This is ridiculous.
The President took to social media again yesterday to announce that he doesn’t like the Pope:
What an irredeemably stupid thing to do.
Religion and Philosophy
Comment of the Day: “Ethics Observations On Byron Noem’s ‘Bimbofication’ Scandal'”
Not only was this Comment of the Day a sharp analysis of a weird story: I learned about “The Lavender Scare.” under President Eisenhower.
Here is our Netherlands correspondent Cees Van Barnveldt’s COTD on the post, “Ethics Observations On Byron Noem’s ‘Bimbofication’ Scandal'”...
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I am not going to milk the hypocrisy on the side of the Democrats angle here, except to says that a member of a party that celebrates people like Admiral Rachel Levine as Assistant Secretary of Health, and Sam Brinton as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition and transgenderism in general should be ethically estopped from ridiculing Bryon Noem for his particular sexual interests. You cannot explain to me that transgenderism is normal and acceptable, and Bryon Noem’s sexual interests are not.
In the 1950s there was a Lavender Scare, in which LGBTQ+ people were disqualified from working for the U.S Federal Government. President Dwight Eisenhower signed EO 10450, which defined “sexual perversion” as a security risk (blackmail), leading to the firing of over 10,000 employees. Intense investigations involving lie detector tests and interviews with families and neighbors were launched to identify gay and lesbian employees; those who were not cleared in these investigations were forced to resign. EO 10450 was rescinded under President Obama.
Sexual morals have liberalized since the 1950s. The election of Ronald Reagan as POTUS ended divorce as a disqualifier for high office in elections. The Bill Clinton impeachment fiasco settled issues as well: consensual sinful sexual conduct is not a disqualifier for the Presidency. That settled the matter for conservatives too: popular politicians do not have to resign for extramarital affairs and other sins. Trump as POTUS is supported by conservative Christians despite his colorful marital and sexual past. Elon Musk has 14 children with multiple women, which did not disqualifying from DOGE. Scott Bessent as Secretary of Treasury is openly gay. Many do not see transgenderism as a kink or perversion anymore, disqualifying a person from office (Rachel Levine). So why is Bryon Noem’s interest in cross dressing a matter of ethical concern? Shouldn’t we simply see this issue as a personal matter, only of interest to the Noem family?
One of the main reason the issue is raised is that the Noem family professes to be evangelical Christians. The double life of both Bryon and Kristi Noem violates Biblical morals. Kristi had a longstanding extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, which I think was an ethics issue due to the work relationship of Kristi and Corey. Many were surprised that husband Bryon, who was fully aware of the affair, did not file for divorce. Did he not have any self respect? Was he tied to Kristi with golden handcuffs? Did he perhaps have a cuckold fetish? Now we know what was happening. Bryon quietly quit the marriage a long time ago, indulging in his own sexual interests. And Kristi knew about it, and did not care. This is not the picture of a Christian marriage. But not living up to Biblical norms does not make it an ethics issue in a society that has said farewell to Christian sexual ethics.
Addendum To and Ethics Quote of the Week on “The EA ‘Imagine’ Award Goes To Pope Leo, Who Should Put A Bag Over His Head…”
The quote is from Steve-O-in NJ’s most appropriate comment on Pope Leo’s call to “ban” aerial bombing in his response to last night’s post, “The EA “Imagine” Award Goes To Pope Leo, Who Should Put A Bag Over His Head…”.
Steve’s comment begins with “This is an embarrassment”—it is—and ends with a declaration for the ages:
“…[T]he leader of the world’s largest Christian sect needs to do better than be absurd.”
Exactly. Pope Leo is in a particularly important role not to misuse by shooting off his mouth irresponsibly, because millions of people around the world assume that he has moral authority, more wisdom than they, inherent virtues, and a pipeline to God. When I hear someone say something that stupid, I assume that they are stupid, or posturing, which is a type of lying. That is not a good look on the Pope.
Steve’s bon mot also follows neatly on what I wrote in the post, which was, “The more revered and powerful the advocate for virtue-signaling nonsense, the more unethical such demagoguery is.” There is far too much of this flagrant abuse of position and authority going around.
The EA “Imagine” Award Goes To Pope Leo, Who Should Put A Bag Over His Head…
How I wish he had sung it! That would have been funny and maybe entertaining. Otherwise this kind of pronouncement is 100% useless and insulting, while making too many people dumber.
Speaking to executives and staff from Italy’s ITA Airways, the first U.S. Pope proved he could be as fatuous as other Popes by saying, “No one should have to fear that threats of death and destruction might come from the sky. After the tragic experiences of the 20th century, aerial bombings should have been banned forever. Yet they still exist … this is not progress; it is regression!”
Well, if we could have the marshmallow world John Lennon imagined, “nothing to live of die for” and no countries or religion, that might be slightly less ludicrous, but only slightly. Now that I’ve roused those banished brain cells where I store “Imagine,” let me take a few minutes to run “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” in my mind to cleanse it.
There! Much better!
I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!…That Mayor Mamdani’s Wife Is A Flaming Anti-Semite!
I have a very good friend, an actor, a lawyer, a Jew and a “useful idiot” for progressives, who recently wrote a passionate and articulate Facebook post about however one felt about Israel, there was no excuse, justification or salvation for people who hated Jews. And I recalled that he had been among my misguided and ethically-crippled Facebook friends who actually celebrated the election of Communist Zohran Mamdani, as had others of my friends as well as Democratic Party Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and this august crew (from Mamdani’s website):
But it’s even worse. With the exception of the disgraced ex-Governor of New York who was running against Mamdani, not a single national Democratic leader would say publicly, “What???? Are you all out of your minds? This guy hates Jews! What has our party become?”
What indeed.
Of course there was plenty of evidence that the Mayor-to-be’s wife was a Jew Hater, but the Axis media went to its usual great lengths to bury that fact like a cat buries its turds in a cat box. Today the Washington Free Beacon did the public a favor with a metaphorical bucket full of ice water to the faces of all of Mamdani’s enablers, deniers and useful idiots. The post is headlined, “Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Celebrated Palestinian Terrorists, Including Plane Hijacker, In Social Media Posts From Early Adulthood…Rama Duwaji also boosted a post that said Tel Aviv ‘Shouldn’t exist in the first place.’” There’s no paywall: read it. Send it to your Trump Deranged friends, and all your blind Facebook friends who thought this Marxian demagogue was so charming and passionate.
Better yet, shake the Free Beacon story in front of their smug, stupid faces like a Jack Russell Terrier shakes a rat—you know I love that image—or even better YET, do this..
Now, they will huminahumina that just because someone marries the love of his life who happens to want Jews wiped from the face of the earth doesn’t mean Mayor Mamdani feels the same way. Right. Heck, we don’t know that Eva Braun was bad, do we? Riiiight. Mayor Mamdani just used St. Paddy’s Day to compare the Irish Republican Army to Palestinians, who want Jews wiped from the face of the earth. This isn’t hard.
As for the Mamdani-chering Jews, like my friend, a smart and compassionate man, who celebrated Mamdani because he opposes Donald Trump, there are no excuses. They should be ashamed of themselves. He should be ashamed of himself. I am ashamed of him. People should turn their backs on these ethically corrupted fools like the jurors in “Twelve Angry Men” turn their backs on Juror 10 (Ed Begley) when he erupts into his final bigoted rant..
The irony? I cast that pro-Mamdani actor-friend in one of my productions of “Twelve Angry Men.”
“A representative for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment,” notes the Free Beacon. Of course not. What would he say?
From The Ethics Alarms Archives: “What Is Wrong Is That We Do Not Ask What Is Right.”
I stumbled across this post from 2022 by accident, but feel like it is a good time to repost it. It sparks recall of one of the histories’s great thinkers, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) G.K. slaughtered Clarence Darrow in an Oxford debate over the existence of God—Darrow took the negative position, naturally, an assertion that he had won debates maintaining many times. After the debacle, Darrow commented, in essence, “My hat’s off to him. He was better prepared and won fair and square.” He was thinking, I believe, “Holy cats! This guy is smarter than me!” Chesterton, sadly, is mostly known today by Americans because of the PBS series dramatizing his “Father Brown” mysteries, stories Chesterton published as a lark. He was much more than second-rate Arthur Conan Doyle.
I also am moved to repost this because it was the sole guest post offered by my late wife, best friend, business partner and inspiration, Grace Bowen Marshall, who suddenly perished this month in 2024. She occasionally commented here, but her real love was literature, especially British literature. In her introduction she wrote in part,
“The first chapter of his 1910 book “What’s Wrong With The World” was a ‘bright-light’ experience for me. Though hopelessly outdated in some 21st century factual respects, it is considered to be one of his more interesting works because Chesterton examines the human thought process and how it affects the outcomes of different kinds of problems, reminiscent of the “observer effect.” G.K. was, in 1910, much more trusting of science and medicine than we are now, e.g., and did not address 21st century thought-process issues like the scientists’ tendency to do something simply because they can without considering if they should. Here is an excerpt from G.K. Chesterton’s “What’s Wrong With The World.”
Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s ‘Islamaphobic’ Quote”
[Apologies to all: I was so eager to get Steve’s Comment of the Day up that I forgot to add the headline!]
The historically literate, unrestrained Ethics Alarms veteran commenter Steve-O-in NJ returns to the familiar (to him) Comment of the Day podium making the case that Rep. Fine was not being one bit unreasonable and certainly not “Islamophobic” when he responded to a New York City Muslim activists assertion that dogs should not be kept as pets in the Big Apple with the quip, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
In casual conversation about Fine’s line (not to be confused with “a fine line” ) I have yet to encounter anyone who doesn’t feel he got the better of the exchange. One lawyer friend, known for his combative courtroom style, opined that the woman’s ‘Islam is right that dogs are dirty’ remark was such a metaphorical hanging curve ball that it would have been unethical not to hit it out of the park.
Here is Steve-O-in-NJ’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s ‘Islamaphobic’ Quote”:
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Islamic attitudes toward dogs vary. Some think of them as okay to use as working animals (herding, hunting etc.), but not pets. Judaism also for a time was anti-dog, and I think that ported over to Islam, same as the rule against pork.
I for one have never owned a dog, but I have known many, and I think they are useful in a number of ways, including as companion animals. They assist the disabled, protect and direct livestock, find people (or bodies), save those stranded on mountains, assist the emergency services, and even tow carts with Christmas trees or other evergreen decorations (the Bernese Mountain Dog is the usual breed for this). I’ll take a large gentle dog or an affectionate energetic dog (little yappy dogs are not my thing) over a hyper-religious neighbor who wants to tell me what to do any day. I’ve said a few times that Islam is not compatible with Western values, and this is just one other reason why it isn’t.
Ethics Quiz: Rep. Fine’s “Islamaphobic” Quote
Oh, I find this fascinating, especially in light of the previous post.
Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian Muslim New Yorker and activist, said in a social media post that dog poop littered snowdrifts in the city proved that dogs should have no place in society as indoor pets because, she wrote, “like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.”
Responding to this obnoxious assertion of foreign values and priorities over American ones, Representative Randy Fine (R-Fla.) replied, “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Naturally the Mad Left exploded with horror and indignation, with the usual calls for the insensitive Republican’s resignation and worse. But the truth is, if we are being honest about our own culture and priorities, if every Muslim in the United States joined in a mass ultimatum stating, “This is non-negotiable. Either the United States gives up its dogs as house pets, or we’re leaving!” the overwhelming majority of Americans—including me—would say, “Gee, that’s a shame. Well, bye! Good luck in your future endeavors!”
The Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Was it unethical for Rep. Fine to say what he did?
Now THIS Is An Unethical Minister…
My father early in his life rejected organized religion, and my Greek Orthodox mother was only slightly behind him. This sort of thing was one reason (though not the only reason) why….
Dr Todd Hall, known affectionately as “The Praiseologist,” is the founder of Shabach Ministries of Praise, Inc., The Shabach Fellowship, and the The Shabach Church of Apopka, Florida. During an African Derived Religions conference (that’s ADR to the Enlightened), the minister asked the congregation to donate $10,000 within 90 seconds, promising that if they did, God would turn the donors into multi-millionaires.
“Well, duh, GEE, Reverend, who could turn down a deal like that! I’m IN!”
“The Lord said, I want to make a multi, multi-millionaire out of someone, but they have to sow ten thousand dollars! He said and they have to do that within 90 seconds,” a recording memorializes Hall saying.“Write the check! If you do this, God says, ‘I’m going to make you a multi-multi-millionaire!” I wish it was me!”
When not preaching or making parishioners into multi-millionaires as an agent of God, Hall is a businessman and the CEO of Risky Productions and TMH Enterprises.
The Praiseologist made his speech in front of a massive projection of a QR code labeled “Sow Your Seed” (Eww!) along with a performer suspended by wires (like Mary Martin in “Peter Pan,” but not singing “I’m Flying!” to dramatize Jehovah’s message, or something. I really liked it when Mary was doing it…and Sandy Duncan and Kathy Rigby too, but Marry was my favorite…
“The scene has fueled accusations of manipulation and exploitation,” one media report says. Ya think?
These kinds of ministers—don’t kid yourself, there are a lot of them out there—are followers of P.T. Barnum, Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff and Victor Lustig (who once “sold” the Eiffel Tower) more than Jesus Christ.
Of course, if The Praiseologist’s $10,000 donor does suddenly become a multi-millionaire, will I ever have egg on my face!
Comment of the Day: “Banning Thoughts, Positions and Ideas in Higher Education Is Unethical and Unconstitutional….But Is Cultural and Values Surrender the Only Alternative?”
Today became Frightening Mainstream Media Bias Saturday without my intention, so I’m going to shift gears to the other site of the massive Leftist societal and cultural manipulation, our conquered educational system. This Comment of the Day from one of EA’s resident authorities on the topic, will do quite nicely. Incidentally, I am a bit behind in my Comment of the Day posting. I’ll catch up, I promise.
In the meantime, here is Michael R.’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Banning Thoughts, Positions and Ideas in Higher Education Is Unethical and Unconstitutional….But Is Cultural and Values Surrender the Only Alternative?”…
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There is a solution, but it cannot be implemented because of the corruption of the judiciary. The state schools are clearly in violation of numerous discrimination laws and they should be held to account.
Boys are being discriminated in schools. Look at the current performance of boys vs. girls in GPA and test scores below.
Now compare this to the 1975 – 1995 figures here. This is clearly a Title IX violation.
It is claimed that 20% of elementary school teachers are male, but I haven’t seen that and I doubt you have either. The real number is probably closer to 95% female. I am pretty sure this is clear evidence of sex discrimination by the schools and needs to be remedied. The 4 elementary schools my son went to had no, zero, male employees. Not even a janitor was male. This is clearly sex discrimination and should be remedied immediately.
Surveys show that at least 65% of public schoolteachers are Democrats. In the universities, it is MUCH higher. This type of viewpoint discrimination should not be allowed in public schools and the states need to outlaw it. The problem is, if you allow Democrats to be hired and they are allowed to determine hiring, the place becomes all Democrat eventually because Democrats are a cult that puts cult loyalty before merit. The concept of merit is considered evil to them. A solution would be to exempt Republicans from the taxes that support the schools (“Here is my Republican Card. This entitles me to a 60% property tax discount and a 3% sales tax discount”) or state-paid tuition at the private school of their choice. Since the schools are partisan, only that party should be required to support the schools.
The college population has been majority female since 1973 or 1974 (depending on if you define it as 50/50 or percentage of the population. Women are currently 61% of college students. The number in many surveys is below 60%, but it has been above 60% for some time in my experience. This is a massive Title IX violation.
Ethics Alarms 