Religion and Philosophy

Ethics Quiz: Dignity For Arrested Lawbreakers!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

OK, maybe I just telegraphed my personal bias in reaction to this quiz, so I’ll keep my opinion to myself until the commentariat weighs in. I’ll try, anyway.

New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed in a 2018 class-action lawsuit by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who claimed their rights were violated when police forced them to remove their hijabs for the police to take their “mug shots.”

The financial settlement requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and I fervently hope…never mind! My mouth is zipped!

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Addendum: “Easter Morning Ethics Exultation”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The photo above, showing three illuminated cross along Lower Manhattan Skyline in New York city symbolizing the three crosses on Calvary, contrasts sharply with Item #3 of the previous post noting that the White House viewed Easter egg decorations with “religious symbols” inappropriate for the day’s festivities.

I ask, without irony or innuendo: “Is this progress?”

______________

Pointer: Sachin Jose

Ethics Dunce: Don Surber

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Don Surber is a former journalist and current conservative pundit whose blog and substack I occasionally peruse, usually without too much alarm. However, he has issued a substack essay that, if I had to summarize in three words my objections to it and any culture wars guerilla who cited him as authority would be, “This doesn’t help.” A longer version follows.

Surber’s piece is called “In praise of ties” and carries the subheading, “They helped build a society that we are destroying.” If Glenn Reynolds had not endorsed the link, I would have stopped reading right there. I know ties are going to be used as a metaphor for the decline of elegance, respect, adulthood, civility, dignity, elan and eclat, blattity-blah, but still. Don’t insult my intelligence. This is the equivalent of “In praise of stovepipe hats,” “In praise of spats,” “In praise of derbies” or “In praise of bustles.” These are all fashions, and fashions rise and fall like steam and autumn leaves. We get used to them, if they hang around long enough, and yes, sometimes their demise are linked to cultural factors that have little to do with fashion. Nonetheless, longing for a time when men wore ties as a matter of societal conformity makes one seem like Grandpa Simpson, screaming at clouds. Worse, in fact.

Surber writes, “Chuck Berry always wore a tie. Gas station attendants wore them. You could trust your car to the man who wore the star because he had a tie on. Men wore ties to ballgames because men were civilized. Ties were important because they gave a sense of authority but ties also showed that a man wants to belong in society. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.”

Sure, Don. I always thought those pictures of men wearing ties at baseball games were ridiculous. Ted Williams, one of my father’s heroes whom he passed on to me, famously refused to wear a tie: he had a very long neck and didn’t think ties looked good on him. Ben was right, but when the tie as a symbol of wanting to appear formal and serious wane—it hasn’t waned completely —then people will adopt other ways of “dressing to please.” It is the way of the world, and there is nothing about these transitions to lament.

But Surber was just getting started. Here he is at full speed:

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Ethics Quiz: Hating Satan

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Michael Cassidy, the former Mississippi candidate for Congress who destroyed the Christmas seasonal display put up by Satanists at the Iowa State Capitol building , was ultimately charged not just with criminal mischief, which is a misdemeanor and what such vandalism would usually draw as an offense, but felony third-degree criminal mischief. The enhanced charge was justified, according to the prosecutor, because the act was committed “in violation of individual rights” under Iowa’s hate crime statute.

The statue Cassidy attacked was of Baphomet, who isn’t exactly Satan but close enough for horseshoes, or goatshoes. The ancient pagan deity is used as a symbolic trademark by the Satanic Temple, a largely satirical pro-atheism and anti-religion organization. He’s a little like Mickey Mouse is to Disney. Understandably, however, serious Christians regard using Ol’ Baphy’s image to “celebrate” the Christian holiday of Christmas as blasphemy, which it is, because that’s how the Satanic Temple rolls. It think blasphemy is a joke. To that group, all religion is a joke.

Michael Cassidy is one of millions who don’t get it.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Should a hateful act against a statue that mocks Christianity be treated as a hate crime?

“Evidence shows the defendant made statements to law enforcement and the public indicating he destroyed the property because of the victim’s religion,” triggering the violation of individual rights enhancement, said Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for the Polk County Attorney’s Office.

Wow, an entire office of assholes! The man committed a crime and an act of civil disobedience, protesting what he views as the absurdity of the state having to give a supposed Satanic organization equal representation with other religions in a holiday display. I have no idea what is gained by over-charging and taking the apparent position that it’s illegal to hate the personification of evil. Some legal commentators have climbed into the high weeds about whether atheism or Satanism are legitimate religions; the same weeds are available for debates over Pastafarians (The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and Scientologists. It’s an unnecessary issue here.

Hate crimes are thought crimes and, at Ethics Alarms, unethical to charge whatever they involve. Michael Cassidy should be allowed to hate Satan, Baphomet, their followers real or satirical, those who mock Christianity and Christmas and anyone or anything else he chooses, as long as he doesn’t also destroy property.

I, for example, hate grandstanding prosecutors.

Well You Know, God DOES Work in Mysterious Ways…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Denver, Colorado pastor Eli Regalado announced in a YouTube video last April that he would be selling cryptocurrency. The pastor said he was “setting the rails for God’s wealth transfer.” Regalado and his wife then began selling cryptocurrency, dubbed INDXcoin, to members of his Victorious Grace Church and other Christian communities in the Denver area using his “the “Kingdom Wealth Exchange,” an online cryptocurrency marketplace he set up for the purpose. They peddled the holy investment with prayers, quotes from the Bible, and entreaties to have faith in their product. Sure enough, the plan was a godsend, at least for the pastor and his wife: the Regalados raised more than $3.2 million from over 300 investors.

Unfortunately, the INDXcoin was worthless, except for the purpose of making the pastor and his wife rich. The Regalados used around $1.3 million of the supposedly “investment funds” on a Range Rover, jewelry, cosmetic dentistry and vacations, while renovating their Denver home. Hallelujah!

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Fani Willis’s Sermon

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It is beginning to look like Fani Willis, Georgia’s African-American Democrat Fulton County prosecutor who pledged to “get” Donald Trump, really is involved in a serious conflict of interest involving the case and even criminal conduct. The mainstream media is taking notice, it is no longer a “right wing conspiracy theory,” and most interestingly, Willis has not denied the allegations, which appeared in a court filing.

The New York Times published a story headlined “Atlanta D.A. Defends Qualifications of Outside Lawyer She Hired for Trump Case/At a historic Black church, Fani T. Willis pushed back against an accusation that Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she brought on, was unqualified for the job” in which we learn that Willis spoke yesterday before the congregation of one of the oldest Black churches in Atlanta, which had invited her to be the keynote speaker for a service dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not mention the details of allegations that she is in an intimate relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired in 2021 for the Trump-getting, and has earned more than $650,000 in the job to date with some of the lucre benefiting her directly. Instead, she said in part,

“Wait a minute, God! You did not tell me,” she added, “as a woman of color it would not matter what I did — my motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked….A divorced single mom who doesn’t belong to the right social groups, who doesn’t necessarily come from the right family, doesn’t have the right pedigree — the assignment was just too high for lowly me. All I brought to the table, God, is my mind, my heart, my work ethic, my undying love for people and the community.”

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“Jeopardy!” Ethics,” 2023

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“Jeopardy!,” the apparently eternal TV game show that has persevered even as its once difficult questions have become increasingly pitched to the less-than-astute, ended its 2023 with a surprise. Mayim Bialik, the actress who is also (for an actress) unusually credentialed educationally, announced this month that she has been let go as a host of “Jeopardy!” Since 2021, Bialik, who had previously portrayed “Big Bang Theory” head nerd Sheldon’s girlfriend on the series, had shared the role of host with legendary “Jeopardy!” champ Ken Jennings. Bialik was the more reliable and professional of the two, perhaps because of her long performing background. Jennings was at the center of far more gaffes and controversies, though Bialik had her share. This season, for example, she disallowed all three contestants’ answers of ”Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” because she found their pronunciations of the Russian writer and dissident’s name insufficiently accurate.

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The Story Of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”….And The Christmas Kick-Off Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Last week’s forum was the deadest ever, so I’m hoping that injecting some holiday cheer into this one will spark more dialogue. After all, if the wind, a lamb, a shepherd boy, a mighty king and people everywhere can have a productive conversation, Ethics Alarms readers should be able to bring some Goodness and Light too.

As some inspiration, I’m reposting below the Ethics Alarms entry about the origins of my favorite of the modern—“modern” as in “post World War II”—Christmas songs, first sung by my favorite Christmas minstrel.

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Regarding The Ohio Right To Abortion Amendment

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

Last night, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to abortion. The tally wasn’t close: 2,186, 962 favored the measure, or 56.6%, while only 1,675, 72, or 43%, opposed putting a right to abortions in the state constitution.

The first point to understand is that this is not a rejection of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs over-ruling Roe v. Wade, but the exact result the Supreme Court ruled the Constitution intended. It is and always whould have been the states’ call: abortion is not a federal issue, and the national Constitution is silent on it, despite the political and ideological dishonesty of Roe. What Ohio did is exactly what the Supreme Court ruled it should do: let voters, not courts, decide the issue.

Logically, this decision should take abortion out of the 2024 election in Ohio, and if Republicans are smart <cough> that’s what they should say. “It’s in the constitution now, and we’ll follow the law. I still believe abortion is wrong in most cases, and I will work toward making that clear enough that Ohioans change the law, but right now, the decision has been made.”

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The Unmasking Continues: So A Big Chunk Of The American Left Hates Christians AND Jews Now?

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

I did not see this coming, but perhaps I should have. After all, they have been telling us that they hate whites, males, and Americans for years.

This has been an ugly month for Democrats and progressives, if anyone is paying attention and not soaked with denial. America’s campuses, after decades of indoctrination, are erupting with open anti-Semitism, and the Left’s captive media has spread terrorist propaganda. The Associated Press told its reporters not to call Hamas killers “terrorists” after they massacred civilians, raped women, and took a couple hundred hostages from Israel on October 7. The Voice of America issued instructions to avoid calling Hamas “terrorists.” On October 12, Yale’s campus newspaper censored what it called “unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men” from a pro-Israel article by a student. (Yale professor Nicholas Christakis asked, “Are the hostage-taking, murder of children in their beds, burning of people alive, and parading of nude captive women in the street also ‘unsubstantiated’?”)

After Cornell students posted messages to university websites sewing sentiments like “If i see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat,” “eliminate jewish living from cornell campus,” and an especially ominous, “gonna shoot up 104 west,” the kosher dining hall on campus, the school boldly advised Jewish students to avoid that dining hall. 

Silly me: I thought this Babylon Bee story was satire.

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