Harris loss with her chief advisors and the architects—if you can call them that without choking—of her campaign, then summarized what he heard here. His summary is too long to summarize on Ethics Alarms, and based on the little I could stand listening to of the podcast, it seems accurate.

The major ethical use of the jaw-dropping results is as a perfect example of the Ethics Alarms motto, “Bias makes you stupid,” in its full, destructive, mind-blowing glory. There is denial and delusion here in abundance, beginning with Caesars first two summaries of what he heard in the post mortem:

  1. The campaign was perfect, and
  2. Harris was perfect.

They also tell you how warped the perception of these presumably intelligent people was and is.

Another unavoidable takeaway from the summary is that Democrats and progressives should be terrified about the prospects for their party if this stunning blindness is typical of their compatriots. They literally don’t understand, not merely why they lost, but also the nation, American society, our culture, our history, Donald Trump, how to process unwelcome data, the essential skills of self-examination and learning from mistakes, and more.

The summary also supports a conclusion I came to shortly after Kamala Harris was installed as Biden’s replacement as the Democrat’s Presidential nominee. The party will never be able to nominate a male, especially a white male, again until a woman finally is elected President. Like General Burnside’s doomed troops at the battle of Fredericksburg, it will keep charging up the hill with inadequate forcesas if there is realistic chance of victory though each failed charge makes the odds worse.

No Wonder Today’s Great Britain Is Choking With Woke Insanity, Censorship and Weeny-ism…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The Hollywood version of the Broadway cult musical “Wicked” appears to be a holiday box office smash. I suppose I’m going to have to see it, though “Wizard of Oz” worship alienated me long ago and how they can justify making a two hour, 45 minute film of just Act I of a three hour musical mystifies me. However, there is something to be learned from the nanny state’s British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) felt that it had to put out these ridiculous trigger warnings for what is essentially a family movie:

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