It says something, I am not quite sure what, about our deteriorating political culture that the two poorest losers in American Presidential election history were the last two losing candidates, and whoever third place belongs to—Aaron Burr maybe? John Adams? Adlai Stevenson made some ungracious comments after his second defeat by Eisenhower suggesting that Ike’s weak heart would make Nixon President—is too far from them to be seen with the Mt. Palomar telescope.
Hillary Clinton had the title wrapped up, I assumed for all time, after her four-year whine-fest following her defeat by Donald Trump. She announced herself a member of “the resistance,” blamed everyone and everything imaginable except the real culprit (herself), and encouraged surrogates and the news media to attempt various dishonest arguments to cast suspicion on Trump’s victory. Was her refusal to make the traditional statement wishing the new President well and pledging to do what she could in the interest of unity and the national interest the catalyst for the Democrats’ villainous effort to undermine Trump’s Presidency by false accusations, contrived impeachment and ad hominem slurs? Whether it was or not, Clinton openly fumed and seethed about her loss, trapped in the anger stage of grief and never moving on to acceptance.
Donald Trump, of course, passed her in the Bad Loser race like she was standing still once the 2020 election night showed Joe Biden was a winner. Not only did Trump refuse to concede, he continued to insist that the election was rigged and even that he had won…in fact, won by a landslide. He encouraged public protests and employed lawyers who over-promised, made intemperate claims, and either came close to the line of unethical advocacy or crossed it.
[Introduction:I was pleased to see this addition today’s Open Forum by E2. I have seen “American Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference,” and intended to eventually do a post about this terrible episode in U.S. history. I was especially thrilled to see the references to Breckenridge Long (above). I have long considered building a page here of American ethics villains through the years, and Long deserves to be on it.]
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I spent 90 excruciating minutes a couple of weeks ago watching “American Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference”– a PBS documentary which unlike other PBS productions actually tries to relate an unvarnished truth. It is a devastating piece, and oddly, seems to disappear and then reappear on Amazon.
I knew a fair amount about all this from my history reading, but this was much more. It has real photographic documentation (e.g., a photo of a document about Jewish immigration to the US, with a handwritten note: “Ignore… [signed] FDR”); and a detailed photograph of the State Department’s Breckenridge Long’s advisory to US consulates worldwide about ways in which they could delay Jews’ emigration to the US between 1940 and 1944 – not coincidentally when 6 million died at the hands of the Nazis.
Slavery, our original sin, is not the topic here. And yes, we denigrated and mistreated the Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants, but at least they were allowed to come here and had a chance to live. Not so for the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe when the Final Solution arrived. The horrible truth is that it was not a primary cultural or bias problem among the general population that condemned so many innocent Jews including children to death, but a persistent and sinister State Department policy.
Why does Ethics Alarms rate Professor Goodwin an Ethics Villain rather than the more common, and usually forgivable, status of Ethics Dunce? It is because in her op-ed for the New York Times,“I Was Raped by My Father. An Abortion Saved My Life,” she deliberately misrepresents the law and ethics of the abortion issue while using her status as a law professor to mislead readers. She also presents an argument that is purely an appeal to emotion, though as a scholar and teacher she is professionally obligated not to advance a position without basing it in reason and fact.
There is nothing unethical or inappropriate about Goodwin advancing a pro-abortion position if she does so honestly. She is obviously committed on the issue as the founding director of the U.C.I. Law Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy and its Reproductive Justice Initiative, and the author of “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood.” Terrific: make your case, Professor! I have an open mind; I look forward to reading it. You obviously have the skill, background, experience and erudition to be enlightening and persuasive on the topic.
But Goodwin doesn’t make a legal case, an ethical case, a moral case or even a logical one in her op-ed. Doing any of those require acknowledging counter arguments and rebutting them with facts and analysis. Instead, her essay goes straight for the heartstrings and viscera, bypassing the brain entirely.
Goodwin was raped by her father when she was 12, you see. How horrible. She courts our sympathy, and, not inappropriately, receives it. However, she never makes the case that a young woman’s (or girl’s) misfortunes, however severe, justify taking the life of another human being.
Transcripts released yesterday revealed that CNN host and beefcake star Chris Cuomo actively worked with his brother’s aides to defend then Gov. Andrew Cuomo from the many sexual harassment accusers whose accounts eventually forced the Governor to resign. Chris Cuomo. aka. “Fredo,” had looked in America’s face—you know, like Bill Clinton when he said he never has sex with “that woman”—in August and assured it that he ‘never made calls to the press” on behalf of his brother. But New York Attorney General Letitia James’ report revealed texts where Chris told aide Melissa DeRosa he would take up the allegations with his “sources,” and offered to help draft statements for his brother’s team. Cuomo used his CNN contacts dig up information about his brothers’ his accusers, presumably to discredit them. Another revelation in James’ documents was that Cuomo was working through a friend to approach actor Alec Baldwin about making a video defending Andrew.
In summary, Chris Cuomo used his contacts, sources and influence as a CNN journalist to actively assist an elected official, indeed to assist an official in avoiding the consequences of illegal acts. This is, duh, wildly unethical, unprofessional, and a breach of trust with both CNN and the public. Apparently it is even so unethical that other unethical journalists of the Left, who are usually hesitant to throw stones at fellow propagandists and fake news purveyors from inside their glass houses, have pointed their fingers at poor Chris like pod people identifying their next target for assimilation.
It’s like one of those monster vs. monster movies, such as “Godzilla vs. King Kong”: who do you root for? In the case of extreme right-wing, irresponsible and uncivil GOP fire-breather Lauren Boebert battling extreme leftist House Democrat Illhan Omar, the only ethical position is to hope they fight each other right out of Congress, where they both do immeasurable harm.
Omar is, I hope I do not have to explain in much detail, horrible. She would be the worst of “The Squad,” but, incredibly, the other members are so irredeemably awful that this is a tough call. Her background is full of scandals that would guarantee the end of the career of any non-black, non-Muslim representative in a sane party, which the Democratic Party is no longer. She repeatedly makes anti-Semitic, anti-Israel comments. Her infamous characterization of 9-11 (a comment barely reported by the mainstream media) was that “some people did something.” She has advocated defunding the police in Minnesota.
None of this justifies any member of Congress attacking her with ad hominem rhetoric, but Colorado’s Lauren Boebert is special, even by far right Republican standards. She has used Omar’s religion against her, calling her part of a “Jihad Squad” and told an audience before Thanksgiving that a Capitol Police officer was concerned about Omar boarding an elevator until Boebert reassured him by saying, “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine.”
What’s the ethical way to deal with “Professor Nalo”?
(Or is there one?)
Stipulated: a grade school teacher’s sexual orientation, identity, habits and proclivities are not a proper topic for instruction or discussion with students. Prof. Nalo also raises the question of whether it is competent or responsible for a school to hire a screaming narcissist as a teacher at any level.
[Full disclosure: One of my favorite teachers growing up was, in fact, a screaming narcissist, though I didn’t realize it at the time. But boy, did she do a lot of damage to some of my classmates.]
There’s not too much I can add to the many tributes and essays about Stephen Sondheim, who died yesterday at the age of 91, but I feel I owe him a special salute for his ethics. Ethics is not a common trait in theater, or in show business generally. Sondheim, one could argue (and I will) built his career on ethical values.
The Times has three excellent pieces: a front page obituary, a report on a final interview, and an appreciation by critic Jesse Green. I don’t disagree with any of them, nor do I dispute Sondheim’s importance to musical theater and the culture, which justifies his superstar send-off. None of them come right out and say what I believe to be obvious, if inconvenient: for all his influence, Sondheim represented a fascinating, elitist, dead-end for musical theater, which he was determined to elevate whether it was healthy for the genre or not.
Musical theater arose from humble, populist origins like the British music hall, and it was generally accepted to be a way for ordinary people to have a good time without having to think too much. That model served the genre, and the industry, well until Sondheim’s mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II took off from where only scattered experiments like “Lady in the Dark” and “Pal Joey” had previously ventured to bring serious topics and dilemmas into song while still sending the crowd home humming. Sondheim, once he had freed himself from writing words to established composers’ tunes in “West Side Story” and “Gypsy,” deliberately sought darker, more complex stories to musicalize than even Oscar would dare attempt.
Russian dolls-style Comments of the Day can be the best feature of Ethics Alarms, when erudite commenters do a tag-team job on complex issues. So it is in this case, with Humble Talent taking off from Steve-O’s astute chain reaction observation.
What is remarkable to me is that the conversations about Rittenhouse’s travails somehow never explored the fact that all three of those he shot were felons with significant criminal records. The first I realized this was when I was directed to Ann Coulter’s piece.
While it is irrefutable that this information should not have been brought to the jury’s attention because it was inherently prejudicial, it is also irrefutable that the fact that the three men were 1) violent lawbreakers and 2) white fatally undercuts much of the Left’s narrative, as mapped out by the news media. It is particularly weird that now, after the verdict and when the proclivities of the three men have finally been widely revealed, the Rittenhouse-Deranged are still talking about them like they were peaceful demonstrators who wanted nothing more than to ensure racial justice, social equity, rainbows and moonbeams for all humankind. Actor-activist (good actor, fatuous activist) Mark Ruffalo’s tweet was a classic of the genre: “We come together to mourn the lives lost to the same racist system that devalues Black lives and devalued the lives of Anthony and JoJo.”
Huh? “Jo-Jo” raped five boys. It’s awfully hard to “devalue” the life of someone like that, who has had negative value to society. If Ruffalo knows this, then his tweet is demented. If he doesn’t, then it’s irresponsible. Either way, shut up and act, Mark.
I don’t know if it makes any difference, but I was thinking about the left’s newly beloved “JoJo” and the narrative that Kyle didn’t have any business being on scene.
We knew, previous to this, that “JoJo” Rosenbaum had just been released from a mental health institution. We knew that he was off his meds. We knew that he had several prior convictions for molesting children. We knew that the bag that he threw at Kyle was filled with toiletries that he took home from the mental institution, and that he had that in part because he hadn’t even gone home to change. He was released the night of the riot and immediately went on about the business of rioting. We know that he appeared hyper-aggressive all night, we know that he called some of the people in Kyle’s group, quote, “niggers”.
Aside from that last sentence, Kyle knew none of this, so it really shouldn’t factor into the actions of Rittenhouse on that fateful August night. But if we’re going to armchair quarterback the plays that Kyle was making, maybe it makes sense to ask questions like “What was “JoJo” doing there?” Because there are a whole lot of reasons to believe that he wasn’t even aware the Blake shooting had occurred.
Above is a comic I never heard of (but one with a regular platform), grandstanding over the Ritterhouse verdict as she reveals that she either has no idea what the facts are in the case, or is deliberately hate-mongering by sending lies into the public consciousness. She tells us that she takes her responsibility to “tell people what they need to know” seriously, and then tells them what isn’t true. “It’s not OK”, she says with great emotion. “For a man to garb a rifle, travel across state lines, and shoot three people and walk free.” In fact, it’s not “OK” for anyone to deliberately misstate the key facts of a controversial episode to the many ignoramuses who may be listening and are likely to be misled.
Rittenhouse did not “grab a rifle” and cross state lines. The law says that it is “OK” for someone—regardless of their race— to defend themselves with deadly force if they reasonably believe his life is at stake. Then she goes on to outright racism, claiming that whites have “always” escaped consequences when they engage in murder. She calls the judge and jury racist, for participating in a trial that acquitted a white man for shooting three other white men.
She seemed like an excellent introduction to this list of similarly dishonest, ignorant or hateful people showing their lack of fairness and critical thinking skills as they descended into hysteria and ugly rhetoric…because so many on the Left are receptive to it. This is not about a difference of legitimate opinion when Americans of note or in positions of influence and responsibility engage in inflammatory declarations based on a false description of what occurred.
Certainly the news media, even more than usual, played its “enemy of the people” role to the hilt, but its flagrant false reporting on the Jacob Blake shooting was four months ago. There is no excuse for anyone with integrity and responsibility still talking about the Kenosha police shooting “an unarmed black man” or representing Blake as anything other than a dangerous outlaw who was engaged in a crime, and justly shot. Because there was no racism or police brutality involved, the protests and riots supposedly prompted by the episode were contrived and based on incompetent (or intentionally incendiary) reporting. The subsequent narrative, that Rittenhouse was opposing “racial justice” and thus a “white supremacist” because he (foolishly, recklessly) sought to mitigate the destruction caused by an ongoing riot (triggered by an incident that only was “racist” in the overheated minds of the reporters and race-hucksters) cannot be defended.
The fools and dunces whose statements are noted below are shooting off their mouths (or social media accounts) in defiance of reality. As Bari Weiss points out in her substackessay (Pointer: John Paul),
To acknowledge the facts of what happened that night is not political. It is simply to acknowledge reality. It is to say that facts are still facts and that lies are lies. It is to insist that mob justice is not justice. It is to say that media consensus is not the equivalent of due process.
And, I would add, it is to say that just because politicians, celebrities, pundits and your Facebook pals are taking a position that literally makes no sense and is based on extreme bias and fantasy is not justification for following the parade.
Below is an incomplete list of the “Facts Don’t Matter” mob. Not surprisingly, I didn’t particularly respect any of these people even before they beclowned themselves in this ethics train wreck. Even so, there are serious problems in the culture (and the educational system) when so many default to gullibility, confusion, miserable logic and emotion. The unethical reaction to the Rittenhouse verdict is, perhaps, more significant than the verdict itself.
Having reviewed the depressing small population of Ethics Heroes in this Ethics Wreck in Part I, I’ll largely leave the determination of which of the following ethics miscreants should be designated as dunces, villains or fools (or all three) to you. In this, I take my lead from the Saturday Night Live game show, “Geek, Dweeb or Spazz?”
However, there are some easily identified Ethics Villains, beginning with
While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken. I ran on a promise to bring Americans together, because I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us. I know that we’re not going to heal our country’s wounds overnight, but I remain steadfast in my commitment to do everything in my power to ensure that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, under the law.
I urge everyone to express their views peacefully, consistent with the rule of law. Violence and destruction of property have no place in our democracy. The White House and Federal authorities have been in contact with Governor Evers’s office to prepare for any outcome in this case, and I have spoken with the Governor this afternoon and offered support and any assistance needed to ensure public safety.
Ethics verdict:Despicable and inexcusable.
What’s Biden “angry” about? Nobody should be “angry” that a jury did its job, and nobody who paid attention to the trial can be “angry” that a jury couldn’t find Rittenhouse guilty after the prosecution’s botched case. Anger implies wrongdoing. The President of the United States should never, in any case, express an opinion about a jury’s decision.
Does anyone think Biden followed the case carefully, or watched it unfold? His comment is a deliberate pander to the worst of the Democratic base, and does as much to encourage violence as anything Trump said after the election.
Moreover, Biden is personally responsible for much of the confusion and anger over the case, having twice called Rittenhouse, falsely, a “white supremacist.”
Then he has the gall to say that he promised to “bring Americans together” after he deliberately enabled the race-baiters in Kenosha, and that he believes that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, after he poisoned public opinion against Rittenhouse.
Biden’s not just a weak and addled President. He’s a two-faced, mean-spirited creep.
The rest of the Rittenhouse Rogues Gallery members who can be comfortably designated as Ethics Villains:
Ethics Alarms 