The Internet

From the Ethics Alarms “Conservatives Do Fake News Too” File…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

I really hate this stuff, and I’m getting sick of having to post on it.

Today I saw misleading click-bait headlines on various conservative blogs and websites were like this one: Woke California: U-Turn Signs Are Homophobic. There were many social media posts on accounts like “End Wokeness” with the same implication: those crazy LGPTQ fanatics are out of control, and are now even offended by regular traffic signs.

That was certainly my reaction to just reading the headlines. When I investigated—-my sock drawer is furious with me for using up our quality time together—I learned that the traffic signs removed by the LGBTQ community and the town of Silver Lake, California were considered homophobic because….the signs were homophobic.

In the 90s, before gay dating apps like Grindr, gays in Silver Lake (and elsewhere) relied on printed guidebooks to find public areas and gay bars where they could meet other men like them. “No U-Turn” and “No Cruising” signs were put up in parts of Silver Lake where residents had complained about gay men gathering. The signs were a—subtle? Not so subtle?—rebuke and warning.

The gay community in Silver lake has been trying for years to get official action approved to remove what the LA Times calls “signs of its anti-gay past,” and finally succeeded. None of the conservative websites that mocked this episode as hysterical hyper sensitivity mentioned the “No Cruising” signs in their headlines, and it’s obvious why. Seeing “No U-Turn” as an anti-gay message takes a little thought. “No Cruising”? I’ve never seen such a sign in my life. That one’s more obvious…so they buried it .

Deceit is one of the primary tools of fake news journalism.

If conservative blogs, news outlets and website have valid issues and points to make, they should be able to make them honestly by straightforward reporting. It is very disappointing to see a usually fair and reliable conservative commentary site like Legal Insurrection stooping to these tactics.

Ethics Observations On the “Shitposter’s” Scoop

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Last night I saw this story in the New York Post, relayed by conservative provocateur Ace of Spades:

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan revealed Friday that a Facebook user claiming to be a “cousin” of a juror in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial suggested he had advanced knowledge of last week’s guilty verdict. 

“Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention,” Merchan wrote in a letter to Trump attorney Todd Blanche and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. 

“In the comment, the user, ‘Michael Anderson,’ states: ‘My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted … Thank you folks for all your hard work!!! ….’” the judge explained. 

The story also reveals that “Michael Anderson” is a self-admitted “shitposter,” someone who uses social media to spread falsehoods and derail serious discussions on politics and other matters.

Hmmmm.

So the guy, if he is a guy, who revealed this supposed conspiracy to rig the jury verdict against Donald Trump has no credibility at all. He’s a lying asshole and proud of it—you know, like Michael Cohen.

It is only responsible for the judge to reveal this, and for an investigation to take place. This, in turn, will probably give “Michael Anderson” the fifteen minutes of fame he craves, and inspire more assholes to enter the wonderful, profitable, destructive field of “shitposting.”

Meanwhile, I saw MAGA types all over the web last night calling for the trial verdict to be abandoned based on this almost certain trolling effort, thus making themselves look like gullible fools, and confirmation bias victims.

Is this a great country or what?

A Proportionality Test That I Fear About Half the Nation Would Flunk

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

On the Josephson Institute’s Pillars of Character, one of the values comprising the fourth pillar, Fairness, is proportionality. Proportionality is essential to perspective, and understanding te need to maintain a broad perspective is essential to fairness, a core ethical value.

When I first started watching that video meme above, my immediate reaction was, “Oh, please. This is ridiculous. Then I saw the pay-off, and laughed out loud. I would have laughed just as hardily if the two men had been reversed.

Being unable to appreciate good-natured, puckish satire when it is aimed at your favorite politician, party, elected official, organization is a sign of a closed mind and an absence of proportionality and perspective. That video makes both candidates look silly, and that’s just fine.

If you can’t see the humor, I feel sorry for you. And I fear you. You have lost all perspective, and that leads to fanaticism.

Ethics Quiz: The NFL Kicker’s Commencement Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Only in the age of social media, mandatory conformity, and militant political correctness would a conservative Catholic commencement address at a tiny conservative Catholic Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas about 50 miles northwest of Kansas City, turn into a national controversy. Oops, I don’t want to bias the ethics quiz: forget the way I phrased that.

Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs, the place-kickers for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, was invited to give the Commencement speech for the 2024 graduating class, seemingly an odd choice, but then maybe not. Butker had been outspoken the Cathodic Church in recent years, and I strongly suspect that he delivered exactly what the leadership of Benedictine College was seeking at the ceremony last weekend.

To gauge the reactions on social media and elsewhere, however (it sure sounded like his speech was well-received by the students) you would think his address was from the fiery depths of Hell, as if he had supported Hamas terrorism or anti-Semitism or something. He was roundly attacked on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter/”X.” About 125,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org calling for the Chiefs to fire the kicker; typical progressives: if you don’t espouse their views and support their agendas, then you don’t deserve to make a living. The reliably despicable NFL felt it had to oppose the player’s statements, as if anyone thought he was speaking for the league rather than for himself. “Harrison Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, said in a written statement. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger.” Naturally, the most corrupt and hypocritical league in sports felt it had to pander to the woke, and do so by uttering the magic word, “inclusion,” thereby falsely suggesting that Butker advocated exclusion. Best of all, Kansas City used its official social media account to reveal Butker’s residence, doxxing him. Nice. The city is sorry though. That will do him a lot of good when someone burns his house down.

I could quote the sections that has the Angry Left on the warpath—can I say that?—but instead I’m going to publish the whole speech. Then I’ll ask the Ethics Quiz question, and give my answer, abut which I feel strongly. Here is the speech:

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Unethical—But Revealing!—Quote of the Month: Bill McGuire, Professor Emeritus of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College, London

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Remember: Trust the scientists! They know best…

“If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate.”

—British vulcanologist and climate scientist William J. McGuire, “Bill” to his friends, cheering on human death in a tweet he quickly removed after colleagues advised him “Uh, Bill? We’re not supposed to say things like this out loud…”

Of course, the professor might have been saying that the economically disastrous measures being proposed and in some cases adopted by foolish governments like the Biden administration won’t affect the climate sufficiently to make a difference, so the whole movement is futile, irresponsible, based on speculation, and, to be blunt, stupid, but of course he wasn’t. No, this scientist, who is among those we are supposed to trust and obey—you know, like the health “experts” who crippled the economy, our society and the educational development of our children based on guesses about the Wuhan virus that were represented as fact?—believes that the only way to avoid a climate catastrophe (and we all want to do that, right?) is to have millions of people die as soon as possible, one way or another. A plague is a good way! Or we could just execute them, like Mao did. Of course, he shouldn’t be one of those sacrificed for the greater good, because his life is too valuable.

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The Student and the Homeless Man: A Cautionary Ethics Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Or, “Why It’s Unethical to Behave in Defiance of Reality.”

Or, “Why the old saw ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ is constantly being affirmed.”

Or, “Why progressive wishcraft keeps blowing up in society’s metaphorical face”

Sanai Graden (left), a University of California at Berkeley senior (presumably you know what that means) was hit up by a homeless man as she visited Washington, D.C. He said his name was Alonzo, and told her he had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The sympathetic young woman paid for his medication at CVS. She also got him a hotel room for the night. Sanai was a TikToker , and told her followers that she needed to raise money for Alonzo, whom she called “Unc.” Soon she bought Alonzo, aka. “Unc,” a cell phone, and put him up in a hotel for a week.

Awwww. How Christian! How kind! How progressive!

Her video became a Tik Tok sensation, with millions of views. Graden started a GoFundMe account, and it quickly raised more than $400,000. Her legion of followers multiplied: one admirer set up a GoFundMe for her that eventually raised over $26,000.

Isn’t that a nice story?

Then a report from local D.C. TV station Fox 5 revealed that “Unc” was Alonzo Hebron, 64, a long-time criminal who numbered among his convictions one for a violent assault on a homeless woman. In another, he stabbed a man in the neck with a screwdriver. Donors started asking for their money back.

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Ethics Quiz: That Apple IPad Pro Ad

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Filmmakers, musicians, writers and other artists began whining about that ad above for the Apple iPad Pro from almost the second it was released. As Sonny and Cher warble one of their lesser efforts, “All I Ever Need is You,” a hydraulic press crushes musical instruments, cameras, a framed picture, paint cans, record albums and other stuff in a colorful explosion of chaos.

“The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley,” tweeted actor Hugh Grant. “Who needs human life and everything that makes it worth living? Dive into this digital simulacrum and give us your soul. Sincerely, Apple,” added “Men in Black” screenwriter Ed Solomon. There were lots more metaphorical squeals of indignation and alarm on social media, as
“creative people” accused Apple of gloating over how Big Tech is co-opting the traditional tools of art and on the verge of eliminating the human creativity with artificial intelligence.

So, naturally, as is the norm these days, Apple “assumed the position” and groveled an apology. Pledging that Apple would never run the ad on TV again, Tor Myhren, the company’s vice president of marketing communications, said, “Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world.” The statement continued, “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Seriously?

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Oh, lots of things: Is there anything unethical about that ad? Do its critics have a legitimate point? Should Apple have caved to their complaints? Was that apology sincere?

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RFK Jr. Supporters Are Going To Sue Meta (Facebook, Instagram). Good!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Oopsie! Meta, the monster (in many senses of the word) parent company of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, blocked the link to a new, 30-minute infomercial supporting the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the rebel independent Presidential candidate whom Democrats wish they could vaporize with their bad thoughts. Meta says it was a “mistake.”

Maybe it was. The embargo didn’t last long: the ad was only unavailable from late afternoon last Friday to the middle of last Saturday. A spokesman for Meta said the link had been incorrectly flagged as spam. For some reason, RFK Jr.’s campaign and supporters don’t trust Meta. Tony Lyons, a founder the super PAC that paid for the ad, says his group plans to sue Meta in federal court for censorship and First Amendment violations.

“When social media companies censor a presidential candidate, the public can’t learn what that candidate actually believes and what policies they would pursue if elected,” Mr. Lyons said. “We are left with the propaganda and lies from the most powerful and most corrupt groups and individuals.”

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Ethics Zugzwang as USC Silences Its Valedictorian

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

USC has banned this year’s graduating class valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, from Chino Hill, California, from making her speech during the university’s commencement ceremony. The justification: anti-Israel (or pro-Palestine…same thing, really) posts on Instagram, including thise calling for the “complete abolition” of Israel. 

Asna is a Muslim, not that there’s anything wrong with that. USC officials chose her from nearly 100 student applicants who had GPAs of 3.98 or higher. It seemed like a good idea at the time: certainly in this age of enlightened DEI, the woke school wasn’t going to choose any icky white male. Tabassum majored in biomedical engineering with a minor in resistance to genocide—wait, what??? USC has a “resistance to genocide” major?

The USC Provost explained the decision thusly:

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A TRIPLE Jumbo for Joe!

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Ok, we need a new rule, as Bill Maher likes to say.

Politicians who don’t have the integrity, energy, tech savvy or whatever else it takes to run their own social media accounts may not deny that what was posted in their names, with their permission, by their paid agents, are their true sentiments. I regard the practice of proxy tweeters and Instagrammers per se unethical anyway: the message says it’s from, say, “Joe Biden,” but it’s really from 22 year-old Ohio State grad Stanislaus “Blinky” Furbusher, a former circus geek whose uncle is a big Democratic donor, and whose opinion about anything would normally not get the national attention a typical Oakland A’s day game gets. That makes such a ghost-posted message a lie, flat out. Say what you will, and I have, about Donald Trump’s often stupid and obnoxious tweets, at least he’s the one who sends them, and he accepts full responsibility for them too. (And he knows how to send them, which admittedly isn’t much, but I bet Joe Biden hasn’t sent a tweet in his life.)

This is all by way of noting that when asked about the political and religious controversy about Biden proclaiming Easter Sunday “Transgender Day of Visibility” [Item #3] (the ridiculously named and conceived “day” pandering to the tiny minority represented by the “T’ in LGBTQ and dedicated to destroying women’s sports), the President, who doesn’t lie like Donald Trump and has a mind like a steel trap (we are told) denied that he had done it.

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