History

Ethics Warm-Up, 1/6/2020: On The Eve Of Destruction Edition!

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

ARRGH! WE’RE DOOMED! DOOMED!

Just kidding.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned Barry McGwire’s hilariously overwrought rendition of P.F. Sloan’s silly lyrics before. Everyone should listen to this song every few months or so to remind them that we were pronounced doomed 55 years ago, yet here we are. The lack of historical perspective and general knowledge about the real world of geopolitics is driving so much of the over-heated laments we are hearing and reading—I think laughing is a better response that rolling one’s eyes, but I’m open to being convinced otherwise. Yes, sometimes leaders and countries have to draw red lines, and it is always best if the world believes them when they do. It never believed Barack Obama.

1. Fake news, headline-style...Yesterday, the New York Times headline, in bold,  “this is really important!!!” point type, told us that Trump’s military advisers were “stunned” at his decision to kill Iran’s head terrorist. Oh, no! His decision was surprise? Tt came out of the blue? They had recommended against it? Well, no. The story under that intentionally misleading headline says that the President was presented with several options, and the pros and cons of all were discussed. They expected him to choose one of the other options, that’s all. “Stunned” carried negative implications that the facts didn’t warrant, so naturally that’s what the Times editors chose. All the better to undermine trust in the President.

2. Not all celebrities are America-hating dolts:

Continue reading →

When Statue-Toppling Is Acceptable…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam has begun the process of removing Virginia’s statue of Robert E. Lee  from the U.S. Capitol, where each state has a statue of two state heroes. Ethics Alarms has been uncompromising in opposing the progressive movement to remove the statues of figures past generations admired and believed worthy of memorials and honors because of their achievements. The phenomenon is the essence of the deplorable “cancel culture,” where any transgression or past conduct viewed as repugnant in the light of “presentism” or political correctness is treated as justification to airbrush their lives out of our culture and history. Slaveholding has been the ultimate trigger for such airbrushing, even when the individuals being erased made crucial contributions to our nation. That criteria endangers our Founders like Washington, Jefferson and Madison, without whom our nation would not exist.

Lee, of course, is the fulcrum of this battle. The Confederate icon  has long been admired for his character, loyalty and courage, as well as his brilliance as a military strategist. As the Confederacy has increasingly been regarded as fighting for slavery by modern historians (though it’s more complicated than that), Lee’s own sin of owning slaves is increasingly see as being compounded by his role in fighting to preserve the process, and committing treason to do it. Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up. 1/3/2020: “Those Who Don’t Understand The Cognitive Dissonance Scale Are Doomed To Behave Like Idiots And Not Know Why”

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

Who said that?

I did.

1. “This is Rose. Won’t you give to help her and people life her who suffer from crippling hatred of the President of the United States? Just a few dollars a month...”

A more vivid example of where anti-Trump hysteria can lead than these two tweets can hardly be found. The author is #MeToo activist Rose McGowan, Harvey Weinstein victim, conventional Hollywood progressive. These were her reactions to the unequivocally welcome news that General Qassim Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds force and the architect of terrorism all over the Middle East, was killed by a U.S. airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport:

When a social media critic correctly pointed out the lunacy of that one, the former “Charmed” actress responded,

Would it be unfair to say that “Please do not kill us” was the message conveyed by President Obama’s craven and dangerous  nuclear deal with Iran, giving the rogue state billions of dollars in exchange for a (worthless) promise not to pursue nuclear arms capability until later, at which time there would be nothing the U.S. could do about it?

I heard these kinds of sniveling, “Better Red than Dead” protests many times in my youth. They come often from people so young,  inexperienced and ignorant that their confusion can be forgiven—a little–but also from older Americans—more frequently women, unfortunately, and make of that what you will—who have somehow reached maturity without learning that everyone, but especially this unique country, has to be ready to defend their values, and just as important, has to be able to communicate clearly that we will defend those values, with terrible force if necessary.

Over the last couple of decades, a large and influential segment of the progressive community has forgotten that. Fortunately, the majority of Americans have not.

2. How it works: The fact that President Trump is at the dead bottom of the cognitive dissonance scale for most Democrats means that anything he does and any result that would normally and objectively be regarded as positive if another President, especially a Democrat and particularly Barack Obama, were responsible drags that event or decision down below the midpoint into negative territory, unless someone recognizes that their opinion is being warped by psychological forces and biases beyond their control, and adjusts appropriately. Apparently none of the Democrats who have shot off their mouths since Soleimani‘s demise have such wisdom and self-control. Thus they are beginning critical comments with statements like this tweet by Rep. Andy Levin, which was typical:

“There is no question that Qasem Soleimani was an enemy of the United States. I feel no sadness at the news of his death. But I have serious concerns about this President’s execution of a potential act of war without authorization of Congress.”

 “He was a terrible, murderous enemy of our nation and we’re fortunate he’s dead BUT” is just not a smart message.

The President gave the order that resulted in the death of the Quds Force leader after multiple attacks against Americans and American facilities in Iraq that could be traced back to Soleimani.  The Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah began the exchange  with a rocket attack on a U.S.-led coalition base on December 27. A U.S. contractor was killed andmany Americans and Iraqis were wounded. The Pentagon concluded that  Soleimani ordered the attack. In response, the U.S. launched airstrikes against the militia, killing 25 militiamen. Members of the militiamen stormed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, an invasion of  American soil. Again, the Pentagon concluded that Soleimani “approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.” After U.S. troops forced the attackers to retreat, the President made it clear that there would be harsh consequences for the episode. There was.

Iran’s leader had tweeted that there was “nothing” the U.S. could do. What kind of American does not take satisfaction in what occurred next? My view: only those in the powerful grip of the Cognitive Dissonance Scale.

Here’s Joe Biden: Continue reading →

Verdict: Worst Candidates Debate Ever, Part IV: Weak, But Strong On Pandering [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

You want “a weak presidential field”? I’ll show you a weak presidential field!

[Part 1 is here; Part II is here; Part III is here, and the November debate review is here.]

David Leonhardt, whom I sometimes think is the worst of the horrible stable of New York Times op-ed writers until Michelle Goldberg launches into another fact-free rant or Charles M. Blow authors the latest escalation in his campaign to convince readers that President Trump is the spawn of Satan, wrote an op-ed last week attacking the parties’ nominating processes and asserting that “We have an unnecessarily weak presidential field, especially the incumbent.” Read the article. There is no logic to it, nor consistency; it is yet another “I wonder how gullible and ignorant my readers are?” experiment. Essentially the piece is anti-democratic, as a majority of progressives seem to have soured on democracy once it “failed” by not electing Hillary Clinton President. (I regard the election of Donald Trump over Clinton as one of the most important and exhilarating expressions of democracy in our history, though it was substantially due to moral luck.) Leonhardt’s argument is also historical nonsense, as he claims that the parties were better at picking qualified and electable candidates in the past. They most certainly were not: overage generals like Winfield Scott*, W.H. Harrison and Zachary Taylor, the latter two who, though elected,  promptly died, thus elevating to the White House VPs that nobody ever wanted or envisioned as Presidents…popular generals with no governing experience whatsoever, like U.S. Grant and John C. Fremont…wildly popular outgoing Presidents’ handpicked successors who would never have been nominated otherwise, like Van Buren, Taft, and Bush? Packaged puppets like Warren G. Harding and William McKinley? Doomed losers like Horace Greeley, James Cox, Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, George McGovern, Mike Dukakis  and (yechh) John Kerry? Already once or twice beaten past candidates like Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey and Adlai Stevenson?  Brilliant!

Leonhardt even offers Abraham Lincoln as an example of the effectiveness of past party nominating systems, ignoring, or, based on his established level of acuity, unaware of the fact that Abe won despite getting only 38% of the vote, or about the same proportion Barry Goldwater and George McGovern received while losing in landslides. That he turned out to be a great President was more moral luck: Lincoln had no executive governing experience at all before being thrust into the most difficult challenge a President had faced since Washington, hadn’t even been a general, and was known mostly for his wit and oratory. With the nation teetering on destruction, the candidates selected by the Democratic and Republican parties in 1860 consisted of Lincoln, John Breckinridge, Buchanan’s inert Vice-President, who had also no executive governing experience, and Stephen Douglas, who also had never run anything and had been a full-time legislator for two decades. In his favor, he had a lot more relevant experience than Lincoln. On the deficit side, he would die in 1861, meaning that if Douglas had been elected the new President would have been the immortal Herschel Vespasian Johnson.

Leonhardt explains why the current field of Democrats is so weak, as if that wasn’t already depressingly obvious, but he never points to a single current non-candidate who would be any more promising, because there aren’t any.  He muses about Democratic governors who might be more promising: Like who, exactly…the ridiculous Andrew Cuomo? How many Democratic governors have distinguished themselves enough to have any national name recognition at all, other than Cuomo and Virginia’s Ralph Northam, of blackface fame?

It’s not the process, obviously, it’s the people. Then Leonhardt ends with “Of course, the biggest sign that the process is broken isn’t any of those seven. It is the man in the Oval Office.” Got it. The op-ed is just more anti-Trump teeth gnashing.

Whatever Donald Trump may be, the fact that he beat a supposed Democratic star overwhelmingly expected to win proves that he was not a weak candidate by definition, and as an incumbent President, he is stronger now. Incumbent Presidents are usually strong candidates because no matter who they are, if the economy is thriving, their foreign policy weaknesses haven’t crippled them, and there’s no prominent third party candidate to siphon votes away, they win, like Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Ike, Truman and FDR (and going back further yet to the beginning of the 20th Century, , Wilson, Teddy, and McKinley).

But I digress. The shocking deficiencies of the current Democratic hopefuls were on full display as the awful awful, awful December debate wound down.

Pete Buttigieg began the worst pander-fest of the evening: Continue reading →

Ethics Observations Upon Watching “Ford v. Ferrari”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

My son is an auto tech and car enthusiast as well as a lover of speed (sufficiently to get him in trouble), so when he told me that I should see “Ford v Ferrari” and that he loved it, it was no surprise. I knew nothing about the film other than its title: no reviews, no background. My son said he would eagerly see it again, and was our guide as my wife and I attended a New Year’s Day afternoon showing (which was packed, incidentally.)

To get the basics out of the way up front, “Ford v Ferrari” is a wonderful movie. It immediately takes its place as one of the great sports movies of all time (with “Rocky,” The Natural,” “Hoosiers,” “The Bad News Bears,” “Sea Biscuit,” and a few others we could argue about), but it is also just a great movie. Christian Bale is astonishing, as usual, and the rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, as is the direction, film editing and screenplay. It is the best film I have see this year, easily leaving such critic’s favorites as “The Irishman” and “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” in the dust.  That, however, is beside the point….

Observations: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Pete Buttigieg

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

“The people who wrote the Constitution did not understand that slavery was a bad thing.”

South  Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg in 2011, disgracing himself and betraying the trust of the a group of students who trusted him to tell them the truth. Instead, he made them ignorant while encouraging disrespect and distrust of the Founders, an especially sinister component of the Democratic effort to undermine the Constitution and to “remake” America.

I reluctantly concluded that Buttigieg was, to be indelicate, an asshole almost exactly a month ago, after he returned the contributions of two lawyers who represented  Justice Kavanaugh when Buttigieg’s party was attempting to destroy him using an unsubstantiated and conveniently recalled alleged episode when he was in high school. With Buttigieg, unlike, say, Joe Biden, I assume he is educated and intelligent, and thus I knew that this was dishonest grandstanding. Mayor Pete knows that lawyers do not personally endorse those they represent, even if much of the public does not. Worse, in justifying his actions, Buttigeig’s campaign declared that Justice Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual assault. I wrote,

Buttigieg rejects fairness, due process, logic and decency to declare a Supreme Court Justice with a history of  impeccable professional and personal conduct guilty of a crime without evidence, and further impugns the lawyers who helped protect him from a vicious political attack, all to suck up to the worst elements of the Democratic base. This is signature significance. Pete Buttigieg is an asshole. Good to know.

It’s also good to know that my assessment in November was accurate, as this re-surfaced episode confirms, and that the mayor didn’t just recently become an asshole as he pursued the Presidency (an occupational hazard) but has been one all along.

Good to know. Continue reading →

(You Know When I Said I Had Posted The Last Christmas Music Post Of 2019? Oops!) Reconsidering “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day”….

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The post last week about “definitive” recordings of Christmas songs sparked some excellent comments. An epic was Jeffrey Valentine’s own list, which I recommend highly. One comment, however, churned around in my brain: it was from periodic commenter Patrice, a singer and musician herself as well as an expert in sacred music, who wrote in part,

A beautiful Christmas song you didn’t include is “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” (which I think was covered by Bing) with its lyrics by Longfellow after the loss of his son in the war.

As I said in my reply to Patrice, I had thought about the song, but didn’t include it on the list for three reasons: 1. It seems to have declined in popularity 2. There weren’t many recordings to choose from, and the two versions I was most familiar (by Bing and Johnny Cash)  with had different melodies. 3. If i was going to pick a “definitive” version, it would be Crosby’s, and I have a pro Crosby bias. This was one of those times when correcting for bias creates a bias.

So the song went around and around in my brain for days, and kept me awake at night. Finally, I researched it. Continue reading →

The 105th Anniversary Of “The Christmas Truce”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

One hundred and five years ago today, one of the weirdest events in world history took place at the very beginning of the five year, pointless and stunningly destructive carnage of The Great War, what President Woodrow Wilson, right as usual, called “The War to End All Wars.”

World War I, as it was later called after the world war it caused succeeded it,  led to the deaths of more than 25 million people, and if anything was accomplished by them, I have yet to read about it.

The much sentimentalized event was a spontaneous Christmas truce, as soldiers on opposing sides on the Western Front, defying orders from superiors, pretended the war didn’t exist and left their trenches, put their weapons and animus aside, sang carols,  shared food, buried their dead, and perhaps, depending on which source you choose to believe, even played soccer against each other.

The brass on both sides—this was a British and German phenomenon only—took steps to ensure that  this would never happen again, and it never did.

It all began on Christmas Eve, when at 8:30 p.m. an officer of the Royal Irish Rifles reported to headquarters that “The Germans have illuminated their trenches, are singing songs and wishing us a Happy Xmas. Compliments are being exchanged but am nevertheless taking all military precautions.” The two sides progressed to serenading each other with Christmas carols, with the German combatants crooning  “Silent Night,” and the British adversaries responding with “The First Noel.“ The war diary of the Scots Guards reported that a private  “met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn’t fire at them, they would not fire at us.”

The same deal was struck spontaneously at other locales across the battlefield. Another British soldier reported that as Christmas Eve wound down into Christmas morning,  “all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: ‘English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!’” He wrote in a letter home that he heard,

‘Come out, English soldier; come out here to us.’ For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other’s throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity—war’s most amazing paradox. The night wore on to dawn—a night made easier by songs from the Germantrenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines, laughter…

Continue reading →

Christmas Eve Ethics Stocking Stuffers, 12/24/2019: All Right, It’s All About Impeachment…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…

1. In the spirit of the season, I did not post this on Facebook with the note, “Good plan, everybody!” But I wanted to…According to Gallup, Trump’s approval is at 45 %. This actually beats Barack Obama’s approval rating of 42%  from Gallup at the exact same point in his presidency.  Obama went on to win reelection the following November, against a much stronger opposition candidate than anyone the Democrats have in the running. True, it helped that his IRS knee-capped conservative groups that might have helped Romney, but still.

Meanwhile, more bad news for the “everything is terrible” gang: Bloomberg reports that holiday shopping last Saturday sales reached $34.4 billion, the biggest single day in U.S. retail history.

2. Meanwhile, Trump Derangement reached a critical stage: Continue reading →

Day Before The Night Before Christmas Ethics Package, 12/23/2019, Now UPDATED With The Meme I Stupidly Didn’t Post Despite Polling On It (Sorry!)

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Merry Christmas!

TWICE yesterday store employees returned my “Merry Christmas!” with  a “Happy Holidays!” that was delivered in a tone that to my ear was intended to convey, “No, THIS is what you should say.” Both times, I was tempted to call them on it, but did not. Maybe I was being hypersensitive, maybe that wasn’t their intent…but of course it was. The next clerk or cashier who does that to me might get a “No, Merry Christmas. Do you have a problem with that?” back.  I’m that close…

1. ARGHH! “Baseball” censorship! Here’s another nauseating example of the capitulation to the word-banners. The MLB TV channel, which, like its satellite radio counterpart, is challenged to come up with programming this time of year. (The radio version held a quiz last week in which we were challenged to identify expressions of despair and horror as either coming from Cleveland Indians fan tweets about the trading of ace pitcher Corey Kluber, or from reviews of “Cats.”) Yesterday the channel was showing Ken Burns’ terrific documentary “Baseball.” In the segment on Ty Cobb, we were told about in infamous incident in which Cobb jumped into the stands to beat up an abusive fan, who, it turned out, had no hands. When the crowd shouted this fact at the infuriated player, he reportedly replied that he’d throttle anyone who called him “that” even if he had no legs. What was “that”? Why, it was that Cobb was a “half-BEEEEEEEEP!” Yes, a loud, high-pitched beep was injected into the narration instead of the word itself, which was in Burns’ original work (I own a copy.) Morons. If the word is  discernible from the context, then the beep equals the word, so just use the word. If it isn’t clearly indicated—and while I was pretty sure, knowing the story, but uncertain enough that I had to check—then it is incompetent to leave viewers wondering. Half-crazy? Half-wit? Half-lizard? Half-breed? No, Cobb was called “half nigger,” and the exact word is essential to understand the incident but also a key component of Cobb’s character. Did Burns approve the marring of his soundtrack? I doubt it.

This has got to stop.

2. Great: colleges are now free to bribe students to renege on their promises. In a proposed agreement announced this month in response to Justice Department antitrust accusations, the National Association for College Admission Counseling said it would allow its member college and university counselors to recruit students even after they have committed to another school and would permit members to encourage students to transfer after they have already enrolled. From the Times:

Now, colleges will be free to offer perks, like special scholarships or priority in course selection, to early-decision applicants, students who are less likely to need tuition assistance and use the process to secure a spot at their first-choice schools. …Institutions will also be able to continue recruiting students beyond a widely applied May 1 deadline that is typically imposed for students who have applied through a regular decision process and are considering offers based, at least in part, on financial aid packages.

The promises to commit to a school that gave you an early admission were never legally binding, just ethically binding. And they still are. Any college whose applicant reneges on such an agreement after being seduced by another college should send a letter telling him or her, “Thank you for voluntarily withdrawing your acceptance. Our school wants only students of good character, who are trustworthy, honest, and value integrity. Now that we know that you do not honor commitments, we realize that we erred in accepting you. We’re sure you will fit right in at the school you chose, however, and wish you the best in your years there.” Continue reading →