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The Snake Island Episode Is A Perfect Opportunity To Explain Moral Luck To Your Family And Friends

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The legend was quick to take hold. The account was that as the Russian military pounded targets across Ukraine with bombs and missiles, a small team of Ukrainian border guards on rocky, desolate Zmiinyi Island, “Snake Island” to its friends, received a warning that the Alamo defenders would have recognized: Surrender or die. “I am a Russian warship,” the invaders said, according to a recording. “Lay down your arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed.”

Travis answered the equivalent message with a cannon shot. The defenders of Snake Island’s answer was more reminiscent of the famous reply of the 101st Airborne Division’s acting commander Anthony McAuliffe during the Battle of the Bulge. Defending Bastogne, McAuliffe gave a one-word reply to a German surrender ultimatum: “Nuts!” The Ukrainians’ version: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.”

[Quick digression here: As I have mentioned before on EA, my WWII vet father, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and got a Silver Star for his efforts, insisted that nobody in the Infantry believed for a second that “Nuts” was the actual reply. He said the consensus of those who knew McAuliffe as well as the way soldiers talked in the field were certain that he had really answered exactly like the Ukrainians. Meanwhile, how absurd is it for today’s media to celebrate the courage and defiance of the Snake Island defenders’ response, yet feel compelled to censor it by printing “f—“? ]

Digression over. The story reported in the news media was that the Russians opened fire, killing all 13 border guards. They became instant martyrs and their fate became inspiration for the brave Ukrainian refusal to accept Russian domination. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later announced the deaths and said that the island’s defenders will be bestowed with the title “Hero of Ukraine,” the highest honor the Ukrainian leader can award.

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At Columbia, Free Speech Chilling Takes A Great Leap Forward

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

The assault on free expression as well as the speech-chilling practice of seeking to publicly crush those who do not observe the social justice dictates of progressives in power advanced ominously yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the episode at issue occurred at an Ivy League University, as our educational sectors have been among the trailblazers in speech and idea suppression. Unsurprising to me at least was that it involved Twitter. Just like in the Illya Shapiro controversy at Georgetown Law Center, a scholar didn’t use quite the words he should have (to be safe, and safety is everything these days) according to the Democrats’ Little Red Book. This time, however, the hammer fell harder. Continue reading →

“Democracy Dies In Dickness”*: The Washington Post’s Racism

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

This article in the Washington Post yesterday, authored by two “reports of color,” Cleve R. Wootson Jr., a White House reporter for the Post, and Marianna Sotomayor (no relation to that other Sotomayor) who now covers the House of Representatives for the Post after coming over from NBC, gained quite a bit of notice from the conservative news media (and none at all from the much larger other side, for this passage when it was first published:

 
 
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Nice! The two post reporters managed to insult Thomas by reducing his legal opinions to knee-jerk bias, and to attack conservatives based on their race. The obvious rejoinder to this slur would be whether the Post would tolerate an article that criticized, say, Justice Kagan as issuing opinions that are in lockstep with the advocacy of “black progressives.” What does race have to do with either observation, the actual one or the hypothetical reverse negative?

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Will The Audacious “It Isn’t What it is” Propaganda Assault By The American Left Succeed?, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Taking off from Part 1 (which took off from this), let’s review some (only some) of the anti-democratic conduct of the Democrats, their Congress and their President.

  • We saw President Biden withdraw troops from Afghanistan without consultation with Congress and in opposition to the military, abandoning thousand of U.S. citizens in the process.

  • We have seen the individual liberty-defying mask and vaccine mandates in Democratic states and cities.
  • We have witnesses attempts at the state and national level to discriminate against one racial group in such benefits as Small Business assistance and pandemic remedies.
  • We have watched the Senate Majority leader directly threaten the Supreme Court if it fails to support Democratic Party policies and positions.
  • We have seen the escalating air-brushing of history, to eliminate references to individuals and ideas that the party in power opposes.
  • We have seen Democrats and their allied professions and institution attempt to discriminate against religious groups, using the pandemic to ban their activities while favoring gatherings of similar size when they supported leftist activism.
  • We have seen concerted efforts to disarm law-abiding citizens, including removing the right to bear arms from those judged mentally or emotionally ill, both historical tactics of totalitarian governments.
  • We have seen the effort to corrupt the criminal justice system and the Rule of Law by demonizing and presuming the guilt of police officers, conservative protesters and others (like Kyle Rittenhouse) based on  skin color and political preferences.
  • We have seen an endorsement of mob rule, with “defund the police” being advocated across the country, radical progressive prosecutors refusing to prosecute crimes “of need,” and police being turned into targets by more than six years of demonizing by the Left.
  • We have seen an unprecedented attack on the Constitution and various amendments, with the goal of undoing protections wisely placed in the documents by the Founders. Among the targets: the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, the amendment process (so the dead-letter Equal Rights. Amendment can pass after the deadline for adoption has passed), the Electoral College, the composition of the Senate, and more.
  • We witnessed the Democratic party embracing a Marxist, anti-American, anti-White, violent and corrupt organization, Black Lives Matter.
  • We are watching that same party continue to support a program of anti-American, pro-Left indoctrination in the public schools.
  • We are seeing the deliberate promotion of class divisions and hostility, while the Democratic Party pursues radical ideological goals such as the devaluing of citizenship, the elimination of meritocracy and the pursuit of excellence,  and
  • Perhaps most glaring of all, we witnessed, for the first time in our history, not just one but two contrived impeachments based not on the kinds of “high crimes” prescribed by the Constitution, but on the simple fact that one party had a House majority  that it abused to attempt to remove an elected President it despised, plus
  • …so, so much more that represents a gross weakening of democracy and its values by the conduct and rhetoric of Democrats. The four year effort to cripple Donald Trump’s Presidency by withholding the basic, crucial, core aura of respect and deference to the office that every other President was bequeathed by his predecessors is, in my view, the worst of these, which is why Ethics Alarms has laboriously tracked it with the tag “2016 Ethics Post-Election Train Wreck.”

This has all occurred in plain sight, so for Democrats and progressives to pick this moment in history to declare Republicans as an existential threat to democracy is Jumbo-level audacity. Is this gaslighting the result of desperation, idiocy, delusion, or “It’s so crazy, it just might work”? Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quote Of The Week: American Thinker…(With A Flashback And Regrets)”

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day inspired by the discussion of “Black Lives Matter” (and Black Lives Matter without quotes, which thrives on the confusion) requires no introduction. Here it is, a comment on “Ethics Quote Of The Week: American Thinker…(With A Flashback And Regrets)”:

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“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet!”

“Deus vult!”

“Workers of the World, Unite!”

“The World Must Be Made Safe for Democracy!”

“Peace, Bread and Land!”

“Asia for the Asians!”

“Make Love, not War!”

“Give Peace a Chance!”

“Black Lives Matter!”

On their faces, all these slogans sound benign and inspirational. Maybe even the intent behind them was good, or at least the true believers thought so. Muhammad was looking to move the Arab world, forward, not back, when he introduced his own brand of monotheism, and I don’t doubt he thought he was creating a framework for a good and honest life when he wrote it all down and proclaimed this the complete record, with nothing more to come. However, there is no doubt he was also using it to cement his own power, and the evil that was later done in his name and that of his early slogan is history.

When Pope Urban shouted “Deus vult!” (God wills it!) on that hill outside Clermont, there is no doubt he thought that he was doing the right thing by rallying the attending nobles and knights to form and army and take back the Holy Land from the Muslims, who had stolen it away from the Byzantines and were not respecting the rights of Christians there. History also tells us what happened after that, and none of it is humanity at its best.

When Karl Marx wrote “Workers of the World, unite!” he probably meant it, but it was clear he hadn’t really thought it through. He himself was no working-class hero, just an expatriated writer and philosopher who avoided bankruptcy more than once because his well-to-do fellow traveler Friedrich Engels bailed him out. In 1848 he published the Communist Manifesto, fuel to the fire of the already smoldering problems that became the Revolutions of 1848, which you can look up. We all know what came later as a result of his crazy and unrealistic ideas.

“The World must be Made Safe for Democracy!” So shouted Woodrow Wilson to Congress as he led this country into a war that he had campaigned months before to keep it out of. I don’t doubt he really meant to do this world some good as a missionary for his rigid, hypocritical morality. I also don’t doubt that America’s contribution to WWI was a net positive for many people in Europe who would have suffered longer or more without it. However, it was also the first of a series of dominoes that led this world into a lot bigger problems later on, and arguably made the world less self for democracy in the long run.

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On “Misgendering”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Author Alex McElroy wrote an essay extolling grudges, which whatever he or she is endorses. By way of defining terms, the author writes,

Resentments are best suited for major mistreatment: the best friend who ran away with your wife, the parents who pressured you into a career you told them you hated, the ex who emptied your checking account. Grudges, however, work best in response to small and singular harms and annoyances: the neighbor who parked in front of your driveway, the cashier who charged you for a drink you never ordered. Did someone truly, existentially wrong you? Don’t waste your time growing a grudge — save it for something pettier.

Yes, in tone and intent, the essay is probably tongue-in-cheek to some extent. But the author has a grudge to declare that is unfunny and telling:

Two years ago I came out as nonbinary and started using they/them pronouns. I was initially a font of forgiveness for everyone who misgendered me: the roommate who remarked on my “masculine energy,” the cis friend who questioned whether I really was trans.

But when a year passed and it kept happening, I started to think of the immense effort it took for me to come out, and of how the misgenderers seemed to be acting as if it hadn’t even happened. I didn’t want to cut people out of my life for one-off comments; most often they were honest mistakes, born of ignorance or confusion. Glib jokes weren’t worth my bitterness. That’s how I discovered my capacity for holding grudges. By expecting people to treat me how I want to be treated, and remembering when they do not — a simple little grudge, nothing as serious as a resentment — I reaffirm my identity and protect my self-worth from those who misgender me.

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Hump Day Ethics Jumps, Bumps And Lumps, 2/2/2022

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Nothing like dancing camels to end a perfect day. If only this had been a perfect day…

Meanwhile, I’m so proud! Having told my undergraduate institution that it had so embarrassed me that I would not be attending my BIG reunion this Fall, which I once was looking forward to greatly, it was thrilling to see my law school alma mater, which I also worked for over the next four years after graduation (It liked me! It really liked me!), receive a major honor. Yes, The FIRE named Georgetown University Law Center one of the 10 Worst on its yearly list of educational institutions that do not adequately respect and bolster freedom of speech.

Congratulations, GULC! You’ve worked hard for this the last few years, and the honor is richly deserved.

1. Quit, Whoopi, but let me write your resignation letter. It is being reported that Whoopi Goldberg is furious that she was suspended by ABC for her dumb, ill-considered, offensive but provocative comments about the Holocaust on the dumb, ill-considered, offensive but provocative show “The View.” Her worst statement? I vote for “Well, this is white people doing it to white people. So, this is y’all go fight amongst yourselves.” That was part of her explanation of why the “Final Solution,” in which Hitler’s crazies decided to see the purification of the white race by exterminating “lesser races” like the Semites—just guess what would have happened to the Whoop’s people when Germany took over the U.S. by getting the A-Bomb first!—wasn’t about race. She feels, we are told,“humiliated” at being disciplined  after she followed their advice to apologize. No, no, that’s not what Whoopi should quit over. Charles C.W. Cooke explains it well in “Whoopi Goldberg’s Suspension from The View Is Illiberal and Irrational” at the National Review. Meanwhile, many are asking the unanswerable question, how come Disney, who owns ABC, fired actress Gina Carano when she said on social media—not on TV, not under Disney’s banner, that the repressive political speech climate reminded her of Nazi Germany. The “Mandalorian” star was also dropped by talent agency UTA and Lucasfilms, leading some writers to compare her treatment to the Fifties blacklist. Whoopi got a relatively minor two-week suspension. Double standard there, obviously: Whoopi is a black progressive, Carano is a white conservative. Neither should be punished for an opinion unrelated to their competence at their job. If Whoopi quits, she could do some good by making it clear that it’s in defense of free speech and people being unafraid to speak freely. Continue reading →

Ethical Quote Of The Week: Faculty Letter To GULC Dean Treanor In Support Of Illya Shapiro [CORRECTED]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

So far, 106 professors from all points on the ideological spectrum have signed a letter to Georgetown Law Center’s Dean Treanor, telling him what should not have to be explained to a Top 20 law school dean: that “academic freedom protects [Illya] Shapiro’s views, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. And debate about the President’s nomination, and about whether race and sex play a proper role in such nominations more generally, would be impoverished—at Georgetown and elsewhere—if this view could not be safely expressed in universities.”

Shapiro, as discussed here, has been suspended (“put on leave pending an investigation”) by Treanor, and if past behavior by Georgetown Law Center is any indication, he is likely to be fired, forced to resign, or to have to humiliate himself by submitting to “sensitivity training” after a public confession of WrongThink.

Here is the letter, which appears to have been coordinated by the Foundation For Individual Rights in Education. Those seeking to add their names to the signatories can email facultyoutreach@thefire.org.

Disgracefully, no member of the GULC faculty has signed the letter to support their colleague—and the principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom at their own institution—as of this writing. Continue reading →

It Reveals The Dire State Of U.S. Higher Education Culture That Dean William M. Treanor Of Georgetown University Law Center Isn’t The Most Unethical Law School Administrator Of The Past Year (It’s Close, Though…)

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

That distinction still has to go to Yale Law School Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Yaseen Eldik and Associate Dean of Student Affairs Ellen Cosgrove, who persecuted, and and threatened a student in this infamous episode last Fall. Their victim is a student, which gives them an edge over Dean Treanor whose target is Ilya Shapiro, GULC’s newly hired director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and vice-president of the Cato Institute.

Just two days ago, I described Shapiro’s foray into the debate over President Biden’s looming Supreme Court nomination, which will have to be a black woman because race and gender are more important to the Far Left than qualifications, ability and experience in the branch of the government that protects the Constitution, but mostly because Joe promised he would while in Full Pander Mode as he fought for his party’s nomination to oppose President Trump in 2020. Shapiro issued a series of tweets that were crystal clear to anyone reading them rationally and honestly, making his case that Biden should be nominating Justice Breyer’s replacement on the basis of qualifications, ability and experience. A careless choice of words, however—this was Twitter, after all—gave race-baiters and progressive censors an opportunity to pounce, and they did.

Shapiro was accused of being a racist (of course); the law schools black student association demanded he be fired (also of course); and GULC’s ostentatiously woke Dean capitulated to the anti-free speech and anti-academic freedom mob, announcing yesterday to me and other “alumni/ae”, as the marvelous Dean I worked for, the late David McCarthy always called them…

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How The News Media Deliberately Escalates Racial Discord…A Smoking Gun [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

This morning, Headline News devoted almost ten minutes to this earth-shattering event: in a basketball game a week ago between Laguna Hills High School and Portola High School, a single student in the stands shouted racial insults at Makai Brown, a black player for Portola, as he was shooting free throws. The HLN hostess announced the video of the section where the asshole student could be heard with a warning that I would expect for a decapitation video, or a geek eating live kittens.

“It is very disturbing,” she said. Yes, this spectator shouted “Who let him out of his cage? He’s a monkey!” and “Where is his slave owner? Chain him up! Who let him off the chains?” The student should have been forcibly shut up, or ejected. Would “High School Faculty Neglects To Eject Misbehaving Student from Gymnasium” normally rate national headlines?

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