Rights

Unethical (And Ominous) Quote Of The Month: 600 “Members Of The Writing, Publishing, And Broader Literary Community”[Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

“As members of the writing, publishing, and broader literary community of the United States, we care deeply about freedom of speech. We also believe it is imperative that publishers uphold their dedication to freedom of speech with a duty of care. We recognize that harm is done to a democracy not only in the form of censorship, but also in the form of assault on inalienable human rights. As such, we are calling on Penguin Random House to recognize its own history and corporate responsibility commitments by reevaluating its decision to move forward with publishing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming book….”

—Signatories (600 and rising) from the world of publishing in an open letter titled “We Dissent,” demanding that Penguin Random House refuse to publish a book by Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Here is the whole, head-exploding, censorious thing, an “it isn’t what it is” (Yoo’s Rationalization again!) classic that could have been composed by the lackeys of “1984’s” Big Brother: Continue reading →

Halloween Ethics And The Right To Bad Taste

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

We watch a lot of horror movies, but the inexplicably popular Netflix series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was too much for us, and the Marshalls bailed on the thing before the first episode was over. However, the show has spawned, among other troubling responses, the marketing of various Dahmer Halloween costumes.

Ew. That’s creepy, but then, Halloween is supposed to be creepy. What exactly is the taste distinction (oops, setting up a bad Jeffrey Dahmer joke there!) between portraying a real life monster like Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, the BTK killer or Ed Gein (the model for Norman Bates, among others) and movie murderers like Leatherface, Jason Voorhies, Michael Myers, the “Scream” slasher, and the Dahmer-like Hannibal Lector? I’ve seen Hitler and Osama bin Laden costumes; I once considered trick-or-treating as Jack the Ripper. If there’s a rule, I’ve never seen it explained. Is it that real scary people from history are taboo? Is there a statute of limitations? Jack the Ripper ripped almost a 140 years ago. That can’t be it: here are some living political figures (well, Rush is dead) whose faces are available online:

Adan Schiff? Nancy Pelosi? Dr. Fauci? I think I’d rather be Jeffey Dahmer, thanks, but that’s just me.

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Prof. Volokh Demonstrates How University “Diversity Statements” Are Unconstitutional

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

They are, of course, also unethical unless you are a nascent totalitarian who believes that WrongThink should disqualify citizens for employment and influence.

Universities are increasingly requiring so-called “diversity statements”‘ from those seeking positions on their faculty. They are particularly crucial to white scholars, since potential “faculty of color” are diversity. The statements describing the hopeful instructor’s contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion are however, being challenged, as well they should be. Apparently having faculties that usually have 5% or fewer members who confess to being conservative isn’t enough, so the requirements of what are essentially loyalty oaths to the Great Woke are being seen for what they are: efforts to eliminate diversity of thought on campus—all the better to ensure the effective indoctrination of students whose minds are properly vulnerable. . Criticisms first made in tweets and blog posts have expanded into prominent opinion pieces and, more recently, law review articles. These attacks are having an effect. There are now faculty-wide resolutions against (and for) mandatory diversity statements. Lawyers are recruiting plaintiffs to challenge diversity statement requirements in court.

Good.

The Federalist-Society recently held a webinar on the topic. Prof. Eugene Volokh, one of the panel participants, offered a “thought experiment” to demonstrate just how noxious “diversity statements” are.

Here it is:

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Someone Explain The Kobe Bryant Photos Case To Me, Because I Don’t Understand It At All

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

It appears to be a triumph of “ick” over both law and ethics.

Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, was awarded $16 million as her part of a $31 million jury verdict Wednesday against Los Angeles County. Deputies and firefighters had shared gruesome photos of the NBA star; their 13-year-old daughter, Gianna; and other victims killed in a 2020 helicopter crash; the family of those other victims received the rest of $31 million. The nine jurors unanimously agreed with Vanessa Bryant and her attorneys’ argument that the photos invaded her privacy and caused emotional distress.

I’m sure they caused emotional distress. But how can an event that occurs in public be declared sufficiently private to have the protection of the right to privacy? If a journalist had taken the photos and published them, or shared them on a news website, presumably there would be no way Bryant’s widow would have a cause of action. I don’t see how a bystander with a cell phone could be blocked or sued either. These pictures were shared mostly among employees of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s and fire departments.They also were seen by some of their spouses and in one case by a bartender at a bar where a deputy was drinking. Well not to be unsympathetic, but so what? How does the right to privacy make reality a personal property protected by the law? If the bloody crash occurred where a crowd of a hundred people could see it, how would the law black them from taking photos and showing them to friends?

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Compelled Ideological Conformity In Higher Education: Part I, The Students

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is frightening, infuriating, and, of course, unethical. Sharing responsibility, however, are the supposed devotees of intellectual freedom, freedom of thought and freedom of speech who have been asleep at the switch while dedicated anti-democratic, anti-American values revolutionaries seized control over nearly all U.S. colleges and universities. Not only has the essential resistance to this siege been weak, late and under-publicized, the public’s awareness of the phenomenon is shockingly dim.

Good job, everyone.

A recent and blatant example of restrictions on ideas and beliefs comes to us from California (naturally), where the campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom had sued Clovis Community College after the administration ordered the removal of flyers that had previously been approved.

In November 2021, three Clovis students received permission from administrators to post anti-Communist flyers on bulletin boards inside Clovis’ academic buildings. The flyers were later removed when the school reversed its position in response to student objections. A month later, the college denied the YAF’s’s request to post anti-abortion flyers on bulletin boards in the academic buildings. Instead, the flyers were only allowed at an outdoor “free-speech kiosk” on the Clovis campus. The censored students are being represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the nonprofit that has taken over the national role of non-partisan champion of free speech now that the ACLU has sided with the rising totalitarians in our institutions and government.

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Unethical Quote Of The Month, Ethics Dunce And Ethics Corrupter: First Avenue In Minneapolis

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Wow! Congratulations! An Unethical Triple Crown!

The depressing thing is that I should have to explain to some people what’s unethical about this.

The show, it appears, was sold out. Never mind. People who were not going to be at the show didn’t want people who did to have the chance, and a cowardly, mealy-mouthed, censorship-embracing management didn’t have the integrity or ethical literacy to tell them to learn to live with the reality that everyone doesn’t have to think like they think.

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The Good News Is That For Once The Student Whose Speech Was Punished Isn’t A Conservative. The Bad News is That American University Doesn’t Get That First Amendment Thingy…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Daniel Brezina was one of eight Washington College of Law (at American University) students investigated since May 25 for commenting in a class group online chat regarding Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruling Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Another law student complained that the students’ pro-abortion positions expressed during the discussion harassed and discriminated against him because they went against his religious beliefs.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression took on Brezina’s case, and he was finally cleared of any wrongdoing by the school after more than six weeks of being investigated.

Wow. I was an adjunct professor of legal ethics at American. Apparently none of the universities I’ve been affiliated with have reliable ethics alarms.

Maybe it’s me.

Observations:

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Ethics Quiz: Travails Of A Transgender Sex Offender

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

As Samuel L. Jackson would say if he were preparing to delve into this ethics quiz:

“Ella” is transgender woman now, whatever that means, but back when Ella was a 15-year-old boy, and stood 6-foot, 5-inches while weighing in at more than 300 pounds, she, though then a he, joined another teen in sexually assaulting a 110 pound autistic 14-year-old boy who was blind in one eye and autistic. The Pre-Ella then taunted the kid on Facebook. The male predecessor of Ella pleaded no contest to one count of sexual assault of a child under 16 years of age and spent time in two juvenile detention and treatment centers. Somewhere along the way Ella decided she needed to transition to female-hood, so when, in her new female-identifying edition, she was ordered to register as a sex offender, she objected. Under Wisconsin law, sex offenders must register a legal name and any aliases they use, and they may not legally change their name. That seems reasonable, since there is no point to legally registering as a sex offender to alert the community of sex offending proclivities if one can just foil the measure by using a different name.

Ella has been “Ella” since her teens and is now 22. She argued that requiring her to register as a sex offender under her male name given at birth violates her First Amendment right to express her true female identity. She also contended the registry requirement, as applied to her, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, in essence making her out herself as a former him, or a former him trapped in a female body, or something.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rejected Ella’s claims,  and last week, four mean old conservatives outvoted the court’s liberal members on the Wisconsin Supreme Court also denied Ella’s attempt to change her name after hearing arguments in the case in February. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Sunday Morning Ethics Warm-Up After A Cold, Cold Saturday, 6/26/2022: Dobbs Freakout Edition”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Here is another epic Comment of the Day on the Dobbs freakout, this one by mermaidmary99, whose best comments are nearly always sent to SPAM by WordPress. Yet she persists….

Here it is, and may I say…

Wow.

***

As a woman, what guts me is that the safest place for a baby to be isn’t, and the person who above all others should advocate for that baby’s life and protect it, instead is upset they can’t kill it at will, for any reason whatsoever, including their own irresponsibility and stupidity.

Hearing my fellow “sisters” complaining that they can’t “exercise their RIGHT” (and have others pay for it) is one of the sickest, ANTI-SCIENCE, anti-nature, things I have ever seen.

And, for a party committed to science, Democrats have huge blinders on with this one.

So huge their religion that condemns abortions is IGNORED as well! Continue reading →

Once Again, An Analysis Of A SCOTUS Decision Is Distorted By Emotion And Ignorance

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

This is a problem. And I’m just talking now about the previous SCOTUS ruling that launched a freak-out yesterday. As you probably know by now, the leaked SCOTUS ruling rebuffing Roe v. Wade is no longer a leak.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down a restrictive “needs-based” concealed carry laws in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.  Even though Justice Thomas’s majority opinion was tight and clear as well as consistent with SCOTUS precedent as well as, of course, the Bill of Rights, such worthies as President Biden claimed that, in the President’s words, the ruling contradicted “common sense and the Constitution.”

What are the odds that Joe read the opinion before declaring that? I’d say “none.” Making such a statement while carrying the presumed authority of President without knowing what the Court’s analysis was is completely unethical and an abuse of position.

David Harsanyi, writing at RealClearPolitics, accurately writes,

The modern left doesn’t even bother pretending they believe the Supreme Court has a responsibility to act as a separate branch of government and adjudicate the constitutionality of law. Rather than even ostensibly offering legal reasons for their ire, Democrats simply demand the Supreme Court uphold public sentiment (or, rather what they claim is public sentiment), even though SCOTUS exists to ignore those pressures. The fact that that attitude has congealed as the norm in one of our major political parties does not bode well for the future of the Republic.

It is particularly disheartening that the three liberal justices in their dissent stooped to fueling this distortion of the Court’s role. Their arguments were almost all irrelevant to the  constitutional issues and the Court’s previous rulings regarding the Second Amendment. Instead, Sotomayor, Breyer and Kagan took the low road of evoking recent shootings and incidents of gun violence as if current events should permit the limiting of explicit Constitutional rights. 

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