The participation of two Trump-obsessed newcomers, one now banned and the other self-suspended, swelled last week’s Forum to one of the most active ever. This has been an equally momentous week in the ethics universe if not more so: I’ll be interested to see if we can get both quality and quantity this time around.
On your mark….get set…
I’m still hoping for the best with Elon Musk’s brave though chaotic attempt to rescue Twitter from the agents of progressive and Democrat propaganda….but I’m not going to spend a lot of time ramping up Ethics Alarms new presence on the platform until I am confident that I won’t have to quit in disgust again.
This week so far there have been two Twitter-related events that I view as ethically encouraging:
1. Musk tweaked National Public Radio as it so richly deserves by labeling it “state-affiliated media” on the platform. Trying to be nice, Musk changed the label to “government-funded media,” causing NPR promptly to throw a fit and quit Twitter, announcing that it would “no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform.” (Well, except for the New York Post when Twitter silenced it to keep the Hunter Biden laptop story from hurting Joe Biden at the polls.)
Amusingly, NPR puffed itself up with hot air, huffing that the network is protecting its credibility and its ability to produce journalism without “a shadow of negativity.” “The downside, whatever the downside, doesn’t change that fact,” NPR CEO John Lansing said, “I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility.”
I guess he means “other than NPR,” whose partisan toadying is legendary.
Lansing continued the hilarity by writing, “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.” Standards? Hmmm...I can’t recall the last NPR ethics story EA has posted; let’s see…HA! Just a week ago: NPR Wonders If Transgender Athletes Have A Physical Advantage Over Female Competitors. Before that: NPR Says There Are “Pros And Cons” Of A Candidate For Governor Calling Someone “Motherfucker” During A Speech…
Care to guess the party affiliation of the candidate NPR was defending? Tough one! Why, it was Beto O’Roarke, the Democratic candidate to unseat GOP Texas Governor Abbott. NPR described O’Rourke’s gutter language as a “snappy interjection,” though the snappy interjection was somehow not fit to print. The NPR headline used “f-bomb” while the text employed “motherf*****”. We pay taxes for this garbage “analysis”?
The indignant NPR excuse for objecting to “government funded” is also self-indicting. NPR’s own news story says,
HR 734, introduced in February, is a fine example of the Ethics Alarms motto, “When ethics fails, the law takes over, and usually makes a mess of it.” The objective—I hope— of the proposed law is to eliminate cynical cheating in collegiate and high school sports by male athletes have “transitioned” after going through male puberty. (Lia Thomas—above–guess which one is Lia!— comes to mind.) I say “I hope” because one could read the bill to be expressing targeted animus against transgendered individuals, many/most/some of whom—who knows, really?—are trying to cope with a genuine and life defining problem. However, the bill as written is both too narrow and too broad at the same time, while skirting the major question at issue by pretending it is settled. This is a bad bill, and would be a bad law, perhaps even an unconstitutional law.
I might even conclude that it was composed only to grandstand on the issue for political gain rather than as a good faith effort to address a problem. The Bill states,
“(d) (1) It shall be a violation of subsection (a) for a recipient of Federal financial assistance who operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.
(2) For the purposes of this subsection, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.
(3) Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a recipient from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity.”.
Later today (I hope), I will post am analysis of the “Do Something!” phenomenon, its roots, political history, and ethical failings. As a precedent, however, I am introducing this new tool that I will rely on in my analysis today and going forward: The Ethics Alarms “Do Something!” Scale. It has ten levels that describe proposed policy solutions to perceived societal threats, crises and problems. #1 is the most responsible and thus the best, and #10 is the most emotion-based and irrational, and therefore the “bottom of the barrel.”
As always, I welcome suggestions and refinements. The scale will be used to measure the status of current and future “Do something!” demands. This week, we are mostly hearing them in the context of the shootings in Nashville and Louisville. Here is the new scale, as currently constituted:
In August, lecturer Cathy Boardman of the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in Manchester raised the provocative question of whether. if a white person wearing black make-up is racist, a drag performer or a “transitioning” male posing as a female should be regarded as similarly demeaning. “What about womanface?” she asked.
She was promptly fired, because she had, her employers said, upset transgender students. Boardman is unrepentant and is appealing the decision, but her question has taken on new relevance in the wake of the Bud Light decision to use a satiric trans “influencer” in its latest marketing campaign.
How did I miss the expression “womanface” for so long? It’s in the Urban Dictionary. The first high profile mention of the analogy with blackface came from pre-House, pre-Trump Derangement Mary Cheney, who is a lesbian, on her private Facebook page. After seeing a TV commercial for “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” she wrote,
It’s a bit early in the day for the Dave Clark Five, but they do bring back memories…It’s amazing to think back on, but when they first appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, the group was widely regarded as indistinguishable from The Beatles, just another British Invasion group that teenage girls were screaming about. This song even knocked “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” off of the #1 spot on the UK Singles Chart.
A weird housekeeping note: a recent entry into the comment wars who ripped off over a hundred comments in just a handful of days has gotten himself/herself/themselves (in case it’s conjoined twins) suspended indefinitely for refusing to send me a real email address and a full name as the Comment Policies clearly require. I don’t understand this at all. It’s not an unreasonable request. I am also fascinated that the participants from just one side of the ideological spectrum behave this way, showing deliberate contempt and disrespect for a forum in which they are guests and beneficiaries. This isn’t the first time.
It’s really frustrating to attempt Diversity and Inclusion of viewpoints here when so many progressives enter determined to act like jerks.
1. Clearly, I spoke too soon about rejoining Twitter. Becoming active on Twitter will require a huge time commitment, and having re-joined to support Elon Musk’s mission to restore the platform to a forum not being manipulated to advance a particular party’s agendas and narratives, I am rapidly feeling misled and betrayed. I’ve got an account again , but the chaos under Musk continues. This mess, part of the craziness described in “After Matt Taibbi Leaves Twitter, Elon Musk ‘Shadow Bans’ All Of Taibbi’s Tweets, Including The Twitter Files” strongly suggests that he is too mercurial and unstable to deliver on his promises, or that it may have always been impossible to do so.
2. The latest “book banning” controversy: I don’t know what to make of stories like this one, and there are a lot of them. “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” was removed from a library at Vero Beach High School after Moms for Liberty in Indian River County claimed that the book was inappropriate. The school’s principal either agreed with the objection or didn’t have the guts to oppose it (most principals are weenies and will always choose the path of least resistance) and the book was removed. The book at one point shows Anne walking in a park, admiring female nude statues, and describes her proposing to a friend that they show each other their breasts. It also has relatively little context regarding the Holocaust.
To the Left, this is just another example of Cro-Magnon conservatives “banning” books that are insufficiently de-sexualized. To the Right, the book is needlessly edgy and not the kind of thing that belongs in school libraries. A favorable review of the book by the Times of Israel is here.
What lines in school library collection decisions should be drawn? Is it really necessary to include a graphic novelization of Anne Frank’s story that has Peter whispering “Penis!” to Anne during dinner and imagines her commenting about another girl, “Did you see that pair of melons she’s sprouted?” Yet even if the good taste of those choices is debatable, does that justify removing the book?
Incidentally, removing a book from a school library is hardly “banning” it.
3. Today’s gun control “Do something!” virtue signaler: Criminal defense attorney and Fox News contributor Ted Williams (not the headless frozen baseball great). In response to yesterday’s mass shooting in Louisville, Williams told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Saying he was “sick and tired” of the shootings, Williams said,
The New York Times went all out with a feature about how food delivery drivers were being exploited and under-rewarded. The headline: “$388 in Sushi. Just a $20 Tip: The Brutal Math of Uber Eats and DoorDash.”
The assumption of reporter Mark Abramson is that the more the food costs, the more the tip should be, presumably because anyone who can afford $388 for sushi should share the wealth. But a delivery driver does exactly the same amount of work for the sushi order as a he would for 20 bucks worth of egg rolls. Why is he entitled to the same level of tip as a waiter or waitress who ideally contributes to a pleasurable dining experience?
Well, he isn’t. And though the Times readers are as woke as they come, this bit of working class hero victimization propaganda was too tough to swallow. Some examples…
The Dalai Lama has apologized for asking a boy if he wanted to suck his tongue.
I considered ending this post right there. Res ipsa loquitur.
This was caught on video, which also showed the elderly spiritual leader kissing the child on the lips.
“His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident,” a spokesman said. I bet he does! Nevertheless, an apology is not sufficient in a case like this. Not to bring everything back to Clarence Thomas, but it’s the same issue: trust. People tend not to trust holy men who ask children to such their tongues. Nor should they. And the best the Dalai Lama can come up with is “I was kidding”?
Wow.
If the name Henry Bergh rings an ethics bell, you’re better informed than I, or have a better memory. I dimly recall having read the name, but only today, checking for ethics landmarks on the date, did I realize his significance.
Bergh was the diplomat and philanthropist who, on this date in 1866, founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In a New York City speech following a trip to Europe where he had been horrified by the treatment of work horses, he appealed to human compassion for “these mute servants of mankind” and argued that protecting animals was should not face any class or partisan disagreements. “This is a matter purely of conscience; it has no perplexing side issues,” he said. “It is a moral question in all its aspects.” Bergh then introduced his “Declaration of the Rights of Animals.”
Soon after, the New York State legislature passed a charter incorporating the ASPCA, the first animal cruelty law in the United States was passed, authorizing the ASPCA to investigate complaints of animal cruelty and to make arrests. Bergh, meanwhile, was frequently ridiculed for his passion, as in the cartoon above that was accompanied by an article calling him a “traitor to his species.”
Morons. To the contrary, Bergh’s personal rescues of mistreated horses and livestock inspired activists and social reformers taking up the cause of abused children. In 1874, they founded the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Henry Bergh served as one of the group’s first vice presidents.
1. I’m tempted to post this one from yesterday again...Maybe it was Easter’s fault, but The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck Jumps The Rails In Tennessee attracted far fewer comments than the silly tale of Bud Light thinking a ridiculous trans “influencer” was a perfect choice to be a beer spokesperson. Meanwhile, the mainstream media is barfing up op-eds about how Tennessee Republicans punishing three Democratic legislators for helping a mob shut down the work of the legislature in order to demand that “something” be done about gun violence shows that Republicans are hostile to democracy. What head exploding hypocrisy! I wrote,
The behavior of the three (Democratic, of course) state reps was indefensible. No one has explained why Republican members of Congress who supported the January 6 protest against what many believed was a rigged election were threatened by Democrats with a Constitutional ban from running for office as punishment, but the Tennessee legislators who actually participated in disrupting the government were pronounced by the same news media and party that condemned the Republicans as heroes. This is because it can’t be explained: it’s mind-blowing hypocrisy and a flaming double standard. What the Tennessee Democrats did was clearly worse: no Republicans too part in the January 6 attack on the Capital? No riot in Nashville, you say? That’s because, and only because, of moral luck. Police did not try to force the Nashville demonstrators to leave and didn’t have the numbers to even try. The anti-gun protesters, as you might expect, did not have a contingent of wackos prone to violence, though they might have. The news media’s near unanimous position is that people disrupting a Republican-run legislature in the midst of doing government business is admirable, but disrupting a Democratic-run Congress is an “insurrection.”
This time, I beat Professor Turley by almost a full day, who wrote last night,
The three members yelled “No action, no peace” and “Power to the people” as their colleagues objected to their stopping the legislative process. Undeterred, the three refused to allow “business as usual” to continue. Nothing says deliberative debate like a bullhorn. American politics, it seems, has become a matter of simple amplification. Many on the left lionized the three for their disruption of the legislature. President Biden denounced the sanctioning of their “peaceful protest” as “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.” There was little criticism of the members for obstructing the legislative business or refusing to accept the democratic process that rejected their gun-control demands. Today, for many, there is no room for nuance. Instead, they live in a world occupied only by “fascists” and “insurrectionists.”…This is now our “historic reality.” Liberals and the media, long criticized for downplaying violence from the left, are now rationalizing a disruption of legislative procedure as “good trouble” because the cause is considered to be correct.
2. Speaking of unethical Federal judges, since debating the blatantly unethical conduct of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dominated much of Ethics Alarms’ time and space over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas issued a power-abusing decision that made the entire judicial branch look bad, cancelling the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, the first drug approved for an abortion pill, 23 years after it was first approved. This is the first time in history that a court has asserted the power to pull a drug from the market after FDA approval, and it is an abuse of power at that. Kacsmaryk is a passionate abortion opponent, but that does not allow him to decide based on anti-abortion activist assertions that a drug is unsafe and that the FDA is less qualified to declare a drug safe than he is. Within an hour of its release, his ruling started a constitutional crisis when a federal judge in Washington issued an injunction ordering the FDA to allow mifepristone in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
This isn’t an ethical issue regarding abortion. The ethics issue is abuse of power and process—again, as in the previous story, an ideological claim that laws, rules and ethical principles can be ignored to make “good trouble” in Prof. Turley’s term.
Right on cue, after the post earlier today mentioning how the hysteria over school shootings was giving kids a false belief that they were not safe in school, comes this story:
Psychology teacher Jeffrey Keene, a teacher at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, gave his 11th and 12th grade students an assignment ahead of a scheduled active shooter drill.
He told them to write their obituaries. Some of the students reported the assignment to school administrators, and by the end of the day Keene, who as a new hire was on probation and could be fired at will, was.
Keene, to his credit (no weenie he!) was unrepentant, telling reporters,
Ethics Alarms 