Government & Politics

Afternoon Ethics Warm-Up, 4/25/19: Hypocrisy Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Having a delightful afternoon I hope?

1. “Ethics Bob” is back! After what I gather have been extensive world travels with his wife, Ethics Bob  reanimated his blog this week, and I am hoping that Bob, who kindly credited me with inspiring him to write his ethics book, and who teaches ethics himself, will begin commenting again on Ethics Alarms. He is that rarity around here, a committed liberal who plays fair in debates. Unfortunately, Bob’s return post is wrong—and I distinctly remember a lunch with Bob in which he insisted that Bill Clinton shouldn’t have been impeached—but that’s OK.  He’s ethical, thoughtful, and open-minded. Check in with him, and hope along with me that he starts checking in here.

2. How much hypocrisy can Democratic voters stand? In Virginia, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been hit with multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault. Despite the lip  service the national party has given to “believe all women,” and its position during the Kavanaugh hearings that accusations alone were enough to disqualify a judge for the Supreme Court,  Virginia  Democrats refused to join Republican efforts to sanction or remove Fairfax, who is black and the #2 official ins a state where #1 has admitted to wearing blackface. In order to show that they don’t approve of Fairfax (while not having the integrity to make him hew to the standards they have been advocating for years) the Democratic Party of Virginia rejected his $2,500 donation for the party’s Blue Commonwealth Gala in June.

“We were not comfortable accepting the Lieutenant Governor’s PAC’s contribution and we let his team know that when they reached out,” party spokesman Jake Rubenstein told the  The Washington Post .

“The Lt. Governor’s We Rise Together PAC was planning to have a group of African-American pastors and other supporters sit at his table,” Fairfax spokeswoman Lauren Burke told the Post. “He is innocent and has passed two polygraphs and repeatedly called for an investigation. DPVA has assumed he is guilty of a violent criminal act with no investigation or even a conversation to ascertain his version of events.”

But if the party believes Fairfax is guilty of violent crimes and #MeToo outrages, why is he still in office? Continue reading →

Alan Dershowitz’s Mueller Report “Introduction,” And Yes, He’s An Ethics Hero [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

For anyone who actually cares about what the Mueller report means, I highly recommend the Alan Dershowitz “Introduction” to the report, which can be purchased for Kindle for about 7 dollars. I purchased it this morning, and just completed reading it. (The report without the intro is on-line, free, all over the place.) Dershowitz voted for Hillary, is a registered Democrat, was marinated in the Leftist hive that 99% of Harvard has become, and is hardly a “Trump supporter,” which is the now reflex “Shut up!” response to any attempt to break through the “resistance” coup mindset that has become a plague on the web and elsewhere. Dershowitz is pleading anyone who will listen that he deserves plaudits rather than condemnation (one twitter follower calls him a “monster”) for trying to be objective and non-partisan, and  I feel his pain, but his protests are unseemly, and undermine the real ethical service he has performed.

The famous Harvard professor states clearly what the news media and Democrats have intentionally tried to obscure: there was no collusion, no crimes related to collusion, and the investigation report says so unequivocally. The report presents “no evidence of any criminal behavior by President Trump or his campaign with regard to Russia,” he writes. Correct. He also remind us, as few media reports have, that this is a one-sided case. There was no cross-examination of witness or challenges to the conclusions of prosecutors, and the document should be read in that light.

As I expected, Dershowitz make an irrefutable argument that the whole process was tainted by conflicts of interest, since Asst. AG Rod Rosenstein, charged with overseeing the investigation,  was both a key witness and a potential defendant.

On the more confusing matter of obstruction, he clarifies that as well, particularly by knocking down the theory that a  President can be found to have committed a crime by doing something he has clear Constitutional power to do. Dershowitz (and others) have been making this point since the hypocritical uproar over the Comey firing, and he has case law (which you can see from the excerpt above) and legal tradition to back it up. The professor cites the ancient legal principle of Nulla poena sine lege ( “no penalty without a law”, which olds that one cannot be punished for acts not prohibited by law. This is codified in modern democratic states as a basic requirement of the rule of law, and has been described as “one of the most widely held value-judgement in the entire history of human thought.”

Yeah, but we want to impeach Trump!

Continue reading →

Depressing Adventures Among The Facebook Borg

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t it supposed to be the Trump supporters who were mentally dysfunctional  morons?

Consistent with my pledge to  confront my Facebook friends and their cronies when they  post “resistance” Big Lies, Democratic talking points, fake news and “Orange Man Bad” insults that are no more than gratuitous hate, I confronted a theater acquaintance this afternoons when her response to a post about the border terrorists who were allegedly  planning to assassinate Obama and Hillary Clinton. Her offensive comment (I’ll be paraphrasing these), “So I don’t want to hear any more about how  some people said mean things to people  in red hats.”

Despicable, I told her. You’re trivializing thugs harassing and in some cases assaulting law-abiding citizens based on their political views. That’s seriously undemocratic behavior, and worse, it’s a fascist tactic endorsed by leaders of the Democratic Party. I could have said, but didn’t, that hers was a fair imitation of Rep. Omar’s infamous “somebody did something” minimizing of the Muslim attacks on 9/11, and a dumb use of Rationalization 22, the bottom of the barrel, “It’s not the worst thing.”

Her reply was incoherent. Do I deny that Supreme Court Justices and other progressives  have received death threats, and if I don’t think that’s worse than the red hat incidents she referred to, then I should just unfriend her. What? What do death threats to Supreme Court Justices (or anyone) have to do with screaming at old men in MAGA hats? This more #22ing, to a demented level.Then I get the “defriend me” crap. Translation: If you insist on challenging my unfounded, ignorant and unethical comments, I don’t want deal with  it. Well, I don’t unfriend people because I disagree with  them. Friends don’t let friends post stupid. Continue reading →

A Note On The Mainstream Media Practice Of Making Facts Vanish By Pretending That They Never Existed…[CORRECTED}

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On CBS This Morning, yesterday, the hosts interviewed comic Sandra Bee, host of the almost entirely Trump-bashing cable show, “Full Frontal.”  Oprah sock-puppet  Gayle King asked  Bee about the upcoming White House Correspondent’s Dinner, this year to be hosted by a non-comedian, with the plaintive query, “Don’t we need fun, too, Samantha? The country is so divided and so nasty and so mean…So, how do you navigate those waters? How do you know how far you can go to the line without crossing it?”

What a fascinating question to ask a comedian who called Ivanka Trump a feckless cunt on the air! Not only that, but Bee never apologized to the First Daughter for doing so; she just issued a stunning non-apology apology that I wrote about here. Bee has also called  Fox News viewers  Nazis and racists, and derided  Kirstjen Nielsen, ex-Department of Homeland Security Secretary, a “lying ghoul.”  She doesn’t navigate these waters, Gayle, you unforgivable, pandering hack. She has, in fact, explicitly stated that she has no interest in civility, in the course of not apologizing to Ivanka for calling her a cunt in public: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 2/24/2019: Big Brotherism At The Ballet, And How Hillary Sicced Mueller On Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Good morning…

Depressed and discouraged today, about many things…time for Jimmy…

1. Another angle on the the topics here...arrives courtesy of Michael West, who pointed me to this article. about the psychology of unethical behavior. Mostly, it frames in slightly different packages familiar themes on Ethics Alarms, beginning with who people often don’t speak up and actively oppose unethical conduct that they witness or are a part of. Ethics Alarms has examined this phenomenon (and will continue to) many ways. One example was a two part post in 2015 on the duty to confront. (Part II is here) Other posts can be found by clicking on the tags below, such as the duty to lead, the duty to oppose evil, the duty to warn, and the duty to fix the problem.

The wonderfully named author Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg identifies several concepts in her essay, including omnipotence, cultural numbness, justified neglect, and looking out for signs of moral capture.

Ethics Alarms uses different approaches: omnipotence is essentially “The King’s Pass” and “The Saint’s Excuse” in the rationalizations list. Cultural numbness describes how “the Big Yellow Circle’s” gravitational pull influences the Green Circle, encompassing personal values and conscience. Justified neglect isn’t really justified: she is talking about how non-ethical consideration freeze ethics alarms. “Looking out for signs of moral capture” is the topic of Philip Zimbardo’s “rules” to avoid being corrupted by peer groups and organizations. I would assume that the author has studied these, since “Dr. Z” is one of the leading writers and researchers in the area.

Inevitably, the article delves into leadership, concluding,

“The reality is that, for many leaders, there is no true straight-and-narrow path to follow. You beat the path as you go. Therefore, ethical leadership relies a lot on your personal judgment. Because of this, the moral or ethical dilemmas you experience may feel solitary or taboo — struggles you don’t want to let your peers know about. It can sometimes feel shameful to admit that you feel torn or unsure about how to proceed. But you have to recognize that this is part of work life and should be addressed in a direct and open way.”

I disagree with that description of leadership technique, and I’m tempted to say that its the claim as someone who has not done much leading. It does seem typical of so-called “female leadership models,” which emphasize consensus and transparency. Traditional leadership theories hold that a leader’s followers don’t want to know how conflicted a leaders, and learning that a leader is “unsure” is the last thing they want to know. Effective leaders learn to keep their doubts and insecurities to themselves—one more reason leadership isn’t for everyone. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Williams College Students Protesting Campus Free Speech Guarantees

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

“[The proposed campus speech policy] prioritizes the protection of ideas over the protection of people and fails to recognize that behind every idea is a person with a particular subjectivity. Our beliefs, and the consequences of our actions, are choices we make. Any claim to the ‘protection of ideas’ that is not founded in the insurance of people’s safety poses a real threat — one which targets most pointedly marginalized people. An ideology of free speech absolutism that prioritizes ideas over people, giving ‘deeply offensive’ language a platform at this institution, will inevitably imperil marginalized students.”

—The Coalition Against Racist Education Now, a Williams College student activist group, in their rebuttal to a faculty petition calling for adoption of the “Chicago Principles, “based on the campus speech policies of the University of Chicago, which hold that “all members of the university community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.”

I don’t think I should have to belabor this, since it is self-evidently wrong and dangerous, though strangely typical of much of the Left in 2019, but here are just a few points:

  • This is Authentic Frontier Gibberish (AFG)
  • I thought Williams was supposed to be an elite liberal arts institution. Why can’t its students express themselves more coherently than that? (“Insurance”?)
  • Sloppy expression typically indicates sloppy thinking and poor reasoning skills. An argument this weakly stated suggest a position based on cant and political ideology rather than analysis and critical thought.
  • It is impossible to argue or reason with people who think and debate this way. Moreover, their Catch-22 approach precludes argument: if you disagree with them, then you are using “deeply offensive language.” You are also, presumably, showing that you are a racist.
  • Attempting to control the ability to debate, argue and dissent indicates a position with advocates who can’t legitimately defend it.
  • The United States does not have “free speech absolutism,” and never has.  If one is going to argue against the freedom of speech, a minimal requirement is that one should know what it is.

 

On The Other Hand, Georgia Republicans Who Think Their “Ethics in Journalism Act” Is A Solution To Mainstream Media Bias Are Incompetent

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

The previous post notwithstanding, “Ethics in Journalism Act” is a cure worse than the disease. It is disturbing to see Republicans imitating Democrats by trying to thwart core Constitutional rights, but there is no other way to describe this exercise in foolishness, grandstanding, pandering, ignorance and/or stupidity.

The Georgia House of Representatives is considering , HB 734, sponsored by six Republicans who have apparently never read the Bill of Rights. if passed into law, it  would create a Journalism Ethics Board with nine members appointed by Steve Wrigley, the chancellor of the University of Georgia—and if he supports this monstrosity, it’s time to send him packing. The board would design a process by which journalists “may be investigated and sanctioned for violating such canons of ethics for journalists, to include, but not be limited to, loss or suspension of accreditation, probation, public reprimand and private reprimand.”

Sure! What a great idea! Put a government-created body in charge of overseeing the content of what journalists write and publish! Why didn’t someone think of this before?

I wonder how many Supreme Court opinions directly or indirectly signal that such a scheme is illegal, impossible, and offensive to our Constitution? A hundred? Two hundred? I wonder how many appellate court and Supreme Court opinions, including dissents, could be cited to support the “Ethics in Journalism Act?” Actually, I don’t wonder at all. There are none, because one of those monkey-human hybrids they are creating in China could figure out that the act is unconstitutional through the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

As unethical, irresponsible and arrogant as the news media is, and as often as they abuse their rights, their immunity from government sanctions and control must be absolute. As Clarence Darrow said, “In order to have enough liberty, it is necessary to have too much.” No aspect of our society fits that description more perfectly than Freedom of the Press.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I wonder what part of “make no law…abridging freedom of speech or of the press” Republicans in George don’t understand?

 

Lunchtime Ethics Warm-Up, 4/23/19: Sanders, Warren and Steyer

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Good Morning!

I don’t know about where you are, but Spring has finally arrived to stay in Alexandria, Virginia!

1.  Mea Culpa. The first post today made it up without a final proofing and edit, the result of three consecutive computer crashes and an intervening work crisis. Veteran reader Tim Levier flagged the mess, which I cleaned up on Aisle 9 after pulling the post down. This has happened a couple of times before, and makes me want to throw myself in the shredder.

2. Stop making me defend Bernie Sanders! Apparently Bernie spent $444,000 dollars in campaign money in 2015 on his own book, which, of course, put money in his pockets. Some conservative writers have compared this to the scam that has caused the Mayor of Baltimore to go on “leave,” which in her case means “I’m resigning, except that I’ll still be getting my salary.” That’s unfair to Bernie. Pugh’s self-dealing was genuine corruption, using her place on a non-profit’s board to get the organization to buy her book rather than many other options. A candidate’s book is legitimate campaign material: it’s not like the campaign can distribute another candidate’s book. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 4/22/2019: Say Hello To Impeachment Plan O!

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Good Morning!

As readers here know, Ethics Alarms has identified 14 distinct strategies, A through N,  ateempted to varying degrees by Democrats, the news media and “the resistance” to overturn the results of the 2016 election. I facetiously designated the brief, hysterical movement to nominate Opra Winfrey as the Democratic candidate in 2020 as “Plan O,” but now we really have one, #15.

Plan O incorporates several of the previous 14, but it is a new spin, unusually unmoored to fact or law. The theory is that the Mueller investigation was supposed to provide constitutional justification to impeach President Trump, so its report is  justification even though the investigation found no evidence of crimes or misconduct that could sustain an ethical prosecution. To borrow from several on-line wags, it’s the “There has to be a pony in there somewhere” plan.

One could argue that Plan O is just an update of Plan F: The Maxine Waters Plan, which  is to impeach the President for existing (after  his appointments, staff and supporters have been accosted, harassed and assaulted), but it’s more bizarre than that. The theory is that an investigation that explicitly found no convincing evidence that the President had engaged in impeachable offenses has somehow shown that the President engaged in impeachable offenses. I’m not being arch—this is an entirely fair and accurate description.

Poster boy for this mind-bending exercise is the absurd Rep. Adam Schiff, who now argues that the report proves “collusion” and obstruction, despite the fact that it does neither, and says that it does neither.  Telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulis that there is “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight,” Schiff said,

“I use that word very carefully because I also distinguish time and time again between collusion, that is acts of corruption that may or may not be criminal, and proof of a criminal conspiracy. And that is a distinction that Bob Mueller made within the first few pages of his report. In fact, every act that I’ve pointed to as evidence of collusion has now been borne out by the report.“

Continue reading →

Easter Ethics Warm-Up, 4/21/19: As Ethics Lays Some Eggs…

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Happy Easter!

1.  A cultural note: there is no discernible Easter programming anywhere on TV, cable or network. Oh, TCM is playing “Easter Parade” and “King of Kings” in prime time, but that’s it. ‘Twas not always thus.

2. Speaking of TCM…Bravo for the classic movie network’s teaming with Fandango to offer big screen presentations of John Wayne’s “True Grit” in May. They could have justifiably chosen many other Westerns equally worthy or more so, like “Shane” or “High Noon.” I like to think that choosing the Duke’s Oscar winning performance is an intentional rebuke to the recent attack on Wayne’s legacy by the social media mob, a true “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!” to the cultural airbrushers and statue-topplers.

I’ll be there, cheering Rooster on.

3. Other than journalists, have any other professionals debased themselves and their professional integrity more flagrantly that lawyers and law professors in their determination to Get Trump? This article in Slate by a law professor argues that asking or telling one’s lawyer to do something that the lawyer refuses to do—like firing Robert Mueller—can be criminal obstruction of justice. By this theory, every time a client says that he wants the lawyer to assist in an illegal act, it’s a crime.  But that’s not how attorney-client relationships work. The attorney is obligated to say, when appropriate, “No, you can’t do that, and I won’t do that for you, and here’s why.” In the end, it is indistinguishable from the client asking the lawyer’s advice, because clients only have the power to order a lawyer to do a very limited number of things, like accepting a settlement.

The professor’s argument also assumes that Trump firing Mueller would be obstruction of justice. Not only is this unprovable—that would have to be his intent—the President had a perfectly good reason to fire the special counsel, just as he had good reason to fire James Comey. Mueller’s investigation had been tainted many ways, and since Trump knew he was innocent, he saw the exercise as a calculated scheme to make it impossible for him to do his job. Firing Mueller and ending the investigation  would have been really, really stupid politically, but it wouldn’t be obstruction.

This, however, is how desperate “the resistance” is to bootstrap some kind of impeachment theory. Continue reading →