Rep. Bowman has just issued a statement regarding his pulling a fire alarm switch to delay yesterday’s vote in the House on the stop-gap funding bill:
Ethics Alarms Award Nominee
More On The Unethical “Stand Up For Science” Mug (I Can’t Help It…I’m “Triggered”)
The asinine “Stand Up For Science” mug I wrote about earlier today still rankles, and I just realized that a video that surfaced this month is relevant to it. I had seen a recently released TEDTalk given in 2013 by S. Matthew Liao. He is the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University, and has previously been on the faculty of Oxford, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Princeton. He’s also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Moral Philosophy. Several conservative commentators had freaked out over the video; naturally, the mainstream media buried it. They did that because it represents the outer limits of a climate change panic whackadoodle, and this guy is unquestionably not just a SCIENTIST of the sort that the mug-makers want us to fall down and worship as the all-knowing, all-seeing societal architects they are, but also an ethicist as well. I considered it as a post topic but decided against using it, because, well, it seemed too silly to have to point out how irresponsible Liao is.
Then came..the mug.
The ‘Great Stupid’ Woke Mug That’s Even Worse Than The ‘Great Stupid’ Woke Lawn Signs
This embarrassing thing has over 5,000 “likes” on Facebook, including many from friends of mine who I will henceforth have a hard time looking in the eye.
The mug, which is available free of charge “for a limited time only,” annoys me more than the “In this house we believe” signs with their fatuous virtue-signaling, generalizations (“Love is Love”) and rationalizations (“No Human Being Is Illegal”). because the game it plays is more sinister and confusing to the intellectually handicapped. It is a political propaganda device that deliberately uses false equivalencies in order to ridicule and denigrate legitimate dissent from current progressive cant.
The smug mug’s three statements of the obvious (“The Earth is not flat,” “Chemtrails aren’t a thing” and “We’ve been to the moon”) contradict fringe wacko conspiracy theories that don’t require debunking, since only a tiny and insignificant percentage of the public believes in them or ever has, and almost all of that group breathe through their mouths. However, mixed in among those topics as if they are in the same category are reductive generalizations about two public policy issues involving serious and valid controversies. That’s dirty pool, and worse, the statements aspire to end debates that they don’t even fairly reference.
Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The National Cathedral’s New Windows”
A lovely and thoughtful Comment of the Day by Sarah B. on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The National Cathedral’s New Windows”:
***
I look at these windows and I am disappointed. Our culture has moved away from what should be presented everywhere: the true, good, and beautiful. Let us put these windows to the test.
Are these windows depicting what is true? Yes, things like this have happened. No one can argue on this. Are they depicting what is good? This is harder. The windows have the intent of being understood in several ways, some of them, NOT good. Finally beautiful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that is true, but no one seriously thinks that the rose windows in Notre Dame are ugly. I certainly do no see much beauty in these windows. The signs are jarring and take up most of the space on the windows. The emphasis, therefore, is on signs and messages, not on beautiful pictures.
In addition, I look at this from the Catholic standpoint of stained glass typically showing multiple scenes of import or people to be admired. From that standpoint, I can come up with many better pictures for an attempt at a mostly apolitical set of windows. If one wants to tell the history of slavery even, I have some great ideas. I think our history has more important matters than that, but I’ll give the slavery a shot first. Of course, all of these will have to be simplified for the material of stained glass, but we have had Jesus feeding the multitudes on stained glass for centuries, not to mention all the other Bible stories. A true student of stained glass can simplify anything and do so meaningfully.
Ethics Quiz: Is This An Ethical Teacher Training Film? Just Kidding: Of Course It Isn’t…
Imagine a culture that could permit something this biased, divisive, reductive and vile to get funded, green-lighted, produced and used.
Never mind: you don’t need to imagine it. That culture’s here.
Now what?
More Cause For Hope! NYT Readers Call BS On Ibram X. Kendi And Michelle Goldberg
The reliably woke, intellectually dishonest and frequently ridiculous New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg issued another one of her propaganda pieces, this time trying to excuse and rationalize the implosion of Boston University’s Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, which is laying off most of its staff and looks headed for the dustbin of history. As for that, good. Kendi is one of the worst race-hustlers extant, and BU giving him such a platform for his divisive and destructive ranting was academic malpractice.
Goldberg’s dutiful excuse-making in “Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising,”meanwhile, would be an embarrassment to the Times if it were a legitimate paper any more. She absolves Kendi of blame because he had no management experience and it was irresponsible of woke donors to give him so much money in their rush to signal their virtue. (I guess all those corporations should have just stuck with discriminating against white applicants in their hiring…) What she is admitting without having the integrity to do so openly is that Kendi was and is a blowhard phony who talked big but was untrustworthy. Ann Althouse sharply observes the hypocrisy here:
If we’re going to do critical race theory, let’s not hold back when the insights are inconvenient. Lavishing money on an unprepared — but charismatic — black person and then treating him like a naif when he fails to perform according to existing conventions — that too is racism… under the theory.
Bingo.
Depressed Ethics Observations On A Jury Nullification Verdict In NY
Clarence Darrow would have loved the resolution of the Jennifer Nelson case in Suffolk County, New York yesterday. The U.S.’s most famous and iconic defense attorney achieved many of his most important victories by slyly arguing for jury nullification, which is now grounds for a mistrial and ethics sanctions in all states but one (New Hampshire) See Note below. Of course, Darrow never used that term, but when he told juries to “send a message” with their not-guilty verdict, that’s what he was talking about.
Jennifer Nelson, 36, a Long Island mother, faced up to 25 years in prison for driving her car—twice— into a 15-year-old boy, the leader of a pack of bullies that had plagued her teen son last October after she concluded that he had taken his Adidas Ye slides . The jury deliberated less than four hours to declare her innocent of an intentional attack, instead finding her guilty of leaving the scene of an accident when there were serious injuries. Her attorneys say they will seek a sentence of just probation, and if they get the right judge, that may be all the punishment Nelson gets….for attempted murder.
Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 9/26/23: Trump Does What He Does, And Blatant Racism In Ireland
Several regular commenters have alerted me that WordPress is making it difficult to post. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know the platform is messing with its software again, fixing some problems while creating others.
I’m sorry. I’ll always post a comment for you if you get frustrated: just email me. (I will NOT post comments if you have been banned. You know who you are…)
1. No matter what the polls say now, Trump can screw it up: As night follows day, Donald Trump, flushed with cockiness over recent polls showing him clobbering Joe Biden if the two were to face off today in an election more than a year away, started shooting off his mouth and keyboard with extravagant claims and threats. Such as:
- On Truth Social: “They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its “Country Threatening Treason.” Their endless coverage of the now fully debunked SCAM known as Russia, Russia, Russia, and much else, is one big Campaign Contribution to the Radical Left Democrat Party. I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events. Why should NBC, or any other of the corrupt & dishonest media companies, be entitled to use the very valuable Airwaves of the USA, FREE? They are a true threat to Democracy and are, in fact, THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! The Fake News Media should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”
(Psst! The answer to “why” is “The First Amendment,” you idiot.) Continue reading
A Poll, More Headline Deceit, And “What’s Going On Here?”
It begins with the prototypical “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” decision by ABC News to bury the lede with a deceptive headline in an effort to minimize Joe Biden’s botching of his White House tenure. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll had resulted in a stunning move away from Biden to Trump, showing the latter with a landslide level 51-42 lead if the 2024 election were held today. ABC’s headline: “Troubles for Biden not just his age in reelection campaign: POLL.”
This is a now common tool of the fake news game for those with the integrity to call it what it is: deceitful headlining to hide news that the media wants as little noticed as possible. The defensive rejoinder is always, “Oh, but that’s just the headline!”, but much of the public only skims the news and thus never sees more than the headlines of most stories. ABC News knows it, and when there have been stories that it (or other MSM propagandists for the Democrats) deems unhelpful to the cause, it uses this trick if not one of the other ones, like not reporting the story at all. Since this was ABC’s own poll, that one wasn’t an option.
Sure, the poll spelled “troubles” for Biden rather than just his age, as if anyone paying attention thought being old was the main problem with President Biden. But that’s not what the poll results indicate: they indicate that the public realizes that Biden has been a disaster as POTUS, and are pulling away from him at an accelerating rate. Bad polls affect party confidence, enthusiasm, morale and donations: that’s why most pollsters, who tend to be biased toward the Left like the media organizations that hire them, tend to skew poll results against Republicans. The honest headline for this poll would have been what was significant about it: “HOLY CRAP, A POLL RUN BY ABA AND THE POST STILL SHOWED TRUMP CLOBBERING BIDEN IN 2024! ARRRGH!!!” except that ABC’s partisan hacks didn’t want that to be the reaction in Trump Derangement Land.
Ethics Dunce: NYT Columnist David Brooks
I don’t know what possessed fake conservative pundit David Brooks to blow up his credibility on Twitter, now known as X, but he did it. I suppose Brooks was performing a public service for those naive enough to regard his pronouncements as coming down from the mount: Brooks styles himself as an elite intellectual, and what he did was as dunderheaded as any half-sloshed dockworker could aspire to. His tweet was also dishonest, and obviously so; maybe now fewer people will stop regarding his pontifications as worth reading, something I did years ago.
In case you missed this mini-scandal, Brooks posted the photo above that he took with his smartphone, and wrote, “This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible.” These are the kinds of impulsive outbursts that social media encourages; I don’t know, maybe Brooks was in a bad mood, or frustrated, or half-sloshed himself. But anyone who has been in an airport restaurant knows that meal didn’t cost $78. It certainly cost too much, because eating in airports, like eating at ballgames, makes you a victim of a captive environment: a pulled pork sandwich and fries with a bottle of beer recently cost me 36 bucks at Nationals Park. Brooks, however, was cheating, and unfortunately for him, the restaurant he smeared exposed him. Good.
Ethics Alarms 