Character

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Rep. Moulton must have read wrong. See, Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Somehow the Massachusetts Democrat thought the sage words were, “Speak loudly and be a big weenie.”

After the election last year, Moulton criticized his party for avoiding controversial issues like biological men competing in women’s sports. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest…I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.” The reaction by his constituents confirmed why: His comment on the topic were widely criticized and there were resignation from his staff. 

But Moulton continued to channel “Profiles in Courage.” “I stand firmly in my belief for the need for competitive women’s sports to put limits on the participation of those with the unfair physical advantages that come with being born male,” he said. “I probably will be primaried,” he told CNN. “And that’s great. That just proves my point: you can’t speak a sentence that’s out of line and not get backlash from the left. But that’s OK. This is a democracy.”

Impressive. Then, last month, Moulton quietly voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which bans biological males from competing in girls’ school sports. Only two Democrats voted for the bill. He had been the most vocal Democrat in supporting its purpose, but when the time came to vote consistently with his fervent devotion to the safety of his daughters in their future athletic pursuits, he decided that he didn’t want to be primaried after all.

Coward. Liar. Hypocrite. Weasel. Hack.

The NYT Tries To Create Sympathy For An Unsympathetic Jerk And Paints a Fresh Target On His Back

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Is this New York Times piece deliberately making the situation it is reporting on worse, or is the writer (Brendan Kuty) just as clueless as his subject?

Baseball’s Spring Training is rapidly approaching, and so are media stories reminding us that it’s on the way. Today The Athletic, the sports publication that the New York Times owns and operates instead of its own sport page, ran a follow-up to the memorable (in a bad way) incident above that I wrote about here right after it occurred, during the World Series Two asshole Yankee fans (but I repeat myself—see? I’m getting ready for the season too!) nearly ripped Dodger outfielder Mookie Betts’ hand off trying to pry a foul pop out of his glove.

Interference was called, the Yankee batter (Gleyber Torres) was called out, and the two idiots were ejected from the game. For some reason it took Major League Baseball months to decide to ban the two from all ballparks for life, but that was ultimately the decision.

But The Athletic decided that it was time to try to make us feel sorry for Austin Capobianco, the jerk on the left in that photo whose name I had mercifully forgotten. We are told that he received a lot of mean phone calls, hate mail and mean messages on social media. Well, that’s what happens when you behave outrageously on national television and nearly hurt someone. An anonymous hater sent a box of poop to his home. Ew! and unethical, but there are a lot of crazy people out there (just look at yesterday’s protest against Elon Musk).

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Death of a Baseball Ethics Hero: Fay Vincent (1938-2025)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Fay Vincent, the last real Commissioner of Baseball, has died and attention should be paid.

The post of Commissioner of Baseball was created in the wake of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, with baseball’s future in doubt after the revelation that key members of the Chicago White Sox had accepted money from gamblers to throw the World Series to the vastly inferior Cincinnati Reds of the National League. The desperate owners turned to an austere judge, the wonderfully named Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who accepted the job provided that he had absolute power to act in “the best interests of the game.”

Landis ruled with an iron hand and baseball’s perpetually corrupt, greedy and none-too-bright owners backed off while he was in power, from 1920 until his death in 1944. Landis, in the harsh light of hindsight, is now vilified for not figuring out that keeping blacks out of the Major Leagues wasn’t in the best interests of baseball (or blacks, or sports, or democracy, or society, or the nation), but he proved a tough act to follow nonetheless.

Most of his successors were mere figureheads or knuckleheads, notable more for their non-decisions and bad ones than their actions in the “best interests of baseball.” Ford Frick, one of the longest serving Commissioners, is best known for his foolish insistence that Roger Maris didn’t really break Babe Ruth’s season homer record, a controversy decisively ended in the American League three years ago by Aaron Judge. Baseball collected weenies and fools in the role because the owners wanted it that way.

There were a couple of exceptions. Peter Ueberroth made the game infinitely more profitable and considerably more popular by modernizing its brandingm merchandising, promotion and marketing. Bart Giamatti , following in the fading footsteps of Judge Landis, courageously refused to issue The King’s Pass to Pete Rose, one of the most popular former players in the game, and banned him for gambling. But when Giamatti died suddenly from a heart attack after less than a year as Commissioner, he was succeeded by Fay Vincent, in a sequence a bit like when the Vice-President takes over when a POTUS dies. He had been deputy commissioner under his good friend Giamatti, and the owners of the major league teams confirmed him without qualms as the next Commissioner . They thought he was one of them: a corporate veteran and lawyer who had served in top executive roles for Columbia Pictures and Coca-Cola before Giamatti recruited Vincent as his right-hand man.

Vincent, however, was not what the owners wanted or expected. He was intelligent, courageous, far-sighted, and worst of all, as a passionate baseball fan, he took his job description seriously and literally. He didn’t work for the owners, though they could fire him. His stakeholders were fans and the game itself. Vincent’s vision for the job was reminiscent of the difficult ethical conflict accountants face: businesses hire them and pay their salaries, but their duty is to the public.

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Unethical TV Commercial In Oh So Many Ways: 2024 Hyundai Tuscon SEL

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Here’s now sinister this ad is: I must have watched it six or seven times before I thought, “Hey…wait a minute!”

The male “bad date” in the ad is so disgusting a viewer is half-hoping the woman pulls out a .44 and shoots him right between the eyes. This is masterful manipulation at work…he begins with an insult framed as blame causing him disappointment: “You’re too short.” Asshole. Then he reveals his narcicissm and boastfulness, showing the selfie “by the dumbbells.” Giant asshole! Next the air-drumming comment…UNBELIEVABLE asshole! When he gets to the bit about forgetting his wallet and “Sugarmamma,” the viewer is seeing red, and feeling that the victim of this toxic creep is being noble by just sneaking out rather than setting him on fire.

But she isn’t. She’s being an asshole too, just a slightly better one. Leaving the table on false pretenses to escape is cowardly and indefensible. Moreover, someone who misbehaves as outrageously as the “bad date” needs to be told just clearly how unacceptable his conduct is and why, since he obviously doesn’t know. His next victim will at least partially be the runaway date’s fault.

The commercial also showed an anti-female bias by making the bad date a male and his victim female. A genders switched version would inspire at least a substantial reaction from viewers of “What a weenie! The jerk doesn’t have the guts to confront that jerk!” But teh woman in the ad is also a weenie—it’s just that the Hyundai marketers are calculating that running away from confrontations and unpleasant situations is a girl thing, and socially acceptable.

No, it really isn’t. This is not only a stereotype, it’s a damaging one. Why haven’t we elected a female President yet? Accumulated cultural poison like this commercial is one of the reasons.

Incidentally, I hope that actor who plays the asshole was well paid for his performance, because he may end up dying single and alone as a result.

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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Ethics Notes on the Reagan National Airport Collision Aftermath

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I live less than 15 minutes from Reagan National Airport, so last night’s deadly collision between an American Airlines commuter jet and an Army helicopter from Fort Belvoir was just about the only news available on satellite or network after 9 pm. yesterday. Why, after all this time, is this still the practice in news reporting? All four local networks, plus the PBS outlet, and CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, reported exactly the same lack of developments for the rest of the evening. This used to puzzle me when there was a major news story when I was a kid. The practice makes no sense, wastes money, and leads to not-so-bright people, which is to say most talking heads and reporters on the scene, to resort to saying silly things to fill dead air. What is this, virtue-signaling? To show they care? Why don’t all of broadcast news sources have an advance, rotating agreement for one of them to cover these things after the others put up a screen that states, “We at [station or network] care about X, and you will find complete coverage at [the designated pool broadcast location]. We will let you know about any substantive developments”?

Literally nothing happened last night after the crash itself and the rescue teams arrived. Reagan quickly announced that it was suspending flights at least until morning. Meanwhile, we were hearing dumb statements. A couple of far away videos of the accident showed a tiny light, the aircraft, being met by another tiny light, the copter, followed by brief flash and a hint of something falling into the Potomac. These videos would have had to be explained if one saw them out of context, yet one of the newscasters introducing one felt required to issue a trigger warning: “We must warn you, these images are extremely disturbing.” No, they weren’t. Anyone who is extremely disturbed by little flashes of light needs to be in a home for the bewildered.

At around 11 pm, someone on CNN felt the need to ask some guest in the airline industry who had nothing substantive to say, “What would you tell anyone watching who fears for her life and those of her loved ones in future flights as a result of this tragedy?” The guest blathered something innocuous, but should have said, “I would recommend that anyone who reacts like that brush up on their understanding of statistics and critical thinking. This event has literally no significance as far as calculating the safety of air travel.” The exchange reminded me of the argument I had just had with my occasionally woke-addled sister, who said that she was fearful of going to a movie theater because of the risks posed by legal semi-automatic rifles being legal. (She isn’t really, but was desperate for an anti-Second Amendment argument.) Even asking a question like that makes the vulnerable, the hysterical and the stupid (Hey, wasn’t that the title of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western?) dumber still. It’s irresponsible and incompetent.

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Let’s Thank Ex-Senator Menendez for Giving Us Such A Valuable Review Of Rationalizations At His Sentencing

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I find miscreants and wrong-doers who whine, grovel and weep as they face the just consequences of their crimes particularly despicable. Give me the defiant, unapologetic variety, like Ruth in “Ozark,” who when looking down the barrel of a pistol wielded by the mother of a cartel leader she had assassinated, says, “I’m not sorry. Your son was a murdering bitch, and now I know where he got it from.” As the woman aims the gun at her heart and pauses, Ruth shouts “Well, are you going to fucking do this shit or not?”

Bang.

Yesterday a sobbing Robert Menendez begged the court for mercy after being found incredibly guilty of accepting bribes from foreign governments and businessmen in exchange for cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz convertible among other riches. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison for selling out his Senate office to enrich himself. The New Jersey Democrat and former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wept as he argued, “Your honor, I am far from a perfect man. I have made more than my share of mistakes and bad decisions. I’ve done far more good than bad. I ask you, your honor, to judge me in that context.” Let’s see, that’s…

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Well, I Guess There Won’t Have To Be A Revolution THIS Time…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The Trump Deranged really do think this President is capable of being Hitler.

In a post on his usually rational and excellent blog “Simple Justice,” criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield embroils himself in an apocalyptic scenario where President Trump decides to break the law, defy the courts, and impose his will on the nation. Greenfield writes in part,

What mechanism exists to prevent a president from simply doing whatever he pleases? I gave the short list of how this works on the twitters.

There are three primary checks on presidential power:

1. Virtue
2. The military’s refusal to support unlawful action
3. Revolution

Some replied that this was wrong, ignoring the constitutional separation of powers, court rulings, Congress’ laws, even elections and impeachment. They missed the point. Honoring all the guardrails built into the system falls within the first check, virtue. It only matters if the president respects the law and the Constitution. Andrew Jackson realized this when he mumbled, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” What if the president just says “no”?

What is Congress or the Supreme Court going to do if the President tells them to kiss his executive butt? Congress may have the spending authority, but it’s the Treasury that holds the cash and writes the checks. The Supreme Court may have the authority to hold an action unconstitutional, but the military serves under the Commander in Chief.

If the president abides by the limitations of law or constitutional authority, as has generally been the case up to now despite the occasional overstep, then the mechanics of our society work. But what if he doesn’t?

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Abuse of Celebrity: Selena Dumb Gomez’s Virtue-Signaling

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

The video of former Disney star Selena Gomez weeping over the deportations of illegal immigrants who should be deported is a brilliant reminder that Hollywood makes you stupid. Gomez posted it on her Instagram which has 424 million followers and I want to kill myself.

Gomez is difficult to understand amid all the sobbing and histrionics, but here’s the text: “I just want to say I am so sorry… all my people are getting attacked [by Trump’s deportations]. The children. I’m so sorry, I wish I could do something, but I can’t, I don’t know what to do. I’ll try everything, I promise.”

To state the obvious, being subject to law enforcement isn’t being “attacked.” It is breathtakingly obnoxious for Gomez to call illegal immigrants “her people”—she’s an American citizen, and we are her people. Of course she plays the always popular “Think of the children!” card. And the hubris necessary for a B-list celebrity—she was okay in “The Dead Don’t Die”— to apologize for something she has no power over whatsoever, and to promise to “try everything” to stop it when there is nothing she can do is especially staggering.

“Entertainment Tonight” isn’t much better, saying in that clip that the deportation policy mostly “targets Latinos.” No, you hacks, it entirely targets illegal immigrants.

You can say this weepy virtue-signaling is harmless, but the fact that an ignorant woman like Gomez has over 400 million followers means that a political, cultural and ethics dunce can influence a dangerous number of people, making them stupid, fearful, and bad citizens. It has always been thus that our most talented artists (not that Selena is one of those) usually lack intellectual and critical thinking abilities on par with their performing abilities. They also tend to be emotionally frozen somewhere between the 6th and 11th grade. There are exceptions, of course, but social media has given these Dunning-Kruger victims a way to spread their juvenile politics and poor civics literacy far and wide, usually infecting the young most of all, and most damaging of all.

Maybe I’ll make a video of myself weeping over this…