Ethics Quotes

Ethics Quote of the Month: SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“If it’s totally stupid, you don’t go along with it…”

—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in comments at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., as he explained why he thinks the traditional reverence for Supreme Court precedent (stare decisis) makes neither legal nor logical sense

In discussions with some of my more fair and rational progressive lawyer friends about the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, several of them admitted that Roe was a terrible opinion, badly reasoned and sloppily written. This has been the consensus of most honest legal analysts since the 1970s, but never mind, Roe declared the right to kill unborn children for any reason whatsoever a right, so for abortion-loving feminists and their allies (including men addicted to promiscuous sex without responsibility), Roe was a “good” decision. But my colleagues who knew it was not just a poor decision but a terrible one condemned anyway, because, they said, it violated stare decisis, the hoary principle that the Supreme Court should eschew over-turning previous SCOTUS decisions even if they were outdated or clearly wrong, in the interests of legal stability, preserving the integrity of the Court and insulating the institution from the shifting winds of political power.

Like many principles, that one sounds better in the abstract than it works in reality, and Roe is as good an example as one could find short of Dred Scott. Roe warped the culture and turned living human beings into mere inconveniences whose lives could be erased at whim. How many millions of human beings don’t exist today because of the ideological boot-strapping logic of that decision, which bizarrely equated the right to contraception to the right to kill the unborn?

Reverence of bad decisions as beyond reversal is also a handy political weapon: as several wags have noted, stare decisus is mandatory when the precedent at issue is progressive cant (like Roe), but when the Left passionately believes a SCOTUS decision was wrongly decided, it’s time for an “exception” to stare decisus. In his recent appearance at D.C.’s Catholic University, where he taught at the law school until protesters against Dobbs in his classes forced him to stop, Justice Thomas pointed to Brown v. Bd. of Education, the landmark decision that overturned a well-established Court precedent holding that “separate but equal” was a principle that allowed segregation in the public schools as he neatly eviscerated the intellectually dishonest position that SCOTUS precedent must be sacred.

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Most Fascinating Ethics Quote of the Year: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

President Trump, in his eulogy for assassinated conservative activist Charley Kirk at the massive memorial service in Phoenix

Can a quote be both ethical and unethical at the same time? You have to hand it to Donald Trump: his statement above at the Kirk memorial service had progressive heads exploding all over the map, and some conservative heads too. It was a genuinely provocative line, rich with contradictory meanings and implications. Did the President intend it that way? Who knows? They will be arguing about Trump’s brain in history and psychology tomes for a hundred years. I find myself hearing Wilford Brimley’s voice echoing through my brain in his iconic scene from “Absence of Malice”: “Mr. Gallagher, are you that smart?” Except in this case, it’s “Mr. Trump.”

Of course the line triggered the Trump-Deranged into self-identification, as with this guy…

But Trump didn’t say he hated half the country. Now Joe Biden came a lot closer to doing that when he accused Republicans of being fascists who are existential threats to democracy, though it was in a national speech to the nation not a memorial service. (I think that’s worse, myself.) We can’t be sure whom Trump regards as his “opponent.” Those who want him dead, as about a quarter of all Democrats according to one poll? Those who tried to impeach him twice and put him in prison using contrived prosecutions? Those who call him Hitler? The journalists and pundits who have been lying about him since he was elected in 2016 and before? Continue reading →

Ethical Quote Of The Month: “Outkick” Founder and Podcaster Clay Travis

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

“You caused this.”

—Clay Travis, the founder of conservative sports site Outkick and co-host of “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show,” responding to former President Obama’s statement on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in which he deplored political violence.

Obama’s insincere and typically carefully-crafted public statement on the assassination of Turning Point USA founder and activist Charlie Kirk was this: “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”

Suuure, Barack.

Travis’s whole response:

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Ethics Quote of the Month: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“We’re all people of religion, but there are evil people. And we have to confront that. I just give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed this morning or last night in Charlotte by a madman.”

—President Trump yesterday in remarks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., referring to the horrific random knife murder in Charlotte that was not considered newsworthy by the Axis media because it didn’t involve a gun, which would have been exploited to make more gun control demands, and didn’t involve a white person killing a black one, which would have bolstered the “America is racist” narrative.

I want to note that an “Ethics quote” is not the same as an ethical quote, but rather a statement that raises ethical issues that are worth pondering. This one raises many. Such as…

1. As one wag on Instapundit said this morning, “I guess now the legacy media will have to cover the story.” And, I hope, try to explain why an event with so many hot button issue touch points was deemed unworthy of national news for two weeks.

2. Issues include Black on white crime. Democrat-run big city violence as Trump raises the issue of federal force bolstering law enforcement. Lack of security on public transportation. Society’s handling of the mentally ill. The victim was a legal Ukrainian refugee, as the Left’s support of the Ukrainian (hopeless) war continues in the absence of logic and reality. The social activist-driven revolving door system of arrests, releases and mild or no punishment to reduce “over-incarceration.” And more…

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Unethical Quote of the Week, Ethics Dunce, Incompetent Elected Official, “It Isn’t What It Is” Lie of the Year, and General All-Around Asshole: Rep Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“There’s a free speech crisis in America today. But there’s no free speech crisis in Britain.”

 —Maryland Democratic Rep. Jaime Raskin, proving for all time that he is a shameless partisan whom Marylanders should hang their heads in shame for inflicting on Congress and their fellow Americans.

Raskin really said that. No, I’m not kidding, he really did. He did! I’m not making it up!

The rapid government attack on free speech in Great Britain, where it has never been particularly strong, has been the subject of great concern among civil libertarians in the UK and here, for very good reasons. As Matt Taibbi, the red-pilled former Rolling Stone pundit recently wrote, “The arrest of Graham Linehan for his tweets is one of many examples that show [Great Britain] should not be treated as a free one.” (You can read about the Linehan scandal here.) Indeed. British citizens are being punished for peacefully protesting, for petitioning the government, for critical social media posts, and even for displaying the British flag. Yet Raskin says that there is no free speech crisis. His idea of a free speech crisis is CBS being forced to pay the piper after engaging in election interference to try to get an idiot elected President of the United States. Meanwhile, here in the good ‘ol USA, thanks to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the gradual exposure of censorious Leftist colleges and universities, and the demise of Biden’s proto- fascist Justice Department, free speech is healthier than it has been in quite a while.

After Raskin made his fatuous statement in the House hearing titled “Europe’s Threat to American Speech and Innovation,” was held to discuss EU and U.K. censorship, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) quickly made the obvious rebuttal: “The gentleman alleges there’s no free speech in America under Donald Trump while his staff member holds up countless articles criticizing the Trump administration.”

Unethical Quote of the Month: MSNBC’s Jen Psaki

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

“Prayer is not freaking enough. Prayer does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”

—-Former Biden paid liar (no, not her, the smart one) Jen Psaki, now an MSNBC propagandist, joining in the mandatory Axis spin following another mass shooting.

For some reason a memo went out from Totalitarian Central in the Axis network telling all loyalists to attack the obligatory references to prayer after two children were killed and more than a dozen others were injured this week when a shooter opened fire during Mass at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.

Psaki’s anti-prayer outburst on Twitter along with several other progressive anti-gun demagogues can go in to a dictionary definition of “straw man.” Nobody suggested that prayers were sufficient to address mass shootings and criminal gun violence. Nobody suggested that praying would bring the dead back either. Nor does anyone seriously believe that the victims were killed because they were praying: churches and schools have become crime scenes of choice by the murderously deranged because those are places that ban or prohibit fire arms, so a law-abiding gun owner is not as likely to be around to stop the carnage. Never mind: the Usual Suspects were instructed (no, I don’t think it is a coincidence) to denigrate Americans of faith—after all, too many of them support Evil President Trump.

“These children were probably praying when they were shot to death at Catholic school. Don’t give us your fucking thoughts and prayers. Trump got rid of the Office of Gun Violence and Prevention. Trump gutted the resources that were in place to keep our communities safe,” Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., wrote on social media. Good one, Max! There is no evidence that the Office of Gun Violence and Prevention prevented any gun violence or could: it was just another “do something” waste of government funds. Meanwhile, WHAT resources “that keep communities safe”? Frost didn’t say, because anything he said would be idiotic or a lie. He did get a chance to say “fuck,” though, since that proves that a Democrat is serious.

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Unethical Quote of the Week: Jeffrey (Ew!) Toobin

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“This criminal crusade against political adversaries is completely unprecedented in all of American history.”

–—CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (and why is he still allowed on the air by an allegedly respectable news network?) regarding the so-called Trump revenge plot against Democrats.

It is amazing that any journalist, pundit, progressive or Democrat would have the gall to say that. It is true that weaponizing the justice system to attack, hobble, and eliminate political foes is a totalitarian tactic that the United States had been wise to avoid, but if there was ever a valuable “democratic norm” the Left must take full responsibility for shattering, it is this one. “Unprecedented!” Incredible.

I would say “You’ve gotta hand it to Toobin,” but that would lead me into a joke that I would hate myself for making…

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Return of the “2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck”

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Here is another important news story that the mainstream media (or Democratic operatives, per Instapundit) is ducking, spinning and warping like mad in order to protect its totalitarian allies in the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“The resistance”and the Democratic Party): the emails and other material recently declassified and released by Tulsi Gabbard backs up the contention Ethics Alarms began putting forward in the first Trump administration when it christened the 2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck.

This morning I stumbled on Fox News contributor and former GOP House member Trey Gowdy flipping out in frustration over the revelations and pretty much quoting Ethics Alarms from years ago. I can’t find a video of his explosion that will embed, and I can’t type well enough to make a transcript, but here’s the link, and here is a close approximation of the key quote:

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Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Steve-O-in NJ has some trenchant comments about what the Democrats are doing, or trying to do. Personally, I think the operative word here may be “denial.” Or cowardice. Or a political party that has become wedded to lies as its primary tactic whatever the issue, and can’t kick the habit even when it obviously isn’t working any more.

At the 1968 Masters Tournament, pro golfer Roberto De Vicenzo (above) signed an scorecard without checking it, thereby costing him a spot in an 18-hole playoff for the storied championship. He said, “Oh what a stupid I am!” and it stuck with me, as well as with many others, remembered as a poignant expression of regret and self-recrimination. I wasn’t in the ethics biz back then, but I admired the golfer for an honest, brutal assessment of his accountability. I am certain that he never again signed a scorecard without checking the strokes.

What the apparent plan of the Democrats in the wake of last November’s disaster—that is, the Harris-Walz ticket and their stunningly incompetent campaign—is to admit nothing, learn nothing, and to keep existing in as miasma of self-deception. Good luck with that. And I can’t wait to hear the argument asserting why anyone should ever trust a party that responds to failure like that to run anything, not just an economy, but a shoe-shine stand. President Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced last week that about $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s absurdly delayed and overbudget high-speed rail project has been terminated.  This boondoggle was originally passed as a ballot initiative in 2008, a 800-mile rail line to be completed by 2020 in two phases on a $33 billion budget, connecting San Francisco with Los Angeles and branches stretching north to Sacramento and south to San Diego. In 2019, Newsom announced that there was no path to completing the original plan after costs ballooned, so the project was cut back to a 171-mile section between Merced and Bakersfield. Of course, the responsible course would have been to end the project entirely. High speed rail, however, as one wag wrote last week, is to transportation what wind farms are to energy: woke, virtue-signaling fantasies unmoored to reality.

Here is Steve-O’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quote of the Week: The New York Times”:

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Unethical Quote of the Month: NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“As far as the accusations that we’re biased, I’d stand up and say, ‘Please show me a story that concerns you.’”

The infuriatingly dishonest, smug and biased Katherine Maher, head of NPR, on CNN yesterday.

Social media and others, like Senator John Kennedy and Instapundit, are going wild picking obvious examples. Hell, I have a lot of them; here’s one you may have forgotten (I had).

If Congress doesn’t finally strip public funding from NPR and PBS, there is no reason to trust those people to do anything. The Democrats love them because they are permanent propaganda mouthpieces for their party, but what’s the Republicans’ excuse?