Health and Medicine

It’s An IIPTDXTTNMIAFB Video!

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I would have posted this Tik-Tok video earlier, but WordPress will only embed YouTube, and it took a while for that platform to keep down its gorge and include this offal. It has IIPTDXTTNMIAFB (“Imagine if President Trump did X that the news media is accepting from Biden.”) written all over it.

This desperate pro-vaccination PSA seems to have cornered the adjective “cringeworthy,” and teens are using that description as much as adults. The “Joe Byron” reference has to do with another viral video by the YouTube channel SideTalk, which features a bunch of weirdos from Coney Island referring to the President by that name.

Oh. How…clever. Apparently the target audience for a video featuring the Jonas Brothers acting like 10-year-olds are insulted that such an appeal would be regarded as persuasive, and recognize condescending pandering when they see it. The non-target audience is wondering what the President of the United States is doing lowering the stature his office by appearing with these clowns.

Now, just imagine the media reaction if Trump had been the guy with the camera instead of “Byron.” Look who this reality show phony gets to deal with a life and death catastrophe like a pandemic! Norms! Norms! Well, some norms really shouldn’t ever be destroyed…like the norm that Presidents don’t toss away their dignity on the likes of the Jonas Brothers.

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Source: Rolling Stone

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Villain: University Of California Prof. Michele Goodwin”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Racist science

What continues to amaze, as pro-abortion supporters and activists throw every conceivable argument they can come up with against the proverbial wall in hopes that one might stick,is how insubstantial, emotional and often intellectually dishonest those arguments are. As the Supreme Court deliberates, we are certain to hear and read many more, and I honestly can say that I am hoping for a legitimate and persuasive one to finally emerge.

What I fear we will get, however, as the arguments do not stick but slide off that wall like wet tissue, is more warnings, threats, insults and jeremiads, like Justice Sotomayor’s despicable “stench” question, which I translate as, “Aren’t you properly terrified that if we don’t just do as the pro-abortion machine demands rather than analyze a difficult problem objectively according to facts, law and ethics, people who have already made up their minds regardless of all of those will be furious?”

The “pro-choice” rhetoric increasingly reminds me of the arguments made by the slave-holding South as thoughtful abolitionists and the anti-slavery sentiment strengthened ten-fold by “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” began backing defenders of “the peculiar institution” into a corner. They primarily invoked invalid or dishonest arguments: “science” and “studies” claiming to prove that black people were not quite human (see above), and did not have the “necessities” (to quote poor Al Campanis a century later) to be free; slavery had been permitted so long that it constituted a betrayal to end it; a Supreme Court ruling had protected the practice, and the way of life that slavery’s practitioners enjoyed and benefited from immensely would be threatened if slavery were banned. These are all essentially the same arguments being advanced today to justify continuing to treat another group of vulnerable and exploited human beings as property and non-humans. The fetus doesn’t deserve human rights because it isn’t “viable” or “cognizent.” A right that has been part of the law for half a century should never be challenged. Roe v. Wade is to the unborn as Dred Scott was to slaves.

And, perhaps most of all, American women have thrived by treating developing babies as disposable by “choice.”

Here is Ryan Harkins’ Comment of the Day addressing the related argument, advanced by a law professor, that the right to kill the offspring of incest and rape is essential to the advancement and success of people like her.

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Ethics Quiz: Fat-Shaming Or Legitimate Criticism?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Belgian health

That’s Maggie De Block, the Belgian Minister of Health from October 2014 to October 2020. She is currently serving as a member of the World Health Organization’s Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development.

For some reason her photograph came to the attention of social media over the weekend, and she is being made the target of considerable mockery (though she is being incorrectly labeled as Belgium’s current Minister of Health). At 59, she is estimated to weigh between 350 and 400 pounds.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz to begin a busy week is…

Is it fair to criticize her for her weight when she is in a position involved with health promotion and policy?

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Abortion Wars: It’s The New York Times vs. The New York Times!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

fetal development

Stockholm Syndrome liberal David Brooks, once the alleged conservative pundit in the Times far-left array, was in one of his “pox on both your houses” moods as he condemned what he claimed were equally unethical (my word, not his) arguments coming from the pro-and anti-abortion camps. “Many conservatives focus on the fetus to the exclusion of all else, ” he wrote. “A lot of the progressive commentary, on the other hand, won’t recognize the fetus at all.” False equivalency, David (and you know it). Since the fetus is the party that’s killed in an abortion, many conservatives and anti-abortion activists take the completely defensible and classic Kantian position that “deference to women who become pregnant in terrible circumstances” doesn’t and can’t justify taking a human life. On the other side of the divide, however, refusing to acknowledge the existence of a life at all is to deliberately rig the debate. And it isn’t “a lot” of the progressive commentary that tries to do this; it’s virtually all of it.

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What Is The Ethical Response To Marcus Lamb’s Ironic Death?

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Lamb

Marcus Lamb, the evangelical founder of the Texas-based Christian television network Daystar, died on November 30. In an example of extreme cosmic irony/justice/retribution/satire, the cause was a virulent case of infection from the Wuhan virus. The previously healthy (though he had diabetes) 64-year-old was unvaccinated, and indeed was a vocal antivaxxer. Lamb, his wife (they were a Jim and Tammy-style team) and other Daystar broadcasters have been opposing the pandemic vaccines, presumably influencing many of the more than 108 million households the network reaches via cable TV providers to do likelwise On May 10, for example, the Lambs claimed that the vaccines “killed your immune system.”

“We want to warn you, we want to help you, we want to give you an alternative,” Lamb said. The alternatives he recommended were ivermectin, budesonide and hydroxychloroquine, all drugs that have not been proven to be effective or safe in the treatment of the virus, and, naturally, prayer.

Well, as Old Lodgeskins memorably says in “Little Big Man,” “Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

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Is It Too Late To Call It “The Wuhan Virus” Or Better Yet, “The China Virus”?

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Coronavirus_H

I believe this issue should be settled in the context of the immortal words of Chinese dissident Paladin Cheng, who said, “Don’t trust China. China is asshole.”

There is no longer any serious dispute over where the pandemic came from, or why it spread so far and did so much damage before the world was able to respond in a timely fashion. Either the virus arose from the unsanitary, disease breeding Wuhan wet markets, or escaped from a Wuhan lab. Then China, we also now know, covered up the rampaging contagion, allowing it to travel via plane and other means to all corners of the globe.

Conclusion: China is accountable. China is liable. China is asshole.

Of course, we knew the latter even before the pandemic, but China is also profitable, which is why everyone from the NBA to Hollywood to Disney to Hunter Biden still want to avoid making certain that the public knows just how bad—evil, even—the Chinese government and culture is. I presume that after multiple mutations and other distractions, in five years or less most of the public won’t know or remember where the virus that we allowed to wreck the economy, society and culture came from. Where is “Covid,” anyway?

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A Second Introduction To “Thoughts On What An Ethical Solution To The Abortion Ethics Conflict Might Look Like, Part 2: A Solution”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

ViewsOnAbortion_v02_KA_1637005673621_hpEmbed_1x1_608

I decided that it was finally time to complete and post Part 2, having promised it way back in September. The impetus is two polls on the subject released today and yesterday. But having read the polls, I feel like a second introduction to Part 2 is necessary. (The first introduction, posted a day after Part I, is here.)

The first introduction closed, “Absent something that causes a tipping point in public opinion on the same level of influence as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” [on the public’s perception of slavery] the approach to abortion I offer in Part 2 is, and will ever be, impossible.” The two polls purport to tell us what the public’s current perception of abortion is. At least, that’s how they are being presented in the news media, which, as we all know, is completely unbiased on this topic as well as others.

I’m joking. Most of the media is ignoring the second poll, by Marquette, which makes the Washington Post-ABC poll that is more positive toward abortion incoherent. The Marquette poll found that more of those polled favored a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy than opposed it. Survey respondents were asked if they would favor or oppose a ruling to “uphold a state law that (except in cases of medical emergencies or fetal abnormalities) bans abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.” This is a direct reference to to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which SCOTUS will hear oral argument regarding on December 1. The case turns on the constitutionally of a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after….. 15 weeks of pregnancy. Allowing the law would, if not overrule Roe v. Wade, significantly limit it. Yet 37% of those polled approved of a decision upholding such a law, while 32% opposed such a result. The remaining 30% said they didn’t know enough to make a decision.

In most polls on other topics, that group that pleads ignorance are apathetic slugs, but on this topic, maybe they are the wise ones. How many Americans really know what Dobbs is about, or even what Roe v. Wade really says? My guess is considerably less than 50%. Maybe less than 25%. 10%?

The Post-ABC poll that is being waved triumphantly in the public’s face is the one summarized in the diagram above (the data is here) and claims that large majorities of Americans “support maintaining Roe v. Wade, oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate and see abortion primarily as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not lawmakers.” How can that be the case if a majority also believes that woman and doctors should not be able to decide to abort an unborn baby after only 15 weeks?

It can’t.

What’s going on here?

Americans, except for small numbers of activists on both sides, haven’t thought carefully about the issues in abortion sufficiently to have an informed opinion about it. That’s what.

I would like to have the groups polled by Marquette and ABC/Washington Post pollsters asked if they have read Roe. What’s your guess: how many would say they have? 5%? Less? How many have thought about when a fetus should have the right to live? If they were shown a photo of a fetus at 8 months, would they support aborting it? Six months? Three?

Of those who say they support abortions in the case of rape or incest, and were asked why how a human is conceived should change its right to live, how many could answer intelligently? How many have thought about it? How many have the education and critical thinking skills to analyze the problem competently?

If you asked if a man who killed a woman who was three months pregnant should be prosecuted for killing one human being or two, what would the majority answer? If they answered “two” and then they were asked, “How can it be murder if an unborn child is killed by anyone else, but no crime if the killer is the mother?,” how many would mutter “Huminahumina”?

The vast, vast majority of Americans thinks about abortion so shallowly as to be ethically useless, simply following their peer groups, or joining one team of the other who band together under deliberately misleading labels: “pro-life,” which ignores on of the crucial interests in involved in abortion policy, and “pro-choice,” which ignores the other. Or they don’t think about abortion at all.

No political, legal or societal acceptable solution to the abortion ethics conflict is possible when the public remains this ignorant and apathetic. A condition precedent to any solution, therefore, is to bring about a dramatic shift in public consciousness and commitment—that tipping point I mentioned before. That’s what “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did: it forced people who had never thought seriously about slavery and what it meant to think, and once they did, they opposed it.

Polls are easily manipulated and generally do more harm than good, but these two, taken together, show us a way out. The public needs something or someone who will make its members think about abortion and its issues, honestly and without the spin, obfuscation, emotionalism and bullshit. If a metaphorical slap in the face could be found for slavery, one can be made for abortion.

So getting to that slap is the first part of any solution.

Got it.

Now I’m finally ready to finish Part 2…

The Fifth Circuit Says The Biden Administration Abused Its Power And The Constitution. Better Impeach Him, Then!

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Vaccine mandate

Just kidding! Presidents often try to stretch the already rubber boundaries of what the Constitution and even the law requires, only to get slapped down by the courts. This kind of thing was only grounds for impeachment (according to the Trump Deranged, the mainstream media pundits and Democrats) when Donald Trump did it.

But President Trump never tried anything as egregiously dictatorial as the vaccine mandate.

Tell us again who is “a threat to democracy.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, issued a ruling at the end of this week upholding a stay of the mandate after temporarily halting the mandate last weekend in response to lawsuits filed by and legal groups. The Washington Post, telegraphing its bias as usual, calls them “Republican-aligned businesses and legal groups.” Since the mandate was wildly excessive and pretty clearly illegal, the question is why “Democratic–aligned” organizations don’t also oppose it. I guess that’s nor really much of a question.

The Post also emphasizes that the panel consisted of judges appointed by Reagan or Trump, because in Progressivese, that means the ruling is partisan. No, it really isn’t. It’s just right, as any fair reading of the opinion by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt and joined by Judges Edith H. Jones and Stuart Kyle Duncan will reveal. Of course, none of your metaphorically screaming Facebook friends will read it.

You will, though, right? It’s pretty thorough and damning, as well as bit nasty, which any administration trying something like this deserves. (It’s better than an impeachment!)

Highlights:

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Ethics Quiz: Indoctrination On Sesame Street

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Seseme St Covid

I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming.

Big Bird tweeted a few days ago, “I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy. Ms. Hill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!” Naturally, President Biden, who watches Sesame Street religiously (yes, it’s a cheap shot, but I’m in a bad mood) tweeted back, “Good on ya, @BigBird. Getting vaccinated is the best way to keep your whole neighborhood safe.”

This set off an immediate partisan and ideological debate, with conservative hone-schooling mother, blogger and pundit Bethany Mandel taking a leadership role. She wrote in part,

Just as “Sesame Street” isn’t content with allowing parents the freedom to guide their children’s own moral compass, so too are they uncomfortable with the idea of parents making individual risk assessments for their children’s health and safety. There is a moral absolutism necessary to be part of the left, which is where “Sesame Street’s” writers appear to fall. The messaging on COVID-19 vaccination has become yet another absolutist position. Big Bird’s tweet doesn’t exist just on Twitter. It’s part of a larger campaign from the series to “educate” parents on the vaccine.

Earlier this year, she wrote about the iconic children’s educational show shifting from ABCs and vocabulary into the culture wars:

Those in charge of messaging and programming children’s media have positioned themselves as arbiters of our children’s moral compass. And that Soviet-style demand for a universal, well-curated set of beliefs from a particular coastal lens should concern all parents — not just those with religious or personal beliefs that make them uncomfortable with a particular episode of “Sesame Street” aired during Pride Month.

Parents should take note: The aim of children’s media is no longer just to provide free, education-minded babysitting while you get ready for work.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

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Ethics Quiz: It’s Greek To Me!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

good-morning-greece-

This story seems very Greek based on the attitudes and actions I observed through the years on the part of my mother and the large Greek side of my family. Greeks have a, shall we say, unique concept of ethics, which is interesting, given that ancient Greece was the home of all the earliest ethicists.

Mass fake vaccinations have been taking place in dozens of vaccination centers throughout the homeland, as doctors and nurses are accepting a standard bribe fee of 400 euros to get Wuhan virus vaccination cards but don’t want the real shot. They are getting water shot into them instead, or think they are. Mega TV  is reporting that many doctors are taking the money but secretly using the vaccine instead of water. This means that the vaccination cheats aren’t cheating, but only think they are. Meanwhile, the doctors and nurses rationalize that they have earned their 400 euros because they are keeping the public safe, preventing a fraud, and benefiting those bribing them even though they’ll never know it.

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