History

When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Nikki Haley’s Answer To “What Caused The Civil War?”

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

At a New Hampshire town hall, long-shot GOP Presidential wannabe Nikki Haley was asked what she believed caused the Civil War. She answered,

“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do….I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. And I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn’t need to tell you how to live your life. They don’t need to tell you what you can and can’t do. They don’t need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.”

When the questioner said it was “astonishing” that she didn’t mention slavery, Haley replied: “What do you want me to say about slavery?” and called for the next question.

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“Jeopardy!” Ethics,” 2023

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“Jeopardy!,” the apparently eternal TV game show that has persevered even as its once difficult questions have become increasingly pitched to the less-than-astute, ended its 2023 with a surprise. Mayim Bialik, the actress who is also (for an actress) unusually credentialed educationally, announced this month that she has been let go as a host of “Jeopardy!” Since 2021, Bialik, who had previously portrayed “Big Bang Theory” head nerd Sheldon’s girlfriend on the series, had shared the role of host with legendary “Jeopardy!” champ Ken Jennings. Bialik was the more reliable and professional of the two, perhaps because of her long performing background. Jennings was at the center of far more gaffes and controversies, though Bialik had her share. This season, for example, she disallowed all three contestants’ answers of ”Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” because she found their pronunciations of the Russian writer and dissident’s name insufficiently accurate.

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Why Hasn’t Everybody Already Learned About Bass Reeves?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Nothing says Christmas like a late 19th century black Deputy Federal Marshal in the Indian Territory. As I watched the Paramount+ video series “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.” I was struck by what an inspiring and unifying this remarkable man’s story would be for school children, and wondered not only why it isn’t taught today, but why it wasn’t taught while I was in school. Not only hadn’t I heard of Reeves before last night, I assumed the film was just another race- or gender-flipped Western, like “Django Unchained or The Hateful Eight.” It’s an amazing story, and a true one.

Bass Reeves (1838–1910) was born as a slave in Arkansas, then lived in Lamar and Grayson counties, Texas, where he belonged to Col. George R. Reeves, who later become the Speaker of the House in the Texas legislature. Reeves escaped north into the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where he had dealings with the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes, learning enough of their languages to be useful to him later. He fought with the Union Indian Home Guard Regiments during the Civil War, then settled in Arkansas as a farmer. To make extra money, Reeves served as a guide, scout and tracker for the deputy U.S. marshals who worked in the Indian Territory (like Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit”!) out of “Hanging Judge” Parker’s federal court at Fort Smith. Judge Parker commissioned Reeves as the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River.

He worked for thirty-two years as a deputy marshal in the Indian Territory, arresting an estimated 3,000 lawbreakers and shooting 14 of them dead in self defense. (It helped considerably that he was 6’2,” remarkably strong, and a dead shot with pistol or rifle.) Reeves was never wounded himself, though his hat was shot off a few times (they show this in the series). Reeves demonstrated his integrity when he brought his own son in for murder once a warrant was issued.

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For Your Christmas Weekend Reading Pleasure…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Well, few are visiting EA today. I guess it is a holiday of sorts, so I won’t take it personally. As a thank-you to those who do drop by, here is a post I encountered on the new substack, “Ramparts.” “War and Christmas:Christmas and the enduring spirit of Freedom” focuses on two important and inspiring Christmases in our nation’s history, both occurring while the nation was at war.

The second has special significance for me. My father, Jack Anderson Marshall, Sr., fought on thatChristmas day in 1944, having just been released from the Army hospital after having half his foot blown off earlier in the year, before D-Day. After my parents moved from Arlington, Mass. to Arlington, Virginia, I would accompany my father every year around this time on his pilgrimage to the Battle of the Bulge veterans memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, just a short walk from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The year he died on my birthday in 2009, Dad had skipped the reunion of BOTB veterans for the first time. The dwindling numbers made him too sad, he said.

NOW Will People Accept That Fox News Firing Tucker Carson Was Mandatory?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

It was interesting that the following incident occurred shortly after my post defending horror auteur Mike Flanagan from a conservative critic’s attack because he had one of his characters say that she “threw up in her mouth” thinking about Tucker Carlson. Guesting on “Prime Time with Alex Stein” (Stein is kind of a cheap knock-off of Tucker Carlson), the Fox News exile was asked by his conspiracy theory-loving host, “Do you think that the moon landing was real, and do you think that it was done by Nazis that were literally brought over during Operation Paperclip? Is that a conspiracy or is that true, in your opinion, Tucker?”

I’ve always wondered if the Nazi scientists were only figuratively brought over in Operation Paperclip, haven’t you? Stein’s question was brain-meltingly stupid, and the only responsible answer to it in a broadcast setting would be, “Of course the moon landing was real, of course I don’t believe it was faked, and if you do, I’m leaving so I can be interviewed by someone who is smarter than you, like, say, my dog.”

But Carlson didn’t say that. Instead, he replied, “You know, I don’t know! I do know that the the original moon landing tapes have been erased at NASA because they needed, you know, the tape space. So they just kind of taped over them.” Yeah, they did: almost all conspiracy theories depend on relevant records and evidence being destroyed or lost. It doesn’t matter: the moon landing conspiracy theory is one of the most ridiculous and insulting of them all. Giving it any credence is unforgivable: Buzz Aldrin once punched a guy in the face when he implied that the old astronaut was part of the supposed hoax, and I thought that was an appropriate response.

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Look! Another Racial Casting Controversy!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I love this one: it involves one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite historical figures.

Denzel Washington has lapped Sydney Poitier as the most successful and, in my view, most versatile and best black Hollywood star in film history, so one would think his casting to portray any historical figure would be seen as a boon to that figure’s fans. In this case, you would be wrong. Denzel is playing the Carthaginian general Hannibal in a Netflix historical epic, and Le Monde reports that in Tunisia, Hannibal’s old stomping ground, Hannibal’s admirers are furious. The casting has even been debated in the Tunisian parliament. Tunisian MP Yassine Mami railed about “the risk of falsification of history” while calling on members to join him in “defending Tunisian identity”.

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The Story Of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”….And The Christmas Kick-Off Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Last week’s forum was the deadest ever, so I’m hoping that injecting some holiday cheer into this one will spark more dialogue. After all, if the wind, a lamb, a shepherd boy, a mighty king and people everywhere can have a productive conversation, Ethics Alarms readers should be able to bring some Goodness and Light too.

As some inspiration, I’m reposting below the Ethics Alarms entry about the origins of my favorite of the modern—“modern” as in “post World War II”—Christmas songs, first sung by my favorite Christmas minstrel.

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Ethics Quiz: Section 16

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Here is a controversy that I was completely ignorant of, and I am embarrassed to admit it.

One more bi-product of the George Floyd Freakout, ‘The Great Stupid’ that has washed over the land like the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and the Stalin-esque attempt to airbrush American history, including the toppling of statues honoring certain distinguished Americans who were not sufficiently psychic to absorb the lessons and accumulated ethics wisdom of those with the advantage of a century or more additional history and human experience, was the Naming Commission, established by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act in the throes of all of the above malign influences. It’s official mission is to recommend removal of “all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.” The Commission extended its reach to the Reconciliation Monument at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located in the special section known as Section 16. The monument, which you see above, is scheduled to come down.

Of all the many times I have visited Arlington—my father and mother are buried there, also my grandfather, and Dad loved to take me on tours of the place as he checked out his future residence, especially when he was taking part in the annual Battle of the Bulge veterans ceremonies—I never saw this section. It has a fascinating history.

Arlington was established as a burial ground for the Union military dead. Indeed, Montgomery Meigs, the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army who was responsible for the burial of soldiers, ordered Robert E. Lee’s Arlington estate to be turned into a cemetery so Lee could never return there. Meigs had his son, an early casualty of the war, buried literally on the Confederate leader’s doorstep as a statement of contempt and defiance. No Rebel combatants were permitted on the sacred grounds.

However President William McKinley, himself a Medal of Honor recipient for his heroism at the Battle of Antietam, announced that the U.S. government would commit to honoring the Confederate dead, saying in a speech in Atlanta that “sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag waves over us in peace with new glories.” Congress authorized Confederate remains to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1900, and in 1906, the construction of a monument was commissioned to represent the nation’s acceptance of the Confederacy back into the nation, healing of the deep wounds of civil war. 1903 saw President Theodore Roosevelt send a floral arrangement to the Section 16 to commemorate Confederate Memorial Day, and began a tradition that has been regularly observed since, with President Obama expanding the practice to laying two floral wreaths, one at the Confederate Memorial, the other at Washington, D.C.’s African American Civil War Memorial.

This week the Republican Congress has sent a letter of protest to the Defense Department, demanding that preparations to remove the monument cease, and pointing out that the purpose of the memorial is not to honor the Confederacy, but to stand for national unity, reconciliation, and peace.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Should the Reconciliation Memorial be removed along with the remains of the Confederate soldiers buried in Section 16?

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The Big Lies Of The “Resistance”: A Directory, Updated (11/29/2023)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

[When I wrote the previous post adding Big Lie #10 to this compendium, I decided to read the whole thing again. That occasioned numerous updates (and repaired typos, of course.). I found it worth reading again; heck, I wrote it, and I had forgotten most of it. So I’m re-posting the revised version now…]

Introduction

The “Big Lie” strategy of public opinion manipulation, most infamously championed by Adolf Hitler and his propaganda master Joseph Goebbels, has, in sinister fashion, become a routine and ubiquitous component of the Left’s efforts to remove President Donald J. Trump from office without having to defeat him at the polls, and subsequently after his defeat, to attempt to prevent him from defeating a hopelessly inept failed successor. One of the most publicized Big Lies, that Trump had “colluded” with the Russian government to “steal” the Presidential election from Hillary Clinton was eventually exposed as such by the results of the Mueller investigation, the discrediting of the Steele Dossier, and the revelation that Democrats (like Adam Schiff) and the mainstream news media deliberately misled the public. and Democrats, with blazing speed, replaced it with another Big Lie that there was a “Constitutional crisis.” I could have added that one to the list, I suppose, but the list of Big Lies is dauntingly long already, and this one is really just a hybrid of the Big Lies below.

Becoming addicted to relying on Big Lies as a political strategy is not the sign of ethical political parties, movements, or ideologies. Perhaps there is a useful distinction between Big Lies and “false narratives,” but I can’t define one. Both are intentional falsehoods designed to frame events in a confounding and deceptive manner, so public policy debates either begin with them as assumptions, thus warping the discussion, or they result in permanent bias, distrust and suspicion of the lie/narrative’s target. For simplicity’s sake, because I believe it is fair to do so, and also because “Big Lie” more accurately reflects just how unethical the tactic is, that is the term I will use.

Big Lie #1. “Trump is just a reality TV star.”

This is #1 because it began at the very start of Trump’s candidacy. It’s pure deceit: technically accurate in part but completely misleading. Ronald Reagan was subjected to a similar Big Lie when Democrats strategically tried to denigrate his legitimacy by  referring to him as just an actor, conveniently ignoring the fact that he had served as Governor of the largest state in the nation for eight years, and had split his time between acting and politics for many years before that, gradually becoming more involved in politics and public policy. (Reagan once expressed faux puzzlement about the denigration of his acting background, saying that he thought acting was an invaluable skill in politics. He was right, of course.)

In Trump’s case, the disinformation was even more misleading, He was a successful international businessman and entrepreneur in real estate, hotels and casinos, and it was that experience, not his successful, late career foray into “The Apprentice” (as a branding exercise, and a brilliant one), that was the basis of his claim to the Presidency.

The “reality star” smear still appears in attack pieces, even though it makes even less sense for a man who has been President for four years. The tactic is ethically indefensible . It is not only dishonest, intentionally distorting the President’s legitimate executive experience and success,  expertise and credentials, it is also an ad hominem attack. Reality TV primarily consists of modern freak shows allowing viewers to look down on assorted lower class drunks, vulgarians, has-been, exhibitionists,  idiots and freaks. Class bigotry has always been a core part of the NeverTrump cabal, with elitist snobs like Bill Kristol, Mitt Romney, the Bushes, and George Will revealing that they would rather capitulate to the Leftist ideology they have spent their professional lives opposing (well, not Mitt in all cases) than accept being on the same team as a common vulgarian like Donald Trump. Continue reading →

You Know The Headline On The Previous Post? Forget It. Denver Just Proved That The Great Stupid Has Civilization By The Throat [Revised]

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

Well that was certainly a short-lived ray of hope! Just as some states are realizing that one idiotic woke education policy is ruinous and needs to be reversed, Denver has come up with something infinitely worse.

Get ready for “language justice.”

The Denver school district is adopting a “language justice” policy as a “long term goal.” This astoundingly stupid movement encourages non-English speaking conceivably to the extent of allowing students to use their native language in school. Teaching English to non-English speakers, you see, is oppressive and rooted in racism.

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