Anatomy Of A Canadian Ethics Train Wreck

Ugh.

Alberta premier Danielle Smith was photographed with a man wearing the T-shirt you see above. It was circulated on social media. Immediately, she was criticized intensely, and predictably, Smith immediately groveled. Her spokesperson said, “The premier didn’t read his shirt and obviously doesn’t agree with its message. She has always been clear that she supports the LGBTQ+ community and will continue our work to make sure they feel safe in our province.”

What’s going on here?

1. The guy, whoever he is, is a jerk. That’s not a T-shirt, it’s a protest sign, and intentionally confrontational. I have always agreed with the maxim that a person’s IQ is inversely related to the number of words on his or her T-shirt. This is a prime example.

2. Further proving that the T-shirt wearer is someone to be avoided: the back of it read, “Good people disobey bad laws.” No, in fact good people obey all laws, or if they want to engage in civil disobedience, violate the “bad law,” accept the consequences, and see how many people agree with them. Asserting that it is good to break laws you happen to think are “bad” is a recipe for societal chaos.

3. The premier lied, and obviously so. How could she miss all those words, unless she can’t read? The guy’s a walking billboard; you can’t stand next to someone like that and not appear to be endorsing his message.

4. Whoever drafted that statement should be fired. What is it that Smith doesn’t agree with? Should straight people be ashamed? It’s not the message that is objectionable but the in-your-face gesture. It’s like “It’s OK to be white”—the shirt’s purpose is to annoy and start an argument.

5. What does a T-shirt have to do with “feeling safe”? Safe from words? Should non-LGBTQ individuals feel “unsafe” when they see Pride parades, signs and slogans?

“Nah, Colleges Don’t Indoctrinate Students! It’s A Conspiracy Theory!” Brown Replies, “Hold My Beer!”

The Washington Examiner reports that 40% of Brown students now identify as LGTBQ+. The Brown Daily Herald’s 2023 Spring survey revealed that 38% of students, more than five times the national rate, no longer consider themselves “cis.” The gay and lesbian population has increased by 26% and the percentage of students identifying as bisexual has increased by…wait for it!232%. Just eleven years ago, in 2010, only 4% of Brown University students said they were not conventionally heterosexual. Now it’s 38%.

Commenting on this phenomenon at the Victory Girls blog, Lisa Carr writes in part,

The new “cool kids” now are changing their names every other day, along with changing their identities to anything contrary to their biological sex. Joe becomes Joelene who is dating Mary who wants to be known as “Mike”. Mary is nominated for Homecoming King while Joe is the Homecoming Queen; both in their gender-fluid and ambiguous outfits. And yes, they are probably still wearing those filthy, ugly masks because society told them to stay scared. (But alas, don’t be scared to cut off your genitalia.) This is the new cult. This is the trend we are seeing in colleges but I would argue that this seed is being planted as early as elementary school….This is no longer about loving and accepting all. This is about subtle conversion by suggestion.

Apparently a Brown professor, Dr. Lisa Littman, argued that campus culture and peer groups were pressuring students into such epiphanies regarding their true sexual identities, and got herself fired for it. Continue reading

Ethics Zugzwang And High School Theater

I have no idea what can be done about this now, but it is among the saddest consequences of the culture wars and The Great Stupid, and, as is so often the case, the casualties are children….which means that in the long-term, the casualty will be American society itself.

Ethics Alarms has periodically chronicled the sagas of high school theatrical productions halted or distorted by various politics- or ideology-based complaints and protests, but I never focused on what a tightening strangle-hold on cultural education this phenomenon represents. The New York Times examined the problem here, and though the Times slant seeks to blame it all on conservatives (you know, those meanies who also want to “ban books”), the description of the problem is accurate and gloomy. A sample:

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A Student Wrongly Accused Of Rape Can Seek Damages From His Accuser, And Rightly So

Maybe this case helped convince Donald Trump that he should sue E. Jean Carroll, the victorious plaintiff in the sexual assault case against him, for defamation.

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that a former Yale student is not immune from being sued for defamation by the male student she accused of raping her. Saifullah Khan was found not guilty in a criminal trial of raping “Jane Doe” in her dorm room in October 2015 in what Khan insisted, and a jury agreed, was an incident of consensual sex. Yale had expelled Khan using the “preponderance of the evidence” standard forced on educational institutions by the Obama Department of Education.

The court determined that because Khan had fewer rights to defend himself in university proceedings, which, again prompted by the Obama administration, provided limited due process protections, his accuser should not benefit from the civil immunity granted to witnesses in criminal proceedings. “Statements made in sexual misconduct disciplinary proceedings that are offered and accepted without adequate procedural safeguards carry too great a risk of unfair or unreliable outcomes,” the unanimous opinion held.

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“Tired, Stupid And Having Dead Ethics Alarms Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son….”

In Tulsa, gas station clerk Isaias Jones (far left) called the police and reported that a masked man had walked into the gas station where he was employed, and, brandishing a gun, threatened to shoot him if he didn’t empty the register and hand over the cash. Jones did as he was ordered, of course. Surveillance cameras confirmed the account, but eventually the truth emerged, and it was both unethical and ridiculous.

The robber, Steven Jones (no relation to the clerk) was caught in three days and immediately spilled the metaphorical beans. He told investigators that a woman named Alyia Locke, a mutual friend of the two Joneses, persuaded Steven to rob the gas station because her friend the clerk, was feeling tired and wanted to leave work early. Locke was arrested on an outstanding warrant regarding an unrelated matter and confirmed the story with the texts between herself and the two men as proof. Police finally arrested the clerk, who confessed that he had indeed asked Alyia Locke to find someone to rob the gas station.

Because he was tired.

And needed an excuse to leave early.

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Dispatches From The Trans Ethics Train Wreck

[ Rose’s breast-baring at the White House will serve as the regular graphic accompanying this topic in the future, because it perfectly symbolizes the attitide of these activists toward the public,

The Tran Ethics Train Wreck was made official back in February, and in retrospect Ethics Alarms should have designated it much earlier. An ethics train wreck is a continuing and evolving situation involving ethics issues and dilemmas that entice anyone becoming involved in them to end up looking foolish at best, misguided at worst, and in between, subject to anger and abuse. Latest developments:

  • The University of Wyoming’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority is being sued for allegedly changing the definition of ‘woman’ to accept a trans member, a biological male with equipment intact who is 6’2″ and 260lb. She has been accused of ogling her “sisters” with a full erection, among other issues. The suit alleges that the sorority’s leadership  bullied and intimidated member to accept Artemis Langford. The current and altered sorority rules only require  that a member “identify” as female. KKGs lawyers argue that the definition of “woman” has evolved since the sorority’s founding 150 years ago”The term (woman) is unquestionably open to many interpretations,” the sorority’s filing claimed. I question whether a law suit can prevail here, as clear as it seems that the complaining members were subjected to a bait-and switch. If they cannot get the sorority to agree to a policy they find tolerable, and if they really have been subjected to bullying, I suggest that they quit.
  • AMC Theaters  canceled screenings of a documentary film showcasing the experiences of de-transitioning transsexuals following an aggressive campaign by a group called the Queer Trans Project which sends “Build-a-Queer kits” to “transitioning” LGBTQ+ individuals. The kits include chest binders and tucking tape The online activist group encouraged protesters to send letters to AMC executives to block the screening of the documentary titled “No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care.”  The film shares the stories of five young transsexuals regretting their decision to cross gender lines as well as critical commentary from medical experts. Once AMC announced that it would not show the film, the group posted: “We did it! Our community’s swift action is a testament to the power of advocacy and the importance of raising our voices against harmful content. Your collective efforts have made a significant impact, and the decision to pull No Way Back from AMC theaters is a step towards fostering a more inclusive and respectful environment. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to creating positive change.” AMC claims that the decision was based entirely on poor advance ticket sales.
    And absent leaked documents or emails, there is no way to determine which story is true, or if reality is some mixture of both. The activist group would try to take credit regardless the actual impact of its lobbying, and AMC would never admit to suppressing speech and art because of political pressure.

  • This doesn’t help: New Hampshire’s first transgender state representative, Stacie-Marie Laughton has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of distributing child sexual abuse images. Laughton’s girlfriend was also arrested on the same day on one count of sexual exploitation of children, and one count of distribution of child pornography. She was working at a daycare called Creative Minds and is accused of taking pictures of the children in her care. 

That’s quite a role-model you have there, Trans World! Continue reading

The White House Breast-Flashing Trans Activist Offers Authentic Frontier Gibberish And A Non-Apology Apology

Ugh.

I wouldn’t expect the individual who thought this…

…was a reasonable or ethical way to behave at the White House or to thank President Biden for inviting her and other LGBTQ activists to attend a political suck-up event would be revealed as a smart, articulate, ethical force in civic discourse. That three-minute babble-fest above, however, is special. I’m not even certain what the transsexual’s intention was. I can determine what it communicated, however:

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Playing Bud Light Spin The Bottle

The facts are pretty straightforward. The parent company of Budweiser hired an ambitious, arrogant, woke woman to take over the marketing of Bud Light, which was the best selling beer in America. Having little understanding of the product’s market, and being so infected with wokism that she couldn’t comprehend the depth of the cultural divide regarding the current pro-transgender fad, she made the bone-headed decision to associate the brand with Dylan Mulvaney, a biological male internet performance artist who poses as female, both satirizing genuine transsexuals and celebrating them. From that moment, Bud Light was in a binary trap of its own making with no way out. The reaction against the botched marketing decision was over-whelming, with calls for a Bud Light boycott and a sudden fall-off ins sales. When the company tried to backtrack, including the sacking of its clueless marketing guru, the LGTBQ market also turned on the brand.

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Ethical Quote Of The Month: Elon Musk

“You are the government. They are NOT your kids.”

—Entrepreneur and Twitter savior Elon Musk, responding to the Biden Administration’s totalitarian rhetoric in its latest pander to the LGBTQ lobby.

The White House released a tweet from the Biden-Harris administration that stated, “To the LGBTQI+ Community – the Biden-Harris Administration has your back.” The video accompanying the tweet states, “these are our kids,” and “not somebody else’s kids; they’re all our kids.”

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Res Ipsa Loquitur, But Here Are Some Ethics Observations Anyway

TikTok influencer and transwoman Rose Montoya filmed herself topless in front of the White House during a Joe Biden’s pandering Pride event. Montoya was joined by two transmales who were also shirtless. Stay classy, trans activists! The White House was horrified, stating, “This behavior is inappropriate and disrespectful for any event at the White House. It is not reflective of the event we hosted to celebrate LGBTQI+ families or the other hundreds of guests who were in attendance… Individuals in the video will not be invited to future events.”

Awwww. The White House set itself up for this conduct, and got exactly what it deserved. Montoya responded by saying that she was not trying to be inappropriate but simply “living in joy.” “Why is my chest now deemed illegal when I show it off, however before I came out as trans, it was not,” she asked?

Yes, she is an idiot.

Further observations:

1. If the LGTBQ+ community wants to alienate a majority of the country, stunts like that will do the trick. It is astoundingly incompetent and irresponsible for the still vulnerable group to allow its most juvenile and narcissistic members to represent it in the news and in public forums.

2. The episode also demonstrates the kind of thing that will push the public to the Right. Whoever managed the President’s Pride Pander should be fired. Stupidly violating the flag-flying code was relatively trivial (though Republicans pounced), but allowing the White House to be used as a pro-trans exhibitionism prop was insane, especially in light of Biden’s posturing about bringing dignity back to the Presidency.

3. Now the White House is caught in the middle, like Bud Light and Target.

4. Good.