History

Yes, I’m Thinking About “The Greatest Show on Earth” Again…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I checked: I’ve made various comments about 1952’s The Best Picture Oscar winner “The Greatest Show on Earth” over the years, but I never mentioned that it’s an ethics movie. The Cecil B. DeMille wide-screen spectacular is often cited by current critics as the worst “Best Picture” ever, which tells you a lot about movie critics and the leftward biases of our so-called elite.

I just watched the end of the film because it happened to be showing on MGM+ this morning, catching the film right after its DeMille trademarked train wreck, which both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have said helped inspire them to be movie-makers. The circus train suffers a disastrous crash that devastates performers, animals and equipment, and the company, already in dire financial straits, appears to be doomed. But in the best “the show must go on,” “fight, fight, fight!,” “Don’t give up the ship!,” “I have not yet begun to fight!,” “Victory or death!” (It’s Alamo week, remember!) American tradition, the performers rally around their grievously wounded boss (pre-Moses Charlton Heston) and put on a ramshackle show in an open field after parading through the nearby town to gather an audience. Meanwhile, Jimmy Stewart, as a clown who is secretly a doctor on the run from law enforcement after his mercy killing of his wife, reveals his identity to a police detective by using his skills as a surgeon to save Heston’s life.

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I’m Not Forgetting The Alamo This Year, and Other Concerns…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

That is one of several plaques around San Antonio that memorializes William Barrett Travis’s desperate but inspiring letter on this date in 1836 calling for assistance as the fortress Travis commanded found itself under siege by the Mexican army. Last year at this time, I’m ashamed to say, I was too preoccupied to write about the Alamo, its defenders and its importance in American history and lore. I’m just as preoccupied now, frankly, but also determined not to neglect my duty to give proper respect and acknowledgement to 220 or so volunteers who, by their courage, comradery and dedication to a cause, displayed the best of the American spirit. Travis, Bowie, Crockett, Bonham and the rest would have really gotten a kick out of Trump’s post-assassination attempt theater.

Meanwhile,

1. I won’t be using the History Channel’s daily history prompts from now on. It seriously hacked me off, first by insisting that I consent to an A&E “Consumer Agreement” and not making a way to consent to it evident, but worse, presenting me with this monster (skip to the end; for God’s sake don’t try to read it!)

I have lectured and written abut this before. No ethical lawyer should prepare such a thing which they know with 100% certainty that literally no one can or will read. That’s not informed consent. That’s chicanery. Nor should a consumers have to pay lawyers to explain what what they are agreeing to. If I were asked to advise a client about the propriety of inflicting such a document on anyone, I would a) end up charging them several thousand dollars for my time and b) tell them that if they couldn’t cut the agreement down to three pages while defining every legal term in it, I would regard it as signature significance for an untrustworthy company. Give consumers a video to listen to that explains what the document covers in simple English. Something…anything but that mess. This is how Disney ended up using the agreement to sign up for a free trial on Disney+ to try to dodge a negligence suit at EPCOT. Over the past year, as I have been digging out from a financial disaster, I’ve become really good at saying, “You know what? I don’t want or need this service enough to tolerate the way you manipulate and mistreat customers. Screw you.”

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Comment of the Day: “More Re-Branding Ethics: ‘What is This “Boy Scouts” of Which You Speak’?”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Brad Davidson. the father of two Eagle Scouts and a silver award Girl Scout, wrote this Comment of the Day to defend the re-named Boy Scouts of America. now “Scouting America,” from a critical post here from May, 2024. Despite the criticism, I was very pleased to see his passionate, well-argued rebuttal. As I noted in the original essay, Jack Marshall Sr. regarded the organization as his savior, because the Boy Scouts gave him structure and a support network when he was a fatherless only-child growing up in Kentucky during the Depression. Dad would have been crushed if he had lived long enough to watch the Bot Scouts staggering under the terrible publicity it suffered in the wake of its child molestation scandal and the subsequent lawsuits that drove it into bankruptcy.

Since Brad mentions it more than once, I must pause briefly to to defend my use of the term “rot” to describe the Scouts ( I never used the terms “ethics rot,” “ethical tot” or “moral rot.”) I hold that any organization that has many episodes of adults in authority criminally molesting children under its auspices—and the Scouts had almost 93,000 claims across all 50 states and the District of Columbia when the organization went into Chapter 11—by definition has allowed its culture to fall apart in metaphorical chunks. The Boy Scouts induced families to entrust its sons to their care, and then did not adequately execute that care. Such widespread criminal activity cannot exist without an organization’s leadership engaging in contrived ignorance. The fact that other organizations were equally negligent is not a defense.

Here is Brad Davidson’s Comment of the Day on the post, “More Re-Branding Ethics: ‘“’What is This ‘Boy Scouts’ of Which You Speak?’” I combined his comment on EA with a subsequent email he sent me off-site, with his permission.

***

You have made some claims about Scouting that are just that–claims, not based in reality. “Decades of ethical rot” is a claim, and I see no proof, other than you hate the name change.

I was a Cub Scout and then a Boy Scout (and then Scouts BSA) leader for 12 years, and have 2 sons who are Eagle Scouts. My daughter was in Girl Scouts, and I was a leader for that group as well but took a back seat to two women who really ran the group. My role was more of the “get ’em outdoors” role for the girls.

First, I am not sure what the “ethical rot” entails. Was it un-banning homosexual scoutmasters and scouts? Scouting is not the place for sexual education nor sexual encounters; we don’t care what you do outside of scouting, provided it is legal and has no influence on your scouting experience. This is the real world, scouting goes up to 18, and there are times when boys or adults get in legal trouble, and we had to make a judgement call–but again, if it involved sex, other than criminal sexual activity, none of it is our business. “Morally straight” gives us an opportunity to talk about personal relationships in general, but we are guys who take kids camping, not sexual educators.

Second, GSA and BSA are not related organizations. They actually compete, and from my point of view, don’t like each other. Scouting America (the new name) is part of an international scouting movement; it was not founded here in America, nor is it headquartered here. The global scout movement is overwhelmingly co-ed. We were one of the ONLY scouting organizations that had limits on female participation. We ended this in large part because, frankly, it’s hard for families to join and have the girls not involved. My daughter did a LOT of homework at scout meetings, and wished she could have gone camping instead of selling cookies.

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In the Rear-View Mirror: “Reflections On President’s Day, 2012: A United States Diminished in Power, Influence and Ideals”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On President’s Day in 2012, I wrote a dispirited assessment of where the United States stood regarding spreading American ideals and values to other nations. This was in the context of Barack Obama’s feckless foreign policy, which, as with his puppet stand-in later, Joe Biden, consisted of threats and warnings (remember Obama’s “red line” in Syria?) without credibility of resolve. I thought about the post as I was contemplating how J.D. Vance was getting mockery and criticism from the Axis because he exhorted our allies in Europe to begin a new commitment to freedom of speech.

The main thrust of the essay was the question of whether the United States should be “the world’s policeman,” a situation that now has fallen into ethics zugzwang: it is irresponsible for the U.S. not to accept the role of world policeman, and irresponsible for us to accept it either.

“Quite simply, we can’t afford it,” I wrote. “Not with a Congress and an Administration that appear unwilling and unable to confront rising budget deficits and crushing debt with sensible tax reform and unavoidable entitlement reductions.” I found the 13-year old post useful and thought provoking for perspective purposes. It raised many questions. Is the U.S. better off today than in 2012, when I was so depressed about its prospects and integrity? What does it mean to “make Amerca great again” in 2025?

I’ll have some more 2025 thoughts at the end. Here is the rest of that post:

***

Yesterday Congress and the President passed yet another government hand-out of money it doesn’t have and refuses to raise elsewhere, among other things continuing to turn unemployment insurance, once a short-term cushion for job-seekers, into long-term government compensation for the unemployed. Part of the reckless debt escalation was caused by the last President [George W. Bush] unconscionably engaging in overseas combat in multiple theaters without having the courage or sense  to insist that the public pay for it. The current administration [the Obama Administration] is incapable of grasping that real money, not just borrowed funds, needs to pay for anything. The needle is well into the red zone on debt; we don’t have the resources for any discretionary military action.

Ron Paul thinks that’s a good thing, as do his libertarian supporters. President Obama, it seems, thinks similarly. They are tragically wrong. Though it is a popular position likely to be supported by the fantasists who think war can just be wished away, the narrowly selfish who think the U.S. should be an island fortress, and those to whom any expenditure that isn’t used to expand  cradle-to-grave government care is a betrayal of human rights, the abandonment of America’s long-standing world leadership in fighting totalitarianism, oppression, murder and genocide is a catastrophe for both the world and us. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Pope Francis [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The Pope has issued a letter (It’s in larger type at the link than what you’ll see below) to the “Bishops of the United States of America.”

Ethics verdicts: Abuse of position, abuse of authority, grandstanding, hypocrisy, breach of responsibility and intellectual dishonesty.

Nice job, Your Holiness.

Because you are likely to be semi-conscious or have your brains splattered on the ceiling from serial head-explosions after reading this thing, I’ll make my other ethics observations now:

1. I’ll pay attention to the Pope’s dictates about how my country handles illegal immigration when the Vatican lets anyone who feels like it move into Vatican City because it will give them “a better life.” Instead of sending the “worst of the worst” to Guantanamo, let’s send them right to the Pope. Based on this screed, I’m sure he’ll welcome them with open arms in the spirit of recognizing the inherent human rights of “the most fragile and marginalized.”

2. Anyone who uses the migration practices that existed in the Middle East over 2,000 years ago as an analogy to 21st century policy issues in the United States of America is either a con artist, a liar or an idiot. The same goes for comparing Jesus to fentanyl smugglers. Fans of the Pope can take their pick. It’s an indefensible, insulting, reductive argument. Nobody should make such comparisons who are over the age of six; for a major world figure revered by millions to stoop to it is signature significance for demagoguery.

3. The Pope admonishes Americans not to equate illegal conduct with criminal conduct. Funny, I just looked up “criminal conduct” and the definitions all boil down to “Criminal conduct is an unlawful act that breaks the law.” Call me a nit-picker, but it sure seems that  breaking our laws to come into and stay in the U.S. is the equivalent of a criminal act.

Maybe it’s a language thing. Does “not criminal” in Italian mean “lawbreaking that the Pope regards as excusable if one is ‘poor and marginalized’? Continue reading →

A “Nah, There’s No Deep State!” Spectacular: The Hidden JFK Assassination Files

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I have spent far too much time over the course of my life reading and thinking about the Lincoln assassination and the various conspiracy theories surrounding it. It was not until 1983 that I found a single source that attempted to explain why there is so much uncertainty surrounding Honest Abe’s death in a book I bought at The Smithsonian, “The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies.” There has always been trivia game of collecting the “amazing” parallels between the Lincoln assassination and the death of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1962, but one parallel is undeniable: government incompetence, inefficiency, bureaucratic stubbornness and deliberate defiance of law created the fertile soil for conspiracy theories to thrive regarding both events.

In part propelled by his “Odd Couple” ally Robert Kennedy, Jr., President Trump has ordered all of the information, papers and materials related to JFK’s assassination released: after all, it’s only been 61 years since Lee Harvey Oswald sent a bullet through his brain. That release still hasn’t happened, and if past experience holds, it won’t this time either.

The FBI just discovered about 2,400 records tied to President Kennedy’s assassination that were never provided to the Warren Commission or a later board charged with determining once and for all why Kennedy was killed and who was responsible. The records were discovered among the 14,000 pages of documents the FBI found when they undertook to obey Trump’s order, which I’m sure some of my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends will claim is illegal. (If Trump does it and it undermines progressive power, it is illegal by definition.)

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Well, I Guess There Won’t Have To Be A Revolution THIS Time…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The Trump Deranged really do think this President is capable of being Hitler.

In a post on his usually rational and excellent blog “Simple Justice,” criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield embroils himself in an apocalyptic scenario where President Trump decides to break the law, defy the courts, and impose his will on the nation. Greenfield writes in part,

What mechanism exists to prevent a president from simply doing whatever he pleases? I gave the short list of how this works on the twitters.

There are three primary checks on presidential power:

1. Virtue
2. The military’s refusal to support unlawful action
3. Revolution

Some replied that this was wrong, ignoring the constitutional separation of powers, court rulings, Congress’ laws, even elections and impeachment. They missed the point. Honoring all the guardrails built into the system falls within the first check, virtue. It only matters if the president respects the law and the Constitution. Andrew Jackson realized this when he mumbled, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.” What if the president just says “no”?

What is Congress or the Supreme Court going to do if the President tells them to kiss his executive butt? Congress may have the spending authority, but it’s the Treasury that holds the cash and writes the checks. The Supreme Court may have the authority to hold an action unconstitutional, but the military serves under the Commander in Chief.

If the president abides by the limitations of law or constitutional authority, as has generally been the case up to now despite the occasional overstep, then the mechanics of our society work. But what if he doesn’t?

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Pundit Malpractice, Part II: A Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Masterpiece From “The Hill”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is truly a “Hold my beer!” moment to savor from “The Hill.” David Brooks’ fake history lesson, draped in his usual smarty-pants rhetoric, was unforgivable, but The Hill’s opinion piece with the click-bait title, “Blue Alert: Why Democrats are poised to win in 2028 and 2032” is so silly, lazy and idiotic that even Brooks gets leave to make fun of it.

Authored by GOP operatives Gary D. Alexander and Rick Cunningham, the thing makes it crystal clear how the Republican Party got the moniker “The Stupid Party” if it pays for advice from people capable of writing such junk. To state the obvious, Democrats aren’t “poised” to do anything at this point. The party has no leader; its President just exited the White House with one of the worst six months in Presidential annals; its Senators made asses of themselves in the hearings on Trump’s nominees so far, and its House members have declared themselves fans of biological men spiking volleyballs that crush women’s faces and illegal aliens who rape and kill. Its DEI Presidential candidate ran an embarrassing campaign while the party’s platform became “Abort more babies” and “Having a rally in Madison Square Garden proves Trump is Hitler.” Poised? Poisoned is more like it.

The article flags itself as bonkers by the third sentence, asserting that Democrats were already in an advantageous position to win in 2032. That’s eight years from now: I’m going to forgo the amusing but needless exercise of pointing out how unpredictable American political fortunes have been even two years in the future for most of our history. In eight years, the little fifth grade girl next door will be on the pill and registered to vote. Ah, but these two swamis write that their entrails readings “are deeply rooted in history and strategic realities.” You know, like Brooks’ one-term Presidents proving that populism doesn’t work.

Let’s examine these “realities”:

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Pundit Malpractice, Part I: David Brooks, Making The Public More Ignorant About History Than They Already Are

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

What excuse does David Brooks have for publishing manifestly false Presidential history as part of the usual New York Times anti-Trump propaganda? None that I can see. He styles himself as a thoughtful public intellectual. He majored in history at Columbia. Okay, he is Canadian but he lives here and is presented by the New York Times as an authority.

I have to presume that if he writes a column with flat-out false information about U.S. political history, he is misleading the public intentionally or, just as unethically, he didn’t check his facts. Of course the New York Times editors don’t hold him to being factual, responsible or ethical. They let Charles M. Blow, Michelle Goldberg and their other biased hacks get away with worse most days. But I expect them to lie. I expect Brooks to be wrong, but at least to get his facts right.

Nope.

In the obnoxiously headlined “How Trump Will Fail,” Brooks tells us that “Trump has gone all 19th century on us. He seems to find in this period everything he likes: tariffs, Manifest Destiny, seizing land from weaker nations, mercantilism, railroads, manufacturing and populism.” At least he hasn’t embraced the version of America pushed by the Biden Administration: open borders, government censorship, racial discrimination, political prosecutions, puppet Presidencies and government cover-up journalism. The main thrust of Brooks’ analysis is that “populism” doesn’t work and has never worked in the U.S.. Brooks’ sneer at the American values of individualism, personal responsibility, exploration, confidence, exceptionalism and capitalism is palpable.

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Of Hollywood Hubris, Bait and Switch and Flat Learning Curves: Just What We Need, a Woke “Gone With The Wind” With Space Invaders

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I don’t know, Dana, I really don’t.

I have no idea what’s going on here. On a website called “Gone With The Wind (2025)” we get puffy blather about a stirring, high budget re-make of the politically incorrect classic, still the most successful movie of all time, ready to open at the end of 2025. It stars black Scarlett (Zendaya) and a black Rhett Butler (John Boyega). The site does not permit copying or screen shots. The director is Barry Jenkins, whose output so far has been only stories about social justice, racism, and black protagonists. The site’s description, however, tells us that this is a “Gone With The Wind” remake that will bring “fresh perspectives and contemporary sensibilities (oh-oh!) to this “modern adaptation.”

Although the web page is headlined “Gone With The Wind” (2025) Official Trailer, no trailer to the new film is on it. Several versions of the trailer for the original 1939 version are there to see, however.

Puzzled, I searched for a trailer for “Gone With The Wind” (2025), and got …

…. the trailer for “Gone With The Wind : Invasion!” Is that really a movie? Is it a spoof? Is the website a tease (that is, unethical fake or hoax) that pretends the new film is a remake? And what the hell is this:

Please rank in order of commercial viability: A GWTW starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rhett and Megan Fox as Scarlet, a woke remake, and one with invading aliens. It’s a tough assignment.

I would normally assume that no one in Hollywood is so stupid as to make a woke update of “Gone With The Wind,” but then there were recent re-makes of “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur,” both of which bombed like the siege of Vicksburg. I assume that there are enough stupid people in Hollywood to make a science fiction version, since they got away with “Cowboys and Aliens” (barely) starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in 2011.

Whatever is going on, it’s wrong.