Leadership

Here Is How Arrogant and Delusional Harvard Is: It Really Thinks It Can Prevail In Public Opinion Over The President of the United States…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Harvard Alumni Magazine arrived yesterday. Above is the cover and the illustration for its feature section about the University’s “resistance” to President Trump’s completely reasonable, responsible and justifiable demands that the most visible, influential, prestigious and wealthy university in the United States stop dedicating itself to undermining American values, indoctrinating students in anti-American biases, provide intellectual diversity on its faculty, cease discriminating against whites, males and Asians, and stop enabling flagrant Jew hatred on campus.

To Harvard’s credit, the alumni magazine makes a pass at even-handedness, even highlighting an alumnus who writes that “no private institution has a right to demand that taxpayers fund discrimination, exclusion and intolerance.” But most of the issue is devoted to familiar anti-Trump victim-mongering, including an essay extolling the work of a non-binary (or something) professor “whose data shows how—and when—authoritarians fall.”

“Authoritarianism” has joined “sexism,” “racism,” “violence,” “insurrection” and other rhetorical weapons of the Left as infinitely flexible accusations steeped in double standards. A President who uses his constitutional powers to pursue policies the Left opposes is an “authoritarian.” A President who weaponizes the legal system to imprison and persecute his political opposition is not—as long as he is a Democrat.

I mean, just to pull a fantastic hypothetical out of the air…

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Yes, This Democratic Norm Should Not Be Breached…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Presidents of the United States should not say “fuck.” Ever. It doesn’t matter how “angry” they are.

Recalling this much linked post from a decade ago…an some of its offspring, like this, this, and this among others.

Ethicists, however, can say “fuck” when justified.

Fuck.

Ethics Hero: Surprise! NYT Columnist Bret Stephens

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I did not see this coming. Has any New York Times pundit ever written anything regarding Donald Trump that wasn’t pure venom? Has there ever been a Times opinion piece that said, “Wow! President Trump handled this problem perfectly”? If so, I must have missed it.

True, if any one of the Axis-biased Times stable of progressives, Democrats and the Trump Deranged were capable of such a composition, it would have to have been Stephens. Along with David Brooks he is one of the token sort-of conservatives on the staff usually displaying symptoms of the Stockholm Syndrome. Brooks is beyond hope now, but Stephens is at least unpredictable. He’s a weird sort of conservative, having opined once that the Second Amendment should be repealed, and he takes part in annoying transcribed anti-Trump snark-fests with Gail Collins, which reads a bit like what the old “Point-Counterpoint” would have been like if Shauna Alexander and James J. Kilpatrick were secretly boinking each other. (Gotta get THAT image out of my brain, quick.) Still, I am pledged to give credit where credit is due.

Today Stephens’ name was under a column headlined, “Trump’s Courageous and Correct Decision.” It begins,

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The U.S. Bombing of Iran Is Not an Ethics Issue

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

It’s a leadership issue.

I generally don’t want to wander into policy debates unless there is a clear ethical component. Competence. Honesty. Responsibility. Results, as we discuss here so often, are usually the result of moral luck. All we can do, in situations involving high-level leadership decision-making, is evaluate what the basis of the decision was, and the process under which it was made. What happens after that is moral luck, chaos, essentially. As an ethicist, I try not to base my analysis on whether I agree with the decision or not from a policy or pragmatic perspective.

In military and foreign policy decisions, the absence of clear ethical standards are especially rife. There are some who regard any military action at all except in reaction to an attack on the U.S. as unethical, and sometimes not even in that circumstance. They are absolutists: war is wrong, killing is wrong, “think of the children,” and that’s all there is to it. Such people are useless except as necessary reminders that Sherman was right.

President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities is a matter of leadership, not ethics. Leaders lead, and are willing to make tough, often risky, decisions. The U.S. Presidency requires leadership, and strong leadership is not only preferable to weak leadership, it is what the majority of Americans has traditionally preferred. The Constitution clearly shows the Founders’ preference for a strong executive branch, particularly in the area of national defense. Yesterday, the President took advantage of the Constitution’s general approval of executive leadership when national security is involved.

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Update on “The LA Pro-Open Borders Riots Ethics Train Wreck”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

This morning, CNN pinged me with an alert that read, “CNN analysis: Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is a warning to other cities opposing his migrant policies.” You know, just like arresting and locking up serial killers is a warning to others who want to murder people, and giving tickets to speeders is a warning to irresponsible drivers who like to speed. Of course, CNN uses the deceitful cover-word “migrant” to avoid reminding dim-wit readers that these are law-breakers.

The news is that both California Governor Newsom and LA’s incompetent mayor showed that they were supportive of the rioting just as they have been supportive of illegal immigrants, and since the violence is aimed at blocking ICE from doing its job, the situation demanded Presidential action. In short, the riots are not about Trump, but the direct result of the refusal of the previous administration (whoever was in charge of it) to enforce the law (unless it was enforced against perceived political foes).

Meanwhile, in the hopes that I can make “A Friend” [see comments to this post]choke on his shredded wheat, here is how the New York Times is rolling out the Axis propaganda:

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“Welcome Summer!” Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Last week on YouTube’s “The Morning Meeting,” Mark Halperin and Dan Turrentine appeared to acknowledge Ethics Alarms’ “Julie Principle.” They just didn’t know what it was called.

President Trump had delivered the commencement address at West Point while wearing a red MAGA cap (Oh NOOOO! He’s violating “norms” again!) and on Monday published a Memorial Day Truth Social post like some of his previous holiday wishes—you know, one of his “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal!” style shots. Halperin noted that many Democratic critics and pundits, right on cue, were freaking out.

“If you read [historian] Heather Cox Richardson or the emails and texts I get from my Democratic sources, as I said before, the Trump administration’s over. And it’s just a bankrupt, you know, corrupt mess and he’s already a failed president and he’s not getting anything done. That’s their point of view. They also are very taken with his wearing a MAGA hat … to give … a West Point graduation speech,” Halperin said. “They’re taken with his tweet, his Truth Social post, saying ‘Happy Memorial Day’ and criticizing Joe Biden. And they’re back to a Adam Schiffian and [biased and Trump Deranged historian] Heather Cox Richardson point of view, which is everything Trump does is an epic disaster and that the American people will turn on him and Republicans in the midterms because he’s impolite.”

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Comment of the Day: “…Unethical Quote of the Week: David Axelrod”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Prolific and historically literate EA commenter Steve-O-in NJ has been uncharacteristically scarce around these parts of late, but when he does weighed-in the quality of his commentary remains stellar. I’m going to have his Comment of the Day on the post “The Sequel to “Is It Ethical to Continue to Slam Former President Biden Now That It Has Been Revealed That He Has Metastatic Prostate Cancer?”— Unethical Quote of the Week: David Axelrod” kick off what bids fair to end up as “Why the Democratic Party Has Disqualified Itself From National Leadership” Monday.

Every single Democrat who runs for office should be confronted with the fact that their party spent four years defiling the Constitution and ignoring the will of their own voters. They should be asked, again and again, how do you dare associate yourself with a party that would do this? What’s your excuse? Why should any voter trust anyone who runs as a Democrat now? What does your party stand for, if it would exploit a man it chose to have the most challenging leadership responsibilities in the world knowing he wasn’t mentally able to do the job, as a means of letting backroom, unelected ideologues and partisan hacks secretly chart U.S. policy? Every Democrat office-holder or candidate should be forced to either condemn his or her party or beg for forgiveness and a second chance.

And the public’s response to their entreaties should be the same as mine: “Never!”

Here’s Steve-O…

***

There’s no way I can be other than disgusted by this manipulative tactic by the same party who regularly bashed Reagan for being a senile old man while in office and came up with at least 20 ways to attack Trump as unfit. Reagan stumbled twice in eight years, once after being shot and having major surgery, again after seven years in office plus that and according to the left he was unfit the entire time, despite no one from the White House staff and no personal or government physician coming forward to verify any allegation of senility. No one unbiased has come forward to say Trump is unfit. His biased niece doesn’t count, and neither do disgruntled former employees. Former vice president Pence, former ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all have nothing to lose by spilling now, and every reason to do it after being publicly shut out of this administration, but none of them have.

Yet we all watched Biden deteriorate before our eyes, to the point where he could barely walk and couldn’t answer even softball questions, and the left tried to gaslight this nation by saying it was all Republican dirty tricks. This, the party of Dick Tuck, the original political dirty tricks man, whose members regularly insult the GOP as being a party made up of idiots and morons, had the audacity to accuse the same party of being masters of dirty tricks. This, the media who parlayed a single stumble, a golf swing, and a tennis serve gone wrong into a lasting image of Gerald Ford as an oaf and a klutz who couldn’t do anything right, had the audacity to bury multiple stumbles, an obvious old-guy shuffle, multiple obvious needs to be shown where to walk after initially going the wrong way, inability to answer easy questions, and a hundred other obvious signs of deterioration and THEN accuse those who pointed them out of trying to lie and deceive. If Biden hadn’t finally fallen apart in full view of the entire nation to the point where no farther denial was possible, these people would still be lying to us about Biden being sharp as a tack and having more energy than someone half his age.

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Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Banners

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This isn’t the quiz question, but are we entering Julie Principle territory here? Should I keep flagging this very Trumpian conduct as ethically dubious, or just resign myself to “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Trump’s gonna troll ’cause he likes to, that’s why”?

Those banners are currently hanging at the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. Naturally, my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends (and certainly the rest of that zombie herd that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting), is triggered. “This is SHOCKING,” writes one of the TDS inflicted (whose posts I have noted before). “Authoritarian craziness is now on full display. What happened to DOGE? We now have Soviet style banners. POTUS is a very ill man.” A reply asserts, “Unfortunately, the ‘uneducated’ would never see this.”

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Integrity Check: Will Democrats and the News Media Ever Condemn the Open Racism and Anti-Male Bigotry of Rep. Jasmine Crockett?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

My guess? No. Never. Neither today’s Democratic Party nor its captive news media have any integrity, and both are run by cowards and liars.

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Tx) told “Urban View” podcast hosts Clay Cane and Reecie Colbert:

“It is, it is this fear that the people within the party, within the primary system, will have about voting for a woman because every time we voted for a woman, we’ve lost. So far. And I think that that’s a natural fear because we just want to win. So there’s a lot of people that are like, you know what? Like, let’s go find the safest white boy we can find. I mean, I’m just saying. No, for real. And to be clear, when we talk about them, I can tell you that there is one specific candidate. I had a donor on the phone with me telling me that all the donors are lining up behind that candidate. So I can tell, and I tell you, it’s not a black person nor a woman, okay? When I say ‘they,’ it’s the same donors that most likely had their opinions about Joe Biden and moved … So like, that would be the ‘they’ that I would talk about. Trump, who is a misogynist. Trump, who is going to ramp up the misogynists in the first place because that’s what he does. He is disrespectful. Like, right now, he still doesn’t know how to deal with me because if you punch me, I’m punching back, okay? So, like, here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. Now, I know he think he’s running again, but that ain’t happening. I don’t care what all is going on in in this country, and I don’t care how many things we won’t say we are absolutely going to do. I am telling y’all with all confidence he is not running for a third term. That is not a thing.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the rising star and emerging leader of the Democratic Party, Jasmine Crocket!

What’s not to like? She deliberately fosters racial and sexual division and hate. She talks (in public, at least) like a high school drop-out. She intentionally encourages divisions in her party and American society. Best of all, she’s black, so any legitimate criticism of her can and will be immediately blamed on the racism of the critic.

Now, it makes perfect sense for Republicans and those hoping to see the Democrats follow the path of the Federalists and Whigs to cheer Crockett on. It is pretty obvious the “safe white boy” she’s talking about is Gavin Newsom, the white, male, Democratic governor who has led California to ruin. Even now it is obvious that nominating him to run for the White House in 2028 would split the party: because of Crockett (and others) the Donkeys will have to nominate a black, a woman, or a black woman who, unless someone new and competent emerges in the next four years, will lose big unless the Republican nominate Marjorie Taylor Greene or another idiot as its candidate.

Meanwhile, open bigotry and racism is apparently acceptable coming from Congresswoman Crockett, meaning that no matter how much the Democratic Party claims to be the opposite, it has become the party of hate and discrimination.

Short Version of Ethics Verdict on Pentagon’s Elimination of Race, Gender and Ethicity As Legitimate Considerations For Admission to the Service Academies: “Good!”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The Washington Post’s snotty headline is “Hegseth escalates targeting of race, gender in military’s academic settings.” That’s because he’s a racist and sexist, see, like all of the Trump allies, appointees, voters and supporters.

Oh, dear. “[T]he nation’s prestigious military academies” have been ordered “to end consideration of race, gender and ethnicity in their admissions processes” and ‘begin a purge….of educational materials focused on those “divisive concepts,” gasps the Post, as if this isn’t a completely practical and fair policy. The military’s job is to protect the nation and, when necessary, to fight and fight effectively. Race, gender and ethnicity are completely irrelevant to the capability of performing those tasks, so it should be beyond debate that such considerations have no place in the determination of who should gain admission to the military academies.

There is a much stronger case to be made that “diversity” is deleterious to military morale, cohesiveness and performance, but okay, discrimination is contrary to the culture and national values, so we won’t say that women categorically don’t belong in male battle units. But they better be as capable as any of the men.

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