Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

Are Americans Too Trivial and Easily Distracted to Run a Competent Democracy? The 100 Men vs. a Gorilla Controversy…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

When I heard that social media was in lather over the idiotic question of whether a hundred men could defeat a single silverback gorilla in hand-to-hand combat, I immediately thought of the scene above from the film “Stand by Me.” But those characters in the movie (based on Stephen King’s novella “The Body” and directed by Rob Reiner before Trump-Derangement ate his brain) were twelve. There are so many fascinating and important questions that not only are fun to ponder but that also are beneficial for society to debate that the social phenomenon of millions being obsessed with an idiotic hypothetical of no value whatsoever threatens to plunge me into a pit of despond.

Why should I devote my time and energies to trying to inspire my fellow human beings to become more skilled at ethical reasoning when this crap is what more of them find stimulating? “Fiddling while Rome burns” is dumb; arguing about impossible hypotheticals as ridiculous as whether Superman could beat Mighty Mouse in a fight—which in my view is a better question to argue over than the gorilla vs. 100 men nonsense—makes fictional Emperor Nero seem positively enterprising.

Calling this a “thought-experiment” is insulting to thought experiments, but it apparently first was raised on TikTok several years ago. Never mind that gorillas are generally reticent and would never engage in such a match: a Twitter/X post on the topic a week ago re-ignited the debate. As you can see, the author is a moron; @DreamChasnMike wrote, “i think 100 niggas could beat 1 gorilla everybody just gotta be dedicated to the shit.” Call me an elitist if you must, but as a matter of principle I would avoid reflexively pondering anything deemed worthy of discussion by someone like Mike. The fact that so many otherwise rational people are rushing to do so now is worthy of analysis, however.

Is it because so many, like me, have decided that the Trump-Deranged are officially mentally ill, and can only be engaged in infantile discussions? Is it because, as I have speculated here before more than once, the efforts of our rotten, political indoctrinating education system and our dishonest, biased, incompetent journalism have combined to lower the media IQ in the U.S. to around 83?

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Regarding “Conclave”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

As the Cardinals meet in Rome to find a new Pope for real, it is a propitious time to consider “Conclave,” the “thriller” (as Wikipedia calls it, a stretch) about a fictional conclave after the death of a fictional Pope. I had several friends recommend the film to me, and I finally watched it this week.

I’ll complete this ethics overview without spoilers since the film is relatively new, but wow, what a disappointment. Strong cast, excellent performances, brilliant production design and cinematography, but still, “Conclave” has to be one of the most wildly over-praised films I’ve seen since “Don’t Look Up!,” “The Crying Game” or “Ghost.” This overt Hollywood woke propaganda piece received eight nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, a number once reserved for all-time classics like “Ben-Hur,” “West Side Story” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” Its Best Picture nomination shows how far movie-making standards have fallen and that it won Best Adapted Screenplay is outrageous, since the screenplay was the worst aspect of the movie, predictable, over-wrought and unbelievable.

My late wife was superb at sleuthing out “surprise” endings of movies by the half-way mark or earlier; this time I felt like I was channeling her spirit because I guessed the movie’s ending (and woke propaganda mission) the second the key character showed up. I also thought, “Oh no, really? They are stooping to this?” Indeed they were.

“Conclave” is, ultimately, trivial and soap opera-ish, no better and less entertaining than the loony movie version of Dan Brown’s follow-up to “The Da Vinci Code,” “Angels and Demons.” Along the way to an anti-climax, we get more of the “white man bad/black man victim,” pro-LGTBQ+ proselytizing that Tinseltown has been addicted to for years.

I’ll give “Conclave” this: it was better than “Snow White” and a lot shorter than “Wicked.”

“THIS Is CNN!”..Also Incompetent Journalism, Punditry and Moderating

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“Sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

CNN host Abby Phillips deserved this. She deliberately rigged this segment, stacking it with anti-Trump Republicans ( Shermichael Singleton and the consistently idiotic, Dunning-Kruger victim Ana Navarro) for “balance” and, as usual, leaving token conservative Scott Jennings to hold up the Trump administration point of view all by himself.

The discussion was supposed to be about deporting illegal immigrants, not that there should be much left to discuss. The U.S. should deport as many as it can, as quickly and efficiently as it can, so potential border-jumpers get the message that they are not welcome. What is there to argue about?

That was not a group that could possibly enlighten anyone except maybe a special needs kindergarten class, and Phillips clearly has no moderation or leadership skills whatsoever. Thus the discussion deteriorated into a disgraceful, shouting, rationalization-filled, virtue-signalling brawl with nobody’s words being decipherable over the din, not that Navarro or Singleton are worth listening to anyway.

Ethics verdicts:

Navarro: Incompetent, of course. What does the status of Marco Rubio’s grandfather have to do with 2025 illegal immigration policy? This woman broadcasts her bias and lack of critical thinking skills every weekday on “The View”: why is she deemed fit to participate in any broadcast public policy discussion?

Singleton: Signature significance! “I’m black and you’re not!” Anyone who stoops to that playground-level retort even once should be banned from television permanently

Phillips: Incompetent and irresponsible. If you can’t moderate a discussion better than that (and she could have hardly done worse) you have no business hosting a show.

CNN: Incompetent and irresponsible. The network morphed into “The Jerry Springer Show” so gradually that I hadn’t noticed. If it were an ethical responsible, trustworthy network interested in public service (and we all know it is not), CNN would ban Navarro and Singleton permanently.

Ethics Villain and Unethical Quote of the Month: Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (Guess What Party…)

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yet more smoking gun evidence that the Democratic Party of the 21st Century does not want or support democracy. We shouldn’t need any more proof after the horrors of 2024, but an amazing number of Americans with misty-eyed memories of JFK, “The Great Society,” and even Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (the fools!) refuse to accept what the party of Jefferson, Jackson, Truman and FDR has metastasized into.

Pritzker was one of the primary state dictators during the stupid pandemic response, signing 41 consecutive emergency orders during the Wuhan virus freakout to give himself unlimited powers so he could keep businesses and schools closed. His whole family is a menace: his sister is the woke empress that had Harvard select the DEI plagiarist Claudine Gay to lead Harvard further down the path to intellectual corruption.

President Trump is doing no more (and amazingly, not much less) than what he promised Americans when he was the only choice voter were given to avoid a DEI fraud claiming perfection for the most incompetent President in U.S. history. The hysterical and hypocritical Left is screaming “Dictatorship!” when the elected President is using his powers appropriately and necessarily to address the looming debt crisis, enforce the law, protect commerce, and remove the metaphorical termites from the foundations of democracy and its institutions like universities, law firms, and journalism.

And just listen to those morons cheering for this jerk! It has been speculated that Pritzker’s insurrection act (his party’s prosecutors and pundits have taken the position that telling a crown to “fight” is a call for violence, remember) is a prelude to his entering the 2028 wide-open race for President among his party’s current group of boobs, totalitarians and losers. Yeah, good luck with that, J.B…

And no, I’m not making fun of the Guv’s weight, I’m making fun of the fact that he’s deluded. In fact, conservative writers and pundits are behaving unethically by taking the low road and issuing cheap shots based on Pritzker’s girth. Here’s Powerline, for example: “The underlying message of Pritzker’s call for ‘disruption’ is that he is running for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Heavy!”

It’s this man’s brain, not his belly, that’s the problem. Try to stay focused.

Comment of the Day: “Oh-Oh! President Trump Violated Another Norm!”

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

I confess (and it has been many months since my last confession): I was hoping to trigger this Comment of the Day or its equivalent with my criticism of the late Pope and the degree of influence and respect the position is still accorded by the news media and world leaders. Had I thought about it, esteemed commenter proe32754 would have probably been my top candidate for providing it too.

I will only point out by way of rebuttal is that Pope Francis’s Ethics Alarms dossier is a long as other prominent individuals who I have, fairly and correctly, designated Ethics Villains. Let’s see: he had four official Ethics Dunce awards and a couple more that I chose to frame differently. He has many Unethical Quotes on his record. He repeatedly presumed to meddle in the policies and politics of the United States (but his Holy predecessor during World War II refused to ever condemn Hitler’s Third Reich by name.) I have so many favorite outrages to choose from, but I think my favorite was when he dared to address Congress to pimp for the Democrats’ dream of open borders, despite severely limiting who is allowed to live in his own domain, The Vatican. Normally, anyone with a record like Pope Francis would be the star of a funeral no world leaders would dare to attend, lest they enter Cognitive Dissonance Hell with public opinion.

Yes, I suppose my remarks about the late Pope were “snide,” but I stand by them (and I do believe they were “called for.”) They were even mild compared to what I have written before; for example, here was my introduction to a post after the Pope’s visit in 2015:

I have been touched by the passionate defenses of the Pope during his visit here, by sincere believers who desperately wanted not to see what was going on. If only Pope Francis respected his supporters enough to live up to the ideals they projected on him, which included insisting, against all evidence, that he was merely talking in broad, moral generalities to Congress rather than lobbying for progressive policies, like making illegal immigration legal.

He was, we were told, only showing us where “true North” was according to the Church. I guess he just forgot to bring up abortion, which the Church regards as murder (and Joe Biden too, when he’s not playing politics) as he was lecturing our legislators about “human rights.”

The second he returned home, the Pope threw gay couples under the Popemobile, stating that Kim Davis’s position as a government official refusing to obey the law was a “right.” Again, his defenders insisted that this was just an abstraction. Now we hear from Davis’s lawyers that she had a secret meeting with Pope Francis. Davis says that he hugged her, gave her a rosary, and told her to “stay strong.”

“That was a great encouragement. Just knowing that the pope is on track with what we’re doing, it kind of validates everything to have someone of that stature,” Davis said.

Naturally, those who can’t handle the truth will say she is lying. There is no evidence that Kim Davis is untruthful, and her lawyer would be facing discipline if they falsely reported what did not occur. This really happened.

Got that, Popophiles? While a guest in this country, while progressives were tripping all over their usually Christian-mocking selves to proclaim him as a moral exemplar for setting U.S. policy, while he was being honored by the President and treated with more deference by the news media than any foreign leader, Pope Francis was surreptitiously encouraging an anti-gay zealot to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and the rule of law, while withholding the human right to be married from gay Americans.

I have already pointed out that the Pope is a hypocrite and a coward. With this conduct, he showed that he is a sneak as well, and blatantly disrespectful of the laws of the nation in which he was an honored guest. This was a breach of manners, protocol and a betrayal of trust on a massive scale.

I understand that religious faith by its very nature is an exercise in “My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts,” and also that organized religion has a traditional and important role to play in maintaining civilization in a world where the vast majority of human beings won’t be civilized on their own. Thus I am not only sympathetic but in some respects encouraged by the passion and the passion and the loyalty of Catholic Church defenders like proe32754, who is obviously more articulate and capable than most.

Here is the Comment of the Day on: “Oh-Oh! President Trump Violated Another Norm!”…

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“Cornell Just Doesn’t Get That Freedom of Speech Thingy” and Other Observations On a Campus Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Read this whole jaw-dropping NYT article (Gift link!) and see if you can find evidence of anyone ethical in the entire story. It’s kind of like “Where’s Waldo?”

1.The headline is “Cornell Cancels Kehlani Performance Over Alleged Antisemitic Statements.” The caption under the photo (above) adds, “Kehlani, a popular R&B singer, is being replaced as the headline act at Cornell University’s annual concert.”

Observation: If she’s a popular performer for her singing ability and presentation, her “alleged Anti-Semitic statements should be irrelevant. This pure cancel culture stuff. Still. How can Cornell teach anybody if its administrators learn nothing?

2. “In a 2024 music video for the song “Next 2 U,” Kehlani danced in a jacket adorned with kaffiyehs as dancers waved Palestinian flags in the background. During the video’s introduction, the phrase “Long Live the Intifada” appeared against a dark background.”

Observation: So what? The event organizers can tell her not to perform that number.

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Unethical Quote of the Month in the Unethical Speech of the Year So Far: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“Now, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have university students being swept up and shoved into unmarked vans, and fathers being tossed into Salvadorean gulags without a hint of due process.”

—-Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D, as you know) repeatedly lying his fool head off, fearmongering and generally appealing to the ignorance of uninformed citizens in his disgraceful and shameless “State of the State” speech this week.

So much about that quote makes me angry, and I usually don’t get angry at unethical quotes and don’t want to, because emotion interferes with rational analysis and critical thought. Corrupt and unscrupulous politicians, demagogues and Axis agents depend on that principle, which is why, in the absence of facts, common sense, law, principles and ethics, they are all relying on seeding fear and hate, just as Walz’s party did as it tried to inflict another four years of ruinous progressive rule on the nation last year.

That quote above is pure deceit, which makes it a lie start to finish. Saying “university students” are being “swept up” is a deliberate effort to confuse and misinform with technically accurate facts; it is like saying that “young people with ten toes are being swept up.” The students in question are not citizens, which is the critical fact underlying their removal, that and the fact that they have violated the conditions under which they are allowed to be here. Describing the Maryland illegal alien and alleged gang member and human trafficker as a”father” is almost a parody of deceit: Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s parental and marital status has absolutely nothing, zilch, nada to do with his deportation, and Walz, the asshole, knows it. No father in this country has any reason to fear that their being a father will lead to their deportation; Walz’s dishonest rhetoric is like a capital punishment foe describing the execution of serial killer Ted Bundy as the state “choosing to execute husbands.” I also must note that Garcia the father is a single individual, not a plural, unless his pronouns include “they.”

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Trump-Derangement Rant of the Month: WaPo Propagandist Dana Milbank

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

[Note: this post was supposed to go up yesterday. I aim at at least three and usually four substantial posts a day, but this week I have lost control of my schedule, my routines are shot, and I have been squeezed regarding my time, research and energy. A lot of what’s going on is important, some of it is lucrative, and all of it is exhausting, but that’s my problem, not yours. I am trying to get back on track.]

Dana Milbank is in a perpetual dead heat with Phillip Bump for the title of most unethical, dishonest and biased Washington Post columnist. He’s an embarrassment, frankly; the fact that Jeff Bezos allows him to continue to have a platform for his partisan attacks should be sufficient to assuage the anger of the Post’s almost entirely biased staff and readership. I decided to ignore Milbank years ago, because in addition to being intellectually dishonest, biased and none-too-bright, he’s a flaming asshole, as his most recent diatribe demonstrates.

Its title is “Trump is wrapping up 100 days of historic failure: America has seen ruinous periods, but never when the president was the one knowingly causing the ruin.” Punditry like this isn’t worthy of publication, and responsible journalistic publications, if there were such things anymore, would never permit such garbage to see the light of day except on an obscure blog—you know, like mine. If someone has made up his mind that everything a President says or does is wrong no matter what it is, that individual obviously is incapable of fair analysis: this essay might as well consist of 750 words-worth of “I hate him I hate him I hate him” repeated over and over.

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Ethics Dunce: Elon Musk [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Oh fine. Now Elon Musk is proving that domestic terrorism works.

Elon Musk said yesterday that he will significantly cut back his commitment to DOGE beginning in May to focus more time and energy on Tesla, which this week reported a 71% drop in profits compared with the first quarter of 2024. In so doing, he immediately validated the illegal and unethical domestic terrorism campaign against him that has been wink-winked as valid by leading Democrats and Trump-haters.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Gee, What a Christian, Presidential, Sincere and Uniting Easter Message!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I know, I know…The Julie Principle.

Even so, as I said in brief summary of Rep. Mace’s uncivil and disrespecful treatment of a constituent who dared to imply criticism of her representational, “This doesn’t help.”

Once upon a time, Presidents chose their words carefully for their public pronouncements. I defy anyone to explain how the Truth Social rant above can accomplish anything positive. I place it in the same category as the Trump Hate outbursts by the likes of Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff or Jasmine Crockett, all of which are designed to inflame rather than to unite, except that a President should be held to higher standards than members of Congress.

The only question in my mind is whether exploiting the holiest of Christian holidays to barf out insults and declarations of personal pique is less revolting, more revolting, or about as revolting than President Biden’s use of the day last year to issue a pandering, celebratory proclamation about “Transgender Day of Visibility.” I score Trump’s message as worse, as in “more unethical,” because its language is, though typical of this President, still inappropriate for any resident of the White House. (Trump issued a similar message last Easter, but he wasn’t President them. That’s a material distinction, or should be.)

It is also, like Biden’s message, stupid and incompetent. Trump has a challenging agenda and a tough road ahead; his personal popularity is crucial to achieving that agenda, and there is no way these kinds of self-indulgent outbursts can do anything but alienate potential supporters.