Ethics Quotes

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Dr. Deborah Birx

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“The next two weeks are extraordinarily important. This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe and that means everybody doing the six-feet distancing, washing their hands.”

—Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s pandemic response coordinator, at today’s briefing, after explaining the deaths were expected to “spike” in certain hot spots.

Huh?

It would be difficult to compose more incompetent and irresponsible statement. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Trump Derangement! Also: Ethics Dunce, Unethical Quote Of The Month, Unethical Tweet…[CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

Remember Jemele Hill? She was the African American co-host on ESPN who got herself fired because she couldn’t restrain herself from making hysterical anti-Trump declarations and other politically inflammatory social media posts and outbursts despite being warned, even by the left-wing Disney mouthpiece ESPN, to cool it. I wrote a couple of posts about her; since then she has receded into irrelevance, where angry, vile public figures like her belong. Oh, now she works for The Atlantic, a publication almost as much obsessed with Trump-bashing as  Stephen Colbert. The problem is that Hill is irrational, arrogant, and somehow under the impression that her vendettas have any societal use whatsoever.She also is laboring under the delusion that her emotion-soaked, undisciplined brain is a fine-tuned instrument. It’s not. She a classic example of someone what was told she was brilliant her whole life by lazy and incompetent mentors and instructors, and has been permanently handicapped as a result. And as a result, she serves society garbage, thinking it is caviar.

Yesterday the Boston Globe reported that New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft had sent a  team plane to China to pick up 1.7 million  N95 masks to fly to Massachusetts for the use of health care workers as they care for patients ill withe the Wuhan virus.

Search as you might, there is no negative spin you can place on Kraft’s act. It is altruistic. It is compassionate. It is an act of service to his community and the state that supports his team.

Now here is what Jemele Hill tweeted: Continue reading →

From The Archives: “Ethics Quote of the Week: Moses (Charlton Heston) in ‘The Ten Commandments'”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Seven years ago, while  watching the annual showing of “The Ten Commandments ” on ABC, I realized how advanced its civil rights message was for its time, and what an interesting and instructive ethics movie the epic was. This post was the result. I’ve edited it a bit.

The movie hasn’t been shown yet in 2020 ; it’s scheduled for the weekend before Easter, which is late this year.  I never miss it, and if you watch the film with your ethics alarms primed, you might see it in a whole new dimension.

_______________________________

“That evil that men should turn their brothers into beasts of burden, to be stripped of spirit, and hope, and strength – only because they are of another race, another creed. If there is a god, he did not mean this to be so!”

—-Moses, as played by Charlton Heston and scripted by seven writers, in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments,” answering the Pharoah Seti’s question, “Then why are you forcing me to destroy you? What evil has done this to you?”

“The Ten Commandments” is so extravagantly fun and entertaining that, I must confess, I never watched it as an ethics film until tonight, as ABC once again broadcast the Biblical epic on an Easter weekend. This quote especially struck me as remarkable for a film made by an infamously rigid conservative, DeMille, in 1956.

Less that a year earlier, on Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus. The next twelve months were tense, difficult days in which the entire U.S. population was undergoing a wrenching cultural debate regarding human rights.  On Dec. 6, 1955, the civil rights boycott of Montgomery city buses, led by Rev. Martin Luther King , began. January 1956 saw Autherine Lucy, a black woman, accepted for classes at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, the first African-American ever allowed to enroll.  On Jan. 30, the Montgomery home of Martin Luther King, Jr. was bombed. February 4 saw rioting and violence on the campus of the University of Alabama and in the streets of Tuscaloosa. Lucy had to flee the campus, and the university’s Board of Trustees barred her from returning. On the 22nd of that month, warrants were  issued for the arrest of the 115 leaders of the Montgomery bus boycott. A week later, courts ordered Lucy readmitted, but the school expelled her. Continue reading →

A Brief But Significant Addendum To “I’ve Looked And I’ve Tried And I Believe In Civility, But The Only Fair Descriptive Word For These People Is ‘Asshole'”

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

Nice!

Mollie Hemingway, editor at the National Review, had an admirably understated reaction to this tweet from Mrs. Clinton, saying, “Fully acknowledge I’m biased here, but my advice would be that if your politics are giving the impression that you’re rooting against your fellow Americans and for a deadly virus attacking them, you might want to reassess.”

My observations are not quite as understated:

  • What an asshole! But we knew that. By “me” I mean everyone who has observed this awful, awful human being’s behavior and statements since at least 1992.
  • The actual form of assholery that the spectacularly failed aspiring  first female President models here is not a variety examined in the post referenced in the title above, but in this post, item #4, in which I noted, “You can mark down any pundit (or Facebook friend) who gloats about the official U.S. tally of Wuhan virus cases making it the most infected nation in the world as fitting neatly into the topic of this recent post.” She’s not a pundit, of course (nor my Facebook friend, thank god); she is, by about 20 laps, the most ungracious, unethical, whiny, nasty, divisive and pathetic losing political candidate for national office in American political history…and she just happens to be the only woman to be on the ballot for President. Continue reading →

Noonish Ethics Warm-Up. 3/24/2020: The Web Is Alive With The Sound Of Zugswang!*

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

So far, there have been only 28 Wuhan virus deaths in Austria…

1. There is nothing strictly unethical about the Democrats attempting to use the current crisis to get some of their non-pandemic agenda items, like them or not, passed. That’s politics. They would be remiss if they didn’t try that. It will be unethical if their efforts materially interfere with the efforts to assist individual and business victims of the Wuhan virus, and if that is what they do, there is ample evidence to hang them, like this:

…if, that is, the facts are reported fairly.  Speaker Pelosi’s House bill including such pork as support for the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts is also a “smoking gun.”

2. Ethics Quote of the Week from Dr. Fauci: Continue reading →

An Unethical Quotes Of The Week Cornucopia!

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

So many people are saying so many irresponsible, dishonest and stupid things in the throes of the Wuhan Virus freakout that I can’t possibly run all of them, or even a representative percentage, but I can’t let these pass.

1. President Trump, yesterday…

“This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”

Sometimes I think the President is actively trying to make people’s heads explode. As the New Yor Times quickly documented (on the front page), this is historical revisionism, gaslighting, or insanity.

  • On Jan. 22, asked by a CNBC reporter whether there were “worries about a pandemic,” President Trump replied: “No, not at all. We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
  • On Feb. 26, at a White House news conference, he said,  “We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”
  • On Feb. 27: “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.”
  • On March 7, when asked if he was concerned that the virus was spreading closer to Washington: “No, I’m not concerned at all. No, I’m not. No, we’ve done a great job.”

As I have written here before, I refuse to make a big deal out of Trump being Trump, and those who do are simply being self indulgent. Some irresponsible statements are worse than others, and yesterday’s was especially outrageous. It’s in the category of lies that are almost not lies because no one could possibly believe them, like if the President said he was a Stegosaurus. However, if the public knows that whatever he says might be a temporary fantasy, his leadership ability is seriously handicapped. The problem with this kind of statement isn’t that it’s so obviously untrue, but that saying it is so spectacularly self-destructive and stupid.

2. MSNBC Analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, in a tweet: Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ick Or Ethics? The Nauseating Social Media Meme”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Not for the first time, a commenter has done a more thorough job fisking a problematical statement that I have. Actually, I didn’t even try to dissect the memed screed below…

…I  asked whether it was truly unethical, or just signature significance for an arrogant political correctness junkie.  Ryan Harkins took on the greater challenge, and as usual, did a superb job.

Here is Ryan’s Comment of the Day on the post, Ick Or Ethics? The Nauseating Social Media Meme…

Today I am wearing a shirt that reads:

Inconceivable. Adj.
1. Not capable of being imagined or grasped.
2. Not what you think it means.

The problem with memes like the above is that it is disingenuous. What do you mean by love? Do you mean philia? Eros? Caritas? Squishy feel-goodness, for which I don’t know a Latin equivalent? In general, especially given what I’ve observed of the people who post such memes, I don’t think “love” means what they think it means. I certainly don’t think they see love as selflessly willing the good of the other, but maybe that’s because I’m cynical and see this meme as not willing the good of someone else, but trying to proclaim one’s own virtue.

What is meant by inclusion? Is there nothing someone could ever do to warrant exclusion? Or is there a little asterisk pointing one to the fine print, where we don’t include the scum of the earth, like religious white men, sex offenders, and Trump supporters?

I don’t have much to say about empathy or compassion. Equality always begs the question: “Equal how?” Because again, people keep using that word, and I do not think it means what they think it means. Equal before the law? Equal in dignity? Equal in socioeconomic status? Equal in success? Or how about created equally, and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including (but not limited to) life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

I have no problem with dignity, but what about diversity and community? There is unavoidable tension in the community when there is diversity. We might not like that fact, but it is there. As soon as you have two people of different opinions in the room, there is tension, and by and large what we’ve seen is that people are less and less tolerant of tension. I wouldn’t say they are less tolerant of differences of opinion, as long as those opinions keep to themselves and don’t bother other people. It is the tension that people are finding unbearable. Maybe it is because we are no longer equipped to have our opinions or viewpoints challenged. But I also have a hard time believing anyone believes in community, when so many are nose down I electronics (as I am as I write this) and all my friends belong to the same echo chamber as myself. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Ann Althouse cited this item from the Capital Times:

“Several Madison alders are sponsoring the resolution creating the LGBTQ+ Rainbow Murals and Crossings Art Pilot Program, which would install LGBTQ+ inclusive rainbow flag markings… at pedestrian crossings on the Capital City Trail and near the Capitol Square…. ‘…It would be a reminder to residents who see it that the LGBTQ community is an important part of the fabric of Madison, especially given that we have a lesbian mayor and many other queer people in positions of power’.”

This prompted her Ethical Quote of the Month:

“Why should the street be painted to remind us of who’s in a position of power? I would not paint anything political on the street. Let the street be a street. It doesn’t need to talk to us, especially not to nudge us about what we should believe or value.”

Why indeed.

This is why the Carly Simon song came to mind, but with slightly altered lyrics:

We can never know about the days to come
But the right side of history
Is clear.. wondering if you’re on board with me
Or just going through the motions now

Indoctrination, indoctrination
Is making me woke
I’m in the right crowd now

And I tell you how easy it feels to be so good
How right to have the mob around
But I, I rehearsed these words just late last night
When I was thinking about how washed your brain could be.

Indoctrination, indoctrination
Is keeping me safe,
Safe from the antifa..

And tomorrow we might not be agreeing
That would mean that we cannot associate
So let us program your brain for good
Repeat this phrase, ‘cause we’ll tell you what to think
We’ll tell you what to think
And stay right here, ‘cause we’ll tell you what to think.

We’ll tell you what to think.
We’ll tell you what to think.
We’ll tell you what to think.
We’ll tell you what to think…

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Rachel Maddow

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“If Hillary Clinton can’t win when she gets the nomination and you can’t get the nomination and neither can Kamala Harris, and neither can Amy Klobuchar, and neither can Kirsten Gillibrand. I mean, I think part of what’s going on today is women around the country are like, ‘OK, honestly!’ If it’s not going to be any of them, let’s get real. Is it just that it can’t be any woman ever?”

——The allegedly intelligent MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, making a statement with stunning disregard of facts and logic, indeed reality, in order to advance a divisive and false narrative.

This was an irresponsible argument in the midst of a generally irresponsible and dishonest discourse by Maddow while interviewing Elizabeth Warren following the end of her campaign. She was attempting to bolster Warren’s ethically bankrupt claims that it was sexism that doomed her campaign, just as Hillary Clinton claimed the same, among all the excuses and rationalizations she assembled (and is still assembling) to duck accountability for her own upset loss to Donald Trump, who was generally dismissed as a pushover.

If she wanted to educate her viewers, which Maddow does not—she wants to push an ideological agenda—she would explain that none of the women she mentioned were successful state governors, and that state houses and military command, not Congress, have been the launching pad for the majority of Presidents.  She could explain that the failed candidates she mentioned all had thin resumes for a White House run, including Warren, who is a former university professor and lawyer barely into her second term as a U.S. Senator.

Hillary had the most impressive experience of the group, but there is no avoiding the conclusion  that the only reason she was in a position to get the nomination was by coasting on her husband’s resilient popularity. She had not been an especially outstanding Senator, and her tenure as Secretary of State was marred by many dubious episodes, not the least of which was the email scandal that she persisted in lying about. Moreover, Clinton disproved Maddow’s theory by getting a plurality of votes cast in 2016, an achievement that will elect a candidate President approximately 90% of the time. She was unlucky, that’s all. Hillary  nearly won despite more adverse baggage and dubious character than any Presidential candidate other than  Richard Nixon. Continue reading →

Senator Schumer’s Virtuoso Rationalization Orgy, Annotated

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

First prize in the rationalization derby!

Active Ethics Alarms reader/commenter Steve Witherspoon tracked down the transcript on Senator Schumer’s remarks in response to Mitch McConnell’s accurate attack on the senate Minority Leader’s unconscionable comments at the Supreme Court, thuggishly threatening Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh over decisions they haven’t made yet.

I’ll interlineate the text—I’m sorry it’s all in caps, but that’s how C-SPAN’s transcripts are—pointing the astounding number of rationalizations Schumer nicked while trying to justify the unjustifiable.

THANK YOU, MADAM PRESIDENT. NOW, MADAM PRESIDENT, I JUST LISTENED TO THE REPUBLICAN LEADER, AND THERE WAS A GLARING OMISSION IN HIS SPEECH. HE DID NOT MENTION WHAT THE RALLY YESTERDAY, MY SPEECH, OR THE CASE BEFORE THE COURT WAS ABOUT.

The issue at hand is the Minority Leader of the Senate threatening, by name, two Supreme Court justices. The context of such threats is absolutely irrelevant, because such threats, as McConnell correctly made clear, are indefensible. Schumer is signalling that his defense will be based on Rationalization 2 A. Sicilian Ethics, or “They had it coming.“ “This argues that wrongdoing toward a party isn’t really wrong when the aggrieved party has aggrieved the avenger. The victim of the unethical conduct no longer deserves ethical treatment because of the victim’s own misconduct. But the misconduct of a victim never justifies unethical conduct directed against that victim.”

A WOMAN’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO CHOOSE. TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA, WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HERE, WHAT I AM FIGHTING FOR HERE IS YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

At least three rationalizations are implied here:

  • 25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!” “The unethical option involved less sacrifice, less controversy, less criticism, less effort…in short, less courage, than doing the right thing. … But you still had a choice, and you are still accountable for the choice you made.”
  • 25A. Frederick’s Compulsion or “It’s My Duty!” “We all have competing duties; that’s what makes ethics difficult…Ethics requires that when performing a duty will unquestionably result in injustice and harm to others, some consideration and balancing must be applied, followed by making one or more difficult choices.  Duty itself is not enough to dictate those choices, and ethics may, and often does, dictate that a duty must be superseded by other priorities.”
  • 28. The Revolutionary’s Excuse: “These are not ordinary times.” “An argument for those who embrace “the ends justify the means”—but only temporarily, mind you!—the Revolutionary’s excuse has as long and frightening a pedigree as any of the rationalizations here….This rationalization suggests that standards of right and wrong can and should be suspended under “special” circumstances, always defined, naturally, by those who defy laws, rules, and societal values. ..Unethical conduct has become ordinary, the new normal. This is, it is fair to say, the current state of American politics.

Continue reading →