Comment of the Day

Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day: ‘Ethics Quote Of The Week: Naomi Wolf'”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Lest we forget about those truckers….

Vladimir Putin going nuts took an unwelcome spotlight off Canada’s Justin Trudeau, who had found himself in ethics zugswang while dealing with the popular “Freedom Convoy.” Feminist Naomi Wolf found his assumption of “emergency powers” to risk a slippery slope to a police state. Ethics Alarms commenter Glenn Logan, in his Comment of the Day, was more sympathetic to Trudeau’s plight (as am I), prompting a two-part lesson in Canadian democracy from one of the Ethics Alarms commentariat’s eminent Canadians, Humble Talent.

His Comment of the Day on Glenn’s Comment of the Day on Wolf’s newsletter essay is from two comments, offered in sequence.

***

“The First Amendment, and whatever the Canadian equivalent is (however weakly codified) does not protect actions that interfere with lawful commerce or disturb the peace to the point of mischief.”

Well I’m glad you asked!

Canada also has a constitution, although ours wasn’t predicated on the same base narrative as America’s. As an outsider looking in, America’s constitution is almost paranoid in nature, usually you don’t draft the founding documents to a nation’s governments under the auspices of governments being tyrannical and specifically with an emphasis on protection from that tyranny. I make no negative values judgement there…they work, in a stiffly rugged way. To highlight the differences between Canadian and American constitutional theory: Where the founders wrote “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” in America’s declaration of independence, Canada’s founders instead wrote in “peace, order, and good governance”.

Our Canadian constitution is more malleable, and over the years, it’s been broadly re-imagined. Instead of enumerated amendments to the constitution, in 1982, Canada codified our rights in a portion of our constitution called “The Charter of Rights and Freedoms”.

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quote Of The Week: Naomi Wolf”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The caravan of protesting truckers is, we hear, now on the way to Washington, D.C., after thoroughly disrupting Calgary, Canada, and perceptions of Justin Trudeau as a relatively harmless boob. He is now being seen as a harmful boob. D.C., meanwhile, has established itself as a locale where disruptive and even violent protesters are honored by a giant painted endorsement on a public street by order of the mayor when their alleged cause is sufficiently “woke,” and violent protesters from the other side of the ideological spectrum are charged with felonies and held in prison for many months.

This should be interesting, in the old Chinese saying sense.

Here is Ethics Alarms veteran Glenn Logan’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quote Of The Week: Naomi Wolf”…

***

I think in the end, the best complaint available is the double-standards being applied. When protests are ostensibly in favor of a left-liberal position, they are protected speech no matter how much lawlessness is involved. That same protest involving the same level of lawlessness is considered worthy of an emergency act invocation if the protest is not favored by left-liberals.

I get your point about the trucks blocking traffic Jack, and I don’t disagree. I have always believed that interfering in lawful commerce is illegal (and tortious as well) and should be prosecuted both criminally and by civil action when it happens. The First Amendment, and whatever the Canadian equivalent is (however weakly codified) does not protect actions that interfere with lawful commerce or disturb the peace to the point of mischief. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “On ‘Decertification,’ Everybody’s Wrong (Or Lying)…”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ethics Alarms is about ethics, not politics, but politics, especially in recent years, has increasingly been about the defining and flagging of unethical conduct. Typically elections have been an area in which both parties revel in accusing each other of dishonest and unethical conduct that they also engage in when it suits their needs; we recently saw, for example, the report on Democrats using “dark money” in the 2020 election cycle after condemning Republicans for their lack of transparency regarding campaign contributions, and either party climbing up on a metaphorical high horse over gerrymandering is laughable.

The accusations over the 2020 Presidential election are materially different, in part because 95% of the news media has taken a side the constitutes aggressive partisan activism: the claim that suspicions about the fairness and legitimacy of the vote count—in the absence of many safeguards that previous elections had made standard practice—were “disproven” and “groundless.” The use of ballot drop boxes, for example, raise the immediate specter of voter fraud, and one that is difficult to dispel. Did the actual voter drop off the ballot? Did that voter mark the ballot with his or her name on it? How secure is the box against tampering? The existence of such dubious devices in any close election guarantees public distrust, and should. Yet the news media is pushing the left’s false narrative that laws that ban drop-off boxes are “voter suppression.”

Here is Null Pointer on the matter, in the Comment of the Day on the post, “On ‘Decertification,’ Everybody’s Wrong (Or Lying)…”

One tip before you read: what is being described regarding elections is the condition Ethics Alarms dubs “Bizarro World Ethics.”

***

Let’s just look a some truths about the 2020 election and see if we cannot deduce what might be going on.

Truth #1: The Democrats got up to shenanigans in the 2020 election, and if the exact nature of those shenanigans were laid out to the people, the people would probably nearly unanimously agree the shenanigans amounted to cheating. The people would not unanimously ADMIT it was cheating, but they would know. The Democrats do not want the people on the left to know that they engaged in behavior that essentially amounts to cheating.

Truth #2: The election is not going to be undone. It was never going to be undone. Everyone who isn’t a complete moron knows it cannot be undone. Everyone who knows it cannot be undone is not going to admit that they know it cannot be undone, however, because a lot of people hate the Democrats and like to piss the Democrats off. Polling is useless.

Truth #3: The Democrats cheat. The Democrats have always cheated, at least at the regional level. Everyone on the right knows the Democrats cheat. Everyone on the left thinks a majority of people agree with them about everything, rendering cheating unnecessary. The people on the left would be shocked to find out that a huge percentage of the population does not agree with them.

Truth #4: The Republicans let the Democrats cheat. The Republicans have always let the Democrats cheat because political calculations produced an equation that said it was more politically expedient to let the Democrats cheat than to call them on it. The Democrats have escalated their cheating over time because they can. The Democrats accuse everyone else of cheating to keep the political calculations in their favor by confusing their base. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quote Of The Week: American Thinker…(With A Flashback And Regrets)”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day inspired by the discussion of “Black Lives Matter” (and Black Lives Matter without quotes, which thrives on the confusion) requires no introduction. Here it is, a comment on “Ethics Quote Of The Week: American Thinker…(With A Flashback And Regrets)”:

***

“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet!”

“Deus vult!”

“Workers of the World, Unite!”

“The World Must Be Made Safe for Democracy!”

“Peace, Bread and Land!”

“Asia for the Asians!”

“Make Love, not War!”

“Give Peace a Chance!”

“Black Lives Matter!”

On their faces, all these slogans sound benign and inspirational. Maybe even the intent behind them was good, or at least the true believers thought so. Muhammad was looking to move the Arab world, forward, not back, when he introduced his own brand of monotheism, and I don’t doubt he thought he was creating a framework for a good and honest life when he wrote it all down and proclaimed this the complete record, with nothing more to come. However, there is no doubt he was also using it to cement his own power, and the evil that was later done in his name and that of his early slogan is history.

When Pope Urban shouted “Deus vult!” (God wills it!) on that hill outside Clermont, there is no doubt he thought that he was doing the right thing by rallying the attending nobles and knights to form and army and take back the Holy Land from the Muslims, who had stolen it away from the Byzantines and were not respecting the rights of Christians there. History also tells us what happened after that, and none of it is humanity at its best.

When Karl Marx wrote “Workers of the World, unite!” he probably meant it, but it was clear he hadn’t really thought it through. He himself was no working-class hero, just an expatriated writer and philosopher who avoided bankruptcy more than once because his well-to-do fellow traveler Friedrich Engels bailed him out. In 1848 he published the Communist Manifesto, fuel to the fire of the already smoldering problems that became the Revolutions of 1848, which you can look up. We all know what came later as a result of his crazy and unrealistic ideas.

“The World must be Made Safe for Democracy!” So shouted Woodrow Wilson to Congress as he led this country into a war that he had campaigned months before to keep it out of. I don’t doubt he really meant to do this world some good as a missionary for his rigid, hypocritical morality. I also don’t doubt that America’s contribution to WWI was a net positive for many people in Europe who would have suffered longer or more without it. However, it was also the first of a series of dominoes that led this world into a lot bigger problems later on, and arguably made the world less self for democracy in the long run.

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day: ‘Catching Up: Professional Ethics And The Challenger Disaster’”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Matthew B. scored a Comment of the Day by raising an issue I had never thought about before: how the misapplication of PowerPoint leads to inadequate training and information dissemination within organizations and bureaucracies. He also references the reluctance of managers to know when to hand over decision-making to subordinates. That is something I have thought about, a great deal.

Two of my favorite movies illustrate how competent leaders and managers know when to delegate a crucial decision down. “Topsy-Turvy,” the superb 1999 film depicting the creation of “The Mikado” by Gilbert and Sullivan, accurately depicts the real incident when, after the final rehearsal, W.S. Gilbert told the “Mikado” cast that he was cutting “My Object All Sublime,” also known as “The Mikado’s Song.” Gilbert was a tyrannical director, and the cast was terrified of incurring his wrath. This time, however, they stood up to him. The cast as one told him that he was making a mistake. The soloist, Richard Temple, they told their shocked and steaming director who also had conceived of the song, should have the chance to perform it in front of an audience. His fellow cast members  were certain it would be a hit. Gilbert, recognizing the certitude the cast must have had to risk his fury at being contradicted, decided that his performers might have a clearer understanding of the show even that he had, and relented. Temple would sing about letting “the punishment fit the crime” on opening night.

The song was an instant sensation, like “The Mikado” itself, and is still one of the most quoted of all G&S songs.

The other example is at the climax of “Hoosiers,” the great basketball film based on the true story of the miraculous Indiana state championship won by a tiny school from Milan, Ind. in 1954. During the last time-out before the team’s last chance to score, which would, if successful, give the team a one-point victory over their greatly favored competition in the championship game, the coach (Gene Hackman), who has led the ragtag group this far by emphasizing teamwork over individual achievement, lays out a play in which the team’s superstar, Jimmy Chitwood will be a decoy. He plans for another player to take the final shot, but the team doesn’t move. “What’s the matter with you?” he shouts as his players just stare, looking hesitant. “If I get the shot, I’ll make it,” Jimmy says, after a long pause. So the coach, who has insisted all season that his word was law, makes the same decision Gilbert did. When your subordinates are that sure, trust them. They know better than you.

Jimmy shoots and scores the winning basket as time runs out.

Here is Matthew B.’s Comment of the Day on “Comment Of The Day: ‘Catching Up: Professional Ethics And The Challenger Disaster’”:

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Welcome February Ethics Warm-Up, 2/1/22: Yes, Whoopi Is Officially An Idiot” (Item #4)

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Misbegotten or badly-worded opinions were popping up all over last week, and none received more analysis than actress/comic (and imaginary Jew) turned TV pundit Whoopi Goldberg’s statement that the Holocaust wasn’t “about race,” and was just white folks being cruel to other white folks. It was a careless, historically ignorant thing to say, but Goldberg doubled down on it, resulting in her being suspended from “The View” by ABC. It’s arguable that more metaphorical ink has been spilled over Whoopi’s gaffe than it deserves, including here, on Ethics Alarms, but also elsewhere, including efforts to make Goldberg’s comments seem more perceptive or significant than they were, as with this much-quoted Andrew Sullivan piece.

Some other notable commentary on Whoopi are here, here and this essay by Charles Cooke, pointing out that it was wrong and hypocritical for ABC to punish her (I agree completely).

Below is Extradimensional Cephalopod’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Welcome February Ethics Warm-Up, 2/1/22: Yes, Whoopi Is Officially An Idiot” (Item #4).

***

The whole Nazi movement started with “We deserve better than the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression.” Then it quickly went off the rails into, “We will build a glorious society by forcing people to conform to our notions of what members of society ought to be like, and we’ll eliminate anyone who doesn’t conform. …And then we’ll take over the world!” Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Catching Up: Professional Ethics And The Challenger Disaster”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I was very pleased to receive this Comment of the Day by Ryan Harkins on the post “Catching Up: Professional Ethics And The Challenger Disaster,”  because it focuses on the ethics of risk, a great topic that EA hasn’t covered as well as it should. 

I’ll have one brief note at the end.

***

I was 4 and in preschool when the Challenger exploded. We watched the launch on TV before I went to school that day, and apparently it really disturbed me, because I bit another student and then hid under a table for the rest of the day.

Working at the refinery now, we get to revisit the Challenger explosion frequently (along with the Bhopal Union Carbide gas leak, the Texas City tanker explosion, the Texas City ISOM explosion, and a host of others) when discussing process safety. Michael West is absolutely right in that it isn’t simply a calculation of what the worst consequence is, but also the likelihood of that occurring.

Part of the reason the engineers’ concerns were dismissed was because the problem with the O-rings had been known and discussed for quite some time, and there had been numerous launches prior to this one that had been perfectly successful. In other words, NASA had gotten away with using the faulty O-rings before, so they saw no reason to be overly concerned this time around. Furthermore, the launch had already been delayed multiple times, and they were under intense pressure to launch. Why should they listen to the doom-saying of engineers when empirical evidence said the worst-case scenario was not going happen?

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: Ethics Quiz: Celebrity Post Retirement Photos

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Mermaidmary99 has a strange relationship with Ethics Alarms: about half of her comments get sent straight to spam by WordPress for no apparent reason. This is perplexing for her and me, since she so often has an original and perceptive opinion to share. This Comment of the Day is an example, and yes, I found it in the spam collection.

The Ethics Quiz asked readers, “Is it ethical to take unflattering photos of former performers and celebrities and publicize them expressly to invite cruel comments and ridicule?” It was sparked by two things: the emergence of the first photograph of former movie star Bridget Fonda, daughter of Peter, niece of Jane, grand-daughter of Henry, in twelve years. Last time the public saw her, Fonda looked more of less like she did in Quentin Tarentino’s “Jackie Brown,” above; the other was my wife’s complaint, after her recent stay in the hospital (a bad scare, but all is fine), that the nurses kept telling her she was beautiful (which she is) and she refuses to believe it, insisting that the years have not been kind. I thought the new photo of the considerably younger Mrs. Elfman would help her put things into perspective. (My wife’s answer: “I bet those nurses would tell her she’s beautiful too!”)

Here is mermaidmary99’s rescued Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Celebrity Post Retirement Photos.”

***

Who judges if it’s unflattering?

My dad would look at [the recent photo] and see a miraculous, beautiful human being with trillions of cells working in perfect intelligence allowing us to see her standing. He’s also would be keenly aware that he too is a miracle, a person with 10 to the 30th power of different viruses inside him, trillions of bacteria and fungi, and cells with 200-8000 mitochondria in each one, working non-stop. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Observations On Justice Breyer’s Retirement”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Michael West’s rueful Comment of the Day relating Justice Breyer’s eagerly awaited (by Democrats) retirement to the deterioration of the balance of powers intended by the Founders presents a useful perspective. My only cavil is his introduction.

I think it is unfair to assume that Breyer retired to ensure that a Democrat President would choose his successor. Maybe he did, but nothing Breyer has said in his years as a Justice would be consistent with that thesis. Breyer, unlike Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has never been overtly political, and has objected to accusations that his colleagues on the Court were driven by partisan agendas. If we take him at his word, it would be extremely out of character to quit so Joe Biden could apppoint a replacement based on an ideological check list filtered through the non-merit restrictions of race and gender.  Of course, all of this is really just a bad sign for the dignity of SCOTUS and the strength of the divided government. “The only ethical reason for any Justice to retire is because it’s time to retire,” Michael begins. Well, at 83, it’s always past time to retire. I think Justice Breyer has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Now here’s Michale West’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Observations On Justice Breyer’s Retirement”:

***

The only ethical reason for any Justice to retire is because it’s time to retire. But we all know Breyer is making a strategic retirement to permit a Democrat president to appoint and a Democrat Senate to approve a Progressive to the bench. This is a clear indication of the intentional politicization of the Court – which is was never meant to be.

This is all because of the ever increasing ability of Executive Branch and now the Judicial Branch to basically become alternative legislatures to Congress which has largely surrendered most of it’s power since the technocratic growth of the bureaucracy from FDR’s time. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Fake News Watch 2: The Missing Mask”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What follows is Null Pointer’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Fake News Watch 2: The Missing Mask”.

The Introduction to it is here.

***

The media transformation from relatively accurate reporting to lying about everything has been a sight to behold. It was an incremental process that started with bias and evolved into just making stuff up.

The media started out by omitting a fact or two they didn’t like from coverage. No need to confuse anyone with extraneous data that might be interpreted wrongly. The media has a duty to keep people informed with easily interpretable information.

This bias led to the next bias stage, which entailed neglecting to cover stories that were inconvenient to a narrative. People don’t need to know everything. They only need to know the important things. If you report unimportant things, people might get distracted from the important things. The media has a duty to keep people informed of all the important things and they cannot do that if people are distracted by unimportant things.

Then the media started adding opinions to straight news articles and presenting them as fact so people wouldn’t get confused. You have to explain to people why the facts they are looking at don’t say what a normal person would think they say, you see. It is important to be clear. Clarity is important when informing people of things! You cannot just tell people the facts, you need to explain them. Otherwise people might have opinions that conflict with the truth. Then they might question the truth, and questions lead to confusion and misinformation. Confused, misinformed people don’t know the truth. The media has a duty to inform people of the truth. Continue reading →