Government & Politics

“Everybody Does It”or “Just Playing the Game”: Being Disabled At Stanford

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

I found the London Times story “Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they’re disabled. I’m one of them” so annoying and rife with cultural and ethics rot that I decided not to post on it for the benefit of my own mental health. Now I see that it is getting a lot of attention all over the web and on social media, so I am ethically obligated to weigh in.

In the article, the poor, disabled student above reveals that she decided to claim endometriosis as a disability at Stanford, which would bump her to the head of the line for the best housing on campus. Her reasoning: a friend told her that Stanford had granted her “a disability accommodation. “She, of course, didn’t have a disability. She knew it. I knew it,” Elsa Johnson writes. “But she had figured out early what most Stanford students eventually learn: the Office of Accessible Education will give students a single room, extra time on tests and even exemptions from academic requirements if they qualify as ‘disabled.'”

“Everyone was doing it,” she continues. “I could do it, too, if I just knew how to ask.”

That’s lying. It’s also cheating. At a college. “The truth is, the system is there to be gamed, and most students feel that if you’re not gaming it, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage,” she writes.

Elsa cites how much everybody does it to justify her embrace of corruption.

“The Atlantic reported that 38 percent of undergraduates at my college were registered as having a disability — that’s 2,850 students out of a class of 7,500 — and 24 per cent of undergrads received academic or housing accommodations in the fall quarter.

At the Ivy League colleges Brown and Harvard, more than 20 per cent of undergrads are registered as disabled. Contrast these numbers with America’s community colleges, where only 3 to 4 per cent of students receive disability accommodations. Bizarrely, the schools that boast the most academically successful students are the ones with the largest number who claim disabilities — disabilities that you’d think would deter academic success…at Stanford, almost no one talks about the system with shame. Rather, we openly discuss, strategise and even joke about it. At a university of savvy optimisers, the feeling is that if you aren’t getting accommodations, you haven’t tried hard enough. Another student told me that special “accommodations are so prevalent that they effectively only punish the honest”. Academic accommodations, they added, help “students get ahead … which puts a huge proportion of the class on an unfair playing ground.”

Conclusion here: Colleges and universities are not merely indoctrinating students in Leftist ideology, political theories and world view, they are also teaching students to accept cheating, lying and corruption as “the system” that they would be fools not to master.

This does not come as a surprise to me, as I saw this slippery slope coming when President Bush the First signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, saw it roll out of control, and watched it lead to lawsuits, employees who were impossible to fire, drags on organization budgets and productivity, and now students at colleges and graduate schools getting special privileges and advantages if they can make administrators feel sorry for them.

First, this trend is antithetical to individualism, one of the cornerstones of American values, and explains why the culture is becoming increasingly hostile to the idea that citizens are responsible for their own success, failures, advancement, and achievement. Second, it benefits the least ethical rather than the principled among us.

I had two epiphanal experiences with this ethical dilemma, and I’ve written about both on Ethics Alarms.

The first was as an administrator at Georgetown Law Center when a college applicant asked me whether she should note on her law school application that her grandfather was Japanese, making her a minority in the eyes of GULC’s (then and now) affirmative action obsessed admission process. She said she didn’t want to apply as a minority student, since she was from an affluent family, nobody knew she had Asian ancestry, and was not in any way “disadvantaged” by it.

I told her that the admission process was already arbitrary. Her grades and scores indicated that she was qualified for Georgetown Law, but borderline for a white female in the tough pool of applicants. As a minority, however, she would be guaranteed admission: her scores were in the top 20% of that pool. And by the school’s own rules, she was a minority. I told her I agreed with her, that applicants like her should not get any special advantages, but that the school’s policies were its policies. She wouldn’t be cheating or lying to take advantage of them, since her competition would be.

The other episode was when, as a law student, I had a lazy, jerk of a professor who gave us a Constitutional Law exam that was take-home, and self-timed.I followed the instructions and stopped writing when my alarm clock went off, failing to complete the last essay question. I then learned that almost nobody else in the class did. I complained to the professor, who didn’t care. My reward for not indulging in the “Everybody Does It” rationalization was a C+.

Our culture, of which educational institutions are a major and crucial part, increasingly send the wrong messages to our rising generations. We are seeing the results in the caliber of our elected leadership, in policies like DEI, and in the empathy being lavished on law breakers and illegal immigrants.

Elsa writes, “The students aren’t exactly cheating and if they are, can you blame them?” My answer: yes, I can and do blame them, because they are cheating. I also blame the parents, teachers and society that allowed them to reason they way they do.

Nominee for Unethical (and Stupid) Quote of the Decade: Someone At The Grammys, It Doesn’t Matter Who, Since The Audience Erupted In Cretinish Applause…

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

“No one is illegal on stolen land.”

—Okay, I do know who it was: Billie Eilish, accepting the Grammy for song of the year.

I can’t imagine why anyone would watch the Grammys, and find it even more unimaginable that anyone would care what these under-educated, bubble-dwelling narcissists think about anything, but as usual for this crowd, one after another stepped up to the mic last night and again proved the immortal wisdom of Laura Ingraham’s edict, “Shut up and sing!”

Eilish’s quote is legally, logically, historically and factually absurd, and yet progressives increasingly find it inspiring and persuasive, which should tell you all you want to know about the current state of that ideological malady. Eilish’s nonsense was the most catchy of the many open borders outburst of the night, but there were many others, like…

Pages: 1 2

Fearmongering From The Left and Right, Part II: The Right

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The doomsday rant below is the “Morning Report” today on Ace of Spades Headquarters, a lively Far Right blog with five contributors in addition to the mysterious Ace himself (or herself). This entry is written by J.J. Sefton, but the style on this site is very consistent, and I find the various contributors interchangeable in their venom. There is never any pretense of objectivity or balance here, though I often find the rhetoric entertaining. It would be fun to write a blog like this, but unethical. I generally avoid it so as not to be tempted by the Dark Side.

Here is the hard Right’s prediction of looming doom “unless”…

Good morning kids. As I and many of you for sure have pondered lo these many months going on perhaps years now if we are in a state of civil war, but for sure we are in a phase of accelerating societal breakdown. On the surface, life goes on much as it always has, kids go to school we go to work or otherwise go about our routines mostly as per usual. Beyond the violence and mayhem we are witnessing in Minneapolis and elsewhere, the most alarming aspect is the utter breakdown and corruption of our judicial system that has now been infiltrated and weaponized against us.

This here is madness and things like this more than even the open violent insurrection against law enforcement which not only represents President Trump and his policies but is supposed to represent our collective individual and societal liberties, rights and freedoms, will be and are indeed our undoing, in the here and now.

First, Judge Gregory Carro in New York State argued that Luigi Mangione, the leftist terrorist, wasn’t a terrorist because he said he wasn’t.. . . More of the same now at the federal level where Judge Margaret Garnett, a recent Biden appointee, decided that Luigi Mangione stalking Brian Thompson in order to kill him wasn’t a “crime of violence”. . . The only thing tortured and strange here is that Democrats are trying not to pretend that they’re bailing out a leftist terrorist. Had Luigi Mangione worn a red cap and hunted down and killed a liberal judge, all of a sudden all of these rulings would be the opposite of what they are, and the ‘tortured and strange’ parts of them would be the sound of the law creaking to be bent backward the other way.

You better believe that the ICE agents who took down Good and Pretti, should some Soros prosecutor get the ball rolling are going to get the Derek Chauvin treatment if not a cell on death row. Donald Trump and Kristi Noem as well. The DemoKKKrats are already making noises about impeachement should they win back Congress this coming November and beyond that, they are itching to see those two and others dangling from a hangman’s noose.

They’ve learned their lesson. Next time they will completely wipe out all opposition to them and seize absolute power. And anyone who objects will ironically and disgustingly be labeled as a terrorist and insurrectionist, and be subject to the harshest of penalties. Like J-6 the process will only be the beginning of the punishment.

It is clear that the Democrat Left has the ability and the willingness to mobilize an armed force of internal terrorists and insurrectionists who will do their bidding knowing they face no repercussions. At least no repercussions in the legal sense.

Can you imagine if average law abiding and armed citizens had a similar system to communicate and rapidly mobilize to be on scene to counter the criminal terrorist insurrectionists and stand shoulder to shoulder with law enforcement, or to oppose any Don Lemon squad of goons bent on invading a church service?

We are heading down that road. But considering our innate sense of morality (that has been completely burned out of the Left since childhood over the past 60 years or more) and concomitant abhorrence of violence, Perhaps it might never come to armed response.

We as a nation are coming to a crossroads. The Left uses our Constitution as both a shield and a cudgel. And bearing all of the aforementioned in mind, there’s this frightening development:
Democrats spent years pushing for gun restrictions. Now they’re rushing to buy firearms and invoking Second Amendment rights after federal agents killed a licensed gun owner in Minneapolis.

The shift has drawn accusations of hypocrisy from conservative critics. Writing in “The Hill,” columnist Robby Soave noted that progressives “favor all sorts of restrictions on gun ownership” yet now champion constitutional gun rights following Alex Pretti’s death. The ACLU even backpedaled on whether it supports concealed carry rights for protesters, Soave wrote. But, they will acquire and use firearms in an offensive manner and when the smoke clears claim self defense as a judge like the one who let Mangione off the hook and the one who railroaded Derek Chauvin will agree. When you have mayors and governors now openly going after and attempting to impede ICE and other federal agents from doing their duty, no doubt their armed Antifa goons and gang-bangers as in Long Beach CA will be deputized and given the full protection of a bastardized legal system. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we cannot deny anyone their second amendment right to bear arms based on their political beliefs. But considering a frighteningly large number of individuals not only want to destroy America as founded but as we have seen not just in Minneapolis but since the 1960s are willing and able to use violence to achieve their aims. Worse the Democrat Party in its eternal quest to seize absolute power is giving them political and legal cover to act as their street goons/enforcers.

If by some chance their election rigging machine fails to deliver them control of Congress, what we’re seeing in Minneapolis is just a foretaste of what is to come that will be orders of magnitude worse. The President will be forced to respond and in so doing potentially play into their hands despite being completely in the right to quash an armed violent leftist/Democrat insurrection.

Friend and friend of the blog Mark Pulliam lays it all out in his latest piece, on his blog which is worthy of bookmarking and following:

“. . .What happens if the Republicans lose control of Congress in the mid-terms this November? We don’t have to wonder, because the Democrats have told us. Expect a 180-degree reversal of everything President Trump has done. We can expect as abrupt a change, on a national scale, as the radical onslaught incoming Governor Abigail Spanberger is imposing on the commonwealth of Virginia. Elections truly have consequences.

And if the Democrats re-gain the White House in 2028, things will be even worse. President Trump’s historic victory in 2024, and the MAGA agenda in general, will be foiled by the Democrats’ radical policies . . The Constitution, as we know if, would be shredded.”

And for me it would essentially be the end of even the veneer of the illusion of regular order/business as usual that we barely are able to delude ourselves into believing. They will go all out to seize absolute power, crush any and all opposition and that will be that. A run of 250 years as they traipse around in the skin suit for another century or so demanding respect.

Unless something radical changes the course of history back towards sanity. As we had hoped the election, three times!, of Donald Trump would do.

Have a great day.

Now you have both sides. (Part I is here.) Your assignment: Compare and contrast.

Fearmongering From The Left and Right, Part I: The Left

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This stuff doesn’t help; it’s irresponsible and dangerous. I know both ends of the partisan spectrum are trying to emphasize the importance of the mid-term elections, and important they certainly are. But painting them in apocalyptic terms becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy at some point, and that point is being approached rapidly if it isn’t already here.

I could fisk both of the rants I read this morning, but so can you, I hope. Instead, I’m going to reprint them whole. That will be sufficient to highlight the hysteria and hyperbole, not to mention the lack of respect for our national values, the public, and the strength of our system.

This screed was brought to my attention by Steve Witherspoon (thanks, Steve, I think). The author, Dave Cieslewicz, calls himself a moderate on his blog, which advertises itself as “A safe place for moderates in a polarized world.” He was the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin for two terms, which alone debunks that claim. If Cieslewicz really is a moderate Democrat, it tells us something really scary about what the ones to his left are like.

Here is what’s on his site today:

Pages: 1 2

From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Yes, that screenshot does speak for itself, but I have some observations anyway:

1. If you’re not familiar with how “Rotten Tomatoes,” the film review aggregator, works, the “popcorn meter” at 98% reflects positive reviews by ordinary movie viewers, and the smashed green tomato tells us that theprofessional critic consensus was only 6% favorable.

2. There is always a chance that the popular reviews were rigged by MAGA zealots. The film “Melania” did have a surprisingly strong box office in its opening weekend, however.

3. The divide does not mean that the critics are wrong. A similar split occurred initially after the critics savaged the all-female “Ghostbusters” re-boot. That movie was, in fact, almost unwatchable.

4. The stats do appear to demonstrate, however, in this case, that movie critics tend to be members of the progressive bubble, and are probably incapable of watching anything connected to President Trump objectively.

5. In my opinion, the split also shows incompetent and irresponsible critics. The job of a critic is to inform audiences whether they are likely to enjoy a movie, not to solely apply the critic’s eccentric and personal tastes. Of course, I have my own biases as a periodic director, performer and playwright…and yes, occasionally a critic. My favorite theater critic was the great Robert Benchley, who often said, in effect, “this kind of play isn’t my cup of tea, but if you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably like this.”

____________

Pointer: Althouse

Not Quite De Minimis Non Curat Lex, But Mighty Close…

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

When I heard that Rep. Omar had been “assaulted” and “attacked,” I assumed that something violent had occurred. When I read that a “substance” has been “hurled” at her, I assumed that the substance was 1) toxic and 2) aimed at her face.

Nah. The idiot squirted liquid harmlessly at her chest, and the “substance” turned out to be vinegar. It might as well have been water. For her part, the scamster, anti-Semitic “Squad” member didn’t even appear startled, much less harmed.

Yes, there is no question that this qualifies as an assault, as it placed a victim in legitimate fear of an un-consented to touching. The “substance” could have been bleach or battery acid or that stuff that made Margaret Qualley crawl out of Dem Moore’s back, and it could have been squirted in her eyes. We obviously can’t have public figures or even random, normal citizens on the street having that happen to them, so the “attacker” has to be tried and punished, I would assume with probation and a fine.

However, in reality what occurred was less consequential than a cream pie in the face, and Omar has been playing victim now for days, whining about bigotry and intimidation, and behaving as if not going into hiding after a few drops of vinegar hit her clothes (Would that even stain?) makes her Joan of Arc. And she’s getting TV time for doing it!

Meanwhile, the Left’s pundits are furious that President Trump suggested that the mini-spectacle was “staged.” Of course Trump should shut up in cases like this, but if they were going to fake a pathetic “attack” on Omar to give her a chance to play victim and wanted to make sure she was never in a scintilla of peril, that’s what it would look like.

The Left is also ethically estopped from complaining about Trump’s effort to minimize an indignity inflicted on a Democrat after so many Trump Deranged pundits, like Joy Reid, claimed the assassination attempt on Trump where a man sitting behind him was shot dead was “staged.” Then there was so much of the Left’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death, as in “Hooray!”

Pages: 1 2

Ethics Quiz: The United Nations

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The New York Times reports (Gift link!) that the United Nations announced it was “facing imminent financial collapse and would run out of money by July” because the United States had not paid its annual dues for 2025. If the situation isn’t rectified, the U.N. will be forced to shut down its New York City headquarters this summer. Also in jeopardy: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “which responds to global emergencies like conflicts and natural disasters.”

U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, sent a letter to all 196 member states warning of “imminent financial collapse.” “The crisis is deepening, threatening program delivery and risking financial collapse,” he wrote. “And the situation will further deteriorate in the near future. I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face.”

The United Nations’ 2026 budget is $3.45 billion. That is supposed to cover what the U.N. calls its “three core pillars of work: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.”

What has the U.N. done for “peace and security” lately? “Sustainable development”…sound like “climate change” to me. Human rights? The U.N. criticizes the United States for alleged human rights violation, while letting actual human rights atrocities.

The United States is entirely responsible for the current crisis, because 95% of the money owed to the United Nations is our share. And this is because the United States pays a ridiculously excessive share of the expenses of an organization that has increasingly done this nation little good and a great deal of harm for decades.

Pages: 1 2

A Sanctuary State By Any Other Name…Will Still Smell Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Democrats truly are addicted to “It isn’t what it is,” or Yoo’s Rationalization. It is this characteristic that has led them so deep into George Orwell territory and why the 21st Century mutation of the party is so untrustworthy. “War is Peace,” and an open border was a secure border, according to Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security. “Slavery is Freedom,” and President Biden was sharp as a tack even as he descended into gibberish on national TV. And, as we all know, “Ignorance is Strength,” and Kamala Harris was the most qualified Presidential candidate ever, ran a perfect campaign, and only lost because Americans are sexists and racists.

Maura Healy, the Democratic governor of my original home state (which has always been a little bit nuts) really opted in to Yoo’s Rationalization big time this week. She submitted a radical pro-illegal immigration bill to designate schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses as official “ICE-free zones,” which would have the effect of sharply (and I believe illegally) limiting where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can operate in the Bay State.

Healy’s bill would require ICE agents to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the most common public spaces off-limits to routine federal enforcement. I.C.E. agents would have to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the many public spaces off-limits to routine federal law enforcement. The bill would direct state agencies not to allow I.C.E. to use state-owned property for enforcement operations and restrict cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. And the proposed legislation does not distinguish between non-violent illegal immigration cases and criminal offenders: apparently in the Bay State, any illegal immigrant is a Good Illegal Immigrant.

Pages: 1 2

Your Daily Dose of Trump Derangement…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

This turned up on my Facebook feed this morning.

Nice.

Among the dozens of immediately likes, “hearts” and LOL emogis, right at the top, was the name of a long-time dear friend, usually wise, kind, and rational, a religious woman who believes in the Golden Rule. But she is hopelessly Trump Deranged, so all of those qualities go AWOL when the President is the topic.

I thought a lot of the attacks on Michelle Obama from the Right were vicious and indefensible, but her conduct was being criticized on its own terms rather than simply consisting or contempt for having the bad taste to marry Barack. Michell also kicked the bees nest more than any previous First Lady and had more than her share of well-earned ridicule…

….but no First Lady has ever been savaged like Melania. (Rachel Jackson’s treatment by her husband’s opponents was the closest.)

If she were not a public figure, a public statement that Melania was a sex worker would be per se defamation. But she’s the President’s wife, and apparently even to good Christians when they are Trump Deranged, Melania is fair game, just as David Letterman (who is scum, in case you have forgotten) thought it appropriate to suggest on national television in 2009 that Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter had sexual relations with Alex Rodriguez, the Yankee All-Star steroid cheat.

Please get well soon, my friend.

Ethics Briefs, #2: Suck-Up Cabinet Meetings

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

As I stated in the first installment, today I’m forced to post piecemeal what would normally be an ethics warm-up with 4-6 items.

2. I suggest that if Republicans are sick of the Axis “autocracy” trope, they should persuade the President to have his cabinet meeting feature less egregious boot-licking.

The first Cabinet meeting of 2026 was just partially broadcast, and like the previous 2025 installments, it was wall-to-wall happy-talk by Trump’s appointees, all telling everyone around the table and, of course, TV viewers how successful, bold and brilliant “this President” has been.

Yecchh.

This is neither credible, admirable, or professional. The ostentatious obsequiousness naturally raises questions: Are they afraid? Have they been ordered to act like lackeys? Why? Is the President’s ego so fragile and in need of affirmation that he has to be told how wonderful he is?

The revolting display reminds me of how the Politburo would stand and applaud when Stalin entered the room and everyone was afraid to stop because the first member who did was frequently shot. Eventually they had to install a bell to signal when the applause should commence and when it should cease.

I think the Cabinet’s sucking-up is insulting to Americans. I certainly am insulted by it. I am quite capable of deciding whether “this President” is doing a good job or not.