Law & Law Enforcement

Update: Georgetown Law Center’s Unethical Punishment Of The Professor Who Criticized Selecting SCOTUS Judges According To Race And Gender

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The update is simple: nothing has changed.

Ethics Alarms first noted the Illya Shapiro debacle here, on January 29 of this year. The incoming newly-appointed executive director for the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies posted a (admittedly badly worded) tweet critical of President Biden’s stated criteria for choosing the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Breyer, and the Law Center’s wonderfully woke (and unethical) Dean despicably called his tweet racist and suspended him pending the obligatory “investigation.” Here I wrote about a letter of protest to the Dean from various Law Center Alumni (including me). Here Ethics Alarms noted the letter of protest signed by professors from schools all over the country (but none from the Law Center) pointing out that “the substance of the which is that Sri Srinivasan is the most qualified progressive nominee, and that it’s wrong for the President to pass him over because of race and sex, is a position that is most certainly protected by academic freedom principles of “[f]ree inquiry and unconstrained publication of the results of inquiry.”

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Ethics Dunce Flashback, Abortion Division: Pete Buttigieg

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

This is the second time I’ve used that photo in a post this week. It’s a third-trimester fetus, and it’s up because it is important to remember what we’re talking about, or, in this case, what current Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was talking about in his usual intellectually lazy, ethically-inert manner in a 2019 exchange with Chris Wallace.

Most of my Facebook friends block me from seeing their political blatherings because I have a tendency to call them on badly-reasoned pandering to the woke, and they can’t handle it. They just want “likes” on their regurgitated talking points and usually aren’t equipped to defend them. I was just scrolling down to see if anyone had left a substantive post on my feed, and to my horror, an old friend whom I regard as generally sharp and perceptive had tracked down the interview (from a Fox News town hall) and pronounced it “the only acceptable answer” regarding late term abortions. Here is what he called “acceptable”:

Whereupon my head exploded.

As he has proven repeatedly, Buttigieg is a facile, intellectually lazy, platitude-mouthing pandering phony, and this is vintage Pete. In matters of law and lives, the government draws the line: that’s called “civilization.” The “fundamental question” in late term abortion is how society balances the competing interests of two parties. “I trust women to draw the line when it’s their own health” is a deceitful and offensive statement, ducking the issue and muddying vital considerations. No one, and no law, denies a woman the right to place her own survival over that of her unborn child. The question of balancing interests only comes into play when the mother’s “health” involves lesser factors that might reasonably be considered subordinate to another human life. “I trust women” is just flag-waving: I don’t trust anyone to make a decision involving their personal interests and the competing interests of someone else. Such decision-makers have a conflict of interest; that why we have laws.

Tellingly, Buttigieg tries to escape dealing with substance by dismissing late-term abortions as “hypotheticals.” They aren’t hypothetical, they are real, and they are important because ending a pregnancy when the fetus is viable compels consideration of what abortions involve Extreme pro-abortion activists really hate that. It is hard to pretend the baby isn’t there in late-term abortions, and pretending there is no life being ended is crucial to the “choice” deception. Continue reading →

I Don’t Understand: Why Is This News, Newsworthy, Or Even Twitter-Worthy?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Huh? Why wouldn’t they remain not just “mostly silent,” but entirely and forever silent? What does abortion have to do with gaming? What possible justification would there be for the video game industry to take a position on the legal and Constitutional issues relating to Roe? What can they add to a productive discussion besides noise and ignorance? Why should the U.S. Supreme Court pay any attention at all to uninformed opinions by those who are brick-ignorant about the law?

This isn’t just an example of “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” This is “If all you care about is a nail, everything looks like a hammer.”

Oh…and it’s not “repeal” you ignoramuses. Laws are repealed. Roe v Wade isn’t a law. SCOTUS rulings are overturned.

Comment Of The Day (2): “Today’s Dobbs Leak Freakout Developments And Observations”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This Comment of the Day, by Chris Marschner, is on a different topic entirely, the much discussed assertion by Justice Alito in his draft opinion that abortion cannot legitimately be called a Constitutional right because unlike the other rights, it was generally disapproved in American society and condemned or regarded as shameful over centuries of Western culture.

Chris’ comment was posted in rebuttal of another by esteemed commenter zoebrain, who wrote,

Women Health. Summer 1979;4(2):159-67.
Abortion in early America : Z Acevedo

“This piece describes abortion practices in use from the 1600s to the 19th century among the inhabitants of North America. The abortive techniques of women from different ethnic and racial groups as found in historical literature are revealed. Thus, the point is made that abortion is not simply a “now issue” that effects select women. Instead, it is demonstrated that it is a widespread practice as solidly rooted in our past as it is in the present.”

” Abortion was frequently practiced in North America during the period from 1600 to 1900. Many tribal societies knew how to induce abortions. They used a variety of methods including the use of black root and cedar root as abortifacient agents. During the colonial period, the legality of abortion varied from colony to colony and reflected the attitude of the European country which controlled the specific colony. In the British colonies abortions were legal if they were performed prior to quickening. In the French colonies abortions were frequently performed despite the fact that they were considered to be illegal. In the Spanish and Portuguese colonies abortion was illegal. From 1776 until the mid-1800s abortion was viewed as socially unacceptable; however, abortions were not illegal in most states. During the 1860s a number of states passed anti-abortion laws. Most of these laws were ambiguous and difficult to enforce. After 1860 stronger anti-abortion laws were passed and these laws were more vigorously enforced. ”

Alito is factually incorrect in his statements.

This is as good a place as any to remind readers that comments chosen as a Comment of the Day does not necessarily represent my position or that of Ethics Alarms.

Here is Chris Maschner’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Today’s Dobbs Leak Freakout Developments And Observations”…

***

Zoe: Your citation was published in 1979, six years after Roe was decided. There would be no reason to publish this unless the practice was in need of a defense. That in itself suggests that significant attitudinal differences existed in American society even after Roe was decided. Those differences are still prevalent today and may even be more entrenched throughout the nation. Alito’s opinion made the point that Roe and Casey could not be settled simply by decree.

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SCOTUS Leak Freakout Update: The Times’ Unethical Editorial Of The Month

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

It’s rare that one sees blunt incivility in an old and revered political publication like the National Review, but here was the headline of Charles Cook’s column there yesterday:

The New York Times’ Editorial Board Is Apparently Extremely Stupid

I had read the editorial and my reaction had been the same, except that I would have been tempted to leave out “apparently.” I’d also categorize this as old news, at least to readers of Ethics Alarms. Then, for a nonce, I regretted the absence of self-exiled commenter “A Friend,” since his predictable efforts to defend the indefensible in the Times would have been particularly entertaining in this case.

Here’s the the paragraph Cooke was reacting to:

Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on where they lived.

This is the newspaper that is regarded as the flagship of the news media. This is the newspaper that holds itself up as a paragon of objective news analysis. This is a newspaper that claims that its perspective isn’t skewed by a progressive bias.

This is the newspaper I have been paying almost 90 bucks a month to have delivered every day for four years. Yes, I’m stupid too.

Here, in part, is what Cooke writes in his understandable disgust: Continue reading →

Saturday Night Live Lies And The Biased Mainstream Media Cheers: Propaganda Mission Accomplished

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

That cold open from last week’s Saturday Night Live was a perfect illustration of the maxim, best articulated by the late, great, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” Satire must be granted considerable license, but basing nasty mockery on a deliberate misrepresentation is unethical even if it is funny. The SNL skit above isn’t funny, unless one finds deliberate misrepresentation and outrageous laziness funny. I don’t.

The opening narration essentially takes the skit out of the realm of humor into the murky world of propaganda and public disinformation. Alito’s draft only states that “no woman has a right to an abortion” in the context of Roe v. Wade’s legally flawed and factually sloppy argument that the U.S. Constitution guarantees such a right through the unenumerated right of privacy. The SNL phrasing is deceitful, technically accurate but misleading. The draft does not state that no woman should have an abortion, and specifically states that the opinion takes no position on whether abortion should be legal or not.

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The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of The Dobbs Leak, Part 2: Reason Should Be Ashamed Of Itself

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

It is not a great surprise to see that the libertarian magazine Reason opposes abortion restrictions; one would assume so, given the libertarian creed. (Libertarians Ron Paul, a former House member, and his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), however, both oppose abortion, and take the position that life begins at conception.) However, if the publication is going to declare that Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs is badly reasoned (and a publication named “Reason” should be careful when it makes such a claim if it wants to maintain a reputation for integrity) it has an obligation to rebut that reasoning competently and fairly.

Thus when I saw the headline on Reason’s website, “Alito’s Draft Opinion That Would Overturn Roe Is a Disaster of Legal Reasoning,” I clicked on it eagerly. Legitimate legal analyses of the draft have been in short supply, with even supposedly respectable legal scholars from the pro-abortion camp resorting to hysterical pronouncements rather than dispassionate argument.

Inexcusably, the author of the article under the clickbait headline doesn’t come close to making the case that the Justice’s draft fits that hyperbolic description. Worse, it is quickly apparent that she wouldn’t know a “disaster of legal reasoning” if, to quote Matt Hooper in “Jaws,” one swam up “and bit [her] in the ass.” As I read her mess, I thought, “Elizabeth Nolan Brown can’t possibly be a lawyer.” Indeed she isn’t. Her graduate degree is in theater.

Oh. One of those.

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The Dishonesty And Desperation Of “Pro-Choice” Advocates In The Wake Of The Dobbs Leak, Part I: Anything But The Issues

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Another one of the ironic boons from the despicable Supreme Court leak of Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion portending that Roe v. Wade is about to be overruled is how vividly it has exposed the intellectually dishonest and unethical nature of “pro choice” arguments. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has been following the abortion debate diligently, but in their fury and panic, abortion advocates are revealing just how weak their case is. They are also revealing that those who are willing to sacrifice nascent human lives for other objectives tend to have no compunction about using rationalizations, ad hominem attacks, classic logical fallacies and fearmongering as well as outright lies, when they finally have to defend their positions.

The reappearance of the costumes from “The Handmaiden’s Tale” is a neat symbol of the whole phenomenon. (How many of such protesters haven’t read Roe, the Alito draft, or Margaret Atwood’s novel? My guess: most of them.) To be fair, prominent Democrats like this guy endorsed the hysteria:

That delusion was apiece with the suggestion that women could force men to support abortion on demand by going on a sex strike. Similarly ducking the issues are the illegal demonstrations at the homes of Justices before it is even known who voted to end Roe, and President Biden’s moronic declaration in response to the leak that “this MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history—-in recent American history.”

Since Roe v. Wade has been almost unanimously regarded in legal and academic circles as a badly reasoned opinion (even Ruth Bader Ginsburg conceded it was a botch), the epitome of flagrant judicial activism and legislation by judges, those trying to defend the decision now have had to resort to distractions, diversions, straw men and fictional slippery slopes. “Next those fascists will ban inter-racial marriage and Brown v. Board of Education!” more than a few Democratic officials and pundits have proclaimed, apparently forgetting that just a few weeks ago they were demanding that Justice Thomas, the dean of the Court’s conservatives, recuse himself because of the activities of his very white wife.

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When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring: Casey Scott Shows Why Florida’s Parental Rights Law And Equivalents Are Reasonable And Necessary

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

When ethics fails, the law steps in. In teaching, like a whole range of human endeavors, just a modicum of functioning ethics alarms would make restrictive laws superfluous and even unneeded. But too many people in positions of authority, power, influence and with the opportunity to do harm don’t possess functioning ethics alarms.

And here we are.

Trafalgar Middle School (in Cape Coral, Fla.) art teacher Casey Scott is a proud pansexual. I don’t see why that’s something to be especially proud of, any more than being left-handed or being a Yankee fan, but OK. Casey says her students were curious about her sexual orientation. This was none of their business, and her response should have been along those lines, but no: she felt inspired to explain to them that she was pansexual during a lesson in March, and that she was sexually attracted to pots and pans. Or something. It doesn’t matter what being a pansexual is, she wasn’t hired to teach students about it. (Pansexuals are attracted to all categories of people regardless of their sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.)

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Today’s Dobbs Supreme Court Leak Freakout Update

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

As discussed here many times, the abortion issue is an ethics conflict, meaning that there are legitimate and important interests at stake on both sides of the controversy. One way advocates or activists signal their lack of qualifications, intellect and integrity to discuss the issue is by denying or ignoring one interest or the other. That’s proving a benefit of the current freak-out over the leaked draft of what might be a total reversal of Roe v. Wade (and Casey, but that’s intrinsic in overturning Roe). People are revealing who and what they really are–phonies, idiots, liars, demagogues, hypocrites, opportunists, irresponsible fools, or nascent totalitarians.

The depressing, indeed frightening aspect of the freakout is the degree to which it demonstrates that most Americans (and a shocking number of the people whose job it is to inform and guide them through complex issues) are so ignorant of the basic civic facts about what the Supreme Court is. Thus the Dobbs leak freakout is to a great extent another indictment of our public school system, its teachers and administrators, and education in America generally. It should, but won’t, make the point to school boards and legislators that before students are instructed in the complexities of gender dysphoria and critical race theory, the priority should be instructing them in the essentials of the Constitution so they can function as citizens.

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