Religion and Philosophy

Ethics Warm-Up: I Wish I Were Surprised, But I’m Not

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

NOW what?

Quite a bit, actually…

1. Res Ipsa Loquitur #1 The Democratic National Committee has barred Fox News from hosting its Presidential primary debates. I guess the Democrats don’t want any tough questions interfering with their efforts to rig the nomination this time around.

If there was ever better proof that the Democratic Party considers the mainstream media their captive allies, I don’t know what it would be. In 2016, Republicans subjected their candidates to outright hostile questioning from CBS and CNBC journalists, and Fox treated Donald Trump as roughly as a candidate can be treated in the Republican debates. I watched all the pre-nomination debates: Fox’s Neil Cavuto was among the very fairest of all panelists, and as Fox News has correctly said in its protest about the Democratic slur, Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the proposed Fox News debate questioners, are at least as objective and professional as any Left-media journalists.

DNC Chair Tom Perez’s excuse for this blackball move is self-evidently dishonest: “Recent reporting in the New Yorker on the inappropriate relationship between President Trump, his administration and Fox News has led me to conclude that the network is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates. Therefore, Fox News will not serve as a media partner for the 2020 Democratic primary debates.” Oh, the New Yorker says so! That settles it then!

The GOP didn’t pull out of the Vice-Presidential debates in 2008 even though the NPR’s debate moderator, Gwen Ifill, had her pro-Obama book sitting at her publisher  waiting for he candidate to win. CBS wasn’t barred from hosting debates, event though David Rhodes, then president of CBS News, is the brother of Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser. Meanwhile, Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News, is the brother of Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, an Obama  special assistant.  Claire Shipman, a national correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” was married to Jay Carney when he was President Obama’s press secretary. These were real, hard, conflicts of interest. The bias of the Fox News journalists is apparently based on the fact that they may run into Trump pal Sean Hannity in the lunch room.

The Democratic Party is prepared to do everything in its power to make sure the American public does not get properly informed regarding the character, skills and beliefs of its 2020 Presidential candidate, and is confident that every network but Fox can be depended upon to assist them in achieving that goal.

2. Almost certainly untrustworthy study of the week, but great for confirmation bias purposes:  According to an article in “The Atlantic,”  a survey conducted by the polling firm PredictWise that assembled a county-by-county index of American political intolerance  based on poll results determined that ” the most politically intolerant Americans… tend to be whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves.”

That would explain the posts by my Facebook friends… Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/5/2019: Knaves, Idiots, And Fools” [Item #6]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

The Horror! It’s an outrage! Send it to Hell! Well, not Hell, exactly, because that would be acknowledging religion. OK, let me start again…

Ethics Alarms used to have its own in-house atheist activist, and this is one of the times that I miss him: he would undoubtedly have a fascinating rebuttal to this Comment of the Day. I’m old enough to remember when Madalyn Murray O’Hair was the most hated woman in America for challenging the Constitutionality of school prayer, and winning.  (Remind me to tell the story of the time I spoke to O’Hair on a call-in TV talk show, posing as God.) Although I have come to agree that she was right (she later said she wished she hadn’t raised the issue), it still seems to me that atheists are more obsessed with religion than most religious people are, and their passionate antipathy borders on the pathological. The SCOTUS case that sparked this COTD is a good example: is it really necessary to attack a nearly one hundred year old war memorial because the design is a cross?

Here is Steve-O-in NJ’s Comment of the Day on item #6 in the post, “Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/5/2019: Knaves, Idiots, And Fools”:

This isn’t the first one of these cross lawsuits, as has been discussed here a few times, and it sure as the devil won’t be the last. The problem isn’t really even with atheism, at least as the title for those who never have believed or choose not to believe in any god or gods. The First Amendment’s about as clear as any law can be that no one here can be forced to believe or disbelieve anything. America is still over 70% religious, and those religious Americans are overwhelmingly Christian, though how strongly so is up for discussion. Those who belong to no particular religion vary almost as much as those who do, from people raised in whatever faith who just drifted away at some point in life and never went back, to those raised without any faith who just never bothered with it, to agnostics, who think the presence of God is beyond knowing, to those who think religion’s all a bunch of hooey and choose to have nothing to do with it. It’s a minority of non-believers who are actively hostile to religion, but, unfortunately, those are the ones that get all the press.

As someone who is at least nominally a Catholic, and as someone who strongly dislikes one particular faith (Islam) I will venture a guess that those who dislike religion generally feel and think about it the way I do about that one particular faith I dislike. We can also both marshal some arguments that sound compelling. I can say that Islamic thought is incompatible with the Western way of doing things, that their history is checkered and shows an unhealthy propensity to impose itself by violence, and that a lot of their holy scriptures are downright scary. However, those opposed to religion generally can also say that ancient religion generally isn’t compatible with a world of the internet and surgery and science, that religion doesn’t have the greatest history generally, and that most holy scriptures are problematic, including the Bible, which, at least in the Old Testament, got the most basic moral question, slavery, wrong. Of course all these arguments are simplistic as phrased, and aren’t so absolute when you look at them in more detail, but that takes time and thought. The difference is, though, if I speak out against Islam, (which I have) I have to tread carefully lest I be deemed a hater, while those who speak out against all religion are not deemed haters. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Wyoming State Sen. Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne)

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Why is she incompetent? Because, based on this statement in support of capital punishment, she’s a complete idiot, devoid of critical thinking skills, logical mental processes, and the sense God gave a toaster. I’m not speaking metaphorically here. Anyone who would make this argument would lose a game of Scrabble to a pork chop.

Senator Hutchings said, and I’m not making this up,

“The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me. I’m grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn’t for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope.”

Oh! Then I’m convinced! Why didn’t I think of that?

Does this mean that because arguably the greatest American, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated, we should support assassination? Never mind, if I get started, my head will explode. Hutchings manages to make Christians, Republicans and Wyoming citizens seem too dumb to live, in three sentences.

Cheyenne citizens actually elected this dolt to represent them.

I don’t want to think about this one any more.

Is The U.S. Ethically Obligated To Grant Asylum To All Oppressed Women?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

In a recent irresponsible statement in reference to the government shut-down over President Trump’s wall, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he didn’t want a border wall to be the symbol of America, that he wanted the Statue of Liberty to be that symbol. In this context, it is impossible to interpret Schumer’s words as anything but a weaselly, wink-wink, coded endorsement of open borders. When the statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886, the U.S. had few limitations on immigration. Non-citizens could vote in most states. The population was about 50 million, or about 1/7 of what it is today. The famous poem by Emma Lazarus,  “The New Colossus,”  is not part of the statue, nor is it official U.S. policy. Today it resides in the Statue of Liberty Museum. In short, it was a different country, with different problems and priorities.

Now comes the terribly sad story of two young Saudi sisters who apparently committed suicide by drowning themselves in the Hudson River rather than return to their country, where women are second class citizens. Should such a story have any relevance at all to U.S. immigration and asylum policy? Should how much a non-citizen wants to live here be a factor in what the U.S. decides is the best criteria for allowing an immigrant to arrive and stay? If the two sisters could be granted asylum because they were women in a culture hostile to women, why not all Saudi women? Why not all Muslim women who are “yearning to be free”? Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Open Forum” (Catholic Church Thread)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

This seems like a nice, fraught time to post A. M. Golden’s comment in the last Open Forum, especially since he broaches the controversy over the Roman Catholic Church’s relationship with Nazi Germany and its efforts (or lack of them?) in support of Jews during the Holocaust.

Here is A.M.s Comment of the Day:

The Catholic Church signed a Concordant with the German government agreeing not to get involved in politics (something I’m sure every progressive in the U.S. has wanted for years and would heartily endorse) in return for the Germans agreeing not to interfere with the Catholic instruction of youth. This was an agreement that the Nazis grudgingly complied with for a limited time before finally interfering whenever they wanted.

Yet…the Catholics objected to converted Jews being discriminated against because the Nazi racial theories still considered them biologically Jews regardless of their religious persuasion. Many German Protestants had the same concern. There were also many who risked their lives to save Jews due to their religious convictions – spurred by their minister or priest’s teaching.

There were ministers and priests that preached against the T4 Aktion – the Nazi euthanasia program – that killed mentally and physically disabled children and adults. Continue reading →

Religious Bigotry Ethics: Kamala Harris’s Attack On The Knights Of Columbus

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

Sounds like monsters to me!

Here is another embarrassing story the mainstream media is shrugging off, presumably because it exposes one more ugly side of the preferred (by many in the media) candidate for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination, California Senator Kamala Harris. In truth, journalists do Democrats no favors when they cover for them like this: it makes the Democrats being shielded careless, it makes them reckless, it makes them stupid and unable to disguise their extremism and  ruthlessness.

Yes, it makes them into Hillary Clinton.

In recent judicial nominee hearings, Harris teamed up with Sen. Mazie Hirono–she’s the Certified Silly Person who said that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because Democrats are too “smart” and “know so much,” you know, like Mazie—but she couldn’t be elected dog-catcher outside of Hawaii, so I’m not going to bother using this episode to further prove what is already proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes, she is an idiot. Harris, however, is supposed to be brilliant, plus she’s a lawyer, she’s black, and she’s woke.

Before Christmas, Harris, along with Hirono, attacked judicial nominee Brian Buesche for belonging to the Knights of Columbus, the venerable Catholic social and charitable organization founded in 1882. Senator Harris  demanded that Bunche, seeking confirmation for  a U.S. district court judgeship, end his membership in that organization and recuse himself from cases in which it has taken a position. In other words, being Catholic disqualifies individuals for federal judgeships. Strange, I thought we put this bigotry to bed when Jack Kennedy made a campaign speech promising that he wouldn’t take orders from the Pope.

The Knights, say the two Senators (but let’s concentrate on the Woman Who Would Be President, Harris), assert that the Knights have taken “extreme positions,” meaning that they follow the Catholic Church’s doctrinal opposition to abortion and gay marriage. I don’t see how anyone can interpret the Senators’ position as anything but anti-religion bigotry.  Writes Ramesh Ponnuru,

Support for the traditional definition of marriage is not an extreme position; it is held by roughly a third of all Americans. It was certainly not an “extreme position” at the time of Proposition 8: The initiative won 52 percent of the vote in one of the most liberal states in the country, the same day that state voted overwhelmingly to make Barack Obama president…If Harris and Hirono want to maintain that all judicial nominees must support abortion, beyond just saying that they will respect existing law, then they should just say that there are scores of millions of Christians they would never allow on the federal bench on account of their beliefs.

In 2017, Senator Diane Feinstein hinted of rising Democratic anti-religious hostility, or perhaps more transparent hostility, when she seemed to look askance at Judge Amy Coney Barrett membership in the Catholic Church, observing darkly, “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s a concern.” Continue reading →

2018 Ethics Retrospective Poll #2 and #3: “Unethical Profession Of The Year” And “Incompetent Elected Official”

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

The effort to prompt some input into the 2018 Ethics Alarms Awards will obviously continue for another day or two, as my promise to “be posting these periodically during the day and evening” was foiled by intervening priorities yesterday.  There are two polls this time (here was the first, still open), and again, please don’t hesitate to expand on your votes.

Nominations for “Unethical Profession Of The Year”

Once, there was never any question about the “winner” of this  category: it was inevitably educators or, more often, journalists. One of the horrible consequences the 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, however, is that almost all the professions dived into the muck, sought headlines by making the kind of biased and irresponsible statements that society depends on professionals to eschew, and they have continued their self-debasement ever since. While journalists and educators—in this I include all academics as well as teachers and administrators, have still disgraced themselves beyond debate—they have real competition now. Each profession nominated will be linked to a representative Ethics Alarms post. The nominees are… Continue reading →

‘Yeah, I Know Journalists Are Untrustworthy But They Support MY Biases, So I Trust Them Anyway,’ And More Revelations From The Annual Gallup Survey

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The chart above shows the summary results of Gallup’s annual survey of the public’s trust in various professions. The venerable polling organization  has set out to measure the public attitudes toward the honesty and ethical standards of professions and occupations since 1976.  The  poll, conducted between December 3 and 12, 1,025, asked U.S. adults, as Johnny Carson’s quiz show didfrom 1957-1962, “Who Do You Trust?” and also “How much?” The survey has never revealed whether and how much any of these groups should be trusted, for trust is often irrational, and based more on perception than reality. If you want to be cynical about it, you can conclude that it only tells us who does the better job of conning those who depend on them.

As in every year for two decades, (with the exception of 2001, when firefighters were on the list after the 9/11 terrorist attacks) nurses topped the list.  Before that, pharmacists and clergymen  exchanged yearly titles for most-trusted. I have wondered if pharmacists lost votes once “It’s A Wonderful Life” started being shown on the networks every holiday season, with old Mr. Gower shown drunkenly loading pill capsules meant for a sick kid from the contents of a jar labeled “POISON.” However, there isn’t much mystery why public regard for the clergy’s ethics has dived. Continue reading →

Ethics Reflections, Post Christmas, 12/26/2018: Quotes, Dummies, Movies And Scams

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

Still Merry Christmas.

1. Quotation ethics. The church next door has a message out front this week that says, “The time is right to always do the right thing”—Martin Luther King.

That’s not the quote. Misquotes get into the public lexicon that way; it’s unethical to go around posting sloppy versions of quotes on message boards. Stated like that, the quote is a tautology: if you always do the right thing, of course the time is right to do what you do anyway. Not that King’s actual quote is one of his best. The actual quote—“The time is always right to  do the right thing” is pretty fatuous, and incorporates  Rationalization #60. The Ironic Rationalization, or “It’s The Right Thing To Do” by assuming that what is the right thing to do is intrinsically obvious. Sometimes the right thing is to wait. Sometimes the right thing is yo be sure what you think is the right thing really is. King was dangerously arming ideologues and the self-righteous who think they are the ultimate arbiters of what is “right.”

Davey Crockett’s quote is better: “Be sure you are right, and then go ahead.”

2. Is it political correctness to point out that Jeff Dunham’s act is racist? After being told by my wife that I couldn’t watch any more holiday movies or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, my channel surfing today took me to Comedy Central and Christmas-themed performance by ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. Dunham’s low-brow act makes Charlie McCarthy seem like Oscar Wilde, and I cannot watch him and his howling audiences without thinking about this scene in “Blazing Saddles”…

He began his set with “Walter,” his bitter old curmudgeon dummy, whose face is perpetually scowling and whose arms are crossed in disgust with the world. To my amazement, Walter launched into an extended section ridiculing black speech, black slang, hip-hop, Kwanza and the Black Entertainment Network, and the huge, apparently all-white mid-West audience roared with laughter. How ugly and disturbing. These were jokes of denigration, about people who weren’t there. This was never anything but hate-mongering humor, not in 1948, 1958, 1968, or now. It’s an audience laughing at other people for simply being different than they are.

I kn ow, I know: how is this different from what Stephen Colbert, or Bill Maher, or Samantha Bee does in every performance? It isn’t different, really: it’s just that treating white people who aren’t “woke” as the “other” is considered acceptable, while doing this to minorities, gays or women is considered bigotry, hateful, and cowardly.

3. It annoys me that I should even have to say this, but calling “Die Hard” a Christmas movie is nothing but a cynical way to diminish Christmas and the spirit of kindness and love that the holidays are supposed to foster in order to promote future holiday marathons of a violent action movie. Celebrating the film’s 30 Anniversary, some Grinch at 20th Century Fox decided that it would be cute to promote Bruce Willis’s break-out film as “The Greatest Christmas Story” ever told, according to 20th Century Fox. Right: the movie ends with a strained family brought back together, takes place during a Christmas party, and Bruce’s wife is named “Holly.” It also involves the killing of  more than twenty people, including police,l FBI agents, and innocent victims in addition to the bad guys the hero smokes.

And I like “Die Hard.” I even like two of its four vastly inferior sequels. Continue reading →

The Story Of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” [Updated And Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Bing Crosby memorably introduced this last of the popular Christmas songs to have a religious theme to most Americans in 1963, on this live broadcast of “The Hollywood Palace.”  It  was written in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, by a married songwriting team that  wondered at the time if it would be the last thing they ever did.

Noel Regney, who wrote the lyrics, was born in France and had studied music at the Strasbourg Conservatory and at the Conservatoire National de Paris. When France was overwhelmed by Hitler’s troops in 1940, he was conscripted into the German army. As a Nazi soldier, he secretly joined the French underground and served as a spy, passing information along to the resistance. Once he led German soldiers into a trap where they were massacred by French fighters who cut them down in a crossfire. He was shot too, but survived.

After that traumatic encounter, Regney deserted and worked with the French underground until the end of the war. Continue reading →