Ethics Train Wrecks

Oh-Oh, I May Have To Apologize To Michael Savage…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Michael Savage (real name: Michael Weiner) is in his eighties now, and his exposure is limited to out-of-print books (he wrote 40 of them) and podcast that can be easily avoided. I used to stumble across his syndicated rant show on the car radio in D.C. now and then, and I was repeatedly horrified, not just that enough Americans would listen to his mad white nationalism to provide him with a living wage, but that there were people who thought like him at all. Savage is a misogynist, mocks autism, wants to eliminate all immigration to keep the U.S. as white as possible, and generally represents the worst pathologies of conservatism, allowing the news media to use him a template to smear anyone to the right of Barack Obama. In the early 2000s his theme was that liberalism was a mental illness; he even published a book about that theory. Like so much of Savage’s bile, that position seemed especially ominous to me, an echo of both fascism and the Soviet treatment of dissidents. I alluded to this obsession of Savage’s in a 2009 essay on the old Ethics Scoreboard, writing,

Zealots on both the Left and the Right, rather than make an honest effort to challenge the views and assumptions of those on the other side, increasingly opt to smear their character with broad and crude generalizations. Democrats and liberals hate America, and want to destroy everything that is good and decent. Republicans and conservatives are fascists and hypocrites. Liberals are evil: they encourage the killing of babies and the destruction of the family. Conservatives are evil: they secretly lead lives of sexual excess and mad fetishes. This mode of public debate could be laughed off as self-evidently ridiculous, except that individuals held in high regard by millions engage in it routinely. Listen to conservatives Michael Savage (whose writings claims liberalism is a mental illness) or Marc Levin on your radio. Or read one of newly-seated Democratic Senator Al Franken’s books, before he realized that accusing all Republicans of being fat, venal and stupid was a serviceable road to power.

That was a correct assessment then and is correct now; the problem is (and calling it just a “problem” is, as Jonathan Turley would say, “problematic”) that the two polar extremes have largely now taken over national discourse. Their excesses are just as repulsive (or should be), but it is increasingly difficult to find anyone with influence who can act as a counterweight.

But I digress…the original inspiration for this post is that Michael Savage’s assertion that “liberalism is a mental disease” appears to be coming true. Witness Ryan Polly, whom , a hospital system of over 20,000 employees, MaineHealth, has chosen to place in a position of power in its organization. Polly is a vice president of DEI there” the fact that any organization actually spends money to create a bureaucracy around the latest leftest fad is itself evidence of a metastasizing cultural malady, but Polly is special. According to a Fox News report, he hosted an antiracist prayer service in which white attendees were made to apologize for their internalized racism, because, Polly teaches, all whites (like him) are racists.

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “In Maui, DEI Insanity Kills”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The key question is: “Will any mainstream media pundit have the courage to make the points esteemed Ethics Alarms commenter Sarah B makes below, in her Comment of the Day to the post, “In Maui, DEI Insanity Kills”?

***

So I’m going to say something that , at first glance, may sound pretty unethical here, but let me defend it first, before telling me that I’m going all in on Rationalizations. That being said, my TL,DR is “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I do think that it is fair to argue that, for the most part, the people of Lahaina had it coming. This fire was the rather predictable consequence of years of bad judgement and voting practices. First, the sugar cane farming dissolution into non-native dry grassland came because “we couldn’t possibly grow sugar cane there, it was too insensitive to the natives”. Then they didn’t make any reasonable plans to replace the farms with native plants that could handle both the wetter times and the drier times, but instead just let the farms grow over, which led to imported grass and other vegetation taking root off of spreading seeds. This worked out for a bit when things were wet, but these grasses are unable to handle the drier times. That led to a high fire hazard with a high burn interval.

Then they decided that they would go all in on the green energy to the degree that there was a huge governmental push (which often starts with the residents) for green production over safe electric lines, AFTER there was already substantial documentation that the power lines were likely to cause significant fires. Of course, the electric company is nowhere near blameless, but neither are the voters.

The idea that we now have DIE standing in the way of appropriate water being used to put out a fire, because we find that DIE is more important than lives and property (after all, we are founded on the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion right, not that old fashioned life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), well, that is a conscious choice by the Hawaii electorate too.

Continue reading →

“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” The Times’ Dishonest And Biased “Fact Check” On “Trump’s Election Lies”

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

If I never had occasion to write another ethics post about Donald Trump again, I would be thrilled. Unfortunately, he won’t shut up or disappear, and the Axis of Unethical Conduct (the “resistance,” the Democratic Party and the increasingly outrageous news media), recently joined by the justice system, won’t stop their misconduct.

Today the New York Times again disgraced themselves and their now shattered reputation for accuracy and fairness beyond what even I have come to expect. Signaling that Trump cannot expect anything approaching objective coverage and analysis of his various trials, the Times today offers a “fact check” headlined, “Fact-Checking the Breadth of Trump’s Election Lies: The former president faces multiple charges related to his lies about the 2020 election. Here’s a look at some of his most repeated falsehoods.”

I decided to factcheck the fact check, suspecting what I would find but in the end stunned by how openly the Times failed to deliver on what it promised. It’s astoundingly deceitful, and aimed at readers who just want to see Trump punished because they hate his guts. I won’t fisk the whole thing, but here’s more than enough to show you what the Times has become:

  • “…In public, he made more than 800 inaccurate claims about the election from the time the polls began closing on Nov. 3, 2020, to the end of his presidency, according to a database compiled by The Washington Post.”

Continue reading →

Oh Good JOB, Fulton County! This Is Just What The Public Needs To See To Convince It That The Use Of The Criminal Justice System Against Donald Trump Is Fair, Non-Partisan, And To Be Respected…[UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

There goes my head.

This is unbelievable: I saw the story yesterday and ignored it assuming it was a hoax or something. But no.

Hours before a Georgia grand jury handed down a pack of indictments yesterday charging Donald Trump and 18 lawyers, allies and associates with crimes in their efforts to challenge the 2020 election, a document was posted on the court’s website stating that the former President had already been charged. The grand jury hadn’t even voted yet. Oopsie!

The Associated Press, now a consistently biased news source that gives every Trump story as hard a pro-Democratic Party, Trump Derangement spin as possible, notes that this bizarre episode “gave the former president an opening in court and on the campaign trial to try to paint Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ case as tainted and the criminal justice system as rigged against him.” Gee, ya think, AP? Just because the court announced the jury’s decisions before they made it? Boy, those Republicans will pounce on anything!

You know, I try to eschew sarcasm, but only disgust and mockery will do in this case. “There is no evidence that the grand jury process was somehow compromised, or that the document was intentionally leaked by prosecutors or court officials,” says the AP, in a spectacular example of Rationalization #64, “It isn’t what it is.” There’s no evidence—except for the fact that the grand jury’s conclusion was publicized before it was reached! I’d call that rather substantial evidence that the process was compromised and the document was leaked, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t anybody? Wouldn’t particularly those Americans who are convinced that the Democrats have weaponized the legal system to hold power and to imprison the opponent and critic whom they most fear come to that conclusion? Shouldn’t they?

Continue reading →

The Ethics Zugzwang Of Trump vs. The Democrats, Part 2: How Can The Same Democratic Party Strategy Be Designed To Help Trump And Hurt Him At The Same Time?

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

This is not the Part 2 of the three part series I initially planned: I have a laborious post on the way discussing various esteemed lawyers’ analyses of the legitimacy or lack of same in the most recent Trump indictments. But Ann Althouse yesterday flagged a New York Times article headlined “How Trump Benefits From an Indictment Effect/In polling, fund-raising and conservative media, the former president has turned criminal charges into political assets” and commented, “Good. I’m glad this is backfiring. I have never been a Trump supporter, but I hate the criminalization of politics.”

As do I, and as commenters here have made clear, many believe that the best way to punish the Democrats for their unprecedented legal pursuit of the ex-President (which began when he was President-elect in 2016) is to, once again, elect the object of their undemocratic, indeed Soviet-style, assault on democracy as a protest and demonstration of contempt.

That may be appetizing, but at what price? More than once, most recently here, I have analogized the shock election of Trump in 2016 to the climax of “Animal House”:

Electing Trump certainly seemed stupid. Yet it served a purpose, indeed several purposes, just like the “stupid and futile gesture” that is the climax and operatic finale of “Animal House,” when the abused members of Delta House turn Faber College’s homecoming parade into a violent riot…

Voting for Trump was an “Up yours!” to the elites, the sanctimonious media, the corrupt Clintons, the hollow Obamas, and obviously corrupt Democrats like Pelosi and Harry Reid, machine Republicans like Mitch McConnell, and pompous think-tank conservatives like Bill Kristol.

As I wrote on the same theme right after the election,

“Americans got tired of being pushed around, lectured, and being told that traditional cultural values made them racists and xenophobes. They decided to say “Screw that!” by electing a protest candidate whose sole function was to be a human thumb in the eye, because he was so disgusting to the people who had pretended to be their betters. Don’t you understand? It’s idiotic, but the message isn’t. It’s “Animal House”! and “Animal House” is as American as Doolittle’s Raid….In Germany, The Big Cheese says jump and the Germans say “How high?” In the US, the response is “Fuck you!” Obama never understood that…. I love that about America. And much as I hate the idea of an idiot being President, I do love the message and who it was sent to. America still has spunk.

But you can’t keep justifying repeats of the same stupid and futile gesture. Eventually, you have to get serious. (The Capitol riot was a more literal emulation of Delta House’s protest, but even more stupid and futile.) That so many people are actually considering a sequel is evidence of just how difficult it is to determine what the “right thing to do” is when ethics zugzwang looms. It can’t be the right thing to let the strategy adopted by the “resistance”/Democratic Party/mainstream media alliance (aka. “The Axis of Unethical Conduct,” or AUC) in the 2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck succeed, but if the cure—re-electing Trump, another thumb in the eye— isn’t worse than the disease, it’s still reckless, risky and irresponsible.

So now what? The Ethics zugzwang theme is magnified by the competing theories about what the Democrats hope to accomplish by prosecuting Trump for anything they can think of. Is it as simple as trying to use the justice system to remove him from the field? Is the AUC really that stupid and naive? Of course this strategy enhances Trump’s status with those inclined to support him, just as the bogus impeachments did. Nah, it must be that the Left is playing three-dimensional chess…you know, like the deranged Custer of “Little Big Man…

I really don’t know what’s going on, and the many commenters on Ann’s post don’t agree either. For example….

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Painkiller”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Most of the comments on EA posts come from a solid base of experience and knowledge, but it is especially welcome when a commenter enlightens us on a subject he or she really knows well. Thus Tom P.’s observations on the pharmaceutical industry in light of the EA post on the Perdue Pharma/Sackler/ OxyContin horror as dramatized in “Painkiller” is a special pleasure. Here it is, a Comment of the Day:

***

I apologize for the length of this post, but the topic is complicated and does not lend itself to sound bites. What follows is my experience and opinions based on working in the pharmaceutical industry and extensive reading on my part.

Full disclosure: I am a retired pharmaceutical company executive. During my career, I worked for various cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies. I held positions in R&D, manufacturing, quality control, and supply chain management. For most of my career, I was responsible for a major Pharma manufacturer’s anticancer and biologics global supply chains. As a point of reference, I have not seen “Dopesick” or “Painkiller”. I am familiar, however, with the travesty the Sacklers perpetrated on the sick and society. The best summary of their unethical and probably criminal behavior I have read is in an LA Times May 5, 2016, article: https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

Continue reading →

“Painkiller”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“Painkiller,” the new Netflix series about the origins of the opioid crisis largely created by the despicable machinations of the Sackler family and Perdue Pharma, could not be better timed. Just three days ago there was another development in the fall of the Sacklers, as the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the implementation of the 2021 $6 billion deal in federal bankruptcy court that would have blocked future opioid lawsuits against family members, who added to their vast fortune by creating and peddling OxyContin to complicit doctors and unsuspecting members of the public.

OxyContin was introduced in 1995 as Purdue Pharma’s breakthrough drug for chronic pain. The company employed an unethical marketing strategy that family scion Arthur Sackler had pioneered decades earlier, lobbying doctors to prescribe the drug and increase its dosage by dangling gifts, free trips to “pain-management seminars,”( aka all-expenses-paid vacations), paid speaking engagements, and ego-stroking visits from comely sales reps with cheerleading credentials.

Continue reading →

KABOOM! How Can A Company—A CANDY Company No Less!—Possibly Think This Packaging Is Responsible?

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

Well, there goes my head again, and I really need it this weekend.

Hold on to yours: this really and truly is one of the “Pride” packages for Mars Inc.’s Skittles:

I don’t understand how this could happen in a major corpoation. In a pluralistic society, it is unethical for products and services to deliberately polarize the public, politically, socially, in any way whatsoever. True, the temptation for rainbow-colored Skittles to try to exploit the LGTBQ propaganda for marketing purposes must have been strong for some marketing execs with the cranial depth of a walnut shell, but the fact that sane parents don’t want their kids proselytized by their candy shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.

If the type is too small for you to read, the legends somewhere under the rainbow include “Joy is Resistance” and “Black Trans Lives Matter,” both of which are semi-incoherent, but the intent is clear. (Is the character with the sunglasses supposed to be in drag? What does “skate & live” mean? Is skating on the rainbow a metaphor for embracing an LGBTQ identity?)This is the equivalent of forced political speech, and the force is being applied to children. Holding that package sends an unintended message, weird as it is, and once that political message is associated with the brand, eating Skittles at all becomes a political act.

Continue reading →

The Ethics Zugzwang Of Trump vs. The Democrats, Part I: Comment Of The Day On “Today’s Res Ipsa Loquitur Donald Trump Moment”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

In his Comment of the Day, Chris Marschner, among Ethics Alarms’ most articulate and astute commenters, writes, “Please excuse my rambling rant.” No excusing is necessary: Chris was using a stream of consciousness technique to express that frustration many—I’m tempted to say anyone paying attention—feel as they face the prospect of having to choose between the reckless and untrustworthy creep who is the likely Republican nominee, and an insatiable, power-lusting Democratic Party that in its has made it crystal clear that it no longer respects the American mission, the Constitution, or much else.

His post was well-timed: I’ve been planning an examination of the ethics zugzwang Donald Trump’s legal problems (and the Democratic Party’s criminalizing of politics) citizens like Chris now find themselves in. That’s Scylla and Charybdis above: Odysseus had an easier choice deciding which would be more disastrous than what we might face in November of 2024.

Chris Marschner’s Comment of the Day will be Part I of a three part series, and here it is, triggered by the post, “Today’s Res Ipsa Loquitur Donald Trump Moment.”

***

You have changed my mind: I will not vote. Screw it.

There are no suitable candidates. You have lying Biden, who tells a gold star mother he brought his own son back in a flag draped coffin during the dignified transition of remains, and the other candidates are just asking for money and not giving me a different alternative. We have D.C. judges sitting in on Trumps arraignment. Why did Judge Amy Berman Jackson and other federal judges feel it necessary to be present in the courtroom for this arraignment other than to send a message? But all we seem to focus on is the stupid shit Trump says.

How ethical was it for Trump’s legal team to be given 1 day to respond to a late Friday motion to prevent Trump from getting discovery by Jack Smith’s team when the typical time frame is apparently 14 days and Trumps team pleaded for 3 days? Why are we not discussing the ethical dimensions of such judicial conduct? I don’t care if Trump is a mass murderer; when our judicial system is abused against the rights of an accused we have bigger problems than Chris Christie’s feelings. If it is unethical to behave as Trump does when his adversary makes a point to harm him, then we should also be discussing the ethics of Christie, who starts the fights.

Continue reading →

Everyone, Literally Everyone, Needs To See This…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Whatever one thinks of Tucker Carlson, the interview is a public service and raises too many ethics questions to count.

It is nicely paired with this revelation…

Whatever one thinks of Tucker Carlson, the interview is a public service and raises too many ethics questions to count. Is the previous chief of the Capitol Police (full disclosure: the current occupant is an old friend) a completely reliable, objective and unbiased source of information regarding the January 6, 2020 riot? Of course not. Nonetheless, the lack of interest in his perspective displayed by the January 6 Star Chamber and the mainstream media is both indefensible and suspicious.

Your reactions should be both helpful and illuminating.