Gender and Sex

“Curmie” Comment Of The Day Double-Header #2: “DeSantis Strikes Back: Ethics Dunce Disney Gets The Legal And Ethical Consequences It Deserved”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

No “echo chamber” we, so it is appropriate to include as a Comment of the Day Curmie’s vigorous dissent on the current conflict between Disney and Florida, particularly its ambition conservative governor Ron De Santis.

So here it is…in response to the post, DeSantis Strikes Back: Ethics Dunce Disney Gets The Legal And Ethical Consequences It Deserved…

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Unlike you, Jack, I am neither a lawyer not an ethicist. The closest I’ve ever been to the former was being unofficially “pre-law” for about the first two and a half years of undergrad; the closest I’ve ever been to the latter is that you’ve called me ethical a couple of times. So forgive me if I have trouble discerning the line between that which is legal and that which is ethical.

Perhaps the terms of the agreement between the state and the corporation are akin to trademark laws: that Florida must aggressively defend its prerogatives or be in danger of losing them. But this doesn’t seem like something any corporate CEO would agree to. And I think we can take as given that Governor DeSantis would not be criticizing any corporation that publicly supported his position because they didn’t stay in their lane, even though the level of interference in public policy would be the same. No, it would be the progressives who’d have their collective skivvies in a twist in that case.

More to the point, Disney began their dissent, at least, while the bill was still under consideration. They were, in fact, arguing in favor of the status quo—when there was no law—a position that can hardly be regarded as interfering with the state, only with one party’s agenda. That they didn’t suddenly change their position when the bill became law doesn’t seem very problematic.

Moreover, it strikes me that educational policy is literally everyone’s business. I’m semi-retired now and not currently scheduled to teach at all in the fall, so I have no direct personal interest in what’s being taught in 3rd grade—these will never be my students—but I hope to be around long enough to be affected by their ability to vote or even to run for office… or to become doctors, lawyers, artists, or whatever. Yeah, I care what happens in that 3rd grade classroom. Continue reading →

Rep. Cawthorne And The Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle Question

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yes, this is a funny controversy, but not entirely trivial. And you knew Ethics Alarms would be on it like hound on a hock of ham, because examining the Naked Teacher Principle [NTP]and its real or proposed extensions, sisters, cousins and aunts, have been a periodic obsession of both Ethics Alarms and its predecessor, The Ethics Scoreboard. Add to that the fact that that Madison Cawthorn (R-NC.), is both a Christian values-spouting politician and a mega-jerk, and the photo above, showing him cavorting in lingerie, cannot be ignored (or, once seen, unseen).

The Principle states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.

It is important to remember that even the Naked Teacher Principle does not hold that teachers necessarily should be dismissed if old photos surface of them online that show more of them than parents and schools want students to see, but that it is their own carelessness that created their career crisis, and that the decision to dismiss them is ethically defensible. Most recent posts on the topic involve whether the NTP can be applied to other professions.The last time it was discussed, in 2012, involved a nurse who made money on the side by posing provocatively on a sexually themed website. The conclusion here was was that there was no “Naked Nurse Principle,” and that her firing was unjust.  The previous NTP-related post involved, almost a year before that one,  rebutting the argument that there are similar principles regarding police and firefighters. Some of the more interesting versions that have been explored on Ethics Alarms include The Female Bodybuilder Firefighter Principle, The Drag Queen Principal Principle, The Online Porn Star Teacher Principle, Naked Naval War College Professor Principle, and more.

So now we must ask, “Is there a Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle”? Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Tune-Up, 2/22/22: A Very Special Episode…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

1.  “What’s going on here?” I have not decided what exactly the article “The New Homophobia” in Newsweek (Flagged this morning by Althouse: Pointer for Ann!) means or portends: it is, after all, just one man’s opinion. However, I sense that it is relevant to the issues underlying the Disney vs. Florida controversy.

Excerpts…

I learned about queer theory, an obscure academic discipline based largely on the writing of the late French intellectual Michel Foucault, who believed that society categorizes people—male or female, heterosexual or homosexual—in order to oppress them. The solution is to intentionally blur—or “queer”—the boundaries of these categories. Soon this “queering” became the predominant method of discussing and analyzing gender and sexuality in universities…

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This might not be a concern if, by adopting these new identities, young people were merely playing with the boundaries of normative gender expression—something that gays, lesbians, feminists, most liberals and even many conservatives would welcome two decades into the 21st century. But many young boys do not stop at simply painting their fingernails and wearing dresses, and young girls do more than cut their hair short and play football. With increasing frequency, these children are given drugs to block their puberty, cross-sex hormones and irreversible surgeries, all the while cheered on first by online communities, then the mainstream media and now the current presidential administration…

*** Continue reading →

DeSantis Strikes Back: Ethics Dunce Disney Gets The Legal And Ethical Consequences It Deserved

/ Jack Marshall / 54 Comments

During a special session called for the purpose, Florida’s Senate has passed a bill that would end the special autonomous tax district status granted to Walt Disney World 1967. The bill now goes to Florida’s House, where passage is expected. Gov. DeSantis will, of course, sign the bill into law.

Good.

The mainstream news media and its minions are pushing, hard, the skewed narrative that this is GOP hypocrisy, with a state government using its power to punish a corporation’s free speech. That, however, is not a correct analysis.

What Disney did, when it publicly announced that it would protest and fight to repeal the Parental Rights in Education Law (falsely and dishonestly tagged the “Don’t Say Gay” law by LGTBQ activists, including much of the news media), was to breach the implicit conditions of its 55 year-old deal with the State of Florida, and, in an uncharacteristic blunder, prompt it to do what it had an ethical and legal duty to do anyway.

By 1967, Walt Disney himself had been negotiating a sweetheart deal with Florida since Walt Disney World was just another twinkle in his eye. The planned 40 acre complex was audacious and unprecedented, and audacious because it was unprecedented. Central Florida was an under-utilized swamp, and Disney was promising to turn it into the biggest tourist destination in the U.S. This would mean publicity, tourism ,commerce, hotel construction, jobs, tax revenue and development for Florida, and Disney was a tough negotiator. (Another Disney theme park project planned for Manassas, Virginia was abruptly killed when that state was less than accommodating.) Disney had a well-earned reputation for doing things right, so Florida saw nothing but benefits in allow it nearly complete freedom to build and run the new theme park the way it chose, without meddling from regulators. When Disney wanted to build a building, fill in a lake, or pave a road, it didn’t have to seek permits or approval, allowing the place to operate and start making money for itself and Florida as early as possible. Continue reading →

Observations On The Great “Libs Of TikTok” Affair And Doxxing Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Let me begin by saying I hate this story. I hate it because it is, in part, web nerd inside baseball, and the answer to the retort, “Oh, who cares?” is hard to get out before the person asking has left to organize their sock drawer. Yet I have to write about it, not just because the conservative web is obsessed with it (that, and the fact that the mainstream media is ignoring it, thus branding the ugly mess as a “right wing story”—you know, a fantasy”) but because it explains just a bit more about how genuinely unscrupulous and ruthless the Warriors of Social Justice have become, at least to anyone who doesn’t know that already.

I’ll try to summarize the facts efficiently.

Ethics Alarms had posted a couple of the videos highlighted by the Twitter account Libs of TikTok, but I never focused on the account itself or its purpose, and because Twitter is an unethical platform that eats brains and censors opinions, I don’t hang out there. Ann Althouse is inexplicably fond of TikTok, which is a Chinese-owned social media platform on which members post videos. Now, thanks only to the current mess, I know that Libs of TikTok posts, often without comment, outrageous, crazy, hilarious or funny videos by radical progressives who are apparently unaware that their common sense, ethics alarms, and self-awareness have, in the immortal words of the Ghostbusters, “gone bye-bye.” This exposure holds the posters of these videos, as well as the ideologies that have rotted their brains, up for well-earned ridicule among the rational population. Progressives can’t stand that. The anonymous woman who posts as Libs of TikTok has also been a frequent guest of Tucker Carlson on Fox News, causing all Carlson-haters except critics like me to react to her mission like the hysterical lady from “The Birds”:

And so it was that the Washington Post—Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!—assigned or allowed its tech reporter, Taylor Lorenz (formerly of the New York Times, which fired her as Ethics Alarms discussed here) to write and have published a furious attack on a humorous, if horrifying, Twitter account by a regular human being, even as you or I, because it regularly held ridiculous progressives up to well-deserved exposure and ridicule. An excerpt:

Libs of TikTok reposts a steady stream of TikTok videos and social media posts, primarily from LGBTQ+ people, often including incendiary framing designed to generate outrage. Videos shared from the account quickly find their way to the most influential names in right-wing media. The account has emerged as a powerful force on the Internet, shaping right-wing media, impacting anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and influencing millions by posting viral videos aimed at inciting outrage among the right.

The anonymous account’s impact is deep and far-reaching. Its content is amplified by high-profile media figures, politicians and right-wing influencers. Its tweets reach millions, with influence spreading far beyond its more than 648,000 Twitter followers. Libs of TikTok has become an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse, and the content it surfaces shows a direct correlation with the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

Now, a responsible, ethical editor would stop reading right there and send the proposed article to the shredder. What is doing all of the dastardly things Lorenz is shouting “Fire!” about is not the account, but the deranged people who post the videos highlighted by the account. Libs of TikTok doesn’t call for action, or legislation, or anything but a smile or a slap to the head from those who watch what she found. Her posts seldom, at least the ones I’ve seen, include any commentary at all.

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The Ethics News Lately Is Sure Giving George Costanza A Workout…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I usually use this video clip…

…from the memorable “Seinfeld” episode where George tries to talk his way out of being fired for having sex with the office cleaning lady on his desk, when someone does something so spectacularly and obviously unethical that it can’t reasonably be called “a mistake.” Lately, stories where George’s query seems appropriate have been an almost daily occurrence…like the high school teacher who accidentally showed porn on the class projector.

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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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A “Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Pop Quiz (Don’t Worry, It’s Easy): What’s Unethical About This NYT Quote?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Here is a paragraph from yesterday’s news article by reporter Jonathan Weisman in the New York Times:

In Missouri, Georgia, Ohio and now Nebraska, Republican men running for high office face significant allegations of domestic violence, stalking, even sexual assault — accusations that once would have derailed any run for office. But in an era of Republican politics when Donald J. Trump could survive and thrive amid accusations of sexual assault, opposing candidates are finding little traction in dwelling on the issues…

Now think about that for 30 seconds. What’s missing? Cue the thinking music…

Ready? Got the answer? Continue reading →

An Ethics Alarms Motto: “You Can’t Trust The Science If You Can’t Trust The Scientist”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I would hope the whole Wuhan virus fiasco would have hammered that principle home by now like a high-grade nail gun, but no. The progressives who want to use “follow the science” as their ploy to inflict the Green New Deal on America aren’t yet willing to try something else, like, say, honesty and responsible policy. So here is another case study…

A peer reviewed University of Washington study called“Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care” was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and immediately became the favorite weapon of the crowd. (The same group holds that questioning the wisdom of this marks one as “transphobic.”) The study instantly made the euphemisms “gender affirming medicine” and “gender affirming care” catch-phrases for pro-trans activists, and it was widely cited or referred to in the media and in political battles over schools’ handling of students with gender issues, real, imagined, or imposed.

The conclusion of the study, we were told, was that the students who received “gender affirming medicine” had significantly better mental health outcomes at the end of the study than they did at the beginning. The news release accompanying the study’s publication stated that “UW Medicine researchers recently found that gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary adolescents caused rates of depression to plummet.”

The study’s release was accompanied by a flashy video that claimed researchers found “gender-affirming care made a big difference in reducing depression levels for transgender youth.”

Well then! Follow the science!

Except that the study didn’t show that. Researchers with an agenda misrepresented the findings to satisfy trans advocates and activists, knowing, I assume, that 99% of those who would exploit the study wouldn’t read it. Unfortunately for them, a few did. One was journalist Jesse Singal, who looked carefully into the researchers’ numbers and couldn’t find convincing data to suggest the mental health of the transgender and nonbinary teens improved over with treatment the course of the research. Thus caught rainbow-handed, The University of Washington this week edited online materials “to more directly reflect the findings as reported in the study.”

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Baseball Ethics Batting Practice, Part 1: The Historic and The Good

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The Historic

Not only is April 15, 2022, Opening Day for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, it is also MLB’s Jackie Robinson Day, commemorating the date  baseball’s apartheid was ended forever when Jack Roosevelt Robinson (1919-1972) took the field for the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the most important of baseball’s many influences on the national culture and society at large, by far. As for Robinson, a remarkable man and exactly the athlete for the difficult role assigned to him, he was among the first admittees to the Ethics Alarms Heroes’ Hall of Honor, with this post from 2012.

In 1997, Major League Baseball retired Robinson’s number, 42, and has dedicated all games on April 15 to Robinson. On this date all players wear 42 instead of their usual number, making for mass confusion for fans who don’t know the individual players on sight. It will be especially strange in Fenway Park today, for Opening Day and Jackie Robinson Day have never coincided before. The tradition individual introductions in the pre-game ceremonies, as the whole Red Sox team lines up along the first base foul line—“Playing left field, #8, Carl Yastrzemski!”—will be weird, as every player will be wearing 42.

There have been a lot of posts here about or relating to Jackie Robinson, which you will find at the Jackie Robinson tag.

The Good (and also historic!)

Alyssa Nakken became the first woman to take the field as a coach in a Major League baseball game this week. She coached first base after one of the San Francisco Giants coaches was ejected in a game against the San Diego Padres. The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York now has her helmet, which will soon go on display.  Continue reading →