Law & Law Enforcement

Sunday Evening Ethics, 5/31/2020: Riot Disinformation And Ethics Lunacy

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Hot enough for ya?

1. Let’s see exactly how much disinformation the pubic will follow and tolerate.

  • Yesterday I and everyone else heard Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz claim that most of the rioters were from out of state,  claiming that “the best estimates” were that “outsiders” comprised about 80% of the people arrested. It was nonsense. The arrest statistics showed the opposite was true. As of 11am CST on Saturday, a sample of data from the Hennepin County Jail’s showed that 86% of those arrested provided a Minnesota address to police. Later in the day, St. Paul released arrest information showing that two-thirds of people arrested since Thursday gave police in-state addresses.
  • CNN reporter Reza Aslan actually tweeted that Trump supporters were doing the rioting. Accountability for this ridiculous, straight up lie? None.
  • Cherry-picking isolated episodes from riot scenes around the country, Slate wrote that “Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide,” and that “law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest.”

2.  Let’s see exactly how much disinformation the pubic will follow and tolerate, (cont.) A typical effort: on Thursday, a New York Times front page story announced “Fury in Minneapolis Over The Latest in a Long Line of Police Killings.” What was that “long line”? It was nowhere to be found, at least not in the article. We are told that the Minneapolis police have received “many excessive force complaints, especially by black residents.” Complaints do not equal misconduct. We are told that “Mr. Floyd’s death — and the recent shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia — has also prompted comparisons to previous killings involving the police and black people, including those of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.” Continue reading →

Saturday Morning Ethics, 5/30/2020: Burn, Baby, Burn Nostalgia

/ Jack Marshall / 67 Comments

1. Bulletin for Gov. Walz: Derek Chauvin has civil rights too, you irresponsible fool. I have just watched Minnesota’s Governor repeatedly refer to George Floyd’s “murder.” An elected public official cannot and must not do that. If he wants to guarantee that a fair trial in the case becomes impossible, this is the way to do it. There has been no trial, and however horrible the video of Floyd’s  death may be, Chauvin and the other officers have the right to the presumption of innocence. Now a St. Paul’s mayor is at the podium calling for Chauvin to be held “accountable.” Well, he’s under arrest and will face trial, and for now, that’s about it.  All of this outrage porn and virtue-signaling now enables the rioters by pretending that there is anything productive to be done but to wait for the justice system to play out. Continue reading →

Unethical…And Stupid…Quote Of The Month: Minneapolis Restaurant Owner Ruhel Islam

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

“Let my building burn, Justice needs to be served, put those officers in jail.”

—-Ruhel Islam, owner of the restaurant Gandhi Mahal, in Minneapolis, quoted by his daughter in the Facebook post above.

Is it my imagination, or has the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis generated even more idiotic quotes and responses than these events usually do?

The quote from Ruehl Islam sets some kind of a record: dumbest quote ever to be praised by someone who isn’t a closed-head injury victim, perhaps? The now completely ideologically-deranged New York Magazine, wrote of it,

Published on the restaurant’s Facebook page and since widely shared, Hafsa’s post asks people not to worry, and ends the update with a message of support for their neighbors. Hundreds have responded with messages of support and pride, with one person writing “thank you for living your public life with such integrity and continual love for your community.” Many others have shared similar comments about Ruhel, an immigrant from Bahar Mordan, Bangladesh….Ruhel’s words have been shared across social media by everyone from San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho, a former Minneapolis resident, to television host and chef Andrew Zimmern and activist DeRay Mckesson, as a powerful expression of the value of human life over property.

Well, maybe if your goal is to engage in cynical grandstanding and signal warped virtues to a community gone nuts, such a quote isn’t so dumb. Surely regarding it as “a powerful expression of the value of human life over property” is, however. How, exactly, does shrugging off the illegal destruction of private property in a mass tantrum benefit human life? Let’s see: according to a local listing, these are the businesses damaged by the riots, or as CNN calls them, “mostly peaceful protests”: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: John Harrington, Commissioner Of The Minnesota Department of Public Safety, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, And Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, announced today that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been arrested,  four days after the release of a video in which Chauvin was seen kneeling on the neck of African-American George Floyd, as he pleaded with officers to release him. saying he couldn’t breathe. Floyd was apparently correct, as he later died.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman told reporters that Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder. “This is by far the fastest we’ve ever charged a police officer,” Freeman said.

I’m sure the applause was thunderous. Because it took four days for these officials to act on what the video made screamingly obvious from the beginning, millions of dollars of property in the city have been destroyed by rioting. “I am not insensitive to what’s happened in the streets.” Freeman said, “[but] my job is to do it only when we have sufficient evidence.”

He had sufficient evidence to arrest and charge Chauvin the second the video was available. One day to make sure there were no hidden surprises, okay, maybe. Four? Outrageous.

Meanwhile, in this paragon metropolis of progressive values and logic, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey’s government said that it is giving out masks to rioters. Previously, Frey had warned that allowing 25% capacity in churches would be “a recipe in Minneapolis for a public health disaster” due to the pandemic. Minnesota has prohibited gatherings of ten or more people…except when they are looting, burning and rioting, apparently.

Is this a great state, or what?

 

What Is “Justice For George Floyd”?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

There is no justice for George Floyd. The cries for such a result raise a straw man. Floyd is dead, and shouldn’t be dead. There is no remedy for that, and our system promises none. In the criminal justice system, the role of what would be the plaintiff in a civil proceeding is taken by the State, or “the People.” Justice is sought by society, to validate the system of the rule of law, and to ensure the safety and integrity of society and civilization.

Whether or not the officers responsible for George Floyd’s death—and absent the revelation of some  miraculous intervening cause that nobody suspected, like Floyd being bitten by an escaped  Black Mamba while the police officer was kneeling on his neck, there is no reasonable argument that the officers were not responsible for his death—are convicted and punished to anyone’s satisfaction is not the measure of “justice” in this case. The measure of justice is whether due process is followed, whether the officers are fairly tried and competently defended, whether their prosecution obeys the rules of evidence and follows the law in all other respects, whether a competent and fairly vetted jury evaluates the evidence presented and delivers a verdict consistent with that evidence, following a trial overseen by an impartial judge, who then declares a fair punishment in light of the verdict. That is all our system can achieve. Whether all citizens, or any citizens at all, like or approve of the final outcome is irrelevant, and has nothing whatsoever to do with “justice for George Floyd.” The system seeks justice in a broader sense. Continue reading →

In-Between Ethics Warm-Up, Late 5/28/ Or Early 5/29/2020…

/ Jack Marshall / 91 Comments

Good whatever-it-is…

One problem with having to take a nap every couple of hours is that all sleep patterns inevitably get wrecked, and that’s where I am now, awake and staring in the early morning or late night…what fun.

1. I see that we have riots in Minneapolis. The Third Precinct police station was set on fire; earlier, rioters burned down a six-story, 190-unit affordable housing project  slated to open in the spring of 2021. That development cost approximately $37 million. Never mind: MSNBC’s reliably ridiculous Ali Velshi told his viewers, literally as flames raged behind him, that “this is mostly a protest. It is not generally speaking unruly.” I would say this is unbelievable, but it only slightly moves the needle in the manner the current left-mainstream media regards reality as a flexible concept.

Meanwhile, there is absolutely no rational nor ethical justification for riots, ever, as a response to a single instance of police brutality, or in response to anything else. Nevertheless, we will get rationalizations and excuses from the usual suspects, as well as pious humming that it’s “understandable” for people to act this way. Not if rioters are to be regarded as adults, it’s not. They are harming innocent fellow citizens and business owners, and making matter worse, not better. The enablers and the apologists for such conduct should be duly marked, identified, and condemned, and no, the four rogue police officers who appear to have killed George Floyd did not “cause” the riots. The rioters caused the riots; it’s a choice, and an inexcusable one. The protests elsewhere demanding premature charges and the abandonment of due process regarding the officers are similarly indefensible.

This isn’t even a close call, and it is frightening that so few  are willing to articulate it without equivocation. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Rep. Maxine Waters

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“My first thought was not again, not one more killing. And I’m reflecting on all of the killings of young black men in particular, but of course, black women too, at the hands of the police and at the hands of, you know, these white supremacists….I think that the officer who had his knee on his neck enjoyed doing what he was doing. I believe sometime some of these officers leave home thinking, ‘I’m going to get me one today.’ And I think this is his one that he got today…And I’m thinking about the way that the president conducts himself. In a way, he’s dog-whistling, and I think that they’re feeling that they can get away with this kind of treatment. And I’m just so sorry about the loss of another life.”

—-Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal), in full race-baiting, hate-mongering, Big Lie peddling, mind-reading mode as she sought  to draw damning generalities from the death of African-American George Floyd

I wonder: Has there been a more destructive, vicious, irresponsible and divisive political figure on the American scene over the last 50 years than Maxine Waters?  George Wallace was pretty much through by 1970. Who else? Has there been any such figure, whose rhetoric was even close to this reprehensible, that the news media and Democratic Party were so reluctant to call out for what he or she was? Continue reading →

Mail-in Voting Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Ann Althouse flagged this tweet by “Dilbert” cartoonist/Trump-whisperer Scott Adams, and as is her wont sometimes (unfortunately), uses it to get tangled up in the logical conundrums she finds amusing. I’m not sufficiently amused: Adams is wrong, but he did put his finger on one of the problems with mail voting that advocates for the process refuse to acknowledge.

There is only one way to complete a vote: the voter does something that directly registers his or her choice without any intervening agency or process. No voting procedure that permits voting with intervening agency or process is sufficiently secure and reliable. Those who advocate such systems are to be viewed with suspicion and presumptions of either bad intent or faulty reasoning.

Both Adams and Althouse seem to be laboring under the misconception that someone who accepts the responsibility of mailing someone’s vote has a choice. Such an individual is, under the law, a gratuitous bailee, meaning that they have accepted an obligation without compensation. That means that if they fail the obligation, the one whose task they defaulted on usually has no legal recourse, but it doesn’t change the ethical situation at all. The gratuitous bailee promised to do something for someone, that individual relied on their promise, and the “friend” engaged in betrayal. Continue reading →

From The #BelieveAllWomen Files: Professor Parisi’s Nightmare

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

University of Minnesota law professor Francesco Parisi has won a defamation judgment of nearly $1.2 million against former girlfriend Morgan Wright over her false accusation of rape that appears to have been in retaliation for a romance gone sour.

His apparently unbalanced accuser was Morgan Wright, a woman who  told people that she a degree from the Juilliard School of Music and a Master of Art degree in educational psychology when she had neither, according to the judge’s decision. She also signed emails “Dr. Wright,” though she was not a doctor. The old rule “Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are” comes to mind.

In addition to  rape, Wright also accused Parisi of sexual crimes against others and of attempting  to run her down with his black Jeep on three occasions, the last after he had sold the car.

“The preponderance of the evidence clearly shows that Wright created a destructive fiction,” Judge Daniel Moreno wrote. “Wright publicized allegations without regard for their truth or effect: that Parisi raped her, that he had sex with underage girls after giving them alcohol, that his daughter accused him of raping her, and that he was HIV positive. She spread these defamatory statements to Parisi’s employer (the University of Minnesota), to the Minnesota Department of Health, and most importantly to the police.”

Oddly, if Parisi had been running for President against Donald Trump instead of being just a law professor, these accusations might not have hampered his career advancement  at all! Continue reading →

Susan Rice Again, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Continuing with the observations regarding this remarkable document…

4. I was once involved in an anti-trust lawsuit triggered when all of the competitors of the company I was working for gathered together and conspired on ways to sink my employer’s business. Before the minutes of the meeting, the group’s lawyers prepared a statement that that the group absolutely intended to obey all anti-trust laws, and the meeting would embody the ideals represented in those laws. Then they went ahead and, based on a recording of the meeting, planned ways to conspire against our business in direct violation of the laws they claimed to hold in such high esteem.

It was really comical; these idiots though that by having everyone sign a statement that they weren’t doing what they obviously were doing, this would provide some plausible deniability.

5. We now know that Rice’s bizarre memo was written upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office. Rice says she waited 15 days because it was her first opportunity to do so, since she had been so darned busy. It would be a more likely srory if Rice had any credibility at all, which she does not.

6. Let’s let Andrew McCarthy try to explain what’s going on here. The anti-Trump news sources will never give him a forum, so he’s related to Fox News, but McCarthy was spot-on in predicting the course of the Mueller investigation, as is as knowledgeable on the machinations of the Deep State as anyone. He explained in part,

How amusing to find President Obama’s national-security advisor, Susan Rice, suddenly calling for public release of the Flynn–Kislyak conversation intercepted by the Obama administration in late December 2016. I called for its release nearly three-and-a-half years ago. Dr. Rice, in a familiar pattern for her, has spent the ensuing years saying things that were obviously untrue only to reverse herself once the paper trail starts to dribble out.

….Rice has gone from claiming to have had no knowledge of Obama administration monitoring of Flynn and other Trump associates, to claiming no knowledge of any unmaskings of Trump associates, to admitting she was complicit in the unmaskings, to — now — a call for the recorded conversation between retired general Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak to be released because it would purportedly show that the Obama administration had good reason to be concerned about Flynn (y’know, the guy she said she had no idea they were investigating).

Naturally, we have now learned that Rice was deeply involved in the Obama administration’s Trump–Russia investigation, including its sub-investigation of Flynn, a top Trump campaign surrogate who was slated to replace Rice as national-security advisor when President Trump took office.

Regarding the memo, McCarthy writes, Continue reading →