Ethics Alarms Award Nominee

From The Ethics Alarms “Presidential Flat Learning Curve” Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Sitting on the sidelines watching the party that has been calling him a traitor, a liar, an imbecile and a Nazi for over three years explode into self-destructive but nicely revealing internecine, generational, ideological warfare, with key leaders calling each other racists and other uncomplimentary things, President Donald J. Trump decided that the most responsible course was for him to tweet this:

This is gross incompetence and stupidity.

I did like the Red State headline regarding this inexplicably self-destructive behavior:

“As Democrats Fight a Civil War, Trump Strips Naked and Runs Onto the Battlefield.”

 

Let’s See How The Ethics Alarms Of Some Advice Columnists Are Doing…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

 

Well, let’s see: blog traffic is dead today, like most Sundays,, my in-progress post about the Big Lie that President Trump is a racist needs to be cut approximately in half (though it could easily be twice as long), and my current inventory is made up of either “too silly to write about,” yet more “2016 post election ethics train wreck” insanity, or  stuff that’s two complicated to handle working on half a brain, which is what I woke up with, now seems like as good a time as ever to see how the newspaper advice columnists are doing…

  • Philip Gananes (Social Q’s) advises a teenage son who is embarrassed by his mother’s “R-rated” tattoos “all over her arms and back.” The teen has asked Mom to cover up around his friends, and her reply is “if people don’t like her tattoos, that’s their problem.”  He asks the advice columnist if he is out of line.

Gananes says in part, “As an adult, she is free to make her own choices about her body and body art. You’re entitled to have feelings about her tattoos. But to ask her to hide them to save you embarrassment is like asking her to pretend to be a different person — because you’re ashamed of the one she is. That has to sting…The next time one of your pals makes a crack about your mom’s tattoos, say: “I’m not crazy about them, either. But she’s a great person and a terrific mother.” When you can say that and really mean it, Brian, you will be a terrific son.”

The Ethics Alarms verdict:

Whiff!

I was surprised that Gallanes, who is usually on target, would embrace the “that’s just who I am” rationalization. The issue isn’t tattoos, but “R rated” tattoos. “Mom, would you please not fart and belch loudly around my friends?” “That’s just who I am!  If people don’t like it, that’s their problem.”  “Mom, would you stop saying “fuck” and “cock-sucker” when my friends are here? “That’s just who I am!  If people don’t like it, that’s their problem.”  “Mom, would you stop coming on to my male friends?….Mom, would you please stop dressing in a halter top and going bare midriff with your gut hanging over your belt when my friends are here? You’re 56 years old and weigh 212!…Mom, would you please not come out to talk to my friends when you’re drunk”?

That’s just who I am!  If people don’t like it, that’s their problem.”
 Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Democratic Presidential Candidate, Washington Governor Jay Inslee

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, the next Secretary of State…No, really! I’m serious! I wouldn’t kid about something like that!”

“My first act will be to ask Megan Rapinoe to be my secretary of state. I haven’t asked her yet so this could be a surprise to her.I actually believe this because what I think what she has said that has inspired us so much is such an antithesis of the president’s foreign policies.”

Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a declared candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President in 2020, before the progressive Netroots Nation conference

And you thought President Trump’s appointments have been bad!

So it’s come to this, has it? Megen Rapinoe is a soccer player, and nothing but a soccer player. She played soccer to the subordination of everything else in high school and college. She has no academic credentials, proven expertise, experience or even interest in government, diplomacy and foreign affairs, and a supposedly serious candidate for President states that he would appoint her as his Secretary of State.

How can we explain this? Could he have been joking? It’s not funny by any analysis. It is horrifying, in fact. Still, candidates for office don’t typically say “my first act” if elected will be to do something if they have no intention to do such a thing and everyone realizes it. That’s insane; it’s both a lie and a transparent lie.  It is an insult as well: the statement says that the candidate thinks the public is so box-of-rocks stupid that they will believe utter nonsense.In addition to everything else that’s wrong with it, Inslee’s stated “first act” would be futile. Even Democrats aren’t so far gone that they would vote to confirm a Secretary of State nominee with the worst credentials of any Cabinet nominee in U.S. history—yes, even worse than Ben Carson, and I didn’t think that was possible. Continue reading →

Saturday Ethics Review, 7/13/2019: The Uncomfortable Truth About “The Lion King,” The Green New Deal, Children At the Border, Blackface, And Harvey Weinstein

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Hi!

Is it unethical for an ethics speaker to drop trow during a program? I think so. It was a situation I narrowly avoided this morning. I am a rather animated speaker, and after I slammed the D.C. ethics rules into the floor to illustrate a point, my effort to retrieve the volume resulted in the rear snap of my galluses pulling loose from the back of my pants. With an unpantsing imminent (and about to be streamed live to hundreds), I asked my moderator to come down from his platform and rescue me by reclipping the devices on, which he did.

Hilarity ensued.

1. “Asshole” ethics. In another episode today, I referred to Harvey Weinstein as an “asshole,” in the context of discussing the multiple David Bois ethics problems in handling the Hollywood mogul’s representation. The exact statement was “Even assholes deserve competent representation.” This came closely after I had mentioned that lawyer incivility was an ethics problem whether there were explicit rules against it or not. One of the attendees in cyber-space texted a query as to whether it was uncivil for me to use the term “asshole.”

I answered that I was reminded of the moment in  “1776” when one of the members of the Continental Congress challenges Thomas Jefferson’s use of the term “tyrant” to describe King George. Is it really necessary, Jefferson is asked, to use such a harsh word? Why resort to an insult? “Because the King is a tyrant,” Tom replies.

I went on to say that I have found that in certain situations, only certain harsh words are sufficiently accurate.  What should I call Harvey, a miscreant? A jerk? No, the man is an asshole, I said. I’m not using the term as an ad hominem attack, but as the most accurate term I can think of for someone who has done the things he has done to so many women while indicating no remorse at all. I do not use the term indiscriminately, and would not use it in certain forums, such as open court. But I do not believe in word taboos, and when the description, however harsh, fits, it is not uncivil to make a Harvey Weinstein wear it.

2. Now, what’s the right word for THIS? In the Washington Post,  Dan Hassler-Forest reflects on the themes of “The Lion King” and asserts that the lions, hyenas, and gazelles are “stand ins for human societal organizations” and that the themes of the movie “incorporates the white supremacist’s worldview.” Hassler-Forest is an author and public speaker on “media franchises, cultural theory, and political economy” who works as assistant professor in the Media Studies department of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “No matter how you look at it, this is a film that introduces us to a society where the weak have learned to worship at the feet of the strong,” his article asserts. Continue reading →

KABOOM! A New York Times Front Page Story Suggests Ethics Is Dead, Logic Is Dead, And That I’m Wasting My Life…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

July 7th’s front page story in the New York Times not only made my head explode, it has me considering whether to chuck it all and become a bottle cap collector or something else more useful than trying to promote ethics awareness in a society where its most respected newspaper publishes something like this. Or maybe I should just give up entirely and flush myself down the commode.

The headline online is  “When ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is Invoked in the Abortion Debate.”  It just as well might have been: “TWSXQ@$#7mm.”

I’ll just post and comment on some of the gems in the piece, then you read the whole  thing and meet me at the top of the ROLAIDS tower in Baltimore and we’ll jump together, holding hands and singing the Pina Colada Song.

  • “As a pastor, Clinton Stancil counsels his black congregants that abortion is akin to the taking of innocent life. But as a civil rights activist, Mr. Stancil urges them to understand the social forces that prompt black women to have abortions at disproportionately high rates.”

If the good pastor believes that abortion is the taking of innocent life, the “social forces” don’t excuse the act at all. This is like saying that we should “understand” what makes serial killers kill. Murder—taking of innocent life–is an absolute wrong; nothing can excuse it. This is equivocation.

  • “But to many African-Americans like Mr. Stancil, who is the pastor of Wayman A.M.E. Church in St. Louis, abortion cannot be debated without considering the quality of urban schools. Or the disproportionately high unemployment rate in black communities. Or the significant racial disparities in health care.”

Then many urban schools are graduating African-Americans like Pastor Stancil who have the reasoning ability of household appliances and believe that taking innocent lives can be justified or rationalized by irrelevant matters. Continue reading →

“Never Mind!”*….And A Few Questions

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

House Democrats on The Committee on Oversight and Reform tweeted the photo above  to promote their investigation into “inhumane treatment” at the border The hearing,  titled “Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border,” is supposed to examine this alleged inhumane treatment—as illustrated by the photo— that members of the committee allegedly witnessed. The photo was intended as a graphic  sample of the “grotesque treatment of children” at the camps under the Trump Administration.

The photo and tweet were quickly sent down the memory hole when Democrats discovered that, not for the first time, they had used an old photo of camps during the Obama Administration.

After deleting the tweet, the Oversight Committee put up a second tweet with a different photo. This photo also turned out to  be from the Obama administration, and  was also deleted.

Notes: Continue reading →

Is There A Point When It Would Be Ethical For Society To Hold That Someone Is Too Stupid To Be Trusted With Children?

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Kudos to Jonathan Turley for finding this head-exploding story.

In Dixon, Illinois, police stopped a woman who was driving her Audi SUV with an inflatable pool on the roof—and her two children riding inside the pool. Jennifer A. Janus Yeager explained that she had  driven into town to inflate the pool at a friend’s house, and then  had her two daughters ride inside of the pool to hold it down on the drive home.

Oh! That explains everything, ma’am! Sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m sure you understand that we have to investigate these things. Have a nice day, and be careful up there, kids! Hold on tight!

The police arrested this idiot on two counts of endangering the life or health of a child, two counts of reckless conduct and failure to secure a passenger between 8 and 16. Continue reading →

Air Travel Ethics: When In Doubt, Play The Race Card.

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Dr. Tisha Rowe, an African-American family physician from  Houston, was pulled off a recent American Airlines flight and required to cover herself with a blanket before being allowed back on the plane, which was traveling from Jamaica to Miami. You can see above what Dr. Rowe was wearing, thanks to her angry tweet about the episode.

I have no idea why this outfit was found so objectionable; I’ve seen much worse on many flights. On the other hand, a little taste and decorum while flying in close quarters with strangers is basic manners and civility.

Yesterday she said that she had been humiliated in front of her 8-year-old son, and asserted that racial bias was behind the incident. “Had they seen that same issue in a woman who was not a woman of color, they would not have felt empowered to take me off the plane,” Dr. Rowe said. “In pop culture, especially black women with a body like mine, they’re often portrayed as video vixens. So I’ve had to deal with those stereotypes my whole life.”

SHE looks like a “video vixen?” Okay! Whatever you say, doctor! Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: An Ice Cream-Licking, Fame-Seeking Moron

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

“All I wanted to do was be famous.”

—Accused ice-cream carton-licker, Lenise Lloyd Martin III, a 36-year-old unemployed man who has been arrested in Louisianan for making a video of himself licking a carton of ice cream in the Big B’s Supermarket in  Belle Rose.

“It’s a shame,” commented Matt Walters, who works at the store. “A grown man doing something like that.” Yes, that’s a shame, but a greater shame is a grown man thinking like that, and a culture that raises its children to believe that fame itself is an accomplishment, regardless of what one is famous for.

The internet and social media have spread this disease of ethics and the mind, but it began long before the web took over our lives. Andy Warhol’s prescient quote, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”, first appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. We saw the hints of the cultural malady with the advent of television, as we saw ordinary Americans getting a thrill from acting like giddy fools behind announcers and TV journalists when they saw a TV camera.

This compulsion spawned such pop culture freaks as “Rocken Rollen” also known as Rainbow Man, who somehow managed to get himself and his rainbow-hued Afro on camera at dozens of live sporting events. At least he stayed in the stands; another example of the phenomenon was fans who ran out on the field mid-game hoping that a TV camera would capture their moment of “fame.”

Clearly, the culture is sending a toxic message to our youth. The movie and subsequent TV series “Fame,” following the travails of aspiring teenage performers, both pushed the false concept that being famous itself is an achievement:

Baby, look at me
And tell me what you see
You ain’t seen the best of me yet
Give me time
I’ll make you forget the rest
…
Don’t you know who I am
Remember my name!
Fame!
I’m gonna live forever
I’m gonna learn how to fly, high
I feel it comin’ together
People will see me and cry,
Fame!
I’m gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame,
Fame!
I’m gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name
Remember, remember, remember, remember
Remember, remember, remember, remember…

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Unethical Times Op-ed Of The Week?”

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Timothy Egan’s spectacularly dishonest op-ed for the Times, “The Founders Would Gag at Today’s Republicans: The cult of Trump has embraced values and beliefs that Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln abhorred,” was one more conservative- and Trump-bashing exercise disguised as a history lesson, albeit for Americans who know little about history and foolishly assume that they can trust pundits like Egan to enlighten them. Of course, all such exercises in time-traveling appeals to authority are inherently dishonest. 18th century minds, even those as sharp and creative as the Founders possessed, would go into shock at most of what they saw today if somehow provided the opportunity, and would take a while to understand why things have evolved as they have.

Frequent commenter JutGory sat down and treated Ethics Alarms readers with an analysis of developments the Founders would have had trouble with without indulging in the sort of cherry-picking and distortion Egan did to pander to the Times’ progressive readership. The result of what Jut called his “retro-prognostications” is a genuinely educational post, and a distinguished Comment of the Day.

Here it is:

If we are doing retro-prognostications, I bet I could do better:

Disclaimer: the Founders would probably be a bit mystified at the technological advances in general.

They would not be surprised by the abolition of slavery. They would be half-surprised that it took a war to do it (“We put in an amendment process for pretty much this reason, people!”)

They would probably be surprised at how much power the Supreme Court (the weakest branch) wields. Of course it only wields that much power because the other branches have gotten more powerful. To wit:

They would be surprised by the 16th Amendment (income tax), as it is a direct tax of the individual by the Federal Government, but okay (“Yay, Amendment process).

Of course, money is power, so, with more tax money comes more power.

They would be completely baffled by the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators). That opens the Senate up to national influences, instead of influence from a small group of state legislators. That was kind of the whole point of the Senate: to represent the States, not its citizens.

But, you can’t pass a farm subsidy bill if Senators answer to their legislatures.

Can’t get universal healthcare if Senators stand in the way.

But, you change the Senate selection process, you get popular candidates, supported by national appeal and no specific understanding of the needs of the State (Hello, Al Franken!)

The power grab of the Commerce Clause would puzzle them. Continue reading →