“If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate.”
—British vulcanologist and climate scientist William J. McGuire, “Bill” to his friends, cheering on human death in a tweet he quickly removed after colleagues advised him “Uh, Bill? We’re not supposed to say things like this out loud…”
Of course, the professor might have been saying that the economically disastrous measures being proposed and in some cases adopted by foolish governments like the Biden administration won’t affect the climate sufficiently to make a difference, so the whole movement is futile, irresponsible, based on speculation, and, to be blunt, stupid, but of course he wasn’t. No, this scientist, who is among those we are supposed to trust and obey—you know, like the health “experts” who crippled the economy, our society and the educational development of our children based on guesses about the Wuhan virus that were represented as fact?—believes that the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe (and we all want to do that, right?) is to have millions of people die as soon as possible, one way or another. A plague is a good way! Or we could just execute them, like Mao did. Of course, he shouldn’t be one of those sacrificed for the greater good, because his life is too valuable.
“Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” To be fair, it’s past time to rephrase the oft-used Ethics Alarm catch phase as, “Nah, the mainstream media doesn’t just take marching orders from the Democratic National Committee to cover for Biden’s indefensible leadership!”
Too long, I know. OK, it needs some work.
Suddenly, all through the news media over the weekend, the tale of how President Ronald Reagan intervened with a threat to withhold arms that had already been approved for delivery to Israel to force the nation to change its military strategy was being thrown in the faces of Biden critics and Israel supporters. Huh. Where did that come from?
Surprise! It came from the New York Times, the flagship of the corrupt, partisan media, just in time to fuel the “advocacy journalists'” efforts over the weekend to help block Israel’s right to defend its existence and its citizens from terrorism.
Interviewing GOP Senator Lindsey Graham, and by “interviewing” I mean debating as she took the side of Democrats, the Biden Administration, the anti-Semitic students roiling campuses and Hamas, NBC News anchor Kristen Welker said, “As you know, former President Ronald Reagan, on multiple occasions, withheld weapons to impact Israel’s military actions,” Welker said. “Did President Reagan show that using U.S. military aid, as leverage, can actually be an effective way to rein in and impact Israel’s policy?”
What a perfect factoid to weaponize for an appeal to authority and Rationalization #32. The Unethical Role Model: “He/She would have done the same thing”! The timely Times revelation: in August of 1982, Israel was shelling Palestinian terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, then a failing state in the throes of a civil war, with Palestinian forces controlling territory on its southern border. President Reagan saw films of a Lebanese child horribly wounded in the attack, and called up then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to threaten a withdrawal of U.S. aid if the shelling didn’t stop. Begin gave in. The Times also informed its readers that President Eisenhower threatened economic sanctions and to cut off aid to force Israel to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula after it invaded Egypt in 1956. So, the Times concluded, “If it was reasonable for the Republican presidential icon to limit arms to impose his will on Israel…it should be acceptable for the current Democratic president to do the same.” Well, the Times wrote “they argued,” meaning defenders of all-things Democrat, but we know, or should, that by “they” in such situations, the mainstream media means “we.”
In her speech, Pelosi argues that voters are “blocked” from making good, rational decisions and voting Democrat because of their culture and views on God
“[T]hese poor souls who are looking for some answers….we’ve given them to them, but they are blocked by some of their views on the three G’s: guns, gays, and God—that would be a woman’s right to choose—and these cultural issues cloud their reception to an argument that is really in their interests.”
—-Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-Cal.) appearing at an Oxford Union debate to take the position that populism is a threat to democracy in the United States.
Let me get a compliment out of he way and on the record up front: Pelosi showed guts by appearing in this forum, and that is worthy of a measure of respect. Of course, her daring may be less attributable to guts than hubris, arrogance, or stupidity, because her position is indefensible from a Jeffersonian and Madisonian point of view and stating it in a public forum demonstrates that the totalitarian disease now rampaging through the Democratic Party has so corrupted its values that leaders like Pelosi no longer are capable of realizing how repulsive its ideology has become. Continue reading →
“My working theory would be that Joe Biden has prioritized his own reelection. And he’s not even performing well at that. Ironically, his reelection theme seems to be that he — and not Trump — is a man of integrity. I would recommend that the old man step back from the tawdry exercise of getting reelected and actually behave with integrity.”
—Law professor/”Fiercely neutral” blogress Ann Althouse, characterizing President Biden’s contradictory and cynical treatment of Israel after he announced that the U.S. will withhold critical arms support for the attack on the Hamas stronghold of Rafah despite previously agreeing that Hamas had to be destroyed.
Ann adds, “But I suspect he’s too far gone to give us that.”
I was pondering how to frame a post about Biden’s craven perfidy regarding the Hamas-Israel conflict, as he literally tries to take both sides at once in order to avoid rejection by the Democratic Party’s pro-terrorism bloc, which has turned out to be a lot bigger than even critics suspected. Then I read Ann’s post highlighting Jon Podhoretz’s article for Commentary, “Biden’s Shameful Betrayal.” (Full disclosure:I know Jon, and like him: he was a member of my theater company’s board until he moved out of the District.) I don’t think Althouse has been red-pilled exactly—I’ll still lay odds that she ends up voting for Biden—but she seems genuinely disgusted by the age-addled President’s latest example of fecklessness and irresponsible leadership, as should we all.
I had to post an ethics quiz on this, especially after beginning the day writing, “I’d say anyone celebrating Star Wars Day today (“May the Fourth be with you!”) on this May 4 needs to get out more. In addition to being a day that promises further depressing developments on college campuses as the decades of progressive, anti-American, and Marxist indoctrination have their predictable (and probably intentional) consequences—though somehow the ivory tower revolutionaries in charge of those campuses were oddly unprepared for them!—this date has an ominous history.”
And there he is, J.B. Pritzker, the Governor of Illinois, posing with his wife on social media to celebrate “Star Wars” in a pose apparently evoking a yet-to-be released “Star Wars” sequel in which Luke and Leia are victims of the Empire’s diabolical fat ray.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is it responsible for high-ranking elected officials to present themselves to the public looking and acting ridiculous?
“But let’s be clear about this as well. There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There is no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s un-American.”
That’s President Biden in his long delayed statement regarding the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic demonstrations breaking out in college campuses and in cities across the country. As usual, he isn’t clear at all. There have been no demonstrations against Muslims or Arab Americans. What does Islamophobia have to do with the price of bacon, as my father used to say?
The problem at hand is mobs calling for the eradication of Israel, the sole bastion of democracy in the Middle East, and the death of Jews. Those involved are actively declaring their support for Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, meaning, again, advocating the eradication of Israel and the death of Jews.
Throwing this unique and particularly horrible outbreak of ethic and religious hate, discrimination and persecution under the huge progressive abused-minority tent with Arabs and Muslims deliberately dilutes accountability. Americans are justly wary of Islam, with its declared determination to wipe out infidels, and nobody ever set out to exterminate six million Arabs. Nobody murdered an Arab or Palestinian Olympic team, either. Anti-Semitism is different in kind, in great part because it is centuries old lingers in cultures and societies like the shingles virus, ready to break out without warning.
Dartmouth alumnus Curmie—Can’t you just picture him leading that horse into the Dean’s office?—shared this letter he received as a member of the “Dartmouth community” from the school’s first female president, Dr. Sian Leah Beilock. It stands in stark contrast to the nauseating Columbia letter dissected here, and Emerson College’s president’s equally revolting letter I posted on here.
Yes, it’s more diplomatic than my letter would be, but that’s why I’m not a college president. And yes, Beilock’s use of the breathless “amazing”—apparently now taking over from “awesome”—is a bit disturbing coming from an adult in high places, but never mind. She has rescued some of the tarnished honor of the university presidents’ club.
To get to the main point right up front: I believe that the gag order Judge Juan Merchan has imposed on Donald Trump during the contrived “hush money” trial is election interference to the core, and unconstitutional when applied to a Presidential candidate in an election year. The ACLU l declared another judge’s gag order on Trump as unconstitutional last fall, and you know what it takes to make the ACLU side with the “bad guys” in the 21st Century. Nonetheless, I believe any and all gag orders that could be enforced on Trump would benefit the nation, Trump supporters and Donald Trump himself.
If he could just keep his big trap shut and stop the ALL CAPS Truth Social posts he would breeze to victory. The man has no filters, wretched judgment, and the mastery of the English language of a Brooklyn street urchin on the autism spectrum. Who knows what he’ll say between now and November that will be either misreported as an admission of evil intent, or will in fact be so awful that it loses him millions of votes overnight? Continue reading →
Several things led me to re-posting this Ethics Alarms entry from 2017.
First of all, the MLB network showed a documentary on the career of George Brett today, and scene above, with Brett erupting in fury at the umpire’s call voiding his clutch, 9th inning home run, is one of the classic recorded moments in baseball history. There was also a recent baseball ethics event that had reminded me of Brett’s meltdown: Yankees manager Aaron Boone was thrown out of a game because a fan behind the Yankees dugout yelled an insult at the home plate umpire, and the umpire ejected Boone thinking the comments came from him.. When Boone vigorously protested that he hadn’t said anything and that it was the fan,Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt said, “I don’t care who said it. You’re gone!”
Wait, what? How can he not care if he’s punishing the wrong guy?
“What do you mean you don’t care?” Boone screamed rushing onto the field a la Brett. “I did not say a word. It was up above our dugout. Bullshit! Bullshit! I didn’t say anything. I did not say anything, Hunter. I did not say a fucking thing!” This erudite exchange was picked up by the field mics.
There was another baseball ethics development this week as well, one involving baseball lore and another controversial home run. On June 9, 1946, Ted Williams hit a ball that traveled a reported 502 feet, the longest he ever hit, and one of the longest anyone has hit. The seat was was painted red in 1984 (I’ve sat in it!), and many players have opined over the years that the story and the seat are hogwash, a lie. This report, assembling new data about the controversy, arrives at an amazing conclusion: the home run probably traveled farther than 502 feet.
But I digress. Here, lightly edited and updated, is the ethics analysis of the famous pine tar game and its aftermath:
***
I have come to believe that the lesson learned from the pine tar incident is increasingly the wrong one, and the consequences of this extend well beyond baseball.
On July 24, 1983, the Kansas City Royals were battling the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. With two outs and a runner on first in the top of the ninth inning, Royals third baseman George Brett hit a two-run home run off Yankee closer Goose Gossage to give his team a 5-4 lead. Yankee manager Billy Martin, however, had been waiting like a spider for this moment.
Long ago, he had noticed that perennial batting champ Brett used a bat that had pine tar (used to allow a batter to grip the bat better) on the handle beyond what the rules allowed. MLB Rule 1.10(c) states: “The bat handle, for not more than 18 inches from the end, may be covered or treated with any material or substance to improve the grip. Any such material or substance, which extends past the 18-inch limitation, shall cause the bat to be removed from the game.” At the time, such a hit was defined in the rules as an illegally batted ball, and the penalty for hitting “an illegally batted ball” was that the batter was to be declared out, under the explicit terms of the then-existing provisions of Rule 6.06.
That made Brett’s bat illegal, and any hit made using the bat an out. But Billy Martin, being diabolical as well as a ruthless competitor, didn’t want the bat to cause just any out. He had waited for a hit that would make the difference between victory or defeat for his team, and finally, at long last, this was it. Martin came out of the dugout carrying a rule book, and arguing that the home run shouldn’t count. After examining the rules and the bat, home-plate umpire Tim McLelland ruled that Brett used indeed used excessive pine tar and called him out, overturning the home run and ending the game.
Brett’s resulting charge from the dugout (above) is video for the ages. Continue reading →
Thinking about that last post and the issues it raises as I was walking Spuds in the rain just now took me to an epiphany, and an embarrassingly late one.
Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon was more important and crucial than I realized then. It was only one gutsy and maybe prescient act in an otherwise short and undistinguished Presidency, but it delayed the current crisis for half a century.
The conventional wisdom is that Nixon would have been prosecuted for his Watergate involvement, and that the event would have been a divisive and traumatic spectacle that a nation just getting past the Vietnam debacle could ill afford. That wasn’t what was going to happen, though, I now realize. (And I have never read or heard anyone acknowledge this.)
Had he been charged with any crime, Nixon would have immediately claimed immunity just as Trump is now. For the rest of his life, Nixon routinely said that “if the President does it, it’s not illegal.” What would the Supreme Court have ruled in 1975? Here is the Court then:
Chief Justice Warren Burger William J. Brennan Potter Stewart Byron White Thurgood Marshall Harry Blackmun Lewis F. Powell William H. Rehnquist
The only two reliable liberals on the Court were Marshall and Brennan, but the conservatives were more moderate and less doctrinaire than today’s SCOTUS majority. I have no idea what that group would have done with the immunity issue, and I’m glad we didn’t have to find out.
Ethics Alarms 