Etiquette and manners

Ethics Meltdown at American Family Field: Who’s The Ethics Miscreant? A Test…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Shannon Kobylarczyk (above, from the phone video that became her undoing) was attending one of the National League Championship Series games between the Dodgers and the Brewers at American Family Field when her interaction with another fan altered the course of her life.

Ricardo Fosado, an out-of-town visitor from L.A. who favored the Dodgers, engaged in a little friendly needling with Sharon, a passionate Brewers partisan, when the Los Angeles team took the lead. (The Dodgers eventually won the 7-game series, sending them to the World Series, which begins this week.) “Why is everybody quiet?” he asked.

Kobylarczyk was in no mood for gloating. She shouted at Fosado: “Real men drink beer, pussy!” and threatened to call I.C.E. on the apparently Hispanic spectator. She then told the man in front of her that he should sic immigration enforcement on Fosado. Now he was annoyed. “Call ICE! Call ICE. I’m a U.S. citizen, war veteran, baby girl. War veteran, two wars. ICE is not gonna do nothing to me. Good luck!” he said.

Why do we know all this? Because someone in the crowd who should have been watching the game and minding his or her own business was recording the whole confrontation.

Kobylarczyk escalated: she went to stadium security and reported Fosado for disrupting her baseball experience, or something. They ushered him out of the stadium citing “public intoxication.”

The team is the Milwaukee Brewers, mind you.

But wait! There’s more! The asshole who videoed the episode put it on social media, where it went “viral.” This resulted in Kobylarczyk being labeled a racist, so her company, a Milwaukee-based recruitment and staffing outfit called the Manpower Group, fired her ( she was the associate general counsel) and issued a standard virtue-signaling announcement to take credit for standing up for “a culture grounded in respect, integrity, and accountability.” Then Kobylarczyk was forced to quit the board of directors at Make-A-Wish Wisconsin, which also issued a statement condemning her. Naturally the Brewers also had to get into the act, so they released this statement:

“The Brewers expect all persons attending games to be respectful of each other, and we do not condone in any way offensive statements fans make to each other about race, gender, or national origin. Our priority is to ensure that all in attendance have a safe and enjoyable experience at the ballpark.” 

Then the team banned both Fosado and Kobylarczyk from the ballpark forever. Yeesh! Talk about a mini-Ethics Train Wreck!

The candidates for Worst Ethics Dunce is this mess are:

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Ethics Observations on Another Progressive Academic Meltdown

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

On his usually excellent blog, Prof. Jonathan Turley tells readers about Derek Lopez, a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at Illinois State University. This jerk—-signature significance!—was caught on video attacking a Turning Point USA table on his campus and verbally abusing the conservative students manning it. The 27-year-old Lopez says to the students as he overturns their table, “Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right? Thanks, guys, have a great day!”  Then he tears down a TPUSA flyer on a nearby bulletin board.

He was later arrested. Will he be fired? He should be, but don’t bet on it. He is a part of a dangerous ideological movement in this country that believes that violence and the abuse of political adversaries is justified as the “means necessary” to remake America. He is not an aberration.

Ethics Observations:

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This Is How Websites Get Blacklisted on Ethics Alarms: “Not The Bee’s” #22 Rationalization Orgy

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“Not the Bee” is a conservative commentary site that, in the spirit of The Libs of TikTok, highlights supposedly outrageous news from the political Left. It is already on thin ice with me as a source of ethics stories, in part because its tendency to mix politics with Christian proselytizing is an irritant. Another problem, which the issue at hand illustrates, is that apparently in the proprietors’ jaundiced eyes, the Right can do no wrong.

In this story, much discussed in the Axis media (of course), it was revealed that a disturbing number of leaders in the Young Republican organization are preening, juvenile assholes who think praising Hitler, joking about rape and killing Jews, and making racist slurs is funny or acceptable. These were captured in a leaked series of group chats that, it is fair to day, did not cast the future leadership of the GOP in an encouraging light, nor did it help disabuse progressives of their incessant narrative, highlighted by the previous sort-of President…

…. that Donald Trump, MAGA, conservatives and the Republican Party are aspiring fascists driven by “toxic masculinity.”
I wrote of the revelation in part, “Smoking guns are no less damning whenever they surface. Politico writes, “The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.” I don’t see how anyone can quibble with that.”

So Not the Bee, said, in effect, “Hold my beer!” “The primary point of debate is not whether the comments were morally wrong, but whether or not it should be a national news story,” it intoned. What? It certainly is a national news story, as it casts a harsh and appropriate light on the culture in some of the dark corners of the conservative movement and the mind of its participants as well as its leadership. So did the reaction of NTB, which mirrors the reflex instinct of the Axis, which is that any scandal involving Democrats is a “nothingburger.” You know, like Hunter Biden’s laptop, evidence that Obama helped orchestrate the Russian Collusion hoax, evidence of witnesses called by Liz Cheney et al. to suggest Trump incited the J-6 riot being coached, Fulton County’s DA using her pursuit of Donald Trump to fund a tryst with her adulterous lover, Joe Biden being accused of rape by a Senate staffer, more recently the astounding number of progressives who cheered the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and so on, ad infinitum.

Not The Bees’s device? Why, go right to #22 on the Ethics Alarms Rationalization List:

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Riddle Me This: “Why Is The Guthrie Theater Like Stephen Colbert?”

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Louis Carroll’s Mad Hatter asks Alice the riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” One would think that the question in the headline above is equally obscure (the Guthrie, in Minneapolis, is one of the most respected and celebrated regional theaters in the country) but it has an answer. Like the Colbert late night show, which has since its inception sought to exclude anyone who isn’t woke, obsessed with progressive politics or, since 2015, Trump Deranged, the Guthrie now aims at entertaining only that same audience, except in its case only the wealthy, white, upper-middle class demographic within that audience, or others willing to sit still for relentless leftist propaganda and cant.

A recent audience member for The Guthrie’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Dolls House” wrote about his experience. “A Doll’s House” is about as moldy a feminist tract as there is (I once called the play the drama equivalent of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” but much longer, and even more over-exposed (it was written in 1879, so its analogies with the real state of womanhood, especially in the U.S., have been increasingly forced as time goes by. (No, her husband did not stop Nora from having an abortion: she would never have dreamed of killing an unborn child.)

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Ethics Quiz: FREEDOM

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

Libs of TikTok…you know, that account that progressives call racist and homophobic and transphobic even though it only re-posts damning evidence of woke lunacy from TikTok and other platforms?…posted an email exchange between Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell and an (unnamed) individual in which Snell indicated that “Freedom” T-shirts were banned in her school.  “I just want to make sure that you have told your staff to not wear those ‘Freedom’ shirts to school anymore. Thank you.” Jonathan Turley confirmed that there is such a ban, though it may be temporary. Superintendent Brent Yeager confirmed the emails that Libs of TikTok had postedbut suggested that it was temporary as Snell “reviewed district practices.”

Turley says there is nothing to review.”I fail to see why Snell had to suspend the wearing of such shirts pending review. “This is clearly a content-based limitation on speech,” he writes.

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Incident at a Law School Reunion or “The Disturbing Arrogance of the Political Left”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

It is one of the big reunion years for my law school class, and I just returned from a very nice luncheon featuring members of my class and older. The new Dean spoke, and during a question and answer period, a strident woman, an alumna, stood up and asked the dean what the school and its alumni association were planning to do to “stand up for the rule of law” and “democratic principles” during the current “crisis.” As usual, the “current crisis” is an elected President who does not approve of or want to continue policies near and dear to leftist hearts.

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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 →

Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Update, 9/21/2025

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I have to say that I’m pretty sick of hearing and reading about Charley Kirk. The hagiography on the Right and the desperate spinning from the Left, which fears, with considerable justification, that the activist’s assassination will be a devastating tipping point that will doom their prospects in the 2026 election, are both relentless. The Kirk memorial service i is being compared to a state funeral, and that diminishes the tradition and the status of state funerals. Whatever Kirk was, he was not a national public servant. He wasn’t Charles Lindbergh either. The Democrats approached this level of creating exaggerated status when they held a Capitol Rotunda viewing for a Capitol police officer on the pretense that he was killed by the mob on January 6, 2021. He wasn’t, but the charade was all part of the coordinated effort to demonize Republicans, just as the deification of Kirk, a partisan organizer, is a Republican effort to show that the American Left approves of and encourages violence as a political weapon. (It does, you know.)

The obvious comparison is with George Floyd, but like most obvious comparisons, it’s not valid. To begin with, there really are good reasons to mourn Kirk. George Floyd was a blight on society, if an insignificant one. His ambiguous death was brilliantly exploited despite the fact that it signified nothing except that some cops aren’t very good at their jobs (we knew that). Floyd’s death didn’t result from racism or bigotry. Sure, the lifetime petty crook and drug addict’s life “mattered,” but it didn’t matter enough to him to do something positive with it. Also, to state the the most vivid distinction, conservatives didn’t use Kirk’s murder to go on a destructive nationwide “mostly peaceful demonstration” spree resulting in billions of dollars in damage, over 30 deaths, and the disruption of daily life for Americans who had nothing to do with Floyd’s demise.

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It’s Come to This: a Majority of House Democrats Chose To Avoid Angering Their Radical Trump-Deranged Base Over Appealing To Sane Americans

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

To be fair, Republican had Democrats in a metaphorical head-lock and the assassination of Charlie Kirk gave the Elephants a perfect “gotcha!” Then again, the Democrats and the rest of the Axis of Unethical conduct were begging for their just desserts and are getting it good and hard.

Well, good. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving party.

House Speaker Mike Johnson introduced House Resolution 719 this week and with over 100 co-sponsors, all Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass., and Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D- Cal.) all sucked it up and supported the resolution, which, with a sane party, should have been easy. The relevant text read,

Resolved, That the House of Representatives

(1) condemns in the strongest possible terms the assassination of Charles “Charlie” James Kirk, and all forms of political violence;

(2) commends and honors the dedicated law enforcement and emergency personnel for their tireless efforts in finding the suspect responsible for the assassination of Charlie Kirk and urges the administration of swift justice to the suspect;

(3) extends its deepest condolences and sympathies to Charlie Kirk’s family, including his wife, Erika, and their two young children, and prays for comfort, peace, and healing in this time of unspeakable loss;

(4) honors the life, leadership, and legacy of Charlie Kirk, whose steadfast dedication to the Constitution, civil discourse, and Biblical truth inspired a generation to cherish and defend the blessings of liberty; and

(5) calls upon all Americans—regardless of race, party affiliation, or creed—to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values, and respect one another as fellow Americans.

Only ninety-five Democrats had the sense to back the resolution even though the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t read the text and would just see it as a routine rejection of political violence and an expression of regret over the death of a murder victim. Thirty-eight Democrats voted “present,” 58 voted against the resolution, and 22 did not vote at all. That’s 117 who objected to the existence of Charlie Kirk so much that they were unwilling to support a resolution condemning political violence.

In June, the House unanimously passed a resolution honoring Minnesota House Democrat Leader Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark after they were murdered, while also condemning political violence. There were no Republican dissenters. But the Hortmans hadn’t played a part in defeating a grand scheme to remake the nation, the government and its culture like Charlie Kirk had. The Mad Left hated him and hates him still, hence today’s vote. Res ipsa loquitur.

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Sickness Ethics:  The Worker’s (and the Tourist’s) Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Guest Post

by AM Golden

About a month ago, I got my hair cut at a salon that is part of a nationwide chain.  It was a couple of days before my vacation.  During the cut, the stylist coughed several times into her arm.

Correction: she held her arm out and coughed in its general direction.  You know what I mean, right?  The arm is extended out front, allowing the cough to have plenty of space to spew germs out into the air with nothing to buffer them.

She complained about sinuses.  I sympathized.  Sinuses are tough.  It didn’t pass my notice, however, that one cough seemed a little congested.

At checkout, I told her I hoped her sinuses got better.  It was then that she disclosed that it was harder because she was also recovering from bronchitis.

Cue internal Homer Simpson-esque scream and flight.

I am highly susceptible to bronchial infections, especially this time of year.  It was 35 years ago that I caught pneumonia while in college which caused me to miss two weeks of classes and three weeks of work at McDonald’s.  I returned to classes the day mid-terms began.  The day I returned to work, they put me in the drive-thru and assured my mother they would take me out as soon as it got dark and too cold.  They didn’t.  Fast food work sucks. 

Probably for that reason, I am sympathetic to people in customer-facing positions because they are paid by the hour, generally don’t have sick time or much sick time and often have to make the choice of earning money to pay their bills or staying home unpaid when sick.

I get it.

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