Government & Politics

Baseball Ethics: Everything Isn’t About Race, Kurt

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Kurt Streeter is allegedly the New York Times; primary sports pundit, but if he has written more than a handful of columns that didn’t drag race into his commentary, I’d be surprised. Most sports fans would be happy never to have to think about the obsessions of partisans and social justice warriors while following their favorite teams and athletes, but it is the mission of activists posing as sports analysts to have that hope a pipe dream.

In his latest column, Streeter marvels at Luis Arraez, a Miami Marlins infielder and last year’s American League batting champion, who is making the first plausible run at a season-long .400 average since George Brett came close (.390) in 1980. Arraez, who makes the softest contact in the Major Leagues and might best be compared to “Wee” Willie Keeler, a 19th Century star known for poking baseballs “where they ain’t,” is a fun story this season, but Streeter being Streeter, he must examine Arraez through a racial lens. “No player,” Streeter informs us portentously, “has ever finished a season batting at or above .400 since Major League Baseball became an integrated game.”

Ah! I get it: Streeter is saying that all those other.400 seasons by white players aren’t really legit, because they didn’t have to face all the great black pitchers who were being kept out of the game by racism. In this he includes Ted Williams, the last .400 hitter (.406 in 1941), just a bit short of Babe Ruth as the greatest hitter in MLB history, implying that if “Teddy Ballgame” was playing in a fair league, he might not have hit .400 at all.

The contention can’t be proved or disproved, of course, but this is the second time in a week I’ve heard the argument and it is illogical and offensive. Consider:

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

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

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

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

[ 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 →

Unethical Quote Of The Month (And Incompetent Elected Official): Vice-President Kamala Harris

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“How dare they?”

—Vice-President Kamala Harris on June 24 referring to the U.S. Supreme Court on the anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. ruling that finally overturned Roe v. Wade.

This wasn’t the usual infantile babbling that characterizes most of Harris’s public appearances: Ethics Alarms has pledged to skip most of those in fealty to the Julie Principle. That quote is far worse, more significant and sinister. It’s so unethical and outrageous that I initially didn’t believe she could have been referring to the Supreme Court: most of the mainstream media accounts and even the edited videos left out the context of that outburst, so, giving the Vice-President of the United States the benefit of the doubt and assuming that surely, surely, she could not be framing a duly rendered majority ruling on the U.S. Constitution by the independent branch of the government charged with that duty by the Founders in such an ignorant, misleading and inflammatory manner.

She was, however. In fact, she had made the same fatuous, irresponsible and obnoxious statement before, a year ago, and is apparently so proud of her demagoguery that she deemed it worthy of an encore. I thought, and hoped, that her “How dare they?” was at least in the context she placed it in this past January, but no. (That is also an unethical and despicable bit of demogoguery, notable for Harris’s characterization of the famous statement in Thomas Jefferson’s masterpiece as “A promise we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Huh. Sounds funny. Isn’t there something missing there? Something that unborn Americans might think is important? I’m sure I’ll think of it in a minute…

But no. I could find no news report that placed this “How dare they?” in the context Harris placed it last week, but a video I can’t embed, available here on the Washington Post website, makes it clear.

In order to make such a dangerous statement, Harris has to also mislead the public into believing that, as she falsely said in January and periodically since, the United States Supreme Court “took away… a fundamental right, a basic freedom from the people of America.” Whatever one thinks should be the law or laws regarding abortion, it was never “a fundamental right, a basic freedom.” It was a Court-made right, and the Supreme Court isn’t empowered to make rights. “Fundamental rights” are the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights and the subsequent amendments, passed by Congress and the states, in the Constitution. Roe was a bad, political, incompetent decision that most legal scholars, even those who favor abortion, admitted was wrongly decided. (If she ever had chosen to be candid about the issue, it is likely that even the sainted Ruth Bader Ginsburg recognized this.) Roe survived for so long because a parade of Justices lacked the votes and guts to overturn it.

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About This Exchange Between A Reporter Last Week And The White House’s Non-Historic, Non-Incompetent Paid Liar And The Later Response By The White House’s Historic, Incompetent Paid Liar…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

1. How can the White House not have a response prepared for this question?

2. How long can the mainstream media refuse to give this slowly exploding story the attention and coverage it obviously deserves?

3. It is true that everybody—I think literally everybody—knew that Joe Biden was lying when he said his son had “done nothing wrong” and when he said that he never discussed Hunter’s dealing with foreign governments with him. But is it possible that the President, his advisors and his party really think that they can duck the scandal with the Clinton “Deny, deny, deny!” formula?

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Hitler Quote Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The June newsletter for the Hamilton County, Indiana, chapter of Moms for Liberty included Adolf Hitler’s famous quote from a Nazi rally in 1935 on the front page: “He alone who owns the youth gains the future.” Since the group is opposing government indoctrination in the public schools, the substance of the quote was not inappropriate, but never mind: the agents and operatives supporting such indoctrination both freaked out and encouraged the public to freak out as well.

After all, the Southern Poverty Law Center, itself an extremist “hate group” by its own standards except that its hate is directed at conservative organizations and therefore is the acceptable variety, had designated the nonprofit Moms for Liberty as a hate organization in its annual Year in Hate & Extremism report for 2022, claiming that it advocates an “anti-student inclusion agenda.”

The Indianapolis Star pointed to the use of a Hitler quote as confirmation of the SPLC’s diagnosis, so the Moms for Liberty tried to explain, adding to its online version of the newsletter, “The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert. If the government has control over our children today they control our country’s future. We The People must be vigilant and protect children from an overreaching government.” When that didn’t calm the controversy, chapter chair Paige Miller posted an apology to Facebook.“We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history. We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and we express our deepest apology,” she groveled.

The damage, of course, had been done.

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Apparently It’s Racist For Gov. DeSantis To Prefer Baseball To Basketball…Wow, That Desperate To Smear DeSantis Already?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I am having increasing difficulty figuring out what progressives and Democrats are trying to convey when they all a politician “racist.” As far as I can tell the current definition amounts to “Republican.”

DeSantis was recently asked by a CBN interviewer about his love of baseball, which he extolled as a “meritocratic” game because athletes of different sizes and skill levels can perform at a competitive level professionally, unlike basketball.”I think that there’s kind of a place for everybody in a baseball team if you’re willing to work hard, if you’re willing to practice… I kind of thought it was always a very democratic game, a very meritocratic game.” He added, “Whereas I kind of viewed basketball as like ‘these guys are just freaks of nature.’ They’re just incredible athletes. In baseball, you know, you have some guys that might not necessarily be the best athletes, but maybe they’ve got you know that slider that nobody can hit, or they have the skills that allow them to compete at the highest level.”

I would take issue with DeSantis’s suggestion that basketball players are superior athletes to baseball players: as Bob Costas memorably replied to a similar claim by another sportscaster, check out Michael Jordan’s record when he tried to play in the minor leagues, where he never got higher than AA and washed out after a single (pathetic) season.

But never mind: the main thrust of his comments is irrefutable and true. The average height of an NBA player is nearly 6-feet-7-inches, nearly a foot taller than the average American man. Players under six feet are extremely rare. Major League Baseball players, in contrast, average about 6-feet-1-inch tall, with some superstars well under that level, like Houston’s Jose Altuve and the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts. There are some freaks in the mix (2022 MVP Aaron Judge, for example) but unlike in the NBA, they are an exception, not the rule.

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“Titan” Submersible Tragedy Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Debris from the OceanGate Expeditions Titan submersible was found Yesterday. As feared, all five of those on board perished. There has been a splash of ethics-related matters in the wake of the disaster:

1. Former US President Barack Obama, once again proving the hoary “stopped clock” metaphor’s accuracy, criticized Western media hypocrisy for making a missing submersible carrying five wealthy would-be adventurers on a tour of the Titanic’s wreckage a sensational news story while giving little coverage to a refugee-filled trawler sinking off Greece with up to 700 people on board. At least 82 people died in that tragedy this week, and hundreds more are feared to have drowned. The incident off Greece was completely overshadowed by the Titan rescue operation as soon as news of its disappearance surfaced. BBC, CNN, the New York Times covered the Titan rescue operation minute by minute. Meanwhile, no survivors or bodies have been found since the trawler sank carrying an estimated 750 men, women and children from Syria, Egypt, Palestine and Pakistan.

Of course the disparity in news coverage is due to commerce and profits blotting out journalism as well as decency. “Titanic” is a magic word that generates clicks and TV ratings, and despite their pretenses at other times, the news media knows that its readers are more interested in the fate of five rich people on a high-priced, high-tech junket than 750 poor refugees on a trawler. If journalists were the professionals they claim to be, they would report the news according to its obvious human and international priorities, and let the clicks fall where they may. But they aren’t. As we know.

Obama is right.

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Where Reporting Ends And Propaganda Takes Over: The NYT On Affirmative Action

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Dominating today’s New York Times front page (above) is a report headlined “How It Feels to Have Your Life Changed By Affirmative Action” online and “Inside the Lives Changed by Affirmative Action” in the print version of the Times. The piece is naked and blatant advocacy for the Constitution- and U.S. law-violating policy that has been given temporary pass by a conflicted Supreme Court multiple times despite an unavoidable fact: it’s discrimination, and the Constitution doesn’t distinguish between good discrimination and bad discrimination. By the principles and values this nation was founded upon, all discrimination on the basis of qualities like religion, race, gender and ethnicity is wrong.

The Times approach to the subject is similar to its coverage of the illegal immigration controversy. In that matter, as periodically pointed out by Ethics Alarms, the Times has given readers frequent heart-warming tales of “the good illegal immigrant,” a hard-working immigration law violator who is the salt of the earth, a wonderful parent, and yet cruelly held accountable for his or her law-breaking anyway. The motive of such articles seems clear: use emotions to overcome and blot out law, ethics, fairness and common sense. As the Supreme Court seems poised to finally call college and university affirmative action programs what they are: illegal, the Times is trying to build support for its favorite party’s inevitable accusations of racism and illegitimacy against the five or six justices who will have simply done their jobs.

The headlines tell it all. Affirmative action changed the lives of its beneficiaries for the better, so obviously, affirmative action is good, and ending it would be unethical. What is striking about the article is that none of the affirmative action beneficiaries—all black—interviewed appear to have given a second’s thought to the individual whose opportunity they seized because of their “better” color. Some express regrets because they faced, or felt like they faced, skepticism about their degrees or career accomplishments because they were presumed to be “undeserving” affirmative action beneficiaries. None hint at any regret that someone who deserved to be accepted to an elite school or program was not so they could be.

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Gavin Newsom’s Unethical, Ridiculous “28th Amendment”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued this on Twitter:

And thus once again we are faced with the question of just how stupid, civically ignorant and gullible an American politician thinks the public is. I can understand why Newsom might believe that the answer is “incredibly stupid, civically ignorant and gullible,” because someone like him was elected governor by Californians. However, there is hope that he is mistaken.

To begin with the most important point, his proposal is pure grandstanding. The chances of any Constitutional amendment being passed are vanishingly small, but the chances of that mess being passed are zero. It is unethical to make proposals that are impossible: call it the “Imagine” fraud. The cynical and manipulative individual putting forth the plan is seeking approval and support for a sentiment that is entirely useless and cruelly misleading, at least for the fools silly enough to take it seriously.

This “amendment” is a sop to the “Do something!” crowd. See? Gavin is doing something! He’s proposing a solution that is absolutely impossible, and that wouldn’t be a solution even if it somehow came to pass!

In addition to the cynical nature of proposing an impossible solution, what Newsom is proposing is an abuse of the amendment process, essentially using the Constitution to pass legislation so the legislation can probably never be repealed. It also isn’t what he says it is: a collection of “four gun safety freedoms.” How are any of those provisions “freedoms”? Newsom is casting a fake amendment in terms evoking the First and Second Amendments though it doesn’t involve “freedoms” at all. That’s OK: most of the amendments are about rights, not freedoms, but his using the term in this context should set off everyone’s snake-oil salesman alarms.

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