Government & Politics

Ethical Quote Of The Week: Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Frank Costanza

“So when you hear arguments over whether Cruz can be president, don’t worry about the senator from Texas. Think instead about the little girl adopted from China, learning about civics in her second-grade classroom and being told that she can never become president of the only country she has known.”

—-Washington Post editor and op-ed pundit Ruth Marcus, concluding a column titled, “Abolish the ‘natural born citizen’ test”

I love this quote, in no small part because it provides a neat exception to the general rule that an advocate using “Think of the Children!” as an argument is usually as sign that the advocate doesn’t want us to think at all. In this case, however, it is appropriate to think of that Chinese orphan, or my Russia-born son (rather than, say, George Costanza’s Italian born father on “Seinfeld,” who ignored politics on the grounds that he felt unfairly prohibited from running for President, shouting, “They don’t want me, I don’t want them!”), as well as figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The requirement for Presidents to be not just citizens in good standing, but “natural born” citizens, is the epitome of a Constitutional provision that once made sense but now does not. Marcus: Continue reading →

Bill Clinton’s Predator Past Rises Again To Haunt Hillary: Fair?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

hand rising

It is more than fair, actually. This is what George Will calls “condign justice.” It is so appropriate, ironic and long deserved  that all fair-minded Americans should run into the street shouting “Calloo! Callay!”

Well, metaphorically at least.

The fact that Bill Clinton smugly ducked impeachment while damaging the law, the culture, his office and his party in the process (just ask President Gore) and was allowed to slip easily into the role of beloved elder statesman and obscenely compensated celebrity speaker was enough to make one question the existence of cosmic justice. The fact that his wife was allowed to undermine the cases of his various victims and then achieve high elected office wearing the mantle of feminist champion was, if possible, worse, a catalyst for cynicism and despair.

I know of what I speak.

But as American jurist John Bannister Gibson (1780-1853) observed, “Millstones of Justice turn exceedingly slow, but grind exceedingly fine.” Both Bill and Hillary got careless and smug as time went on, as the culture evolved around them, not entirely in healthy ways, but definitely dangerous ways for them. Thanks to the Obama Administration’s weaponizing of sexual discrimination, bias and assault for partisan combat, feminists adopted an extreme and dangerous approach to sexual assault, taking the position that all women who accuse a man of rape or assault must begin with the presumption of credibility, in direct contradiction of long-held, core principles of American justice, which hold that the presumption of innocence rests with the accused, and an alleged victim must still prove her case. The Democratic Party, which back in Bill’s day shrugged off Clinton’s conduct with rationalizations like “Everybody does it” and fictions like “Illicit sexual activity by the President in his office with an employee that he subsequently lies about under oath and uses his power as President to evade responsibility for is personal conduct” (Bernie Sanders, who is old and didn’t get the memo, just repeated this canard: Try to keep up, Bernie!), embraced the feminist position with foolish and undemocratic gusto, and suddenly Hillary Clinton was saying, as if the history of her husband didn’t exist, that all victims of sexual abuse had the right to be believed. She said this, and then sent Bill out on the road to support her. Continue reading →

In Washington State, Not “Over-Incarceration,” Just Incompetent And Cruel Incarceration

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

African American in Prison

Since 2002, the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) has allowed a sentencing-calculation glitch in its computers to allow more than 3000 inmates to walk out of prison before their sentences were complete. Now the state is rounding-up  ex-prisoners, in many cases after they have built back their lives, settled down, found jobs, and done all of the things, difficult things, former felons are supposed to do once they have paid their debts to society.

Last month, Governor Jay Inslee and DOC Secretary Dan Pacholke  revealed that incorrectly programmed computer software  had been  miscalculating release dates Washington convicts sentenced to extra prison for violence related to their crimes. Although DOC employees have been aware of the problem since 2012,an assistant attorney general advised against an urgent review, allowing the error, and the early releases, to continue for three more years as a software fix was delayed repeatedly. (Yes, there is an investigation.) Finally, a fix is supposedly in the works.

None of this was the fault of the prisoners who were released early, but they are the ones being made to suffer for it. Most of those who have been out for long periods are being left alone, according to the standards for review, but for those deemed to need additional prison time, the trauma is significant. The Seattle Times interviewed Miranda Fontenot, whose fiancé, James Louis, was taken into custody last week when he checked in with his community corrections officer. Continue reading →

From Missouri: Good Ethics Theory, Dumb Bill

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
Rep. Bart Korman, deep thinker...

Rep. Bart Korman, deep thinker...

A proposed bill, sponsored by Rep. Bart Korman, a Montgomery County Republican in the Missouri legislature, would require lobbyists who have sex with a Missouri lawmaker or a member of a lawmaker’s staff  to disclose it to the Missouri Ethics Commission. The bill defines sex between lobbyists and legislators as a gift, so  sexual relations would have to be included on monthly lobbyist gift disclosure forms.

In theory, the bill is ethically admirable. Lobbyists having sex with legislators is unethical, and vice-versa. It creates a conflict of interest for the legislator, creates an appearance of impropriety, suggests a quid pro quo arrangement, and either is or looks like the equivalent of a bribe. It is grossly unprofessional for both sex partners. It is unethical in every way.

The proposed law, however, is stupid and incompetent beyond belief or justification. It doesn’t even send an important message: everyone already knows that for lobbyists and elected officials to have sex is unethical. Lobbyists and legislators are already professionally obligated to report professional misconduct, by themselves and others. This is the ethical duty of disclosure and transparency. Why would any lobbyist so unethical as to have sex with a legislator he or she was supposed to lobby suddenly decide to abide by a law and disclose it, thus embarrassing his or her paramour? It makes as much sense to pass a law requiring burglars to report their break-ins and thefts, or to require tax cheats to list the money they hid on their last tax returns as income on the next one. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Hillary Clinton (And By The Way, KABOOM!)

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

head exploding

“I was surprised that he used personal email account if he is at State.”

—Hillary Clinton, responding to a 2011 e-mail sent by senior aides  about a dispatch from John Godfrey, a State Department employee.

This wasn’t the most explosive of the Clinton e-mails revealed today by the court-ordered State Department release, but it’s the one that made my head explode. How long did Hillary claim that her using a private e-mail sever for official communications was “permitted,” that she did nothing wrong, that no State Department procedures or policies dictated otherwise, four years after she expressed surprise at the irregularity of Godfrey’s conduct? Hillary wasn’t just careless or clueless—she knew all along that using a personal e-mail account was wrong and risky. Why else would she be “surprised”? Who is surprised at employees doing what is allowed and appropriate? Continue reading →

By Popular Demand: Welcome Ethics Alarms Rationalizations #55, “We’re Better Than This!” and #56, “Think of the Children!”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Think of the Children

About a week ago, I asked readers whether “We’re better than this!,” at the time being wielded like a club by Democrats to counter various Republican proposals to control, limit or cease the immigration of Muslims into the U.S., was a true rationalization that deserved inclusion on The List. The response suggested that most of you felt it was, and upon reading the responses, I agree. A rationalization is an invalid and dishonest argument used to advocate or defend questionable conduct. “We’re better than this!” fits that description, and thus I officially dub it Ethics Alarms Rationalization Rationalization#55, “The Idealist’s Delusion,” or “We’re/ You’re Better Than This.”

Like the other rationalizations, “The Idealist’s Delusion” may sometimes be fair and true, but it is still an unethical argument if there is nothing more substantive to back it up. Think of it as the reverse of  #14. Self-validating Virtue, in which unethical conduct supposedly becomes ethical because the person doing it is deemed—usually by himself— incapable of wrongdoing. Rationalization #55 uses presumed virtue to claim that a potential actor is too good to do something…without ever making the case that the considered conduct is really wrong or unwise.  #55 is a pretty neat trick, when you think about it: it simultaneously appeals to an individual or organization’s self-esteem while unilaterally declaring an objective, motive or methods demeaning. This relieves the advocate for avoiding the conduct in question of the requirement to make the case with more than vague declarations of principle. If #55 is effective, it can only be because those persuaded never engaged in critical thinking, asking and answering such crucial questions as what are the benefits of this proposed action, who will it benefit, what ethical principles does it follow or violate, and are the intended results worth the cost? The Idealist’s Delusion is a cynical tool to bypass ethical decision-making by assuming the result, and using ego and guilt to stifle objective analysis. As I wrote in the earlier post.

When “We are better than this” is followed by “because..’ and more substantive points, I have no objection to it, although “we should be better than this” is fairer. It can begin an analysis, but is not an analysis itself. However, when it is used as a substitute for analysis, it is pure rationalization.

I am also finally adding “Think of the Children!” to the list, as Rationalization #56, The Universal Trump. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce And Unethical Column Of The Month: Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments
Who is the traitor, Jorge?

Who is the traitor, Jorge?

There are some positions in some controversies that I really cannot manage to respect, because no matter how much I try to understand the points of view, they seem so obviously wrong and ethically indefensible. On “The View” yesterday, for example, alleged comedian Joy Behar, in discussing the character of Bill and Hillary Clinton, stated without joking that she would vote for a proven rapist for President, as long as he or she was a Democrat. This is the kind of position I’m talking about.

Yesterday, the Hall of Fame voting results were announced. Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey, Jr. were elected to the Hall by the baseball writers, and equally welcome to this ethicist-baseball fan was the fact that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both unrepentant steroid cheats, were not elected, and their still paltry vote totals suggest that they may never be. Yet several baseball pundits, reporting on the voting results, preceded this aspect of the news with “Unfortunately.”

I don’t understand that attitude toward cheating at all. I have written about as much about Barry Bonds as any ethics topic on Ethics, and  the case against him is air-tight, with the only defenses ever put forth being invalid rationalizations, easily rebutted. Nevertheless, otherwise intelligent people keep repeating them, hoping to outlast reason and reality by perseverance and repetition. (Sadly, this often works, as “77 cents on the dollar,” “Bush lied” and “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” tragically prove.) In the last 24 hours, I have heard Clemens and Bonds called “great players” so many times that my teeth have been ground down perceptibly. Cheaters are never great, as I explained in one of my favorite posts of 2015.

I was preparing to once again swat down the cultural poison being peddled by the Bonds and Clemens defenders when another of the issues that I believe has no respectable “other side” again raised its uglier than ugly head, so I changed course. That issue is illegal immigration, as in “immigration that occurs in direct violation of U.S. law, making it illegal.” Those who engage in illegal immigration are immigrants, and because their manner of immigration is illegal, they are illegal immigrants. Those who insist on calling them merely immigrants are lying; those who favor euphemisms like “undocumented workers” are engaging in intentional deceit. No, I have no respect for their rhetorical dishonesty–their smug and falsely sanctimonious rhetorical dishonesty—and it should not be tolerated by any U.S. citizen who wants transparent debate on a crucial national policy issue.

The ethics violator in the immediate case is serial offender Jorge Ramos, who uses his position as a broadcast journalist—unethically, since his duty is to report the news accurately, not to spout propaganda—to advocate  unrestricted immigration by Hispanics and Latinos into the United States. It is a logically, historically, demographically, economically, politically and legally irresponsible, outrageous position, but he managed to exceed previously established depths in promoting it by writing, in a column for Fusion, that GOP candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are engaging in betrayal by “turning their backs on immigrants,” who, he says, just got here a little later than they did. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Observations On Obama’s Executive Orders On Guns And The Golden Dancer Presidency”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
Are smart guns...smart?

Are smart guns…smart?

 J. E. Houghton illuminates one of President Obama’s wish list items for gun safety—fascinating. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Observations On Obama’s Executive Orders On Guns And The Golden Dancer Presidency” :

I would like to offer an observation concerning one of President Obama’s executive order policies: To direct federal agencies to promote “smart gun” technology through the procurement power of the Federal government. The President compares guns to smart phones and asks why we can’t use the same modern technology to limit access and use of guns like we do with smart phones. (Vice President Biden’s post-Sandy Hook commission came up with a similar recommendation.)

This may sound like a good idea to some, mostly people who have no knowledge of guns and do not depend on guns for their own personal safety, national defense or homeland security.

Continue reading →

Most Encouraging Statement Suggesting That There May Be Justice After All: Former U.S. Attorney General Joe DiGenova

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments

Hope-Dove-Flying

Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova had this to say on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, speaking  about the FBI’s investigation into Hillary’s intentional mishandling of confidential State Department e-mails—you know, those “stupid e-mails” that nobody cares about:

“They have reached a critical mass in their investigation of the Secretary and all of her senior staff. And, it’s going to come to a head, I would suggest, in the next 60 days…It’s going to be a very complex matter for the Department of Justice, but they’re not going to be able to walk away from it. They are now at over 1,200 classified emails. And, that’s just for the ones we know about from the State Department. That does not include the ones that the FBI is, in fact, recovering from her hard drives. …I believe that the evidence that the FBI is compiling will be so compelling that, unless [Attorney General Loretta Lynch] agrees to the charges, there will be a massive revolt inside the FBI, which she will not be able to survive as an Attorney General.  It will be like Watergate. It will be unbelievable.”

Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?  Yet DiGenova is far from a being a loon, a partisan hitman, or one to spin wild theories. He also should know a bit about how the internal workings of the various competing agencies under Justice work. [Full disclosure: I’ve met Joe, and chatted with him a bit, though this was quite a while back. Did you know he is a trained singer? A good one, too.]

I cannot begin to describe how marvelous it will be for the integrity of our government and justice system if Joe’s analysis is proven correct. I don’t even have to consider how much I would enjoy the screams of indignation of the Clinton Corrupted. This scenario is what the Clintons, the Democrats, the DNC, Clintons’ disgraceful mews media defenders and Hillary’s see-no-evil supporters sooooo richly deserve that if it ever comes to pass, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus might just spontaneously echo from the cosmos, or at least John Kiley’s organ version that he played that immortal night, the best of my life, when Carlton Fisk hit that Game #6 winning home run off the Fenway foulpole, so many years ago.

Let us hope.

__________________

Pointer and Source: Don Surber

 

The Strange Case Of The Unwanted Triplet

/ Jack Marshall / 60 Comments

I want to hear the ethical analysis of this messy situation from abortion advocates/apologists/activists/feminists. In fact, I can hardly wait.

Melissa Cook is a surrogate mother whom a man paid $33,000 to have  his child by in vitro fertilization, using his sperm and the eggs of a 20-year-old donor. The 47-year-old California woman was implanted with three embryos, a not infrequent approach, but when all three developed normally and apparently healthily,  the birth father began to freak out. He didn’t want three kids, only two at most, and directed Cook to have one aborted. When she refused, he began threatening her  with threats of financial penalties if she did not comply with his demands that she undergo a one-third abortion. Continue reading →