Ethics Train Wrecks

Now THAT’S An Incompetent Journalist!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I have several large, complicated ethics issues to write about (like the LibsofTikTok fiasco) and I’m not looking forward to it, so I’m starting this morning with an easy call that confirms many of my deeply held convictions.

One is that journalists, as a group, just aren’t that sharp. There are exceptions, but they are exceptions: this is a field that has never attracted the best and the brightest, and it is a structural problem that has become a major problem in the age of the “new journalism,” which is advocacy journalism, as in unethical journalism. The people with the largest metaphorical megaphone lack the wisdom, acumen, education of critical thinking skills to justify their having it. Yet they really think they know best, and have the right and the duty to use a job that was supposed to be about informing the public to manipulate public opinion for what journalists think is “the greater good.” They don’t know what the greater good is. Most don’t know what “good” is.

Chris Cillizza isn’t just any journalist: he’s supposed to be one of the better ones. Horrible thought: he probably is. He’s an editor at CNN, and before that he wrote the daily political blog of The Washington Post, and was a regular writer for the Post on political issues as well as a frequent panelist on “Meet the Press.” He also has a long rap sheet on Ethics Alarms, despite the fact that I avoid following his regular forays into fake news, propaganda, and biased punditry. Who knows what I’ve missed. Continue reading →

Ethics Verdict: Non-Math Propaganda Does Not Belong In Math Textbooks

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

The New York Times reports that Florida has rejected 42 of 132 math textbooks proposed for use in public school classrooms because they “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies” including social-emotional learning and critical race theory, according to the state’s Department of Education.

Good.

The tone of the Times article is framed to advance the “Wow, look at what radical conservative hate-mongering Neanderthals they have running the asylum in Florida, with that racist, transphobic Ron DeSantis as governor!” narrative. But this is only a partisan issue because one party’s core ideology, the Democratic Party, has, in “Happy Days” parlance, “jumped the shark,” or in my parlance, is in the process of sliding toward totalitarianism.

Here’s reporter Dana Goldstein’s second paragraph:

But Florida has a new law, which goes into effect in July, limiting the way that sexual orientation, gender identity and social-emotional skills are taught. Gov. Ron DeSantis is also expected to sign legislation, known as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” prohibiting instruction that could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, sex or national origin.

What does that have to do with a Department of Education deciding that mathematics textbooks should be entirely–not substantially, not mostly, but entirely, about mathematics? It doesn’t matter, or shouldn’t, what distractions, pet agendas, tangential advocacy or ideological indoctrination is in a math textbook. It doesn’t belong there. Standing for that rather simple and, I would think, obvious principle is not a partisan position, unless one party is interested, indeed invested, indeed determined to advance in something other than education. That something is indoctrination, and indoctrination of the young is essential for totalitarianism to grab a nation, culture, society and people by the throat. Continue reading →

Disney And The LGTBQ Activism Ethics Train Wreck: A Prelude [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

I have been intending to examine the Disney empire’s misbegotten entry into the battle over Florida’s recently passed “Parental Rights in Education” law for weeks, but postponed the project because it is too complicated to do correctly without involving other complex issues that are closely related to it. Unfortunately, these issues have proliferated during the delay.

For example, Florida is threatening to remove Disney’s special status that allowed it to operate Disney World as an autonomous municipal government because of the company’s political action. Is that kind of punishment for a political opposition ethical? Should Disney have such special status, regardless of why it is being threatened with its removal? If the special status should be removed anyway, does it matter if it is done in response to political speech?

Here’s another: Republicans in Congress are threatening to end Disney’s copyright on Mickey Mouse, also in response to its LBGTQ activism. But that copyright should have ended decades ago, and its artificial endurance has stifled creative works blocked by thousands of other drawn-out copyrights that aren’t Disney. Now I am dealing with copyright law policy, the importance of Disney to the culture, and what, if anything, the government should do to–what? Reward it? Strengthen it? Direct it? Control it?

The Disney LGTBQ advocacy issue also involves, as virtually every issue does now, media ethics, as almost all outlets other than Fox have a clear pro-LGTBQ bias. The New York Times reporter assigned to covering Disney and the Florida law controversy is Brooks Barnes, and he can’t be trusted. In an earlier story last month, the reporter wrote,

Earlier in the week, Mr. Chapek, the company’s chief executive, botched an internal email to Disney employees. He was seeking to explain Disney’s public silence on anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation in Florida that activists have labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

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“Diversity And Inclusion,” Georgetown Style

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This story combines many Ethics Alarms themes of late: Georgetown University’s ethics corruption, progressive racial discrimination, woke hypocrisy, and, of course, The Great Stupid.

Georgetown’s Campus Ministry has scheduled to two events specifically for black students.  First is an online “Black Hoya Meditation” tomorrow, advertised as a gathering “grounded in belonging and centered on healing and wellness.”

Isn’t “belonging” the opposite of “inclusion” when it is limited my color or group membership? “Healing” from what? Presumably from all the white supremacy-inflicted carnage. Or something Continue reading →

“Transgender Day of Visibility” Ethics Duncery

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Did you know yesterday was “Transgender Day of Visibility”? That’s funny, it seemed to me that this tiny minority in the U.S. has been disproportionately visible for years. Here’s the Presidents’ obsequious pander:

“To everyone celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility, I want you to know your president sees you, Jill, Kamala, Doug, our entire administration sees you for who you are. On this day and every day, we recognize the resilience, strength, and joy of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people. We celebrate the activism and determination that have fueled the fight for transgender equality. We acknowledge the adversity and discrimination that the transgender community continues to face across our nation and around the world. Like never before, they are sharing their stories in books and magazines; breaking glass ceilings of representation on television and movie screens; enlisting — once again — to serve proudly and openly in our military; getting elected and making policy at every level of government; and running businesses, curing diseases, and serving our communities in countless other ways. Despite this progress, transgender Americans continue to face discrimination, harassment, and barriers to opportunity…I call upon all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating discrimination against all transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people — and all people.”

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Ethics Hero: Chris Rock (Plus A Word About Bald Jokes And Snopes Joining The Ethics Train Wreck) [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

UPDATE: 11:45, 3/30/45: Rock briefly addressed the Smith attack during his concert in Boston tonight, but said nothing substantive about it. “Soooo, how was your weekend?”, he began. After the crowd responded with a standing ovation, Rock continued: “Let me be all misty and shit.I don’t have a bunch of shit to say about that, so if you came here for that…I had written a whole show before this weekend. I’m still processing what happened, so at some point I’ll talk about that shit. It’ll be serious. It’ll be funny, but right now I’m going to tell some jokes.”

And he did.

***

Incredibly, Chris Rock has managed to stay off the Ethics Train Wreck that he unfairly was the catalyst for. Bravo, Chris. This alone makes him a worthy Ethics Hero. Consider:

  • He wisely and coolly resisted the impulse to defend himself physically when Will Smith ambushed him. It doesn’t matter that he’s a much smaller man and Smith had played Muhammad Ali. A couple months ago, Rock mused ruefully about his being bullied as a child, and regretted still letting people “walk all over him.” In the heat of the moment, he could have struck back at Smith, and might have even gained some support by doing so—and it would have wrecked the Oscars more than Smith, the fumbling, cowardly producers and the disgraceful audience in the auditorium wrecked it as it was.
  • He refused to file charges. He was well within his rights to do so, but withholding that indignity was a kindness to Smith and the Academy, neither of whom deserved it.
  • He has said nothing about the incident at all in public. Good. Literally nothing he said could do anything but make matters worse. Criticizing Smith would allow the media to promote a “feud,” obliterating the real issues. Accepting Smith’s bogus apology would be another example of letting bullies walk all over him: I’d criticize Rock for that, because it would validate Smith’s hypocrisy and attempt at an easy escape from accountability. Rocks brother says Smith has yet to contact Chris personally.
  • Chris Rock also wins the first Ethics Alarms “If” award, named for my father’s favorite poem.   So far, he has embodied the first verse to the finest detail:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

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They Just Couldn’t Do It…Critic Wesley Morris And The New York Times Blow Up Standards, Ethics And My Head To Try To Excuse Will Smith

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Two graphics are called for to introduce this ethics horror. This:

..because I had hoped against hope that I wouldn’t have to write another post about Will Smith’s attack on Chris Rock during the Oscars broadcast. But it is obviously and ethics train wreck now, and I have no choice. And this…

…because I am stunned, shocked, and disgusted, and think, or perhaps hope, that we have reached a tipping point where the sensible people in this nation say, “Enough!”

Spuds had woken me from a sound sleep up to go outside, good boy that he is, and though I was ready to go back to bed, I made the mistake of picking up the New York Times from my lawn. Then I made the bigger mistake of taking it to the bathroom with me, and the bigger mistake yet of turning to the Arts section. And there it was: an epic, head-exploding, all-in screed by Times critic Wesley Morris explaining why Will Smith was not really to blame for his astounding, incredible, unethical, unprofessional, unjust, infantile, and criminal attack on comedian Chris Rock (who will get his Ethics Hero award from me today). but just about everyone else and everything else was.

I’m taking a pause now because my head feels ready to go off again…

They just couldn’t do it, could they? The Left, the race-baiters, black activists, the news media and the opinion-making elite could not stop themselves from turning an attack by one black celebrity on another into another bigoted weapon in the “antiracism” war against American culture. I’m such an idiot. With everything we’ve seen, I just didn’t see it coming. Oh, I expected the racists and bigots on the right to try to make Smith actions symbolic of something rotten and predictable in black culture; except for the hypocrisy of its source, I agree with the assessment of Bernice A. King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King wrote, “Anybody who thinks ‘Black people look bad’ after the #Oscars already thought Black people look bad.” But I should have seen this stage coming, the desperate need to make Smith the victim instead of Rock, and someone, something, the wrongdoer instead of Smith. The big clue was the Oscar audience giving Smith a huge ovation after he had slapped Rock for an award he should not have been allowed to accept. I should read what I write sometimes: I already mused in one post about how different the response would have been if it had been Alec Baldwin slapping Rock.

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Well THAT Unethical Tweet Aged Particularly Poorly…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Biden’s tweet would have been unconscionable even if it hadn’t quickly turned out that Smollett was a hate-crime faker, a liar, and racial division-mongering fool. Like his former boss Obama, Biden didn’t have the sense to keep his uninformed and biased opinions from interfering with the judicial system, and not to try to exploit alleged crimes, uncertain crimes and uninvestigated events, accounts and rumors to exacerbate suspicion, fear and hate.

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The Road To Totalitarianism: California Shows, Once Again, Which Party Is Driving

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Late yesterday, the State Bar of California  announced that Orange County attorney John Eastman (above), a former law school dean, law professor, and a long-time respected member of the bar, is the target of a disciplinary investigation into whether he violated laws while advising President Trump on options available to him in the wake of his election defeat in 2020. Eastman wrote two legal memos that advised Vice President Mike Pence that he could declare that the results in several states were disputed and therefore their electoral votes would go uncounted.  The State Bar’s chief trial counsel, George Cardona, announced  that Eastman has been the center of an investigation since September, saying in part,  “A number of individuals and entities have brought to the State Bar’s attention press reports, court filings, and other public documents detailing Mr. Eastman’s conduct.”

That’s odd: bar investigations of ethics complaints are supposed to be confidential, so complaints can’t be used as political weapons or to impugn lawyers’ reputations. Why is Eastman being treated this way? Oh, I’m sure there is some fine print exception somewhere, but the real reason is obvious from the LA Times story headline yesterday: “Breaking News: Trump-connected lawyer John Eastman under investigation.” Eastman is “Trump-connected,” so it’s guilt by association, a Joe McCarthy specialty and a favorite tool of despots for centuries.  Beware, any lawyers out there prepared to give counsel, representation and legal assistance to He Whom Progressives Hate and Fear! There will be consequences. Continue reading →

The Ethics Corruption Of The Democratic Party Is Apparently Complete

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The fact that the radical feminist and pro abortion lobbies did it is no excuse. The party has allowed abortion to corrupt it. There need to be consequences.

The Women’s Health Protection Act would codify Roe v. Wade and make all abortion restrictions illegal. Every Democratic Senator except one—Joe Manchin, of course—voted for the bill yesterday in lockstep with party leaders, despite its brutal, unethical and radical objective. [In the House as well, only one Democrat thought that the lives of full term unborn human babies were worth protecting.] The bill would allow doctors to abort unborn babies at any point in a pregnancy if they determine that allowing the pregnancy to continue to birth “would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.”

Note the woke weasel words in that proposed law. Although the title of the bill and the long introductory argument for the law mention women prominently, the proposed wording of the law itself doesn’t mention women anywhere, as an obvious sop to the trans community, which seeks to erase all gender distinctions.

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