Character

Why Big Lies Work: A Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Well, another one.

Democrats and the mainstream media decided to go nuclear with the false accusation that the new Florida history guidelines, championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, want schools to teach that slavery was beneficial to enslaved African Americans. It’s an outright lie, as anyone who reviewed the guidelines could see, and as Ethics Alarms explained. The Vice President of the United States made the accusation in multiple venues before African American audiences. (Yes, she’s an idiot, but she’s still Vice-President, and her statements are publicized widely). The usual race-baiters and liars among the partisan punditry, like MSNBC’s vile Joy Reid, repeated the lie, and even a GOP Presidential hopeful, weak, cowardly Sen. Tim Scott, gave it credence.

Far from being evidence of racism, white supremacy or prejudice, the guidelines are really evidence of how extremism succeeds by producing “compromises” that are irresponsibly radical anyway. The slavery history teaching guidelines require an absurdly disproportionate emphasis on slavery in grade school, and will result in inadequate instruction on many other more essential topics and skills. Never mind though: as Hitler and Goebbels explained, the purpose of Big Lies is to get a damaging narrative widely distributed, so much so that the target has to respond to it, giving the lie legitimacy and keeping it in the public consciousness.

Continue reading →

And Speaking Of Mainstream Media Bias, Spinning For Democrats And Misleading The Public, This NYT Report Is A Classic

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

When I read this astoundingly mendacious story in the Times, the first thing that I was reminded of was the memorable moment in “Plain Trains and Automobiles” when John Candy confidently tells a dubious state trooper that his burned out, roofless wreck of a car is “safe to drive.” (This goes right into the Ethics Alarms Clip archive.)

President Biden has repeatedly insisted that he has no knowledge of his son Hunter’s various sleazy business schemes, and that Joe never discussed Hunter’s money-making activities with him. Yet yesterday, in his nearly five hours of closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee, a former business partner of Hunter’s, Devon Archer, revealed that President Biden met with and spoke to his son Hunter’s international business associates on about 20 occasions as Hunter sought consulting deals (translation: lucrative influence and access peddling arrangements).

Hilariously, Archer claimed that the Joe Biden was not party to any of his son’s business deals. You see, Hunter Biden was just trying to sell the idea that he could provide access to his powerful father—by providing access to his powerful father. He was claiming that he could influence his father by showing that he could persuade him to pick up the phone, drop by and shake hands. Yet, reports the Times, Democrats on the panel insisted that it wasn’t what it was, by definition.

Continue reading →

On The Ethically Depressing GOP Presidential Field

/ Jack Marshall / 113 Comments

The New York Times gave us the chart above, in an article about how the “he could shoot someone at high noon in central park and we wouldn’t care” Trump “base” will make a Republican effort to nominate a responsible, respectable, competent candidate for President difficult if not impossible. Look at that array! And my sister, a Democrat, complains that her party’s options are terrible, which they are.

How can a nation this large and diverse have no leaders who seem capable of doing the top job ethically and well? This is a societal, cultural, systemic failure.

That a character like Donald Trump, former POTUS or not, can have that kind of overwhelming support in the midst of indictments, the long, long trail of ridiculous and offensive statements, and his disqualifying conduct of refusing to accept his electoral defeat yet tells us that something is deeply rotten in the state of America. And whatever that state of rotteness is, returning either Joe Biden or Trump to the White House would be an invitation to too many disasters to contemplate.

But let’s start from the bottom of the list, where hope blooms. Nobody wants Chris Christie to run. Good. He was an ethics villain in 2016, knocking off Trump’s adversaries in the debates when he had the rhetorical tools and ammunition to take out Trump the way he reduced poor Marco Rubio to a laughing stock. Then Christie endorsed Trump, whom he knew was unfit, in a corrupt quid pro quo deal, probably to be Vice-President, which Trump reneged on. Then Christie was out to get Trump again, but it was too late. The one-time rising GOP star’s star was already permanently tarnished by his George Washington Bridge fiasco anyway. He’s running to get headlines and speaking fees, I guess. That he has almost no support speaks almost as well for the Republican voters as their support for Trump is damning.

Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP equivalent of tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang in the last cycle for the Democrats. He’s not a serious candidate, and anyone who thinks he is doesn’t understand the American Presidency. Like Christie, he’s just static in the race, and a distraction. In a very important election like the one approaching, causing static and distractions is unethical.

Continue reading →

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: The Congresswoman’s Prayer Breakfast Joke

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Outspoken freshman Congresswoman Nancy Mace, (R-SC), decided to throw away her prepared remarks and riff at the beginning of her speech at fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott’s prayer breakfast last week. That was her first mistake.

“When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45, Patrick, my fiance, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed. And I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning,'” Mace began. “I gotta get to the prayer breakfast, and I gotta be on time.”

Yes, there’s nothing better to warm up the crowd at a prayer breakfast like a pre-marital sex joke!

Seriously, how hard is it to avoid making comments about sex at a prayer breakfast? She probably embarrassed Sen. Scott thoroughly, who was metaphorically batting second behind the nookie narrative in her remarks as she praised him profusely. Scott is running for President, however futilely, and doesn’t need any silly but completely avoidable controversies. Mace also probably made Seacoast Church Pastor Greg Surratt a little uncomfortable, who had honored both her and Scott as a part of his congregation.

Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky)

/ Jack Marshall / 90 Comments

I was literally going to start this post with nearly the exact same statement, except I was going to ask how many progressives and die-hard Biden defenders would have the integrity to condemn the revelation that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies after unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House.

Not that this should have surprised anyone; it certainly didn’t surprise me, Censorship, deception and suppression of news, facts and reality is how the current mutation of the Democratic Party rolls, and Big Tech and social media have joined the mainstream media as their enablers and accomplices.

Continue reading →

Ethics Verdicts On Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s Outburst

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The first verdict is “What an asshole!”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a freshman GOP Congressman from Wisconsin, walked in on a group of high school-age Senate pages lying on the floor of the Capitol Rotunda to take cellphone photos of the Rotunda dome. According to an alleged transcript of his outburst prepared by one of the pages, Van Orden said, “Wake the fuck up you little shits…Get the fuck out of here. You are defiling the space!” Van Orden also called the teenagers “jackasses” and “lazy shits” according to the pages.

Maddy Pritzl, a former Senate page, took to Twitter to claim this was a tradition that she had observed herself seven years ago. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, engaged in a bipartisan pile-on, condemning Van Orden for his treatment of the pages. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested that the incident may have been a “misunderstanding” and said that he planned on talking to Van Orden, who, for his part, refused to apologize or express regret for his conduct.

Continue reading →

From Showtime’s Series “The Affair,” An Ethics Zugzwang “What Would You Do?”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

As I noted in this post, I am slogging through Showtime’s ethics series “The Affair ” (2016-2021) again after catching much of it pre-streaming. One of the issues raised during an episode was discussed here. At the climax of the second season, a wildly contrived scenario that determined the course of the whole thing occurred. I write ethics hypothetical for a living, and I could not come up with one filled with more ethics conflicts, dilemmas and rationalizations.

Here’s the set-up: The four parties involved in “the affair” are Noah, a late forties, insecure, narcissist writer; Helen, his wife of 25 years with whom he has had four children; Alison, a young, clinically depressed former nurse whom Noah encountered in a chance meeting at Montauk restaurant, The Lobster Roll,” while his family was vacationing, and who subsequently engaged in a mad, impetuous affair with him that broke up his marriage and hers; and Cole, her ex-husband, who ran the family ranch and dealt drugs on the side.

At the point when the incident in question occurs, Noah and Helen are divorced, as are Cole and Alison. Alison and Noah are now married but estranged because Alison just informed Noah that what he thought was their infant daughter is in fact the result of an impulsive post-divorce one-time-only moment of passion with Cole when they were both drunk and depressed. (Everyone drinks a lot in “The Affair.”) Helen and Noah have finally agreed to share care of their kids, especially after Helen having a DUI with her youngest daughter in the car made her case for full custody untenable.

Stipulated: all members of the shattered couples have lingering intense feelings for each other.

Continue reading →

If Donald Trump Were An Ethical, Responsible Public Servant And Wanted To Do What Was In The Best Interests Of His Nation…

/ Jack Marshall / 116 Comments

…he would announce that he was withdrawing from the Presidential race immediately, because the prosecutions he faces, just or unjust, will be a destructive distraction from the election as well as an impediment to him serving as President if he were nominated and elected.

And if I were an aardvark, I could save money on groceries by eating ants and termites.

Trump won’t do this, of course (that is, drop out, not eat ants and termites), but it is the only ethical alternative. A lawyer facing a single serious indictment would step away from his or her law firm. An ethical judge would resign. A doctor facing indictments would take a leave of absence. A general facing such legal jeopardy would retire. The United States cannot have a Presidential candidate laboring under the shadow of multiple criminal prosecutions any more than it can afford to have a mentally declining President who serves as a puppet for aspiring totalitarians. Trump continuing his candidacy increases the likelihood of both.

If Richard Nixon had been like Trump—a toxic narcissist—he wouldn’t have resigned, and the nation would have been roiled and scarred by a genuine impeachment process. Clinton is like Trump—maybe a teeny-weeny bit less of a narcissist, but not much—and he should have resigned as the truth of the Monica Lewinsky allegations emerged. The nation and the Presidency—and his party—would have been far better off today if he had, and Clinton’s scandal was not even in the same metaphorical ballpark as Trump’s, which also includes a sexual assault civil ruling.

At this point, Trump continuing to seek the Presidency can only do damage, and the question is just “How much?” I don’t want to think about how much. His entire career has been built on a foundation of stubbornness, resilience and a refusal to admit defeat: quitting his quest for redemption goes against his core. Real patriots and great leaders, however, can muster the character and courage to do what needs to be done even when it violates all of their baser instincts. Unfortunately, I am not an aardvark, and Donald Trump is neither a real patriot or a great leader.

Continue reading →

Now THIS Is An Unthical Judge…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

In fact, “unethical” doesn’t do her justice.

A courtroom security camera caught Lincoln County (Oklahoma) District Judge Traci Soderstrom during a murder trial as she paged through her iPhone, checking Facebook, surfing the web, and texting as the trial went on, supposedly under her supervision. This continued for hours. The case involved the brutal murder of Braxton Danker, 2, who was beaten to death by 32-year-old Khristian Tyler Martzall. Soderstrom ordered the jury at the outset of the trial to turn off their phones. “This will allow you to concentrate on the evidence without interruption,” intoned the judge. Then she had her own eyes glued to her phone screen during opening statements and witness testimony.

After the video was discovered, the judge dealt with the scandal by having camera moved rather than try to explain or apologize for her behavior.

Continue reading →

“The Affair”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I’m recommending the Showtime series “The Affair,” now streaming its five seasons (the show ran in 53 episodes from 2014-2019), as a challenging and perceptive ethics show. Covering, as you might guess, a sexual and romantic affair involving two couples and their extended family, and the chaotic consequences the illicit relationship triggers, the “The Affair” reaches into relationship ethics, friendship ethics, marital ethics, parenting ethics, community ethics, legal ethics, academic ethics and artistic ethics, and probably more: I’m finally watching the whole thing after seeing the third and fourth seasons a few years ago. Wrapped up in those larger categories are questions involving honesty, loyalty, conflicts of interest, empathy, and abuse of power.

The one irritant in “The Affair” is the scarcity of genuinely ethical or admirable characters. The closest is probably the primary victim of the affair, the adulterous writer’s wife, played by Maura Tierney (of “ER” fame). One aspect of the show that will benefit many is how awful so many of the parents portrayed in the show are: if you question your parenting abilities, “The Affair” will restore your confidence. (So far, my favorite moment was when a grown daughter finally orders her incredibly over-bearing, toxic and manipulative mother out of her home, saying, curtly, “I hate you.”

Continue reading →