Government & Politics

Ethics Quiz: The Cheating Democrats’ Beyoncé Rumor

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Having gagged on the last Ethics Quiz completely, I have to clear my palate with a second try.

Those canny Democrats tried to trick young voters into watching Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech last night by feeding their propaganda agents (that is, the U.S. news media) a fake rumor that pop super-star Beyoncé was going to show up in Chicago, perform at the convention’s finale, and thus endorse KAmala Harris.

“Beyoncé to perform at Democratic convention: Sources,” stated the headline at The Hill. “Did White House political director just drop major hint about Beyoncé DNC appearance?” coyly insinuated NBC Chicago. “BEYONCÉ PERFORMING AT DNC’S FINAL NIGHT!!!” claimed TMZ. “🚨🚨SHE’S THERE!!!!!!”announced the Twitter/X account @beyoncepress at 7:16 p.m. Central time, alongside a video of a black SUV driving through Chicago’s River North neighborhood escorted by a motorcade.

All false. Harris finished her speech, balloons came down from the ceiling, and no Beyoncé. Figures aren’t in, but I assume that the planted rumor “worked,” making it “good” as the late Harry Reid will confirm if you track him down in the Lake of Fire.

“It’s a bad move to trick people into staying tuned and then denying them what they thought they’d get,” opines Ann Althouse today as she disagrees with Harry, though I don’t know what she means exactly by “bad.” Unethical? Unfair? Likely to backfire (meaning it didn’t “work”)? Columnist Laura Bassett tweeted that “teasing a huge surprise guest and leaking that it’s both Beyonce and Taylor swift just to get people to tune in is actually kind of funny.” Not unethical. Funny. Bassett is a former HuffPo pundit who now hangs out at MSNBC and CNN, so you can guess what her ethics alarms are like.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this…

Is using a false rumor as a device to create interest in an event like the Democratic National Convention unethical, or is it sufficiently standard publicity and marketing practice now to give it an ethics pass?

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Brilliant: What Israel Is Trying To Do Is Self-Preservation, Not Genocide. So “Genocide” Has To Be Redefined So Israel Can Be Accused Of Doing It…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The case of “genocide” is a classic in the annals of deliberate linguistic manipulation for unethical goals.

A detailed essay in the New York Times explains the machinations around the word, which is similar to what we have seen recently in other cases, like that of “women,” “racism,” “lying,” “ad hominem” (in a debate here on Ethics Alarms), “fascism,”and “insurrection,” to name just a few of many. The proliferation of this Orwellian process should set off not just ethics alarms but evil alarms.

As the article correctly explains, international law addressing genocide was aimed at extreme and unequivocal examples where a nation sets out to exterminate an entire race or ethnic group for no other reason than that group’s existence. It is the ultimate hate crime, and thus was labeled a “crime against humanity.” The Holocaust was the prime example: nothing describes genocide more indisputably than a group of experts, military officials and government leaders sitting around a table and deciding on a “Final Solution.”

But as the article relates, mission creep has invaded the anti-genocide brigade, for example with the United States being accused of genocide in its treatment of Native American and because of the actions of the KKK and others during the Jim Crow era, and now, with Israel being vilified by the genocide label for being determined to eliminate a terrorist organization pledged to commit genocide against Israelis.

Naturally, the United Nations is complicit in this process, and, naturally, so is the I.C.J., the U.N.’s top court. The U.S., among other nations, supports the Geneva Convention but doesn’t accept the authority of the I.C.J. The article doesn’t explicitly explain why, but the reason is obvious: the court is subject to political motives and bias. It can’t be trusted.

“Genocide” has been slowly made a synonym for “human rights violations,” and wars are by definition human rights violations. Thus the U.N. can always use a politicized definition of “genocide” to declare any war, even one triggered by a nation’s right and obligation to defend itself and its citizens, as “genocide”—particularly if the nation waging the war is Israel.

By the standards being weaponized by the protesters at the Democratic National Convention, the U.S. ending World War II with two atom bombs would qualify as genocide.

This is the unethical—but effective—process:

1. Identify a nation, group, individual, or leader that you want to demonize.

2. Find a word universally regarded as describing conduct that is heinous and unforgivable.

3. Redefine that word so that the policies, conduct or stated position of that nation, group, individual, or leader can be described by it.

4. Repeat that word in association with the nation, group, individual, or leader’s policies, conduct or stated positions so that the word itself is defined by those policies, conduct or stated positions, rather than the other way around.

The average member of the public—you know, morons—won’t know the difference.

What makes this tactic so effective, diabolical, and impossible to stop is that there are many examples of pejorative words that should be used and understood to apply beyond their most narrow definitions. Child abuse. Indoctrination. Propaganda. Totalitarianism. Conflicts of interest. The distinction, perhaps, is whether the expanded definition is made in good faith, or it it is only aimed at a particular adversary to achieve strategic political gains.

The article, “The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of ‘Genocide’” is here for you to read, freed from the paywall.

Democratic National Convention Ethics Adverse Reaction, 8/20/24

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There has never been a U.S. political party with so little integrity or a convention so thoroughly confused about its values, direction, who it wants to appeal to, and what its culture is.

The fact that the Convention prominently features vans giving out free abortions and vasectomies (it’s Planned Parenthood, not the party proper, but it doesn’t matter) sends as militant an anti-family message as it would be possible to send. Then there are the all-gender bathrooms, making up 5% of the facilities at the convention hall, which about 1.6% of the population have a “which bathroom do I use?” problem. More...

1. Talk about rank incompetence: the official platform approved by the Democratic Party had never been edited to remove references to “Biden’s second term,” which appeared 19 times. How can anyone trust a party to run a government/agency/ lemonade stand that is this careless? Apparently Democrats are beyond embarrassment.

2. And speaking of the platform, here is a section that defies parody:

What does “acknowledgement” even mean in this context except as blatant virtue-signalling to another aggrieved minority group? “We care, but we’re not giving you your land back!”? “Time immemorial” is historical nonsense: the tribes weren’t here as the Earth cooled, they came here from other places, almost always displacing—killing—other groups of people who were here before them. Facts Don’t Matter to this party.

3. No sitting President in modern history has been treated with such disrespect by his own party as President Biden, whose address to the convention was shunted along to well past prime time. By any previous standard, the current, retiring President would be guaranteed the most prestigious slot, but Biden’s shambling condition reminds non-cultish voters that this party lied to them for a year or more, so the fewer who saw Joe speak, the better. Used to push Joe’s address past 11 pm. EST was the babble of Kamala Harris’s childhood friends, among others.

3. To be fair, Joe justified the decision to minimize his visibility, ad-libbing, “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” “Those protesters” carried Hamas flags and were substantially in favor of killing Jews. The level of Democratic Party analysis of the war in Gaza is that “innocent people” are being killed, so war bad, soooo let Hamas survive until its next terror attack on Israel. BUT the Biden-Harris administration stands faithfully behind Israel, except when it doesn’t. Got it. It makes sense if you are stupid and not capable of paying attention.

4. Did you know Donald Trump lies all the time? Biden again repeated the false narrative that Trump called white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people.” It doesn’t matter how many times and how many sources have pronounced this false, the Democrats continue to repeat it. That is the essence of a Big Lie strategy….but they do it to save democracy, see, so channeling Goebbels is okay.

5. They started chanting “Lock him up!” during Hillary’s speech. How ironic—and again, telling. Locking Trump up has been the theme of the Democratic Party’s efforts to avoid the electoral defeat they have so thoroughly earned. Democracy! Again again, this is a party incapable of shame or embarrassment.

An “Ethics Quiz: The Brainwashed Democrat Friend” Sequel! Another Brainwashed Friend Says “Hold My Beer…”

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

I woke up in the middle of the night to check something and found this rant on my Facebook feed:

So, just so we’re clear- I get it, you don’t like Kamala or Tim. Not your first choice, etc., etc.
So, I ask you this as you hem and haw: cut into the only chance this country has to rid itself once and for all of an openly racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, incompetent tyrant who has given a voice to the worst parts of our culture; to keep this rapist and felon from returning to power, this time with people who are focused on carrying out his Agenda – Whatever might happen if we’re to have a Harris/Walz presidency, how in any possible way is that worse than what four more years of this man and what he represents can bring? HOW?
To vote otherwise (Republican or Independent), to criticize to the point of damage, to abstain, is nothing more than serving one’s ego.
By 2028 the world will gladly continue on after slicing up what remains of the United States of America, and while I understand every single one of your arguments regarding the history of this country – and agree with a good many of them – for all the reasons you want to see a future that has better things than the past, put down all your grievances, or at the very least anything that will prevent this duo from taking the reins and JUST GET THEM THERE.
We can rightly start to work when we are sure there’s something left to work with, because if you don’t know that the alternative will leave us with less than nothing (and not for long at that), you’re complicit in a way that can not and will not be forgiven by history, your families and very likely, because chances are you are someone with a decent heart who gives a shit, yourself.
Blue. That’s it. That’s all. Right now. Do it.

The writer is a much closer friend and of longer duration than the one I discussed in yesterday’s Ethics Quiz. He’s also in professional theater, but, believe it or not, is a lawyer—you know, the profession that supposedly reveres precision analysis. Another interesting wrinkle: he’s Jewish, and promoting a Presidential candidate who wants to impose a “permanent” cease-fire in Gaza. You may remember, and I’m certain he does, how the last supposedly permanent cease fire in Gaza ended, on October 7, 2023.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Is KAmala Smart? Is There A Very Good Reason Why She Is Afraid To Give Unscripted Interviews? A Plausible Answer To Both Questions…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here is how the Democratic presumptive Presidential selection answered an ambush question from a reporters yesterday in Pennsylvania when she apparently couldn’t run away fast enough, or something. The question: “You unveiled your economic policies last week. Can you explain how you’re going to pay for those? And can you give us a sense of what other policies you want to unveil?”

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Stop Making Me Defend Michigan’s Proto-Totalitarian Democrats

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Michigan might have the most sinister and anti-American Democratic Party of all. It’s certainly a tough competition, with New York, Minnesota, Washington, California, D.C. and a few others in the race, but Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is special (she was a particularly heinous enemy of civil rights during the pandemic) and any party that would allow someone like anti-Semitic Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib to run under its banner has decency and integrity issues.

The state just threw independent presidential candidate Cornel West off its ballot, and many conservatives and Republicans see evidence of a conspiracy to rig the election for KAmala Harris. “Call me paranoid if you wish, but it’s almost as if the Democrats don’t want voters to show up at the polls on November 5 and see the name of anyone from any party or no party at all on their ballots except for Kamala Harris,” writes P.J. Media pundit Jazz Shaw.

Michigan elections director Mark Brewer sent a letter to West’s campaign saying that his affidavit of identity submitted with his ballot application was “not properly notarized.” The affidavit was notarized in Colorado and had to be valid in that state to be valid in Michigan as well. “There were apparently a couple of boxes left blank and the notary public stamp for the affidavit was attached on a separate piece of paper rather than on the document itself,” Shaw reveals. More from Jazz, who concludes in part:

Yes, that was it. That was the entirety of the complaint. In fairness to the Michigan elections director, they did send West’s campaign a letter in late July giving him a couple of weeks to respond and West never responded. This should have all been able to be cleaned up easily, but it wasn’t so the Democrats pounced. The original complaint was filed by former Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer in case you’re wondering why I’m generically blaming “the Democrats” here.

So what’s the real reason behind all of this and why would the Democrats care about Cornel West? He wasn’t going to carry any states or win the White House. …But that doesn’t mean that Cornel West’s presence or absence might not have a significant impact on the final results. This would be particularly true in Michigan where the presidential race is tighter than razor wire…That’s the reality of what is going on behind the scenes….West was identified as a potential threat to Biden and now to Harris. So he had to go. They scraped up Mark Brewer to have someone pore over West’s ballot application documents with a magnifying glass and find some sort of flaw to use as a basis for their complaint….They found a compliant judge to go along with a trivial complaint over what amounted to a technicality and West was unceremoniously kicked to the curb. Welcome to the rough and tumble world of modern Democratic politics as they desperately scramble to maintain their hold on power at any cost.

The Democrats cheat, as we have seen repeatedly this year and before. That party, as it has mutated in the 21st century, indeed will do anything and take actions that once were regarded as unthinkable in the American political culture to continue its slow eradication of Constitutional government. This episode, however, is not an example of that.

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From the Toxic Popular Culture Files: Smalls Cat Food

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

J.D. Vance’s much maligned “cat ladies” snark , like many furiously slammed comments by conservatives and Republicans are, may have focused attention on to a societal trend seriously threatening the health of American society. (If only he could have articulated it better.)

Lately I have been bombarded with TV ads for Smalls cat food. The promotions and commercials claim that it is “human grade” cat food, and why not, since the TV spots feature disturbed individuals male and female, not just proclaiming these animal companions as their surrogates for children, but literally stating that they are children. “He’s my son,” a young woman says in one ad, speaking of her cat. “She’s literally my baby!” says some guy, also talking about a feline “fur-baby.” Literally!

This would be funny in a mordant way if it were not so ominous. I can’t blame cat food companies for taking advantage of the apocalyptic collision of progressive anti-family attitudes in the U.S. and pet mania: so many people do come to regard a dog or a cat as cheaper, more predictable, less demanding equivalent of a child. What is disturbing about the Smalls commercials is that they represent this mindset as healthy and normal.

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About That Tim Walz DUI…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

In 1995, when he was 31, Tim Walz, then a high school football coach and teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, was pulled over by a Nebraska state trooper for driving 96 miles per hour in a 55 m.p.h. zone. There was alcohol on the future Minnesota governor’s and pandemic Nazi’s breath and after Walz failed a field sobriety test and breath test, he was arrested and charged with speeding and driving while intoxicated.

Does it matter? Not the arrest or the drunk driving, in my view, not a single incident so many decades ago. I don’t know anyone who could not have been charged with driving while over the alcohol limit at one point in their lives or another: whether someone gets caught at this frequent violation is largely a matter of moral luck. Tempting fate repeatedly this way—moral luck can also get people killed—and driving while intoxicated when one is in a position of trust and authority is another matter.

By all accounts, Walz was properly accountable and remorseful. He agreed to plead to a reduced charge of reckless driving, a misdemeanor, and paid a $200 fine. He duly reported the incident to his Alliance High School principal, quit his extracurricular activities including the coaching, and offered to resign from his teaching job.

All good. The story just “resurfaced” as they say now, and “Republicans pounced.” I can’t blame them: the tale of George W. Bush’s DUI was held and played by the Democrats as an October Surprise-in-the-hole, and may have cost Bush the popular vote majority in the 2000 Presidential election. Nonetheless, the verdict here is that Walz’s DUI incident itself is irrelevant to his fitness as a potential Vice-President.

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Comment of the Day: “The Totalitarian Left’s Reaction To Trump’s Interview With Elon Musk Should Tell Voters All They Need To Know About ‘What’s Going On Here’”

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

I usually don’t elevate to Comment of the Day status comments that illustrate common fallacies and lack of perception. I’ve done it a few times: I know it can seem mean. But Cici’s Comment of the Day so exemplifies the abysmal level of comprehension and critical thought so many of our fellow citizens suffer from, thus making them prime targets of misdirection in this election year, that I felt attention should be paid.

Here was Cici’s comment, one of many she offered, on the post about the foreign and domestic Left arguing that a U.S. Presidential candidate should not be allowed free rein to say whatever he chose to in a discussion with Elon Musk, who owns the platform where the discussion was taking place:

“Third parties decide what you read and hear all the time. And I’m not even arguing for that so I’m not sure where you got that from. I trust that people in charge of these platforms are able to factcheck properly.

I don’t share in your mistrust of “institutions.” I think that leads to people not knowing what’s even true or not. You’re free to disagree with that notion.”

Analysis:

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“It Can’t Happen Here” Item: Belgium Bans Jews From A Competition Because, Well, They Are Jews

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

An international Ultimate Frisbee competition for youths held in Ghent, Belgium last week was supposed to include some Jewish teams. Then an anti-Semitic vandal (was The Squad in town?) spray-painted “Boycott Israhell Now!” near the playing field, so the mayor of Ghent joined with the city’s police to inform the young Jewish Frisbee whizzes that not only were they banned from the event on the field, they couldn’t attend as spectators either. This was in the interests of “safety.”

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