Ethics Dunces

Ethics Dunce: Matt Drudge

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

SAG

Matt Drudge, on his Drudge Report,  posted the above photo of Susan Sarandon with the caption, “SAG.”

Nice.

The link was to this story, a really stupid one, about criticism the 69-year old actress is receiving for dressing this way to deliver an award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The Drudge Report, I must note, is the favorite, go-to source for political news for conservative pundits.

The gag is per se nasty, ageist, misogynist, and creepy. Sarandon is roundly hated by conservatives for being an outspoken feminist and supporter of liberal causes. The “joke” is an ad hominem attack and a despicable cheap shot. Somewhere, someplace there might be someone who has standing to make fun of Susan Sarandon’s looks, but I don’t know of any. By the way, here is Matt Drudge:

Drudge

One can debate the tastefulness of her attire, but Sarandon, as always, looks smashing.

Signature Significance From The Ted Cruz Campaign: No Trustworthy Candidate Would Allow This Mailer

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

ted-cruz-shaming-campaign-3

I really hate fake mailers, because they are lies. Whether it is a fake census letter to hit me up for a Republican Party contribution, a fake IRS warning to make me read a tax service, a false notification of a prize I didn’t win to sell me soap, or a phony hand-addressed envelope from a “friend” to get me to check out a website, these are inherently dishonest devices dreamed up with the assistance of soulless direct marketing hacks, who from my personal experience are ethics-free sociopaths who luckily—for the rest of us— ended up in a relatively non-violent field. I don’t buy soap from companies that try to hook me with lies; I don’t give money to causes that trick me into opening their solicitations, and I definitely don’t support presidential candidates who use lies and intimidation techniques to get me to vote for them. Presidential candidates like…Ted Cruz. Continue reading →

From A Proud Abortion Defender, An Inconvenient Truth….

/ Jack Marshall / 135 Comments

Snake eating its tail

A New York lawyer named Janice Mac Avoy gifted the Washington Post with an op-ed that was supposed to be a powerful brief for abortion. Viewing it as someone who is deeply conflicted about the ethics of abortion, which is to say, someone who is objective and who didn’t make up his mind first and then look for rationalizations to support that position, I recognized it as a perfect example of why abortion advocates still haven’t made a strong enough case for me, and perhaps why they can’t.

I am still surprised, somehow, when lawyers, like Mac Avoy, display poor reasoning skills. I shouldn’t be, I know: I’ve known plenty of dumb lawyers, even rich and successful dumb lawyers. I suppose I am hostage to the mythology of law school, that professors take students whose “minds are much,’ to quote Professor Kingsfield, and transform those minds into whirring computers of emotion- and bias- free rationality. Unfortunately, mush in, mush out tends to be reality.

Mac Avoy places her own mind in the mush column immediately, with her title “I’m a successful lawyer and mother, because I had an abortion.” This shows her adoption of the classic logical fallacy Post hoc ergo propter hoc, or “After this, thus because of this.” The statement is factually nonsense, and her column takes off from there.

Some highlights:

1. She writes…

“In spring 1981, I knew I wanted to be a lawyer. I was about to become the first person in my family to graduate from high school. I had a scholarship to college, and I planned to go on to law school. I was determined to break a cycle of poverty and teenage pregnancy that had shaped the lives of the previous three generations of women in my family — all mothers by age 18. Then, just before graduation, I learned I was pregnant. Knowing that I wasn’t ready to be a mother, I had a friend drive me to a Planned Parenthood clinic, where I had an abortion.”

Pop quiz: What crucial piece of information is glossed over, indeed strangely omitted, from that account? Mac Avoy “was determined to break a cycle of poverty and teenage pregnancy” —so determined and laser focused on the life goal that she suddenly woke up pregnant! How did that happen? Apparently, despite her representation to the contrary, she was not sufficiently determined that she was willing to refuse  to engage in the exact and only conduct that could foil her intent, and that she knew could foil her intent.

I’m not arguing that a teenage mistake of judgment should derail a life, but I am pointing out that to ignore that personal conduct, as Mac Avoy does, and pretend that pregnancy in every case is some unavoidable random tragedy like a rape or incest, is self-serving and intellectually dishonest, and like most pro-abortion rhetoric, avoids the key issues that make abortion a difficult ethical problem.

2. She writes… Continue reading →

Rush Limbaugh And The Right: Still Cheerfully Unethical After All These Years

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

OperationChaosII

Yesterday, the grand Pooh-Bah of conservative talk radio chirpily announced that he might “have another installment of Operation Chaos before the Democrat primaries are all said and done.”  If your brain cells have lived that long, you may recall Operation Chaos I, when in March of 2008 Rush directed his zombie followers to vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton, who was then, as now, sliding fast. The idea was to stop  Barack Obama from clinching Democratic nomination early, and to maximize the chance of a messy Democratic nominating convention. Rush claims that his dastardly plan “worked”: Clinton won the Ohio and Texas primaries with large pluralities from rural, as in conservative counties, presumably full of Ditto-heads. On the other hand, Obama still won the nomination easily, then the election, and the United States was stuck with an incompetent, arrogant leader for eight years.

If that’s what Rush calls a successful plot, I hope we never see one of his unsuccessful ones.

But here he is again, considering the same tactic, though this time the idea is to have conservatives vote for an incompetent socialist, Bernie Sanders, whom none of them would even consider voting for in a real election even if someone was pulling their fingernails out with pliers. This is, as before, unethical in many ways, and it is particularly revolting to read the likes of Instapundit and Newsbusters cheering Rush on. “At the very least this could help make the Democrat primaries more fun to watch as they stretch on and on and….. ” smirks P.J. Gladney, at the latter.

Conservatives are nomore ethical than progressives, it’s just that their lack of ethics expresses itself in different ways.

Operation Chaos and its threatened sequel could only be devised by someone who thought Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks (which included the treasonous dirty trick of sabotaging LBJ’s Viet Nam War peace talks) were a scream, and could only be applauded by conservatives whose love for democracy just applied when it favors them. Rush’s steaming pile of depraved Machiavellianism is not worth my composing a new brief against it: I did a good job the first time. Here, in part, is what I wrote about Operation Chaos, while gagging in disgust, in 2008. It still stands. I’ll just substitute Bernie for Hillary. I don’t have to change anything else except a verb and pronoun here and there: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

mikulski

“So let’s solve the problem. Let’s not get involved in constitutional arguments, and let’s help our American people be safe and secure in their home, their neighborhood, their school and their house of worship.”

—-Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) in her opening remarks ahead of a Senate Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, prior to testimony from Attorney General Loretta Lynch regarding the Administration’s proposed gun control measures.

Mikulski, who is mercifully retiring, has been a relentless opponent of gun rights, and if you wanted a poster child for Democrats who would ban guns in a heartbeat if they could, Mikulski’s perfect.

“Let’s solve the problem and never mind what the Constitution says” could be the motto of the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party as it is evolving. The quote is signature significance: no elected officials who take their oath of office seriously—you know, the like one taken bu U.S. Senators in which they swear to “support and defend the Constitution?—-would ever say, “Let’s not get involved in constitutional arguments…” in considering any legislative act or Presidential order, because the Constitution must be followed and respected in everything the government does.

This is the arrogant, lawless, totalitarian mindset that the hard-left progressive establishment represented by Mikulski now embodies. Why didn’t any mainstream media journalists immediately expose this? Why was it only the conservative bloggers and news sources who found her statement outrageous? And why didn’t any other Senators have the wit, integrity and sense of responsibility to lay her out for saying such a stupid, arrogant, un-American thing?

Constitutional arguments are what keep us free. Those who sneer at them like Mikulski have other plans.

Craig Mazin, FICK

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments
Craig Mazin, terrible human being and proud of it...

Craig Mazin, terrible human being and proud of it…

The short description of a fick would be “public asshole, and proud of it.” That’s a fair description of the indecent Craig Mazin, a Hollywood writer and producer who has decided to ostentatiously violate the Kantian, Golden Rule, common sense-based ethics of being a college roommate to embarrass Senator Ted Cruz as he runs for President.

I write about a lot of awful people, and often have to explain what’s awful about them. If you don’t immediately see what’s awful about what Mazin is doing, I’m not sure there is much hope for you. There is no hope for him.

Mazin roomed with Cruz during their freshman years at Princeton University, from 1988-1989. Cruz was 18 at the time. This week, apparently spurred by Twitter followers, Mazin began spewing contempt and insults about Cruz, using his “inside” experiences as material and justification.  This, of course, attracted media attention, magnifying the harm to Cruz, although anyone who thinks that conduct by an 18-year-old is a fair or meaningful  way to attack the 46-year-old U.S. Senator he grows into is a per se dim wit. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The South Carolina Democratic Candidates Debate

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Debate transcript here.

1. The cynical effort to protect Hillary Clinton by scheduling debates at times when as few people as possible will watch them has officially become ludicrous, and also beyond denial. CNN’s alleged media watchdog Brian Stelter, in one of his occasional non-partisan episodes, grilled Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the strategy Sunday, and got a typical Wasserman Schultz-ish non answer, as she compared the TV rations with past debates and then mocked the Republican debates, which have been more conveniently scheduled and have garnered far more viewers. This time the tactic worked on me: my wife wanted to watch “Downton Abbey” (during the debate, one website wag on a post about the Democrats wrote, “Lady Crawley is losing the debate with Mrs Hughes and with The Hospital Board merger. Sad.”) Showtime was also running “The Godfather Epic,” which I had never seen, re-editing I and II together (but somehow differently from “The Godfather Saga.” I didn’t last to the end, so I assumed it also included III, and so wrote until a commenter put me straight), and then there was the football game. I had to watch the MSNBC re-run late into the night.

2. Several commenters claimed that Bernie was rude to Hillary, making funny faces, shouting. That’s Bernie, though, and here we go again: Hillary’s a feminist, but her supporters want to impose a double standard of how she is treated in the rough-and-tumble world of politics. This has, after all, been very effective from the race perspective insulating Barack Obama. If the Democrats dare to run such a corrupt candidate as Hillary, they will deserve Trump as the opposition, the one candidate who won’t pay any attention to media claims that he should pull his punches.

Nothing Bernie did during last night’s debate was nearly as outrageous as Joe Biden’s snorting, snickering, eye-rolling and constantly interrupting performance in the 2012 Vice-Presidential debate with Paul Ryan, as Martha Raddatz played “boxing referee who has taken a bribe” by ignoring it all. Well, but Ryan’s a guy, and a Republican , so he didn’t deserve common civility.

3. The central dishonesty in this debate and all of the Democratic debates is the inherent hypocrisy of simultaneously saying the economy is a mess and Wall Street is pulling the strings, while extolling the record of Barack Obama. Sanders is the most hypocritical, at one point proclaiming his pro-Obama bona fides as he runs a campaign calling for a revolution.  Here’s Sanders in his opening:

“As we look out at our country today, what the American people understand is we have an economy that’s rigged, that ordinary Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, 47 million people living in poverty, and almost all of the new income and wealth going to the top one percent….This campaign is about a political revolution to not only elect the president, but to transform this country….”

4.  Once again, all three candidates used cover words and vagueries to advocate “comprehensive immigration reform” without saying what that is. Nor did  NBC’s softball-tossing moderators, nor the candidates to each other, demand details and meanings. What “reforms”? Opening the borders? Making all illegal immigrants citizens? How long will illegal immigrant-pandering Democrats be allowed to get away with this? If they really are willing to sacrifice U.S. sovereignty, they have an obligation to say so, and clearly. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: RedState’s Moe Lane, Cheap Shot Artist

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

t

Bernie Sanders, or most likely someone on his staff since I doubt that the Bern is a micro-manager, made his campaign look foolish by sending Wikipedia a DMCA take-down notice demanding that Wikipedia remove  images of Sanders campaign logos on its Sanders page, on the dubious grounds that such use was a violation of copyright law. More embarrassing than the specious copyright complaint is the rather obvious fact that a campaign should want Wikipedia to publicize everything about it. The complaint, to be blunt, was dumb. (The take-down notice was retracted in short order.)

Moe Lane is a fairly nasty right wing blogger, and he gleefully reported Sanders’ Shame, which is certainly fair game for critics. He could not, however, resist this cheap shot headline:

Bernie Sanders yells at Wikipedia, cloud over… campaign logos?

If you don’t get the reference, it’s this: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “In Search Of A Tipping Point: Trump, The Microphone, And Thomas Dewey’s Ghost”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Trump mic

Ed Moser, a sound designer, technical director and all-around theater pro (he produced and designed sound for my recent staging of “Twelve Angry Men”…he’s also a friend), enlightens us with some insider observation relevant to Donald Trump’s recent denigration of a sound tech. It also reveals an unattractive side of an earlier GOP presidential candidate. Here is Ed’s Comment of the Day on the post, In Search Of A Tipping Point: Trump, The Microphone, And Thomas Dewey’s Ghost:

I have a friend who engineered the sound for a large church back when McCain was a candidate. He visited the church for a “town meeting”.

My friend locked all the unused gear away, and for the event distributed only freshly batteried hand held wireless mics for the event with screw on caps on the bottom. Such caps are specifically designed to prevent clumsy performers from accidentally touching the controls on the bottom of the mic– where one could turn the mic off, change the battery, or worst of all, change the frequency. Then color coded the mics with bright spike tape, so that while he was at the sound board he could instantly tell which mic/channel he was dealing with.

The plan was for McCain to give a speech, then take questions from the floor. Runners would carry one of three hand helds to the person with the query, so the question could be heard throughout the house. There was a fourth back up.

If all of this sounds pretty standard for people who know what they’re doing and have done many such events before: well, it is.

That evening, during the event, the question and answer session occurs. The first mic, it develops, is dead. A quick check reveals that ALL FOUR are dead. Irked at having to come the the edge of the stage and get close to an actual person to hear an actual question, or perhaps just trying to infuse humor at an awkward moment, McCain points to the back of the house, right at my friend, and says to the crowd, “Fire that guy!”

He gets a laugh. Except from my friend, of course.

Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Ethical Estoppel…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Daily News CruzNow and then you may read here that someone is “ethically estopped” from making an argument that otherwise would be valid. The term derives from the legal concept of estoppel, the principle that precludes a person from asserting in a legal proceeding something contrary to what is implied by a previous action or statement of that person or by a previous pertinent judicial determination.

If you want an example of how I apply estoppel in an ethics rather than a legal context, look no further than New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who decided to grandstand over Ted Cruz’s cheap shot about Donald Trump’s “New York values.” Cuomo puffed himself up with indignation, and after Cruz defined New York values as “socially liberal, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage,  and focus around money and the media.” Cuomo demanded that Cruz apologize, saying…

“I’m always open to give him an education on what New York values are all about. And if he had any class, he would apologize to the people of New York. Not that I believe they need it or they want it. But if he had any class, he would apologize.”

Cruz was wrong to make such a statement, but Cuomo eliminated himself from the huge pool of Americans who were entitled to call for his apology, since two years ago, Cuomo himself declared the same dichotomy Cruz was asserting, and even more unethically.Then he said, of conservative Republicans,

Continue reading →