Comment of the Day
Comment Of The Day: “Regarding Hormone Restrictions In Women’s Sports”
Heidi/Andreas Krieger, Esat German women’s shotput champion
There were an unusual number of superb comments on this topic. This one is a worthy representative of them all.
Here is Sue Denim’s Comment of the Day on the post, Regarding Hormone Restrictions In Women’s Sports:
While I strongly support the use of science and evidence to make these decisions – this stinks to high heaven. The books were cooked, and very obviously so.
”One of the world’s most respected sports lawyers has quit his position on a committee of the governing body of international athletics, slamming the controversial new rule that is believed to target gold medal-winning South African runner Caster Semenya.”
Four months after being appointed to the IAAF’s disciplinary tribunal, Steve Cornelius said “in good conscience” he could not continue in the role.”
Without going into allegations about “real reasons”, let’s just look at the facts.
“A peer-reviewed article co-authored by Dr Bermon and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found female athletes with high testosterone had the greatest advantage in the pole vault and hammer throw, yet these events were not included in the newly created “restricted events” category.
The IAAF’s investigation also found no advantage in the 1,500 metres event but it was included..”
Let’s look at the evidence of advantage. Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/28/18: “Ingratitude, Dishonesty, Hypocrisy, Speech Suppression And Character Assassination…Is This A Great Country, Or What?” [Item #1]
Just so you know that I’m not the only one who believes that the Boston Red Sox stripping the late Tom Yawkey of the honor of having one of the streets bordering Fenway Park named after him is disgusting virtue-signaling and ingratitude at their worst, here is commenter and Boston area native Rick M. to prove otherwise. Shaming the name and memory of Yawkey this way is the exact Red Sox equivalent of tearing down the Jefferson Monument in Washington, D.C., for the Boston Red Sox in their current form would not exist without the vision, dedication and sacrifice of its owner from the 30s to the 70s.
Incidentally, as I watched a ball bounce off the hand-operated scoreboard on the Green Monster yesterday, I noticed that the Morse code dots and dashes spelling out Tom and Jean Yawkey’s initials on the white stripes separating the columns of American League scores are still there. The team says there are no plans to remove this acknowledgement of the Yawkey debt to the city and the sport.
Isn’t that nice? The Red Sox will continue to honor him, but in code. (In related news, the D.C. government has petitioned Congress to have the statue of Jefferson be required to wear Groucho glasses.)
The team also says that it supports the work of the Yawkey Foundation, established at the same time that Jersey Street was renamed Yawkey Way. The Foundation which has given over $450 million to nonprofit organizations serving the needy of New England and Georgetown County, South Carolina, and is, understandably, ticked off. The Foundation has published a fascinating rebuttal of the narrative that Tom Yawkee was a committed racist. I will include it after the COTD.
Here is Rick M.’s Comment of the Day on the post, Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/28/18: Ingratitude, Dishonesty, Hypocrisy, Speech Suppression And Character Assassination…Is This A Great Country, Or What?:
Don’t get me started….don’t get me started….OK – you got me started.
Where to start with such an SJW target-rich environment? How about Mr. Ugly Straw Hat himself – John Henry. Patient zero in this current social fad. Henry’s first big gig as a financial wizard was with Reynolds Securities. This company was founded by Richard Reynolds and his great-uncle and much family fortune originated with Reynolds Tobacco and Abraham Reynolds and Rock Spring Plantation. Yes, boys and girls, a slave foundation. Maybe Henry can also remove the number four at Fenway Park? The retired number of Joe Cronin who was part of the infamous tryout in 1945. And, JH, go after Ty Cobb, Cap Anson and a name change for Nig Cuppy. Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: “’Gotcha!’ Ethics (Or The Absence There-Of): The Solicitor General Misspeaks”
Speaking of the context in which the Solicitor General made a verbal gaffe that would have been ignored had his brief not supported Trump policy, slickwilly reflects on one of the most peculiar of the new standards Democrats and progressives are attempting to apply to this President when they would have considered parallel efforts with Democratic White House occupants laughable. This the argument that President Trump’s often hyperbolic campaign verbiage must be regarded as permanent and unrepealable statements of deeply held motives, intentions and beliefs.
Here is slickwilly’s Comment of the Day on the post,“Gotcha!” Ethics (Or The Absence There-Of): The Solicitor General Misspeaks:
The assertion was the later words could not negate things said while campaigning, in other words, campaign rhetoric and promises. This is a peculiar stance to take: politicians say things all the time that are rhetoric, hyperbole, misstatements, partial truths, and outright lies.
(Not to mention that if EVERY POLITICIAN were held to this standard, we would not have any left.)
“If you like your plan… if you like your doctor… hope and change… require employers to provide seven sick days year… Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center… Allow five days of public comment before signing bills…Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials …” Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: “The Good Faith Of The Justice Department”: Sure.
This Comment of the Day is short but provocative. I have had it in a pending file for a while. What triggered my determination to run it now was this tweet cum meme, courtesy of Instapundit, by Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule:
I considered making the profesor’s tweet an Ethics Quote of the Week. I considered using it in an Ethics Quiz: “Would it be ethical to post this on Facebook, knowing that it will convince none of the Trump Deranged among my friends and merely cause their already weakened heads to explode?” I hate memes, and wondered weather this was too close to one to post without hypocrisy. And yet: Prof. Vermeule is absolutely correct. His brief tweet neatly consolidates what Ethics Alarms has been covering since the 2016 election, and why I believe that the progressive/resistance/Democrat/mainstream media/ Deep State alliance”s unethical efforts to delegitimize and undermine this President is doing—and will continue to do—far more damage to the nation than the Presidency of Donald Trump, even if he lived down to his foes’ worst assumptions.
Here is Humble Talent’s Comment of the Day on the post, “The Good Faith Of The Justice Department”: Sure. Humble promised that he would have a lot more to say on the topic. I’m counting on it.
Since the election of Trump, I have seen the brains of otherwise intelligent and competent people liquefy and trickle out their ears in real time.
One of the most interesting symptoms of that liquefaction has been the invention or re-invention of all sorts of professional rules, policies and laws, specifically and discreetly to the detriment of this administration. When something new happens, something that has a burden of proof so high that it has never before been breached…. The Resistance desperately wants that to be the result of an abnormal presidency… But in reality it’s the response that is abnormal… It’s the height of naivete to assume uncritically that this was done properly.
Comment Of The Day: “From The Ethics Alarms ‘Horrible People’ Files: The Vile Progressive Professor (Yes, Another One, and Yes, I Would Fire Her)”
More interesting musings on the proudly vicious Fresno State prof, who is the current poster model for many things: the ugliness of today’s political divide, the abuse of freedom of speech and academic freedom, and the arrogance of academia. I just realized that Randa qualifies as a fick, someone who “openly and blatantly violates social norms of responsibility, honesty or fairness without shame or remorse.”
Here is Humble Talent’s Comment of the Day on the post, From The Ethics Alarms “Horrible People” Files: The Vile Progressive Professor (Yes, Another One, and Yes, I Would Fire Her):
I’m seeing an absolute deluge of comments online rehashing the general theme of: “You free speech activists sure seem to discard your principles when it’s convenient.” And It’d like to take a moment to dissect that.
Before I get too far into these weeds, I want to make a distinction: I think the cleanest comparison between the left and the right on this issue would be the left’s protection of Randa Jarrar from firing, and a situation where the right protected someone who had invoked the ire of the left—let’s assume a Nazi. I don’t think there’s a large contingent of people lining up to say that employers should retain people who are openly anti-Semitic. There might be some, but I feel this would be the exception as opposed to the rule, and that these people would be warping the principle of free speech to things they shouldn’t. This means that almost by nature, the people saying variations of “You free speech activists sure seem to discard your principles when it’s convenient.” are almost certainly comparing apples to oranges.
But I think that those people don’t really understand the distinction that makes that true. Following that… Cast Iron Pot, meet Stainless Steel Kettle. It would be great if just for once progressives actually lived up to their own ideals. If they believe, as they’ve been telling us for years now, that free speech has consequences, and they believe that this case is actually synonymous to all the other cases that they think prove the abject hypocrisy of the right, then by all means point out that hypocrisy, but do so in a way that doesn’t protect Jarrar… Because you’re admitting what she did wasn’t protected. Look, there’s a possibility that someone in any situation might be able to define a difference between two situations that you might not see. They might be wrong, but there could be at least a semblance of internal consistency, even if it’s flawed… If you think that this is the kind of situation that the free speechers would normally be defending but aren’t for partisan reasons, while simultaneously defending what you admit you would normally not specifically for partisan reasons, then you don’t even have the fig leaf of internal consistency and should hide your head in a sack. Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: “Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/15/2018: Remember The Titanic And The Bay Of Pigs Edition”
I’m always up for a little United Nations bashing, as a good argument can be mounted that an organization that pretends to further the aims of world peace and international cooperation and does so incompetently, fecklessly and corruptly is worse than no such organizations at all. I’m also always up for pointing out that this much maligned President is so much more competent at international politics and foreign affairs than Barack Obama that his domestic foes can only deal with it by double standards and transparent dishonesty.
This is as good a time as any to mention that Ethics Alarms passed the 9000 post landmark this week, and those posts (over less than nine years) have sparked 222, 231 comments so far, at a steadily increasing rate. Say what you will about the blog: it doesn’t lack for content. Or diverse topics: at last count, there were 24, 393 tags. That’s a lot even if you allow for the misspelled ones.
Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Syria bombing-inspired Comment of the Day on the post, Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/15/2018: Remember The Titanic And The Bay Of Pigs Edition:
The UN has been worthless by design from the get-go. Any institution that gives certain members an absolute veto over any action by that institution isn’t going to get anything done, especially when one of those members, the USSR and now Russia, is going to abuse that privilege. The institution as a whole is completely without a moral compass, and shows zero judgment or even consideration what nations it allows to sit on what committees. It’s a bad joke when Syria is about to sit on a committee concerning chemical weapons and Iran and North Korea can sit on committees regarding human rights. Other than Korea (because the USSR walked out), name one situation where the UN stepped in and took decisive action.
As for criticism of the President for finally taking action [in Syria], I think he actually did a pretty good job of fooling the media and probably others by making it look like he was backing off the immediacy of the attack to do some more coalition building with the allies and to let the USS Truman and its battle group get into position, which they should do in the next couple of days. Of course that led to a lot of talk about how this would just peter out, that Trump wasn’t going to enforce anything just like Obama didn’t and so forth. It turns out the coalition was already ready to go, and the forces in the area were plenty up to the task already. Maybe a dozen aircraft and five ships did the actual firing of weapons, including 30 missiles fired by the cruiser USS Monterey (a big reason to keep the Ticonderoga-class cruisers sailing).
I can understand some of the reactions. It’s just politics as usual, necessary action when your party’s President does something, but reckless or wrong or whatever when the other side’s President does it. There are a few principled peaceful people, who can be ignored, saying any use of force is wrong under any circumstances and a few folks justifiably gun-shy because of the mess that Iraq became. Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/7/2018: #2: “Williamson No Longer Of The Atlantic’”
This is an epic Comment of the Day using an unusual approach. Michael West explores aspects of public discourse that is at the core of ethical misunderstanding and ethics malpractice by focusing on a multi-party twitter exchange regarding an issue discussed on Ethics Alarms, the firing of former National Review writer Kevin Williamson after he doubled-down on an extreme position regarding abortion: he believes it is murder, and therefore believes that capital punishment is a fair punishment for what should be considered a crime. Moreover, he said that because of the violent and depraved nature of the crime, a violent execution, like hanging, would be appropriate for the women who allowed their fetuses to be aborted.
Michael also used his comment to highlight a concept we have not used on Ethics Alarms, at least by name, “the Overton Window.” That is defined as “The spectrum of ideas on public policy and social issues considered acceptable by the general public at a given time.” Of course, what the “window” is can be tricky to determine. Donald Trump broke the alleged window repeatedly. My preferred approach to this “window” is to challenge it, and to try to expand its boundaries, consequences be damned. I equate the Overton Window with de facto censorship and thought-control.
I am especially glad that this comment again raises the Williamson firing and the related ethics issues. These are rich topics, and yet the matter fled the blogs and commentary sites quickly, paved over by successive outrages of the day.
Here is Michael West’s Comment of the Day on #2 in the post, Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/7/2018: “Ruggles Of Red Gap” And “Williamson No Longer Of The Atlantic’.” This is a bit challenging to read, but worth the effort. For clarity, Michael’s commentary is in bold italics.
I think this is an informative tweet dialogue on a handful of levels. For one, it reveals some informal fallacies that inevitably ruin any discourse and are especially ruinous tendencies in any summarized forum (which twitter represents the extreme end of the spectrum). It also reveals what I think is the fundamental problem with the discussion [on Ethics Alarms.]. I think we’re operating on two different meanings of “mainstream”. Simultaneously this reveals two different attitudes regarding the Overton Window.
As for the term “mainstream”, Almaqah below seems to mean it as “anything someone is willing to hear another person discuss.” I presume [commenter Chris’s] friendliness toward Almaqah’s opinions implies [he] generally believe the same. When I use it, and I think when most others use the term, we use it as more of a quantitative assessment, where “mainstream” means “anything that a sufficient percentage of people believe”, to which it might be effective to add “that it holds enough weight to begin to sway policy discussions” …but that’s not essential.
I think Almaqah’s subsequent side-bars reveal a somewhat concerning attitude towards diversity of opinion as well as tolerance of that diversity. He seems to think that acceptable discourse should be extremely narrow and that anything outside of that window should not be tolerated one bit.
Cast of Characters (mostly from their twitter profiles):
@_Almaqah –
Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) – “Oklahoman. Attorney. Contributor at @FDRLST, @dcexaminer, and other places. Keep reminding me that I’m supposed to be rising above.”
@Elwampito – “petty bourgeois”
Mollie Hemingway (@MZHemingway) – “Senior Editor, @FDRLST”
Katherine Mangu-Ward – Editor in Chief of Reason Magazine
Fyodor – Possibly a libertarian & probably anti-Trump… (judging from a quick scan of tweets)
@MsBaileyGurl – “fundamental human rights and fast wifi. So easy to please.”
Mark Hemingway (@Herminator) – “Senior Writer @WeeklyStandard. Husband of @MZHEmingway”
Jacob T. Levy (@jtlevy) – “Tomlinson Prof of Political Theory, McGill. RPF http://amzn.to/1osWYDC Niskanen http://tinyurl.com/gpu3rzw Opinions here are mine not McGill’s.”
Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) – “Buckley Fellow at National Review. Co-host of “Ordered Liberty” with @DavidAFrench. @NotreDame alum. ”
Bre Payton – “the culture and millennial politics reporter for The Federalist”
@JackFromAtlanta – possibly a conservative & possibly an Eastern Orthodox Christian (judging from a quick scan of tweets)
@UrbanAchievr – probably a leftist, most probably anti-Trump (judging from a quick scan of tweets)
Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) – “senior media reporter, @CNN. writing at the intersection of media & politics.”
Kirsten Powers – “USA Today Columnist / CNN Political Analyst / Cohost of @thefaithangle podcast”
Here’s the opening salvo, as Almaqah responds to Gabriel Malor (which “El Wampito” rapidly jumps into).
@gabrielmalor – “The man just lost his job because of his political beliefs. The people celebrating it, particularly the ones who work in media, are trash human beings, not to mention completely unself-aware morons.”
@_Almaqah (two combined tweets) – “Stop convincing me “executing women who have abortions” is a conservative belief, I’m trying to be generous. Also he’ll be fine, NR will take him back. Most prolifers say they don’t want to punish women who have abortions, so it’s odd to see some of them conflate KW calling for execution with normal conservative beliefs. Which is it?”
@Elwampito – “it’s the latter”
@_Almaqah – “I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt!”
@Elwampito – “i mean, if you believe abortion is murder and support the death penalty, it would seem to fit unless you think women lack moral agency or something”
@_Almaqah – “This is true, most of them get around having to reach this conclusion by just saying women are victims of abortion too. KW was willing to say he takes their agency seriously and thinks they should be held culpable”
Here, Almaqah subtly shifts the accusation. The topic is the specific stance that women who kill their unborn children should be executed. Almaqah expands this to “Punishing women who seek abortion.”.There’s a significant difference here where his latter use of “punish” compels the person he’s arguing with to either agree or disagree to a general assertion which may or may not reveal an actual attitude towards the specific assertion. This isn’t rhetorically responsible dialogue.
@MZHemingway – “In only article pubbed @ Atlantic before being fired for being pro-life, NeverTrumper Kevin Williamson wrote enemy was @VDHanson.Interesting”
@_Almaqah – “Another person who equates ‘prolife’ with ‘wanting women who have abortions to be executed’. I’ll take your word for it!”
Molly Hemingway, is playing the typical journalist role of saying something triggering to her base, “Fired for being pro-life”, when she knows he was fired for having a stance about how to enforce those who have abortions. She isn’t being responsible with her tweet, and Almaqah capitalizes on this. But in reality, we know he wasn’t fired for being pro-life, but standing up *for* him and his right to hold opinions, is not an endorsement of those opinions NOR is it a claim that the opinions are “mainstream” (unless you insist on the Narrow Overton window definition of mainstream).
Here, Almaqah quotes the same Reason article, by Katherine Mangu-Ward, which [Chris] referred to and is linked in Jack’s piece.
@_Almaqah (two combined tweets) – “Kevin’s defenders would’ve been better off just saying ‘yes, punishing abortion w/execution is completely reasonable conservative belief, what of it?” instead of “he was just trolling, of course he doesn’t believe that horrible thing!” I mean, once you concede it’s a terrible thing to believe it, kind of hard to get mad when there are consequences for actually believing in it”
@Fyodor32768 (three combined tweets, bold is what Almaqah responds to) – “I think that conservatives probably believe that say the median viewpoint should be outright illegalization and that Williamson’s execution position is on the right side of the spectrum but not crazy. So by saying that his hanging position puts you outside the spectrum you are saying something about what the “baseline” opinion is that they dislike. Sort of like how a lot of mildly racist conservatives didn’t fully agree with Trump’s more forceful racism but didn’t feel it should be condemned as outside the pale because they though of their own more mild racism as the midpoint for views on minorities.”
@_Almaqah – “Yes, to them punishing abortion by execution is just a policy difference to be debated politely among friends. It’s not like Williamson called for something truly offensive like an 80% estate tax”
Almaqah, relying on the narrow, intolerant view of the Overton Window, again shifts the term from the specific “execution” to the broader term “punishment.” Fyodor does a great summary rebutting him here. Almaqah’s reponse is to belittle the notion of tolerating an individual, who while generally in agreement with most actual mainstream opinions, holds one or two more extreme ideas. This is problematic. If Almaqah’s attitude is to reign, we cannot tolerate individuals having anything other than exactly the same lock step views on every opinion we grant “mainstream” status…we must, upon discovery that one of our “orthodox” fellows, when holding even a single “out of whack” viewpoint, must be shut up and sent out of the camp.
@Herminator – “Kevin Williamson was Never Trump *and* one of the most talented writers of his generation. They still wouldn’t let him work for a a venerable liberal institution. Let that be a lesson.”
@MsBaileyGurl – “The lesson is…don’t advocate for the murder of women. Seems pretty easy for the ‘law and order’ party to get behind.”
@Herminator – “Adovocating for the murder of women who murder others is the issue at hand. This is misdirection.”
@_Almaqah – “”he doesn’t want to murder all women, he just wants to murder women who have abortions” might’ve sounded better in your head” Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: Poll-Fest: Is This Ethnic Humor Offensive?
First, the poll results!
Now here is Charles Green’s Comment of the Day on the post, Poll-Fest: Is This Ethnic Humor Offensive?
They’re all pretty funny to me. However, this is making me think.
The term “offensive” is more meaningfully understood as being about the offendee, not about the offending material.
There are some things that are so universally experienced as offensive, across most cultures and most history, that we can easily lapse into using “offensive” as an adjective to describe the subject matter.
But that’s a mistake. Continue reading
Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: Harvard And Evangelicals”
Here is another Comment of the Day emerging from the discussion of Harvard’s suspension of a student religious organization.
The topic is a bit tangential, but interesting nonetheless. One of EA’s readers from across the Atlantic—you can tell he’s British because he spell “theater” wrong— clarifies some history regarding England’s unpleasantness with the Colonies, and as you all know, correcting historical misconceptions is always welcome here.
This is P.M. Lawrence’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Harvard And Evangelicals”:
“When we look at the Second Amendment, it was written at time when a rag-tag group of colonies resisted the greatest empire the world had seen to date.”
Though I mostly just lurk these days, I have seen that misconception so much that I want to rebut it here, as this is one of the few places where the search for truth might let it be taken seriously. Feel free to check what follows for yourselves.
Britain had only just acquired Canada and Bengal, along with hegemony over some (not all) of the rest of India. At that point, all of its gains were yet to be consolidated, and represented drains rather than sources of strength; the same applies to Gibraltar and Minorca too, of which more below. In military, geographical, and economic terms, Britain was weaker than the Chinese, Russian and Ottoman Empires – though all those fell back in one or more of those respects very soon afterwards, when Britain was surging ahead, which may give people the wrong idea from looking anachronistically at what came later. More to the point, Britain was then behind both France and Spain too in most of those respects, and those countries were allied with the revolting colonists.
Britain had just two advantages over France and Spain: it had a more resilient financial system than France and Spain (though not than Holland, a minor rebel ally), and it had denied France more territory even though it had not yet consolidated that for itself.
Britain was – at the time – equal in naval power to France, though not yet to France and Spain combined, which it only became after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. That was why Britain lost the.Battle of Chesapeake Bay, which in turn made Yorktown into a Dien Bien Phu rather than at worst a Corunna or a Dunkirk, or at best even a Torres Vedras. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 
I am bumping Steve-O-in-NJ’s reaction to the depressing drama of Senator John McCain spending his last days in anger and bitterness up in the queue of pending Comments of the Day, which is long right now. The reason is that his analysis fits neatly into a post I was about to write, but will summarize here as a preface.
The impulse to defend McCain’s recent conduct, notably disinviting President Trump from his funeral in advance, is one more in a long line of signature significance moments, definitively identifying late stage sufferers of anti Trump hysteria. (Trump Derangement Syndrome just isn’t an accurate diagnosis, because it suggests equivalence with the more unhinged critics of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama. There is no comparison. It is like comparing a bad cold to the bubonic plague.) The grotesque theater of a public figure choosing, rather than to end his life with grace, forgiveness and unifying good will, choosing to emulate the mad Ahab, screaming,
He has gone full-Ahab. You never go full Ahab. But because the equally mad haters of the elected President relish the thought of any insult, attack or indignity hurled Trump’s way, the can’t perceive the obvious. Defending McCain’s prospective snub is as clear a symptom of anti-Trump hysteria as a dog recoiling from water signals rabies.
My usual course is to make an ethics analysis and then check the opinions of analysts who I trust as generally fair and perceptive. Here was Ann Althouse’s take, in part:
Those who respect and care about McCain want him to stop. Those who hate Trump so much they are willing to see a war hero and former Presidential candidate embarrass himself to deliver one more divisive insult just regard him as a means to an end.Here is Steve-O-in-NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, A Particularly Sad Ethics Dunce: Senator John McCain:
Continue reading →