Rights

The Starbucks Stupid Red Cups Uproar Is Trivial, But The Growing Cultural Insanity That Caused It Is Not

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

STARBUCKS-cups

On one level, the angry protests by some evangelicals and others regarding Starbucks’ eschewing the placement of snowmen, Christmas tree ornaments, reindeer and whatever other holiday kitsch they have festooned their coffee cups with in past years is too stupid to waste time discussing. Here, read all about it if you have a strong stomach. It appears to be yet another of those issues that deserves the George S. Kaufman rebuke. [ “Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope. The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope.Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”]

Yet the fact that not just a few recently escaped inmates of a mental institution would make an issue of the design of Starbucks coffee cups, but lots of people, is significant. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Anti-Washington Redskins Activist’s Bob Marley Costume

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments
The Native American in the middle is dressed as a famous Jamaican. Would it have been offensive if he dressed as Sitting Bull?

The Native American in the middle is dressed as a famous Jamaican. Would it have been offensive if he dressed as Sitting Bull?

Terry Rambler, chief of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in Arizona, has  been at the forefront of the effort to force The Washington Redskins, a privately owned NFL sports franchise, to change its name and logo of long-standing because both are allegedly racist. [ As I have made clear many times, the team’s name is not racist, as neither its origins nor current use suggest or imply racist intent, purpose or impact, and the team’s owner has a First Amendment right to call his team whatever he wants. The decades long political correctness stunt has gained more traction under the Obama administration, because the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats do not respect the Constitution or follow it when it gets in the way of its agenda. (See: drones, Obamacare, immigration, NSA domestic spying, harassment of reporters, IRS partisan activities, recess appointments, Libya bombing, selective prosecution,  putting government pressure on the Redskins to change its name, etc… )

But I digress.

This year, Rambler’s Halloween costume was Jamaican musician Bob Marley, complete with dreadlocks, wig, and rasta beanie. He also wore appropriate make-up to look like Marley.

Here is what the chief looks like most days:

Terry

Here he is on Halloween as the Reggae icon…

Halloween Marley

The costume is making  Rambler the target of criticism from both sides of the controversy: Redskins defenders who view his make-up as “blackface” and thus hypocritical, and his own Team Political Correctness, which sees Rambler as engaging in the same kind of insensitive conduct they claim the Washington Redskins embody.

To make things worse for Rambler, there was another recent Bob Marley controversy in  Gaston County, (North Carolina), where a sheriff’s captain  apologized  for wearing dark make-up as part of her own Marley Halloween costume after her in-costume photo appeared online.

And thus your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Was the Native American activist’s Bob Marley make-up unethical or hypocritical?

Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Hate Speech…No, Wait, It’s A Gay Writer Hating A Straight Baseball Player, So It’s All Good

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Daniel Murphy

 

In March, in a post about Dr. Ben Carson’s awful apology for his ignorant statement on CNN about prison turning prisoners gay, I compared his ignorance to that of Mets second-baseman Daniel Murphy, who had just listened to Billy Bean, a former major league baseball player who is gay, and had been appointed as the sport’s “ambassador for inclusion.”  Murphy said,

“I disagree with his lifestyle.I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn’t mean I can’t still invest in him and get to know him. I don’t think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. Getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 percent.”

His statement loosely translated means, “I don’t know anything about gays except what I have been told by people who also know nothing about gays but think they do.  I believed all of it, since, honestly, I don’t think about the topic much. But the question was about whether the fact that a team mate was gay would cause me to distrust him or not want to play with him, and my answer is no.”

Later Murphy elaborated,

“Maybe, as a Christian, that we haven’t been as articulate enough in describing what our actual stance is on homosexuality. We love the people. We disagree the lifestyle. That’s the way I would describe it for me. It’s the same way that there are aspects of my life that I’m trying to surrender to Christ in my own life. There’s a great deal of many things, like my pride.”

I mentioned Murphy then because he, unlike Carson, is just a baseball player, and his having ignorant ideas about gays (what does “disagreeing” with the fact that someone is gay even mean? He’s gay–you can’t “disagree.” Anyone using “lifestyle” to describe gays has just written his ignorance in sky-writing. If one knows any gays at all, the idiocy of this is manifest. What would ever make an 8 year old wake up one morning and say, “I’ve weighed the options, and made my choice: I want to be gay!” This literally never happens.) and stating the ideas out loud only hurts Murphy, while Carson’s ignorance is relevant to the job he’s seeking and his qualifications for it. Carson is a narrow, biased, irresponsible amateur, and thus unqualified to hold office. Nobody, however, should care what Murphy thinks, as long as he can hit and field his position.

For someone who is clueless, Murphy’s comments are even admirable. He’s not going to judge a man’s character based on “his lifestyle” or wish him ill, which makes him infinitely preferable to Slate’s gay issues blogger, Mark Joseph Stern. Continue reading →

Debate Questions No Democrat Will Ever Be Asked (2): “Do You Agree With The Obama Dept. Of Education That A School Must Allow A Physically Male Student Who Identifies As Female And Is A Member Of A Girl’s Sports Team To Change And Shower In The Girls’ Locker Room Without Restrictions?”

/ Jack Marshall / 71 Comments

showers

It is ironic that so soon after Rachel Dolezal finally admitted the undeniable and agreed that she is, in fact, white, the federal government accepted the Caitlyn Jenner Fallacy and declared that all it takes to turn a male into a female for school policy purposes is feelings, no re-assembly required.

From the New York Times:

Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district [Township High School District 211] violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls’ sports team to change and shower in the girls’ locker room without restrictions. 

To be blunt, and I mean blunt, this means that if a human being with a fully functioning penis says he’s a girl, a public high school is obligated by the Constitution to pretend he does not have said penis, and he must be treated as a girl and no different from any other girls in all respects. This right that nobody ever heard of before thereby means that the boy-with-a-penis-who-identifies-as-a-girl-without- one is legally able to demand that he is allowed to embarrass, upset and threaten girls who do not have cocks by forcing them, rather than him—oops, her— to dress and shower away from the group.

Everyone except the victimized members of the school’s team are wrong on this one, and there will be consequences. The school was wrong to pander to a nascent transgender social justice warrior by allowing him-becoming-her to be on the girls team in the first place.”Here’s the rule,” they should have said, “The only way we can separate girls and boys is the same way doctors do when a baby is born. How you feel is irrelevant. Which team you want to be on is irrelevant. If you have a penis, which you do, and no vagina, which you do not, then you play on the boy’s teams, or no team at all. Your choice.” Unfortunately, most school are not just run by liberals, but cowardly, intellectually lazy liberals. Nor did they see that transgender activists, like most activists, will push for more and more until they end up alienating many who support their basic argument.

Then there is the boy/girl, who was offered reasonable accommodations by the school, and decided to be a trailblazer for all similarly encumbered self-identifying females [ I made a cheap and vulgar reference here, and deleted it. I am ashamed.] and fight for their right to parade such male accessories in the faces of young women who should not have to be confronted with them in the girl’s shower.

Read my commentary on this problem. I am sympathetic, and I believe that the transitioning male-born kid who is certain that he has no snakes and snails and puppy dog tails inside should be respected and treated with dignity and compassion on his way to her-dom. He shouldn’t be bullied and he shouldn’t be discriminated against. But a rule that holds “No penises in the girl’s shower ” is not discrimination. It is common sense. It is manners.

Nor does transitioning genders make it ethical to be an asshole. Continue reading →

But This ISN’T A Spoof, Unfortunately: A PhD Professor Of Gender Studies Writes An Amazing Op-Ed For Gun Control

/ Jack Marshall / 56 Comments

Hold on to your cranium.

This is a real person. Unfortunately.

This is a real person. Unfortunately.

This morning an esteemed commentator, while discussing Melissa Harris-Perry, fell for one of those “if you fall for it, it’s a hoax and you’re an idiot, if you don’t it’s just satire so mock anyone who did” websites that I have designated Unethical Websites in more than one month. Here’s the reason why he did: to rational people, the things card-carrying members of the extreme progressive/ Democratic axis are prone to assert, say or write with complete sincerity so often consist of content that just a few years ago would be considered proof positive of creeping insanity that it is nigh impossible to tell the difference. For example, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to expand Social Security. I was already preparing this post when the hoax site responsible for the quoted Harris-Perry story was reported, and it send me back again to check this one. It really is true, and thus tells us something quite disturbing, as I will specify later. The op-ed by Dr. Barbara Savoy is much more ridiculous than the parody.

The Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle asked Dr. Savoy, who teaches women and gender studies at The College at Brockport, a SUNY institution (Its tuition is $33,235 per year), to write an op-ed on gun control. She did, and here is a shortened version. You really should read the whole thing, though:

I voted for Barack Obama. Twice. During his 2008 presidential campaign, my two daughters, partner, and I ate every meal in our house on Obama placemats. We bought these at our local supermarket, plastic-coated, plate-sized paper rectangles with an image of his face framed by colors of the flag….
Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Can We At Least Agree On This?”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

by

Paul Petersen, guest blogger

paulpetersenjpg-7e3983c6cd2404d1

[This is Paul Petersen’s second guest blogger appearance on Ethics Alarms. Based on his own experiences as a child actor on “The Donna Reed Show” and what he observed in the treatment of his less fortunate colleagues in the field, Paul  created the profession of child performer advocate and activist, educating the public and assisting individual  performers. (His Facebook friend list is a Who’s Who of former child actors.) Although Paul is officially retired, he continues to speak out about conditions, legal and otherwise, that place child performers in financial, physical, and social peril. The number of child stars, current or grown, who are indebted to him and his organization A Minor Consideration are beyond counting. A true Ethics Hero, his work and statements have been referenced here many times.–Jack]

Can we at least agree on this? Children are a special class of humankind. They are uniquely unformed, utterly dependent, and slaves to the adults who brought them into this world and the society into which they were born.

We all know how children are created, right? They did not ask for this. They are, in a word, innocent. Biologically mature adults are responsible. Of that there is no doubt. Children are a special charge. The rules, for kids, are different…or at least they used to be.

When did they become sexual objects? Since when are they merely background players, mere props? Who decreed that a child immersed in a working environment in which all the contributory adults are compensated for their labor, could somehow NOT be themselves working? Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The Traverse City Record-Eagle

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Fake Front Page

Bias and incompetence is a terrible combination…especially for a newspaper.

You may have read about the car  that sped through a crowded intersection during Oklahoma State University’s homecoming parade, killing fours and injuring dozens. The driver was charged with four counts of second-degree murder. [ NOTE: The post here originally said that the driver was drunk;her lawyer now says she was not, but is mentally ill.]  According to the Record Eagle, however, that was a shooting, and the car was a gun. That’s the paper’s front page above. How could this happen?

It happens because journalists are so obsessed with convincing the public that the United States is in the grasp of unprecedented gun violence that the desperately want to see as many shooting as possible. It happens because the news media is so used to warping facts to assist progressive indoctrination that they increasingly don’t pay attention to facts. It happens because journalism is no longer a profession, because it has no standards, just agendas. It happens because bias is not only not discouraged, it’s celebrated.

How many news organizations highlighted the recent Pew study showing that U.S. gun deaths had declined 30% since 1993? Were you aware of it? The media largely ignored that news item, because it does not support the predominant, media-driven hysteria aimed at eventual gun confiscation.

The editors explained the fantasy headline with a correction that said… Continue reading →

Border Patrol In An Ethics Train Wreck At U. Cal-Irvine

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

BorderPolice

Ethics Train Wrecks are situations where nearly everyone involved—adversaries, victims, authorities, and usually reporters and journalists— behave unethically. This story is typical of the breed.

The October 22 student job fair at the University of California-Irvine included many organizations that cookie cutter liberal students have reviled since I was in college, but somehow it was the only  the Border Patrol that was under fire from anti-immigration enforcement activists.

Protesters accused the federal agency charged with protecting U.S. borders of  “unjust killings, …. racial profiling, use of force, and unjust violence.” The Border Patrol, leaving little reason to give us confidence in its general ability to brave more perilous challenges, allowed itself to be run off, and and to permit what may have been non-students to prevent actual students from gaining access to a job opportunity.

“We regret to inform the community that out of concern for the safety of CBP Recruitment Officers, U.S. Customs & Border Protection will no longer be participating in the UCI Fall Career Fair,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio in a statement. The perceived hostility on campus was accompanied by a Change.org petition signed by around 600 people, demanding that the agency be banned from the job fair.  The petition claimed “having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students’ safety and well-being” and is insulting to “mixed-status families.”

The petition, like the vast majority of Change.Org. petitions, was moronic—ignorant, irresponsible, silly and unmoored to reality.

The passengers on this ETW: Continue reading →

How Much Religious Bigotry Will Donald Trump’s Supporters Tolerate?

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

7th Day

Speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa, Donald Trump decided to attack Ben Carson based on his religion:

“I love Iowa. And, look, I don’t have to say it, I’m Presbyterian. Can you believe it? Nobody believes I’m Presbyterian. I’m Presbyterian. I’m Presbyterian. I’m Presbyterian. Boy, that’s down the middle of the road folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about. I just don’t know about.”

Trump didn’t mention Carson’s name, but he’s the only Seventh-day Adventist in the race, and Trumps closest rival in the polls, which is too depressing to bear as it is. What Trump is saying is that believers in one religious faith are inherently more trustworthy than believers of other faiths. This is no more, nor less than a direct appeal to religious bias and bigotry. Substitute “Catholic” or “Jewish” for “Seventh-day Adventist,” and the full un-American ugliness of the statement should become apparent, if, due to some kind of closed head injury, it isn’t already. Trump has already shown himself willing to portray illegal Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals (too many of them are, but that’s another story); reveal himself as an archetypal male chauvinist pig, and now he’s rating character and trustworthiness according to faith. Earlier I suggested that one of Trump’s debate opponents could take him down with a deft Joseph Welch “Have you no decency?” (unfortunately, the attempt was made by Rand Paul, and hardly deftly), and now I have to ask his supporters, “Have you no decency?” What more evidence do you need that this blustering bully and fool degrades his party, nation, gender, species and the office he’s seeking  by his presence in the 2016 Presidential race? Or more bluntly, What the hell’s the matter with you people?

Is this an experiment in whether the meanest, most vulgar and least educated  of the nation’s conservatives can force the nomination of someone so unqualified by experience and temperament to lead? Is it a practical joke by nihilists and anarchists to bring down the Unites States after it has already be weakened by eight years of a misguided, hyper-political, incompetent presidency?

It is true that there is an element of karma in Carson being the target of exactly the kind of religious bigotry he used, with a bit more cause, against Muslims. This isn’t about Carson, however, who is just as unfit for office as Trump, meaning completely. It is about competent democracy, values, and trustworthy leadership.

I have reached the point where the race between Trump and Hillary Clinton for me is only this: Whose supporters do I have less respect for, those who actively support a completely corrupt individual, or those who support a crude demagogue.

At this point, it’s neck and neck.

Ethics Corrupter Weekend, Part III. Williams College And Open Minds

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

williams-college_416x416If colleges can’t educate students about core American values and principles like freedom of speech, what good are they? It’s worse than that, though. They appear to be teaching the opposite of those values, corrupting our upcoming generations and through them, poisoning our society.

Author Suzanne Venker, a conservative  social critic who has called herself an anti-feminist, was scheduled to give a lecture at Williams College as part of a student-created “Uncomfortable Learning” series, but the group cancelled her appearance when students complained that her ideas would make them uncomfortable. The leader of the student group that created the series, Zach Wood, was subjected to protests like this:

“When you bring a misogynistic, white supremacist men’s rights activist to campus in the name of ‘dialogue’ and ‘the other side,’ you are not only causing actual mental, social, psychological, and physical harm to students, but you are also—paying—for the continued dispersal of violent ideologies that kill our black and brown (trans) femme sisters. You are giving those who spout violence the money that so desperately needs to be funneled to black and brown (trans) femme communities, to people who are leading the revolution, who are surviving in the streets, who are dying in the streets. Know, you are dipping your hands in their blood, Zach Wood.”

Physical harm! Hearing her speak would actually injure them!

Opined the student newspaper:

While free speech is important and there are problems with deeming speech unacceptable, students must not be unduly exposed to harmful stereotypes in order to live and learn here without suffering emotional injury. It is possible that some speech is too harmful to invite to campus. The College should be a safe space for students, a place where people respect others’ identities. Venker’s appearance would have been an invasion of that space.

Gee, I thought “safe” on campus today meant “safe from sexual relations that you decide after the fact were a bad idea, and that magically become rape after the fact.” My mistake. Apparently it means “Having one’s world view challenged.” Wood capitulated to the mob, demonstrating that Williams had failed to teach him and his group members integrity, the importance of keeping commitments, not to be weenies and to be willing to fight for what’s right, even when it is unpopular. Continue reading →