Category Archives: The Internet

October 18, 2018 · 9:12 am

Sports In The Ethics News!

Gynnastics and Football! Mary Bono, yes, Sonny’s widow, resigned as the interim CEO of the USA Gymnastics Federation after a tweet in which she dared to express disapproval of Nike, presumably because of its decision to elevate renegade NFL kneeler Colin Kaepernick to role model status.  The tweet pre-dated her agreement to serve as an interim head while the embattled organization tries to dig out from a sexual molestation scandal. Nike is being sought as a major sponsor of women’s gymnastics, as several fled after the Federation was disgraced in the Larry Nasser scandal. Simone Biles and other gymnasts used social media to questioned whether Bono was fit to lead the organization and whether it was wise to alienate a potential sponsor. Chalk this one up to another set of timid bureaucrats being more terrified of social media than they are interested in running their organization competently. Nike now politicizes everything it touches, and has taken up permanent residence on the Left, because it thinks that where the market and the money is. Surely there are potential corporate sponsors that aren’t fond of using divisive messages to sell merchandise.

Is the new cultural standard going to be that impulsive tweets from the past, recent or distant, are legitimate reasons to can qualified people from jobs in which they have done nothing wrong? Bono’s fatal tweet just said that she had crossed out the “swoosh” on her own shoes.

Boy, when President Trump’s tweets come out, he’s going to be in BIG trouble…

On the other hand, Bono is an idiot. Her post resignation tweet suggested that both the kneeling NFL players and her swoosh censorship were protected free speech. She was a member of Congress, and she doesn’t understand the First Amendment. Worse, every time a presumed authority repeats that dead wrong “the players have a right to protest on the field” canard, America gets a little dumber.

Fire her for THAT.

Baseball! (Of course…): Continue reading →

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October 14, 2018 · 12:52 pm

Sunday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/14/18…Stretching the Truth: Fake Accusations, Fake Supreme Court News, Fake Fake Doctors

Good Morning!

1.Who Could Have Predicted That Black Men Would Identify With Brett Kavanaugh?,cont. From the New York Times yesterday:

A white woman who called police after claiming that a young black boy touched her behind in a Brooklyn deli drew a storm of ridicule and criticism on social media, and late Friday she made a public apology to the child.

Critics characterized the incident as the latest example of a hypersensitive white person calling the police to report black people for dubious reasons. Many detractors imputed racist motives to the woman, Teresa Klein.

She was quickly labeled “Cornerstore Caroline” by Jason Littlejohn, 37, a lifelong Flatbush resident who recorded the commotion Wednesday outside the Sahara Deli Market on Albemarle Road. Littlejohn’s Facebook recording of the incident had been viewed 4 million times by Friday evening.

“I was just sexually assaulted by a child,” Klein is heard saying on the video as she was on the phone with the police. The boy, who is about 9, and another child burst into tears outside the store as bystanders confronted Klein about the incident. “The son grabbed my ass and she decided to yell at me,” Klein continued in the video, referring to his mother. The video was first reported by The New York Post.

I just don’t think the Left thought through this “believe all women who claim to be victims” bit. And I’m still confused about the rules. You have to believe a white woman who accuses a white high school kid of sexual assault if she remembers it 30 years later, but you don’t have to believe a white woman who accuses an even younger kid immediately, if he’s black? Does it matter if she’s black? If the accused was a white high school kid, then would everyone have to believe her?

2. Newton’s Third Law! From the Huffington Post: 

Minutes after an event at a Manhattan Republican club meant to celebrate violence against leftists, attendees belonging to a proto-fascist, pro-Trump street gang reportedly pummeled three people on the sidewalk in Manhattan’s Upper East Side while shouting homophobic slurs.

Footage posted online by video journalist Sandi Bachom shows a group of men who appear to be Proud Boys — a misogynistic and anti-Muslim fraternity known for committing acts of political violence across the country — kicking and punching three apparent anti-fascist protesters as they lay prone on the sidewalk.

“Do you feel brave now, faggot?” one of the attackers yelled, according to Bachom and another journalist, photographer Shay Horse. Another video shows multiple attackers yelling “faggot.”

HuffPo, being smear-meisters, calls the group “Pro-Trump” in its headline. I don’t recall any news source calling the antifa a “pro-Obama group” when it was running amuck punching people on Inauguration Day. Speaking of the antifa,  here’s a tweet from a Portland journalist from October 8: Continue reading →

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October 8, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/8/2018: Weenies, Dummies, Hypocrites And Creeps.

Good Morning!

1. But before we get into the ugly part..I want to recommend an article called “Rationalizations for Unethical Behavior in Tech” over at Medium. The writer, April Wensel, is the proprietor of the Compassionate Coding site.

Her article specifically employs several of the rationalizations on the Ethics Alarms list, quotes me with attribution, and does a terrific job demonstrating what the list is there for, and how it can and should be used. Thanks, April!

2. And here is another reason you can’t trust the media: journalists often aren’t very bright or well-educated.  NBC reporter Ken Dilanian opined on Twitter after Kavanaugh was confirmed that…

It may not happen in our lifetimes, but the idea that North Dakota and New York get the same representation in the Senate has to change. “Senators representing less than half the U.S. are about to confirm a nominee opposed by most Americans” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/06/senators-representing-less-than-half-us-are-about-confirm-nominee-opposed-by-most-americans/ …

To begin with, quoting that Post piece is signature significance for a partisan media hack.  “Most Americans” have insufficient information to oppose or support Kavanaugh on a substantive basis, and uninformed opinions are worthless at best. If “most Americans” opposed him, it was because they were misled, propagandized and fear-mongered into ignorance and bias. This is why we don’t elect Supreme Court justices. The complaint about the Senate that Dilanian glommed onto can be translated as “The Senate is the Senate.” It was designed not to represent the population as a whole, but the states, their interests and their cultures. “It may not happen in our lifetimes” is a statement of ignorance of what it would take to fundamentally change one of the three branches of government from its original form. I’d suggest to Ken that he try reading the Constitution, especially the formula for amending it. The chances that two-thirds of the states will accede to a new Senate construction that lets the big states dictate to the small ones are exactly zero, or essentially the same as the chances that the Electoral College will be abolished.

Dilanian is NBC’s intelligence and national security reporter and frequently appears on MSNBC, and now we know that the network’s intelligence reporter doesn’t understand his own country.

3. Be proud, Democrats! A Democratic Senator I had been blissfully unaware of  until the Kavanaugh nomination stepped up during the  hearings to reveal herself as exemplifying the ugly side of the partisan divide. Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono said that the fact that Kavanaugh was conservative was all she needed to determine that he was lying, for example. She’s a virulent bigot. Yesterday, she was asked twice by CNN’s Dana Bash about whether she thought harassing Republican senators in restaurants was inappropriate. She wouldn’t say “Yes,” sending a clear message that her real position is “No.”

Here’s the exchange: Continue reading →

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October 7, 2018 · 8:35 am

Ten Questions On The Unethical Tweet Of The Week By Colbert “Late Show” Writer Ariel Dumas

The Bad Guys.

Ten Questions: Continue reading →

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October 6, 2018 · 1:19 pm

Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/6/18: As “The Bad Guys” Throw A Tantrum Because Their Plot Blew Up In Their Smug Faces

Good Morning!

Wish I was there!

In this post, and later this one, I directly stated that the Left, “the resistance,” progressives, Democrats, had increasingly embraced objectively wrongful conduct and unethical means and objectives as routine, and that the Kavanaugh confirmation fiasco proved it. The commenter here who goes by the handle of “Chrissy Boy” accused me of being openly partisan, which is demonstrably false: I would write exactly the same thing about the Republican Party if it were trying to eliminate due process, the presumption of innocence, fairness, decency, respect for elections, respect for dissent, a competent and objective press, and the integrity of national institutions. But you see, the current strategy of the Left is to make it crushingly clear that you are either with them, or “the other.” They certainly don’t like being “othered” themselves, but when you set out to topple an elected government and a Constitution, that’s what you deserve. In one of its Sunday Reviews—they all run together, since it it is really “The Resistance This Week” under a deceptively neutral name—the New York Times led with an essay in which the writer wrote that the term “resistance” was unfair and untrue, since they were trying to “create a new nation” and the Trump administration was resisting the inevitable. That new nation, the last few weeks proved, would reject the values I just listed.

This is why, though I have a backlog of ethics issues on a variety of topics, as well as some excellent Comments of the Day that require posting, I have to use the limited time I have right now to chronicle the carnage of the Brett Kavanaugh Nomination Ethics Train Wreck, which, it appears though I am afraid to hope, includes dramatically reduced public support for the “resistance,” the news media, and the Democratic Party. President Trump’s approval ratings (whatever they mean) are way up. Approval of the Democratic Party is crashing, and with it the likelihood of a “blue wave” that might allow the Democrats to execute that coup they’ve been attempting. I have been counting on the historical, cultural reality that in the United States of America, we don’t like Bad Guys, and don’t want to support them. I am still hoping that this prompts the Left to have its Michael Douglas epiphany, and start being the Good Guys again. So far, however, the signs are not good.

Ann Althouse flagged this tantrum from Matt Yglesies at Vox  yesterday (several self-exiled Ethics Alarms progressives insisted Vox was an objective commentary site–suuuuure), neatly summing up:

When the Supreme Court gives lefties outcomes lefties like, they want conservatives to stand down and accept that the Court is doing proper, even brilliant, legal work.

Yes, this is a quality of Bad Guys: they have no integrity. Remember that same sex marriage decision that the evil old reloigious right claimed was “illegitimate” because it opposed “God’s law”?

1. It’s Hate Senator Collins Day! I’m not a Susan Collins fan, as I have always found her annoyingly wishy-washy, equivocal, pandering and a poor role model for women in power whose manner and speaking style illustrates why it is that more women aren’t in positions of power. However, she gave a ringing speech yesterday explaining why she would be voting for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, verbally nailing the coffin shut that contained the Democratic schemes to defeat him. My Facebook ffed is filled with people writing that she is a coward, a traitor (to her gender! to #MeToo!), an idiot. Althouse also flagged this comment (with over 1000 “likes”) to the Times piece, “Collins and Manchin Will Vote for Kavanaugh, Ensuring His Confirmation”:
Continue reading →

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October 6, 2018 · 4:06 am

OK, Facebook Friends, Let’s Pretend It Isn’t Kavanaugh…Let’s Pretend It’s ME.

I’ve had this post composed in my head for some time, and have hesitated to complete it. I really don’t like upsetting people I care about, much as some might think otherwise.

However, there has been such escalating fanaticism on Facebook (and elsewhere, of course), ringing through the echo chamber, about how Dr. Ford must be “believed” and how the judge is a “serial rapist,” I have to ask: would you all treat me this way? Would you react to seeing my career and reputation derailed by the sudden appearance of a high school acquaintance who announces that she has only recently come to realize that I had sexually assaulted her at a party? After hearing my denials, would you decided to determine that her account, with no verification by any witnesses, with the large amount of time past and with absolutely nothing in my record, professional or private life, to suggest any such proclivities, should be sufficient to have me labelled as untrustworthy?

Don’t resort to the “but he’s going to sit on the Supreme Court” trick. I’m a professional ethicist: an accusation that is widely metastasized into doubts about my character, including using it to tar me a liar, would be just as ruinous to me as the late hit on Kavanaugh is disastrous to him. There is no “well, this is wrong UNLESS its a Supreme Court nominee” principle: that’s a pure rationalization. No, if the Ford accusation, with all of its flaws, its basis in fading and rediscovered memories, the fact that it involved juveniles, all of that, and the objective professional observations by Rachel Mitchell that found several reasons why Ford’s testimony was incredible, is still enough to allow you to condemn Judge Kavanaugh, then it must be enough for you to condemn me too.

But I’ll make it easier for you: let’s say its me that is the current Supreme Court nominee, and me that your favorite party has condemned as a threat to civilization. (And lets assume that you haven’t read any of my judicial decisions either.) Continue reading →

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October 5, 2018 · 11:59 am

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/5/18: The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination Ethics Train Wreck STILL Keeps Rolling Along, But There’s Always Baseball, So Hope Survives

Good Morning!

1. Ethics Dunce, Brett Kavanaugh Nomination Ethics Train Wreck Division: Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, who has already set a record for Supreme Court justices making post-career foolish statements that undermine their reputations, just violated a previously unbreached principle of professional ethics and protocol for ex-Justices. He told a private group that Kavanaugh doesn’t belong on the Court because of his “temperament.” I was thinking of ranking the rapidly proliferating bogus excuses for voting down Kavavaugh (I posted this instead). The temperament one is near the bottom of the barrel, in a layer or two above throwing ice and the comments in his yearbook. In his entire judicial career, there have been no incidents of unprofessional temperament or demeanor, and somehow I think that if any sitting judge was accused of being a rapist by a witness or a lawyer in his courtroom, an outburst of anger would be considered excusable. It’s a bad and unfair “gotcha!” argument by Democrats, but even it it was valid, Stevens is not supposed to be commenting on who belongs on the Court….just as Barack Obama should not be attacking his predecessor after George W. Bush was so exemplary in not attacking his successor.

2. Weird baseball ethics. I meant to include this one yesterday. In the Colorado-Cubs wild card play-off game, runners were on first and second with one out when a slow bouncer was hit to Rockies third-sacker Nolan Arrenado just as Cubs runner Javy Baez approached him on the way to third. Arenado tagged Baez out, and Baez wrapped his arms around him. Meanwhile, the runner on first went to second, and the batter reached first. Arenado smiled and disentangled himself, but he didn’t–couldn’t—throw to either base for another out.

It was absolutely interference. A runner can’t do that, but the umpires didn’t call it (the double play would have been called without a throw, and the inning ended), so the frame continued.  The game was close, and if the Cubs had scored (they didn’t) that inning, it would have been because Baez broke the rules and the umpires didn’t notice (or care). The announcers opined that Arenado didn’t “sell it,” that if he had violently pushed Baez away and tried to make a throw, interference might have been called. Instead, he smiled and treated Baez’s hug  like a sentimental show of affection.

Once upon a time, before player unions, huge contracts and routine fraternization, no player would have expressed friendly amusement as Arenado did. Nolan is the Rockies best player, and he stopped concentrating on the game. Only moral luck stopped it from being a disastrous lapse. Continue reading →

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