“We must face a simple truth.To protect America as a land that welcomes immigrants, we must first secure the border and secure it now.”
—President Biden, outrageously adopting Donald Trump’s long-standing position that he party has condemned as racist and “xenophobic” because his poll numbers are looking bad.
Seldom has the “Die Hard” clip (from the Ethics Alarms Hollywood Clip Archive) been more appropriate or infuriating. For more than three years, Joe Biden’s administration deliberately signaled to aspiring alien lawbreakers that they would be wink-winked into the United States despite defying immigration laws, let free to run amuck if that’s what they chose to do, and law enforcement would look the other way. Officials like Kamala Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas gaslighted the public by insisting the border was secure when anyone with eyes or a camera could see it was anything but. An estimated 2.5 illegals have entered the country across this “secure border.” Awakening to the reality that the majority of the American public doesn’t view that as “a Great Replacement Conspiracy,” but simply as incompetent, irresponsible, dangerous and wrong—you know, like Donald Trump said in 2015 as he launched his (quixotic, everyone thought) candidacy for the Presidency and was tarred as a racist for it?—suddenly, Mirabile Dictu!, Biden is singing a different metaphorical tune.
Naturally, the reaction was explosive on both sides of the, uh, well, both sides. “News about Heterosexual Awesomeness Month has spread worldwide!,” the bar announced in a follow-up social media post. “Many people have asked how they can support us. Owner Mark Fitzpatrick is excited to build a 25,000 sq ft community event center nearby to host events, provide amazing and wholesome food, support conservative ideas, and help true conservatives get elected. So, we started a GiveSendGo fund. For the haters spewing venom, perhaps you feel bad and want to contribute a few dollars now? For the rest of you reasonable people, if you feel inclined to give, please do! May God bless you!”
The Old State Saloon in in Eagle, Idaho, not far from Boise, and its promotional stunt is the work of new owner Mark Fitzpatrick, a South California transplant who bought the bar in 2023 and who describes himself as “a Christian, conservative, Constitution supporter, retired police officer, and family man.”
Ew!
The fact that this promotion is taking place during “Pride Month,” when everyone is supposed shout out hosannas for minority sexual practices while festooning everything in rainbows, means that it is also being taken as a shot across the hallowed bow of wokeness. LGBQ Nation snarks, ” Fitzpatrick claims to have banned a couple of dozen hateful negative Facebook commenters for ‘using horrific words, expletives, using the name of the Lord in vain, etc,’ but it’s hard to tell one heterosexual man’s hate from another’s unbridled excitement.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” unethical?
I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but I think it is a divisive tactic, essentially tit for tat, but inevitable and perhaps necessary. Once upon a time “days” and “months” designated to celebrate particular components of the American melting pot were benign and opportunities for all to signal appreciation for our component cultures. The practice quickly curdled into group chauvinism and anti-majority bigotry with the continued celebration of Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Pride Month. Those groups once arguably needed their “months” to restore self-esteem after long being discriminated against, but now they just resonate as “Who needs whites and men?” exercises in division.
As an aside, anyone who is “proud” of their sex life has problems. I remember when Grant was tiny and we watched “Sesame Street” together, I was consistently amused by a oft repeated number in which a bovine Muppet sang, “I’m proud, proud, proud to be a cow!” “Pride Month” strikes me as similarly excessive. OK, so you’re gay. I don’t care. I’m bald. What do either of us have to be “proud ” about?
If it is unimaginable to have a “Heterosexual Pride Month” or “White Achievement Month” or “Hooray for Men Month,” and it is, then it’s time for those other month-long celebrations to be retired as past their pull dates, and now doing more harm than good.
To that end, I suppose “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” has a certain “So how do YOU like it?” appeal. Nevertheless, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Added: I have to include that “Proud to be a Cow” song. Here you go…
The Washington Times reports that the Democratic National Committee today will vote to change party rules so the party can quietly nominate Joe Biden via Zoom before its convention. Not only will this maneuver supposedly enure that an early ballot filing deadline in Ohio won’t keep Biden off the ballot there ( Gov. Mike DeWine has already signed a law to extend the filing deadline to make sure Biden is on the ballot, so the party’s claim that the virtual nomination is necessary for that reason is hooey), it will “eliminate any realistic chance disgruntled party members will try to replace Mr. Biden on the ballot with a more desirable candidate amid alarming poll numbers that show him trailing former President Donald Trump both nationally and in the critical battleground states.”
You know: can’t let that democracy thingy get in the way of The Party’s anointment of its Leader.
“Once President Biden is virtually nominated, then that will be it. He will be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party and only death or incapacitation will prevent that moving forward,” said Josh Putnam, party rules expert and founder of FHQ Strategies LLC, a non-partisan political consulting venture. “There will be no substitutes.”
Nominating Biden ahead of the convention also has the advantage of minimizing the bad optics of the anticipated convention protests by several groups who believe Biden has betrayed their interests. It also will ensure that the convention, and thus the “mostly peaceful” protests get as little TV airtime as possible. A coalition of organizations under the banner “March on The DNC” announced they plan to “bring our demands” to the Democratic National Convention. They want permits to demonstrate near the convention center “to bring the people’s agenda to within sight and sound of the Democratic Party leadership.” Oh, can’t have that! To re-phrase a memorable line from “Dr. Strangelove”: “You can’t have a political demonstration here! This is the Democratic Party Convention!”
Well this is interesting. And not at all surprising.
Enterprising conservative blogger Matt Margolis dredged up an almost completely ignored report in the New York Post during Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 that revealed Obama’s efforts in 2008 to “hush” big-mouth anti-white, anti-America (“God bless America? I say God damn America!”) racist minister Jeremiah Wright. Wright, you will recall, was Obama’s supposed “spiritual advisor” whose Sunday sermons qua rants the future President said he attended religiously (snort) for many years. We now know that although Obama solved his Wright problem by denouncing him publicly, Obama’s true views were much closer to those of his mentor than most voters would have been comfortable with in 2012.
The PJ Media headline is certainly a click-magnet: “Biden Admin Tampered With Evidence, Altered Biden’s Hur Interview Transcript.” If one has been following all of the machinations of this totalitarian-leaning cabal, that seems perfectly in character. Sure, why not? If they’ll contrive ways to keep their major political rival in court if not in jail a few months before the election, what won’t they try to get away with?
The story, however, is more equivocal. In a federal court filing, the Department of Justice admitted that the transcript of President Joe Biden’s testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur was missing “filler words (such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’)” and words that “may have been repeated when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and’)”:
I suppose I should clarify that by noting that what the New York Times calls “extremists” are really “Americans who believe that organizations shouldn’t be aiding and abetting law-breakers and those who deliberately defy U.S. immigration laws.”
This Times story (again, I’m making a gift of it, because I pay the Times fees so you don’t have to) is a virtual cornucopia of fake news and progressive propaganda devices by the Times (but I will doubtless get a protesting email from self-banned Time apologist “A Friend” saying that it’s OK because some Times readers point out the dishonesty.)
Let’s see: the gist of the thing is that “after President Biden took office in 2021 promising a more humane approach to migration, these faith-based groups have increasingly become the subjects of conspiracy theories and targets for far-right activists and Republican members of Congress, who accuse them of promoting an invasion to displace white Americans and engaging in child trafficking and migrant smuggling. The organizations say those claims are baseless.”
I’m dizzy already:
“More humane approach to migration” means and meant “less enforcement of immigration laws against illegal immigrants.” Enforcing laws in general is considered cruel and racist by the 21st Century version of progressives.
“faith-based groups” is being used here to signal virtue and good intentions because that suits the writer’s agenda and that of the Times market. Being “faith-based” is considered meaningless, however, when the “faith-based” are opposing the killing of unborn children or objecting to being forced express support for same-sex weddings.
See that framing? Any objections to open borders is based on the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, sayeth the Times. That’s a lie by omission. Most Americans who object to letting illegal immigrants get away with breaking our laws do so because illegal immigrants shouldn’t get away with breaking our laws. I, for example, don’t care if they end up voting for Truth, Justice and the American Way. I wouldn’t care if they were all white, or albinos even. They don’t belong here. Let them get in line like they are supposed to. And the “human trafficking” stuff: this is a classic example of deceptive cherry-picking, making a position look ridiculous by only mentioning the bad arguments for it while ignoring the valid ones.
Sure, those claims are baseless. The claims that the “faith-based organizations” are aiding and abetting illegal conduct, however, are 100% true.
I think I could check through the names of the 20 or so most prolific Ethics Alarms commenters and guess with nearly 100% accuracy how each of them will respond to this ethics quiz.
Eight Republican Senate Republicans released a letter after President’s Trump was declared guilty as charged in his mysterious “he did something illegal in there somewhere and besides, he’s a bad guy and everyone should hate him” trial in Manhattan. It declares that they will not do anything to support President Biden for the rest of his term in office: not vote on any legislation for non-security funding, not vote on judicial and political nominations, not not vote in favor of “expedited consideration and passage” of any Democrat-proposed legislation.
Signed by conservative GOP Senators Mike Lee, J.D. Vance (Ohio), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), Eric Schmitt (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Roger Marshall (Kan.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), the terse missive states,
Major League Baseball’s absurd and self-wounding decision to lump all of the old Negro League season and career statistics in with those of its own players is impossible to defend logically or ethically. Ethics Alarms discussed this debacle of racial pandering here, three days ago. What is interesting—Interesting? Perhaps disturbing would be a better word—is how few baseball experts, statisticians, historians, players and fans are defending this indefensible decision or criticizing it. As to the latter, they simply don’t have the guts; they are terrified of being called racists. Regarding the former, there is really no good argument to be made. MLB’s groveling and pandering should call for baseball’s version of a welter of “It’s OK to be white” banners and signs at the games. Instead, both the sport and society itself is treating this “it isn’t what it is” classic like a particularly odoriferous fart in an elevator. Apparently it’s impolite to call attention to it.
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) June 1, 2024
On the Josephson Institute’s Pillars of Character, one of the values comprising the fourth pillar, Fairness, is proportionality. Proportionality is essential to perspective, and understanding te need to maintain a broad perspective is essential to fairness, a core ethical value.
When I first started watching that video meme above, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, please. This is ridiculous. Then I saw the pay-off, and laughed out loud. I would have laughed just as hardily if the two men had been reversed.
Being unable to appreciate good-natured, puckish satire when it is aimed at your favorite politician, party, elected official, organization is a sign of a closed mind and an absence of proportionality and perspective. That video makes both candidates look silly, and that’s just fine.
If you can’t see the humor, I feel sorry for you. And I fear you. You have lost all perspective, and that leads to fanaticism.
Ethics Alarms 