Quotes

Ethics Quote of the Week: Ann Althouse, As the Blogger Hits A Grand Slam…[Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“Tolerance?! I would think it’s considered homophobic just to use the word “tolerance,” which connotes minimal acceptance and little more than a willingness to refrain from discriminating or saying actively mean things. In fact, I’d suggest it is the demand to do so much more — to celebrate pride in sexual matters and to endure indoctrination sessions that force feed questionable fine points — that has made people resistant and more likely to check a less gay-friendly box on the survey.”

—Quirky but perceptive Madison, Wis. bloggress Ann Althouse, commenting on the Times’ “Americans Are Turning Against Gay People” yesterday.

Just when I am on the verge of deciding that Ann is just too eccentric and annoying with her weird obsessions ( like archaic words, Grok and men wearing shorts…) and often lazy commentary (“Let’s just throw a news story out there and let the readers do the work’) she has a day like yesterday, where her observations are dazzling and her sleuthing-out of topics remarkable.

In the post that sparked the quote above, she homed in on something I tried to explain to a trans friend last week: most people are happy to accept the trans community on its own terms without rancor and bias if they would just stop thrusting their preferences in our metaphorical faces. I believe that the rest of the alphabet sex groups are suffering by their association with that obnoxious “T” that wants to cheat at women’s sports and feign legerdemain—“PRESTO_ CHANGO POOF! I’m a woman because I say so!” Her point about “tolerate” is also sharp and not made often enough. Who just wants to be “tolerated”?

That was just one of four great ethics-related observations in Ann’s “grand slam.” (I’m thinking about baseball a lot right now because the Hall of Fame just announced its new members, and I’m thrilled that neither of the steroid cheaters—Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez—came close to getting enough votes…)

I’ll call that the first run Ann knocked home yesterday. The rest…

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What’s the Ethical Way To Deal With Minnesota?

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Perhaps the best rejoinder to anyone who wants to condemn an acquaintance for voting for Evil Donald Trump is to gently (or not so gently) remind said fool that the alternative was to put Minnesota Tim “Knucklehead” Walz a heartbeat from the White House. Showing the impeccable judgment he displayed on the campaign trail, this incompetent allowed massive fraud to take needed funds from law-abiding Minnesotans, admitted that he did nothing about it because he didn’t want to upset the Somali voting block most responsible for it, decided to end his quest for re-election because he knows he’s going to eventually have to face the metaphorical music, and now is trying to go out with a bang by inciting deranged Minnesotans to fight Federal officers in defense of illegal immigrant criminals, among others.

Good plan!

Yesterday, some commentators observed, Walz may have “crossed the line.” Gee, ya think?

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On the Shooting of the Two National Guard Members [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

As you doubtless know by now, two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot in an ambush-style attack in Washington, D.C. before Thanksgiving. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, has died; the other victim,
Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition. The shooter is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national.

He shouldn’t have been here. Simple as that.

It is mordantly entertaining to see the despicable Axis news media spin like dervishes to try to somehow blame the President and Republicans for what is 100% the result of progressive madness. The presence of the National Guard in D.C. can’t reasonably be blamed for violent attacks on them, but Democratic rhetoric irresponsibly describing their deployment as the equivalent of a hostile occupation or an autocratic fascist take-over can be held responsible, and should be.

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Elon Musk: “Delusional,” Huckster, or Credible Dreamer?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

A twitter user I have never heard of (but who somehow has amassed over half a million followers posted that tweet above with the comment, “I don’t understand why people continue investing in a company whose CEO is self-evidently delusional and whose plans for the business have no basis in reality.” Another user quickly pointed out that the eccentric billionaire entrepreneur “reduced the cost of launch to orbit by ~90%, mainstreamed electric cars, and gave a paralyzed man the ability to control a computer with his mind.” Yes, that’s a complete rebuttal to the “influencer’s” snark. Why do investors trust Musk? Because he’s an out-of-the-box thinker with the resources to make impossible-seeming ideas reality, and has a track record that says, “Don’t bet against him.”

Regular readers here know that I detest John Lennon’s anthem for idiots, “Imagine.” John identifies himself as a “dreamer,” which he rationalizes “Everybody does it” style: He’s not the only one who thinks we can achieve his juvenile version of utopia (“Nothing to live or die for…”). But John was a minimally educated lifetime musician and poet: like the Everly Brothers, all he could do was dream (and they were silly dreams anyway). Elon Musk has shown that he is capable of making some previously impossible dreams possible. That deserves awe and respect.

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The Sec. of Transportation Tells Kim Kardashian That She’s an Irresponsible Ignorance-Spreading Fool. Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In an episode of the reality show “The Kardashians” (My god, is that still on?) Uber Kardashian Kim, the only one of the breed who earned her celebrity (with a sex tape and a huge derriere), told actress Sarah Paulson that she had watched interviews with Buzz Aldrin, who was on the Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong and the second person to walk on the moon, and they convinced her that the moon landing was a government hoax.

“I don’t think we did. I think it was fake,” the Kimster announced. “I’ve seen a few videos on Buzz Aldrin talking about how it didn’t happen. He says it all the time now, in interviews.” Does anyone know what the hell she’s babbling about? The last time I heard about Aldrin in relation to the moonwalk conspiracy theory, he punched a guy in the face for claiming it was true.

Then Kardashian repeated a trope of the ancient conspiracy theory: “There’s no gravity on the moon. Why is the flag blowing?” I view that statement all by itself as signature significance: anyone who says it once is too gullible to be let outside without a keeper, and anyone who says it publicly is an idiot. The “mystery” can be answered by viewing the archived videos or by 3 seconds of googling. Who goes on TV and asserts a non-fact that anyone, including her, can prove false in a trice?

This time, however, big guns were trained on the specific idiot. Sean Duffy, the US Transportation Secretary and acting administrator of NASA, rebutted the whatever-she-is on X. He wrote: “Yes, Kim Kardashian, we’ve been to the moon before … Six times! And even better, NASA Artemis is going back under the leadership of [President Trump]. We won the last space race and we will win this one too.”

Madison, Wis, bloggress Ann Althouse, in one of her “it’s not the topic, it’s the tangents” posts, asks,

“Why is a government official calling out a private citizen who expresses interest in a conspiracy theory? We’re Americans. We have our conspiracy theories. Keep your government nose out of our business. You’re only giving more ammunition to the conspiracy theorists. Why stick your neck out to deny what isn’t true? You’re making it more fun to believe the theory!”

Ann is evoking the “Streisand Effect” with her “You’re only giving more ammunition to the conspiracy theorists.” She’s wrong, maybe even at an Ethics Dunce level. This conspiracy is hardly unknown: there was even a movie about it, and I have encountered moonwalk skeptics periodically ever since the event. “Why is a government official calling out a private citizen who expresses interest in a conspiracy theory?” Because, Ann, celebrities are not “private citizens.” They are public citizens; they make their millions by being famous and by appearing, speaking and misbehaving in public. More Americans by far know who Kim Kardashian is than who know who Sean Duffy is. A disturbing number of Americans, maybe even a majority, believe that being a celebrity (and appearing on TV) indicates virtue, wisdom and intelligence. Celebrity culture helped get Donald Trump elected President. Doesn’t Ann Althouse understand that? Hasn’t she ever heard the rejoinder, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

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For Phillies Pitcher Orion Kirkering, In Compassion and Sympathy

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The Philadelphia Phillies, who had the best record in the National league this season are desperate for a World Series championship. They last won it in 2008, and have only won a World Series twice since the team was founded in 1883. Last night the Phillies lost the deciding game of the NL Divisional Series to the Dodgers in a dramatic, extra inning contest (with no stupid “zombie runner” because MLB plats baseball the right way in the post season) on a disastrous final play that is destined to live in Philadelphia infamy.

The culprit was pitcher Orion Kirkering. With two outs and the potential Dodger winning run on third base in the 11th inning, he got the batter to hit a weak grounder back to him. First he fumbled the ball, recovered, and only had to throw to first base to get the third out and end the inning. But he saw the base runner from second running home, and inexplicably threw the ball to his catcher, or tried to. In his panic, he threw wildly. The run scored, the game was lost, and the Phillies season was over.

In baseball terms, Kirkering choked. When the game was on the line and professional athletes are supposed to rise to the occasion and be at their best, he was at his worst. A whole city blames him for the crushing loss: he is now Philadelphia’s Bill Buckner.

All I can do for Orion is to remind him of my father’s favorite poem, by Rudyard Kipling, which he told me gave him hope and solace as young, fatherless boy during the Depression, and later, when having to cope with his own tragedies, failures and perceived shortcomings. I think of it often, and read it again just two weeks ago.

The poem is, of course, “If.”

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet, don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves, to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop, and build ’em up, with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn, long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—

You’ll be a Man, my son!

Ethics Quote of the Month: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“The journalists need to get in shape. Frankly, I’m getting tired of looking at their writing and seeing such shit. It’s completely unacceptable.”

—-Veteran bloggress Ann Althouse, an occasionally red-pilled liberal Democrat, expressing disgust in a pots yesterday with the state of American journalism after reviewing the (as usual) biased and partisan coverage of the Trump Administration, this time in reporting on Sec. of War Hegseth’s meeting yesterday with the Pentagon’s generals and admirals.

I was going to write about that meeting and President Trump’s characteristic stream-of consciousness speech that followed it, then saw Althouse’s piece this morning naming what she felt were the worst headlines about the “Hegsethathon.”

Ann has expressed annoyance with biased coverage of Trump and his administrations before, but I think this is the first time she condemned the entire Axis media, to which I say, 1) “Good!” and 2) “What took her so long?” American journalists have overwhelmingly been avoiding ethical journalism since at least 2008, and my blog, unlike hers, blew the whistle, loudly, beginning in 2010. I suppose, as a liberal, Democrat law professor living and working in the bubble of Madison, Wisconsin who voted for Obama, Hillary and Biden, she can be forgiven for being blinded by confirmation bias and denial. Her commentariate has become far more conservative than she is (or was) in the interim. Ann should have become “sick of seeing such shit” long ago.

Hegseth’s meeting was attacked by the mainstream media from the second that it was announced. Why? A leader seeking cultural and organizational change should gather his or her commanders to ensure they understand their mission, goals and objectives. Much of the criticism was over the meeting demanding live, in person attendance. This objection demonstrates generational ignorance. A live meeting with everyone present and sitting together is and always will be the most powerful way to build group bonds and common purpose. I know this as a live theater director and a public speaker, and also as someone who knows the visceral differences from watching a baseball game or a movie in a crowd and seeing them alone or with one or two companions on a TV screen. We have a whole Zoom-warped generation who can’t grasp that, and their institutions and organizations will suffer as a result, probably forever.

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Weird Tales of the Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck: The Very Just Firing of Suzanne Swierc

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Do reporters understand what the First Amendment means? It would be passing strange if they did not, but to read and hear all the teeth-gnashing and garment-rending over lawyers, teachers and others justifiably dismissed for social media posts that announced to the world that they were cruel, irresponsible, biased or just not very bright, I find myself wondering.

The New York Times has one of their sob story features [gift link!] about an employee at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who found herself the target of online abuse and ultimately a negative employment action for posting this sentiment on Facebook: “If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.” The “private” statement went viral, as they say (if you think anything you post on line is “private,” you are a fool at the very least), and five days after it went up, Suzanne Swierc was fired as the director of health and advocacy at Ball State.

Good. It would have been irresponsible not to fire her, but Times writer Sabrina Tavernise writes that firings like hers raise “questions about the limits of free speech.” Some of the alleged more than 145 people fired in the wake of Kirk’s assassination may raise those questions, but not this one.

As is par for the course, the Times story mischaracterized the meaning and import of the central fact in the story: what Swierc posted. She didn’t express anything specifically negative about Kirk. She did not cheer on his death or call him names. Her post declared her inability to be “friends” with anyone who held an opinion about Charlie Kirk that was different from hers. Those one cannot be friends with, as opposed to those one hasn’t become friends with yet, are expressly adversaries, persona non grata or even enemies. Treating anyone as an enemy because of their opinions and openly announcing that this is one’s practice is an embrace of bigotry and intolerance. It is proof of dead ethics alarms.

A university staff member responsible for providing services to students as director of health and advocacy (whatever that means) or any other function cannot be trusted to do so fairly if that is her attitude. If it isn’t her attitude, Swierc should not have written that it was.

Swierc was fired, not for her opinion of Charlie Kirk, but because she proved she was unable to deal fairly with people holding diverse viewpoints. Sadly, surveys indicate that a lot of Americans have this malady, and the bulk of them are progressives: if you don’t think like they do, you’re by definition a bad person and not worthy of their friendship. That is an unethical mindset as well as a disqualifying one for many jobs.

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Most Fascinating Ethics Quote of the Year: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

President Trump, in his eulogy for assassinated conservative activist Charley Kirk at the massive memorial service in Phoenix

Can a quote be both ethical and unethical at the same time? You have to hand it to Donald Trump: his statement above at the Kirk memorial service had progressive heads exploding all over the map, and some conservative heads too. It was a genuinely provocative line, rich with contradictory meanings and implications. Did the President intend it that way? Who knows? They will be arguing about Trump’s brain in history and psychology tomes for a hundred years. I find myself hearing Wilford Brimley’s voice echoing through my brain in his iconic scene from “Absence of Malice”: “Mr. Gallagher, are you that smart?” Except in this case, it’s “Mr. Trump.”

Of course the line triggered the Trump-Deranged into self-identification, as with this guy…

But Trump didn’t say he hated half the country. Now Joe Biden came a lot closer to doing that when he accused Republicans of being fascists who are existential threats to democracy, though it was in a national speech to the nation not a memorial service. (I think that’s worse, myself.) We can’t be sure whom Trump regards as his “opponent.” Those who want him dead, as about a quarter of all Democrats according to one poll? Those who tried to impeach him twice and put him in prison using contrived prosecutions? Those who call him Hitler? The journalists and pundits who have been lying about him since he was elected in 2016 and before? Continue reading →

End of Summer Ethics Countdown, 8/30/25: Of Trailblazers, Dogs, Firings and Things.

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This date, I am told by the History Channel, constitutes two race barrier landmarks. On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first African American to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became the first African American to be shot into space on this date in 1983. I get it: there were clearly social and legal barriers to black Americans for a very long time, and both of those achievements represent progress for the race and the nation. Still, I find myself wondering if the marking of such “trailblazers” hasn’t become a sop to race-obsessed victim-activists who want American society to forever pay reparations to blacks, and for that matter all minorities and women, at the expense of the merit based society the U.S. aspires to be.

Thanks to computers, it is now possible to find all sorts of records and distinctions that nobody dreamed of commemorating before. The Boston Red Sox just went 7-1 in a short road trip, and we learned that it was the first time in the team’s history that it won seven games in a road trip of eight games or less, and so what? Wait, let’s check: Yes! There has never been a gay, Portuguese-African-American intellectual property specialist under 5’8″ hired as an associate at a major D.C. law firm! Obviously that should elevate an applicant in the hiring competition, no?

No.

Enough musing…

1. Pam Bondi fired a Justice Department intern paralegal for middle-fingering a member of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., on her way to work earlier this month, adding “Fuck the National Guard!” to her outburst. Bondi explained, “This DOJ remains committed to defending President Trump’s agenda and fighting to make America safe again.If you oppose our mission and disrespect law enforcement — you will NO LONGER work at DOJ.” I see nothing inappropriate in this, particularly in the atmosphere fostered by the Left in which working within the government to undermined policies the Axis deplores is being lionized and encouraged. The Justice Department can’t and shouldn’t trust such an individual. It is too bad we have come to that: once, lawyers and other good citizens could be trusted to do their jobs without allowing political biases and dissenting opinions to lead them to abuse their positions. No longer.

In related news, Sean Charles Dunn, the DOJ paralegal who was fired for throwing a sub sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent, has been charged with a misdemeanor after a D.C. grand jury refused to issue felony charges. A D.C. grand jury would probably refuse to indict President Trump’s assassin. I can see the argument that a felony for assaulting an officer with a non-lethal missile isn’t felony-worthy, but I hope this jerk gets jail time.

I’m sure he won’t.

2. The Ethicist answers an infuriating question: “Should I Report My Neighbor’s Animal Abuse?” Of course you should, you trepidatious idiot! This is a pure “Fix the problem!” situation. The inquirer ladles on all the reasons why he has allowed the poor animal to be abused for months, and the conduct described absolutely shows abuse. He had seen the dog kicked. The dog is kept outside on a short chain in freezing and hot weather. The writer sputters, “I can’t take him in; my own dog is elderly and won’t accept another. And while I believe [the dog] is neglected, nothing I’ve seen clearly violates the law. I feel trapped: afraid of overstepping with unpredictable neighbors, afraid of doing nothing and regretting it if [the dog] suffers or dies...What, ethically and practically, should I do to safeguard this dog’s well-being?“

Oh, fix the problem, you revolting weenie! How much has the dog suffered while you do things like whine to advice columnists? Tell the neighbors that you will buy the dog, and then give it to a humane dog rescue group. My dog Spuds was rescued from abuse by one rescue volunteer going up to the door, knocking, and saying, “Either turn that dog over to me or I’m calling the police.” The Ethicist gives his usual prolix response to fill up the column and comes around to the right answer eventually, but what would this pathetic inquirer do if he saw the neighbors abusing a child?

3. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! This is classic. Most of the news media reported the President curtailing Kamala Harris’s Secret Service detail so that the usual semi-illiterate, gullible readers would see it as more of Trump’s “revenge tour.” CBS: “President Trump has revoked former Vice President Kamala Harris’ U.S. Secret Service protection.” Ditto ABC, NBC, BBC. Only the Associated Press included the rather relevant information that former VP’s, unlike former Presidents, typically only get six months of Secret Service protection, and Harris’s would be up under normal circumstances. But President Biden, or his autopen, extended Harris’s detail to 18 months for no discernible reason. Writes Ed Morrissey: “So the actual story is that the Biden administration gave Harris a stealth extension of taxpayer-funded benefits to which she was not entitled. If Congress wants to extend those benefits for former VPs, then let Congress propose and pass those into statute as amendments to the pension system for former presidents and VPs. Otherwise, Harris is no longer a public servant, and she can use her own resources for personal protection rather than sponge off the taxpayers. Trump simply canceled the illegitimate extension and restored the normal post-office benefit limitations to which all VPs are subject.”

But most of the public won’t see it that way, and this is intentional. Enemy of the people.

4. Look, the evil EPA fired employees who made it clear they couldn’t be trusted to carry out the policies of the agency! Yes, the EPA has started firing some of the144 employees it placed on leave for endorsing a public letter that said the changes President Donald Trump and his appointees had made at the agency “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” More than 270 employees initially signed the letter, with over 170 choosing to be named. The open letter “contains information that misleads the public about agency business,” an EPA official said. “Thankfully, this represents a small fraction of the thousands of hard-working, dedicated EPA employees who are not trying to mislead and scare the American public.” “This is to provide notification that the Agency is removing you from your position and federal service consistent with the above references,” said one termination notice. “I have determined that your continued employment is not in the public interest.”

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