Leadership

The Facile Fad Rationalization “We Are Better Than This,” The Democratic Candidates, And The DHS Deportations

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

illigals

I am trying to decide whether “We are better than this,” the suddenly resurgent short-cut around actual reason and analysis, deserves to be added to the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List.  What do you think?

All of the other sixty have broad, everyday applications, while this one is usually restricted to matters of public policy, which is why I hesitate to include it. On the other hand, it is a particularly insidious rationalization, and cynical too. It attempts to win policy debates by implicitly accusing any opposition of being beneath the advocate on the moral and ethical scales, while never actually offering a reason why the advocate’s position is superior and wiser.

The statement is also especially objectionable when it issues from partisans who normally deny the fact of American exceptionalism. They can’t have it both ways: either the United States is unique in its values, aspirations and accomplishments, and thus is “too good” to engage in certain policies that others nations don’t shrink from at all, or it isn’t. Choose your construct, hypocrites! When the acolytes of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and other habitual villifiers of our history, motives and culture—such acolytes encompassing a large chuck of the progressive community—say “We are better than this,” they should be laughed at, in the face, hard. Better than the genocide-mongering, racist, sexist, greedy, exploitative, arrogant colonial power that has impoverished the world? HA! Cannibalism isn’t better than the country you think we are. According to you, we’re not better than anyone or any thing.

There are policies that there is every reason to say the United States is better than. Prime among them is engaging in torture, which not only violates international treaties that we led the way to establishing, but also because it violates our founding principles. There are, in short, tangible and substantive reasons why the United States is “better” than the nations who torture our soldiers, and they can be articulated without resorting to bumper stickers.

When “We are better than this” is followed by “because..’ and more substantive points, I have no objection to it, although “we should be better than this” is fairer. It can begin an analysis, but is not an analysis itself. However, when it is used as a substitute for analysis, it is pure rationalization.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley started spouting versions of the Facile Fad Rationalization upon the release of  new report that the US Department of Homeland Security plans to raid and deport hundreds of families who illegally entered the U.S. through the southern border.  Note, please, that what is being proposed is called “enforcing the law.” Democrats and progressives have somehow managed to get away with arguing that while the United States “of course” should control its own borders, it is somehow inhuman, cruel and wrong to take action against foreign citizens who intentionally violate those laws that are intended to exact such control.

This is irresponsible, I dare say insane, but with the assistance of the news media and the collusion of business interests that love having fearful, low-wage workers they can exploit to keep costs down, the insanity is routinely extolled as compassion.  Adults who continued their illegal status in the U.S. long after discovering it and having ample opportunity to abide by the law (and leave) have been anointed with the lovely euphemism, “Dreamers.” (The definition of “Dreamers” is “illegal immigrants from childhood who have continued to defy the law, lie and pose as citizens due to a self-serving belief that they have a right to be here, when they don’t.”) Beautiful Dreamers! Continue reading →

Signature Significance: Bernie Sanders’ Ignorant Tweet

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Bernie tweet

Yesterday, the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, a long-time member of the United States Senate, tweeted this message to his “followers,” and also, given the nature of Twitter, the nation:

“You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?”

Now, if you don’t instantly recognize why this is an astoundingly ignorant statement, especially for a Presidential candidate running on a platform of economic restructuring, that’s okay. Don’t feel badly. It’s a weekend, you’re probably groggy from all the holiday cheer, and most important of all, you aren’t presuming to hold yourself out as qualified to be President, or constantly lecturing about the evils of capitalism. Sanders is, however, and this cretinous statement is signature significance. Nobody who understands loans, interest, collateral, banking, or economics would say, write or publish such a fatuous statement, even once. This is signature significance: an informed, logical, attentive, competent individual will not make such a bone-headed mistake…never. Sanders, however, has said this at least twice; in October, he tweeted a variation on the same economically ignorant theme:

“It makes no sense that students and their parents pay higher interest rates for college than they pay for car loans or housing mortgages.”

Actually, it does, Senator; it makes perfect sense, unless you are twelve. The concept is called “collateral.” That is something of value that  a lender can take if a borrower defaults on the loan. The deal is interest, plus security, the collateral. A house or a car are tangible collateral, so the interest rate can be lower. When the loan is for college tuition, however, there is no collateral. If the borrower defaults on the loan, the bank can’t take the student’s diploma, or education, or download all of the alleged knowledge the loan paid for from brain to laptop. Of course the interest rate is higher. That is, “of course” if you know anything at all about finance.

The unavoidable and shocking conclusion: Sanders is holding himself out as the leader to revolutionize how the U.S. economy works, stimulate growth and jobs, and show the way to a fairer and more just financial system, yet he is stunningly uninformed about the basics of finance, hasn’t learned a thing in all his years in the Senate, and worse, lacks the diligence to learn what he has an obligation to understand in order to justify having a vote on economic matters in the U.S. Senate, never mind setting policy as President.

This is bad.

Is there any excuse or defense for that tweet? No. Should anyone trust an elected official this ignorant and so lazy and arrogant that he makes no effort to disabuse himself of financial illiteracy? No. Does such a bone-brained misunderstanding mean that no intelligent person should listen to or take seriously any of his pronouncements about the economy? Yes.

To be fair to the Senator, let’s try to find some explanation for this that doesn’t prove that he couldn’t pass Economics 101 at a community college: Continue reading →

“The Affair” Smears An American War Hero

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments
The General and friend.

                             The General and friend.

“The Affair,” Showtime’s much lauded soap opera, wrapped up its season yesterday, without me. There are some things I won’t forgive, and sliming the legacy and reputation of long dead individuals of character and accomplishment is one of them.”The Affair” was guilty of that the previous week. It is dead to me.

The background: General Omar Bradley is increasingly accorded credit for planning D-Day, and thus is owed a large share of the world’s gratitude for winning World War II. He was not flamboyant like Patton or MacArthur, and had no political aspirations, so despite his remarkable life in service of the United States, Omar Bradley is an undeservedly obscure historical figure. He is, also, beyond any controversy, an American hero.

He also was an especially ethical one, as indicated by three of his better known quotes:

“It is time that we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship.”

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

“Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader.”

Why the writers of “The Affair” decided smear Bradley, I cannot fathom. Nonetheless, any viewers of the show that watched the penultimate episode and who didn’t know who Bradley was, and many who did, left it with the belief that Bradley, a who by all accounts was faithfully and lovingly married to the his first wife throughout the war and until her death, had an affair with actress Marlene Dietrich, who traveled with the U.S. Army for nearly two years at the end of the war. “The Affair’s” self-obsessed and perpetually horny protagonist, a successful novelist, told his therapist—and boy, does he need one–that his new book would be a historical novel about Omar Bradley. Then he said that he was tempted to skip the affair with Marlene Dietrich, but then that was the most interesting thing about Bradley to him. Continue reading →

Over 30% Of Republicans Apparently Have No Problem With America’s Representative To The World And The Role Model For Their Children Using Words Like “Schlonged” In Public

/ Jack Marshall / 157 Comments

Well, I do.

I have previously opined, confidently, that Donald Trump supporters, every single one of them, are stupid. This I have pointed out, is the only possible explanation for supporting an obvious narcissist who utters no substantive or serious policy ideas, believes rationalizations are legitimate arguments, is vulgar and insulting without shame or hesitation, and has the essential character of a pimp.

I was wrong.

They aren’t stupid.

They are very stupid.

Unethical Meme Of The Week: Democratic Underground

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Meme

I know I could batter internet memes all day, but this one, by the Democratic Underground, particularly annoys me, as has the “chicken hawk” canard that knee-jerk anti-war activists have been wielding for decades.

To begin with, it’s an ad hominem argument, and thus unethical on its face. The question is whether a military option is the best and most responsible solution to an international problem, not who is asserting that it is. It is also an incompetent argument, as in stupid. There  is nothing about typical military experience that conveys expertise in foreign affairs or international politics. Military service, as in training, marching, being deployed and shooting a gun, and military action, as a strategic tool of diplomacy and international politics, are two different things. Lincoln was a superb Commander in Chief, but he didn’t gain that ability from his brief combat experience fighting Black Hawk Indians.

In fact, what is  the statement above supposed to imply? No Commander in Chief has had to risk personal combat if he chose war. Because there has been no draft since the the Nineties, the only way a political leader would ever have military experience would be if he chose a military career, which would mean that the meme suggests that a military career is a prerequisite for national leadership. But Democrats don’t believe that; nobody believes that. In fact, Democrats are wary and suspicious of the military, which they believe, with some justification,  is biased toward military involvement. They don’t even especially respect military service: look at how James Webb was treated in his brief presidential run. Continue reading →

A Smoking Gun For So Many Things…

/ Jack Marshall / 105 Comments
Beschloss

Beschloss

By 2008, I had given up on Don Imus, whose occasional moments of conventional wisdom shattering clarity and truth-telling were overwhelmed by the egotism, self-promotion, and the sexism and vulgarity of his toadying side-kicks. Thus I missed this exchange with historian Michael Beschlost, which in retrospect explains so much that has taken place since:

Historian Michael Beschloss: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — you and I have talked about this for years…

Imus: Well. What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: …our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people THAT smart and THAT capable

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Pardon?

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Uh. I would say it’s probably — he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

Imus: That’s not what I asked you. I asked you what his IQ was.

Historian Michael Beschloss: You know that I don’t know and I’d have to find someone with more expertise…

Imus: You don’t know.

Continue reading →

The US’s Existential Ethics Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

take-it-or-leave-it1No, I don’t mean how to hold on to our core values while taking responsible measures to prevent a fatal cultural infestation by radical Islam, though that’s a tough one too.

The U’S.’s existential dilemma is how to prevent a 2016 Presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Such a race would represent a holistic failure of the assumptions of American democracy, including the belief that ordinary Americans can be trusted with responsible self-governance.

I just forced myself to watch an entire Donald Trump campaign appearance in Iowa. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

He is a pathological narcissism case study. He’s having a ball, just being in front of a beaming crowd. Not a word of genuine substance came out of his mouth. Mostly, he talked about himself—how popular he is (He’s ahead in the polls! He’s ahead in the polls!), how nice he is, how he gets along with everybody, how he’s always right. Good God. Get the hook. If a high school candidate gave that kind of preening, hubris-gagging, “I’m the greatest thing since string cheese” speech running for student body president, he’d be jumped by the football team after the assembly. People who act like Trump are not well: this is about him being desperate for affection, not leading the country. Why do so many people fail to see that?

Well… Continue reading →

Heroes, Villains And Fools In The Latest “Donald Trump Candidacy Ethics Train Wreck” Disaster

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Circus Train wreck

In a single post I can’t possibly cover all of the heroes, villains and fools who have emerged in the aftermath of the explosion of Trump’s latest hand-grenade tossed into the Presidential campaign. I have to start somewhere, though.

At the outset, I want to officially designate Trump’s campaign as an ethics train wreck, neatly paired with the Hillary Clinton Campaign Ethics Train Wreck (more from that later.) Do you sense that the number of Ethics Train Wrecks are proliferating? You are correct, and it is both a direct result and an indirect result of the Obama Administration Ethics Train Wreck. When leadership is feckless, weak, dishonest, unethical and ineffective, a society’s ethical standards start to unravel.

Now on to the initial designations regarding Trump’s declaration that Muslims should be banned from entering the country.

Hero, Villain, AND Fool: Donald Trump. Trump is a hero in his own mind; in ethics terms, the status is accidental, an example of doing a good and courageous thing for all the wrong reasons. In his typical, bully-in-a china-shop  way, Trump has forced the national debate to focus on nasty realities rather than operate from President Obama’s fantasy world, where radical Islamic terrorists somehow are not Islamic, and Hillary Clinton’s delusion/lie that terrorism has “nothing to do with Muslims, whatsoever” even after two Muslims, because they were Muslims, killed 14 citizens in a terrorist attack. Muslims who have been radicalized or who have ties to terror groups are a real and existential problem that requires a coherent policy addressed at the problem. Chanted nostrums like “This isn’t who we are” don’t get the job done. A frank debate is mandatory, and sometimes only a boor, a maniac or a boob with less than acute intellectual skills will have the guts to force such a debate. Clarence Darrow regarded nut-case John Brown as such a hero, arguing that some problems require someone whose disregard for conventional societal standards to “cut the Gordian Knot.” By Darrow’s definition, then, Trump is a hero. Continue reading →

Ethical Quote Of The Day: Senator Lindsay Graham

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments
Note: That is not Lindsay Graham on the left, and not Donald Trump on the right. But you get the idea...

Note: That is not Lindsay Graham on the left, and not Donald Trump on the right. But you get the idea…

“You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell. He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represents the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for. … He’s the ISIL man of the year.”

—–Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), on CNN’s “New Day” turning Trump’s slogan, “make America great again” against him.

Graham is unelectable as well as un-nominatable, and he knows it, for no fool he. The GOP right wing regards him as a RINO like his pal John McCain, and also more than a little strange (why has he never been married, hmmmmm?); Graham is too Southern, too Senatorial, and too candid to have a chance in the general election either.

Graham is running as a truth-teller on foreign policy, and even that has been hard, since his poll numbers are microscopic and he has been relegated to the kiddie table in all of the debates. So it is true that he has less to risk being direct than the other candidates, but his undiplomatic, uncompromising condemnation of Donald Trump is exactly what the nomination race needs, and as I have written from the beginning, a well-executed, slashing, “Have you no sense of decency?” attack would both bring Trump to earth and enhance the candidacy of its Republican messenger. So far, nobody seems capable of delivering it effectively.

Trump’s latest envelope-pushing, evoking the worst of  the U.S.’s domestic World War II bigotry as well as the early stages of Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitism, confines his candidacy to bigots, cowards and fools—admittedly a large constituency but a disqualifying one. The clear path to stopping Trump is making his supporters unwilling to look at themselves in the mirror. Democrats faced a similar challenge in 1968, when George Wallace was speaking before huge crowds. Continue reading →

Harvard Picks The Wrong “Niggardly Principle”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Ah, Lowell House! I lived right under that damn bell tower. Never dreamed that the House Master was a slaveholder....

Ah, Lowell House! I lived right under that damn bell tower. Never dreamed that the House Master was a slaveholder….

I had been waiting with trepidation to see how Harvard would embarrass itself in the current college campus political correctness/ black student extortion/ free speech rejection meltdown. The result is an anti-climax, but, yes, still embarrassing.

Apparently some students have been making a classic “niggardly” complaint, like the infamous D.C. government employees who believed that good old Anglo-Saxon word for cheap was the racial slur it resembles. In the case of Harvard students, the beef was that the term “House Master,” used to describe the Harvard faculty member who oversees, manages and hosts one of the many residential “houses” that serve as mini-campuses for Harvard sophomores, juniors and seniors, was racially insensitive and offensive to black students. Never mind that the word “master” has dozens of applications, almost all of which have nothing to do with slavery. The theory appears to be that if a word has ever been used in a context offensive to blacks, all uses of the word in the future, whatever the context, must be assumed to have racially oppressive intent.

Huh. It’s funny: I attended Harvard with black students, and it was during a period when civil rights protests and upheaval were everywhere, including on campus. Yet somehow, this blatantly racist use of “master” never came up. Why? Well… Continue reading →