On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the most famous speech in U.S. history, authored by him, in a remarkable burst of historical and ethical clarity. Dedicating the military cemetery on the battlefield with rotting bodies still covering the ground after what we now know was the turning point in the Civil War, Lincoln captured the mission of this nation as it was while redefining it going forward:

 Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

How he missed the fact that the United States was really founded to protect slavery and was dedicated to being a scourge of human rights, we’ll never know.

I wonder how many of the “experts” who now train our children to be good citizens include the Gettysburg Address in their curriculum. To be fair, there may not be time, given the importance of imparting critical race theory and joys of transgenderism.

It is also worth noting that Abraham Lincoln developed the critical thinking and rhetorical skills that produced his masterpiece without any formal education. He just read many of those books by the same dead white men who are now considered the heralds of white supremacy.

I suppose three arch statements in a row are excessive on an ethics blog….

1. Another confirmation bias classic: A typical New York Times reader writes, “Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to step down from her leadership position was timely and astute. A good leader knows when it is time to go. Moreover, her speech was extraordinary in spirit, wisdom, humility, grace and gratitude….”

Nobody should care what Pelosi said, or says. She already showed us her spirit, wisdom, humility and grace many times, over many years. She was a consistently toxic and divisive feature of American politics, and her party and her nation are much diminished because of her.

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My wife and I are now in the throes of a painful ethics dilemma for any parent of an adult. Our son unexpectedly broke up with his long-time live-in girl friend, apparently ending a relationship that seemed serious, loving, and built to last. We both love his now ex-, a wonderfully candid, gentle, courageous young woman who has overcome a lot of tragedy in her life, and whom we know loves our son passionately. (She is also arguably Spud’s favorite human being on Earth.) Our son keeps his own counsel and always has; he gave us the news in his usual unadorned, unrevealing, terse manner. He did not ask for advice or counsel, and we know him well enough to understand that he would not appreciate our offering any; indeed, his trademark is taking the opposite course of that suggested by anyone other than him. So we will do the ethical thing, which in this case is also the only option available to us: mind our own business.

1. Speaking of my dog, Spuds-like dogs will continued to be cruelly and stupidly discriminated against in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that outlaws the possession or sale of “pit bulls.” That’s in quotes because it is clear that the ignorant dog bigots who passed the law have no clue what a pit bull is: the law defines the “dangerous breed” as “any dog that is an American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier,” or any dog with a majority of the physical traits of one or more of those breeds. In other words, the law adopts the cretinous terms of the anti-pit bull breeds website Dogsbite.com, which says that “if it looks like a pit bull, it’s a pit bull.”

Owners of pit bulls sued the city in federal court, claiming the ordinance violates their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. A U.S. District judge dismissed the suit on summary judgment, which the dog owners appealed.

A three-judge panel of the S Eighth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling, holding that the dog owners had the burden of negating every conceivable basis that might support the ordinance.

“The record here does not negate every conceivable basis for the Ordinance’s rationality,” U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for the unanimous panel. “While the resulting ordinance may be an imperfect fit, this court cannot second guess or judge the fairness of legislative choices on rational basis review.”

2. And speaking of vicious persecution and bad faith vendettas, The Washington Post, burying the lede, reports that it seems likely now that Donald Trump had no nefarious purpose in holding classified documents, that there were no nuclear secrets contained in them as speculated, and that the former President was probably keeping them as souvenirs he felt he had a right to:

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These are the Senators—36 of them—who voted against a joint resolution to discontinue the Biden Administration’s cynical cynical pandemic emergency, which now only serves to allow the President to bypass usual checks and balances under the Constitution.

The names on the list are all you have to know.

Baldwin (D-WI)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Booker (D-NJ)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Duckworth (D-IL)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hassan (D-NH)
Heinrich (D-NM)
Hirono (D-HI)
Kelly (D-AZ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lujan (D-NM)
Markey (D-MA)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Murray (D-WA)
Ossoff (D-GA)
Padilla (D-CA)
Peters (D-MI)
Reed (D-RI)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Smith (D-MN)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Van Hollen (D-MD)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

This is a pretty dark day for ethics, with the lowlight occurring in 1532, when Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador, invited the Incan emperor, Atahualpa to a feast in his honor under the preetnse of peace and friendship. His force of less than 200 men then openeds fire on the unarmed Incans, killing over a thousand, After the massacre, the Spanish held Atahualpa, and forced him to convert to Christianity. Then Pizarro had him murdered anyway. This terrible episode in history did inspire the Broadway hit drama, “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” by Peter Schaefer of “Equus” and “Amadeus” fame. I guess that’s something.

Also on this date, in 1945, the U.S. made a devil’s bargain with 88 Nazi scientists, notably Werner von Braun (who Tom Lehrer famously sang about), as part of “Operation Paperclip,” aimed at speeding U.S. development of rocket technology. They cheerfully switched sides, as you would expect they would. Werner is buried less than 5 minutes from our Alexandria home, in a small church graveyard.

I have not visited his resting place.

1. The mainstream media is in some kind of an unethical headline orgy:

• The Washington Post included in its coverage of the murderer of three UVA football players a story headlined, “Suspected U-Va. gunman had troubled childhood, but then flourished.” The shooter is black; I’m sure that has nothing to do with the weirdly sympathetic vibes of what reads like a puff piece except for that shooting spree detail. The Post took down the headline; the question remains of how it could have made it to the web at all. [Pointer: Willem Reese]
• Here’s NPR, proudly displaying its Trump Derangement, with this headline: “Donald Trump, who tried to overturn Biden’s legitimate election, launches 2024 bid.” Stuffing unrelated negative commentary in a news story headline is truly barrel-bottom journalism. NPR managed to avoid the headline in 1979, “Ted Kennedy, who allowed a young woman to drown, launches 1980 bid.”
• NBC News: “Trump, whose lies about the 2020 election inspired an insurrection, announces third White House bid.” No editorializing there!
• Here’ he Washington Post again: “Trump, who as president fomented an insurrection, says he is running again.”
• This is CNBC’s headline, a classic example of the unethical tactic called “poisoning the well”: “Donald Trump, twice impeached and under FBI investigation, launches 2024 White House bid.”

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Good boy! Now that’s an Ethics Hero.

Random thoughts before we get into other stuff:

• Ann Althouse, whose pop culture literacy has some massive holes, is obsessed with Bob Dylan’s weird, self-indulgent book analyzing 66 pop recordings. (Not a single Beatles song on the list, among its many quirks.) One of the songs analyzed is the original recording of “Volare,” a fluky hit sung in Italian that virtually nobody understood. Apparently it’s about being painted blue, or something. The English version sung by Dean Martin and Bobby Rydell, among others, didn’t mention this at all. So what’s the point of analyzing lyrics that had nothing to do with the song’s popularity in the U.S.? It’s navel-gazing at an invisible navel. If the song wasn’t a U.S. hit, Dylan wouldn’t be writing about it, and the lyrics were irrelevant to its success.
• Follow-up: President Biden’s border chief Chris Magnus finally resigned after all, thus agreeing to be the designated scapegoat for the Department of Homeland Security’s failure to secure the Southern border. He had no choice, but at least by initially refusing he made it clear what was really going on.
• Has there ever been a less  surprising scandal than the fall of billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, better known as SBF, and his crypto exchange FTX? Why would anyone trust crypto currency, much less the people promoting it? Amusingly, writer/actor Larry David, the template for George Costanza, ducked accountability for hyping this garbage in his well-received Super Bowl ad, in which he was portrayed through history pooh-poohing major advances in culture and technology (like fire). Naturally, he also pronounced FTX as a bad idea. That really meant it was a good idea, but holding Larry responsible for aiding and abetting a con requires too many mental gymnastics.

1. If this election doesn’t kill the credibility of pollsters, nothing will. Virtually every poll predicted a “red wave,” and if not, they didn’t predict any House balance this close.  Most polls had Arizona Republican Kari Lake up double digits in the governor’s race, and it looks like she will lose. What good are they, other than to justify misleading news stories? Professional polling, as an industry, is officially unethical: untrustworthy, incompetent, and irresponsible. Naturally, 538 is now saying that the election validated the polls, because 538 is all about polling. “It isn’t what it is.” Continue reading →

(OK, it’s only tangentially related to the post, but I love this scene from “Ben-Hur,” the greatest horse scene in all of motion pictures.)

As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m backed up in excellent comments, so I’m going to try a new feature, using Saturday, when EA is seeing its streets more occupied with tumbleweeds than readers to honor the comments of the past week that I didn’t get up as Comments of the Day. These will usually come in reverse order, because it’s easier for me to track them down that way.

First up: CD-VAPatriot on “Ethics Quiz: A Horse By Any Other Name…”:

***

I don’t think there’s any obligation to change the name. The intention behind the horse’s name is clear, and intention is crucial.

I disagree with your assessment of the little girl. She said that if her horse’s name meant something bad, she wanted it to mean something good. I think that shows an intelligent child who is aware of the discord in the world around her, and instead of capitulating to the negative pressure, she wants to use her tiny platform to turn something ugly into something positive..

Professor Turley frequently says that instead of censorship, we should strive to “combat bad speech with better speech”, and I agree. Part of that is letting go of the notion that every word that might be construed as a slur IS a slur. It means the concept that schools named after historic figures (people once revered who are now torn apart for simply being a man/woman of their era) or sports teams whose names reflect something once acceptable that’s now taboo, etc.,,need to immediately change their name/logo/mascot and repent.

If we yield to every criticism by every person who claims offense to a name, an expression, a job, an idea, etc., half the world won’t be able to say/write a single word, out of fear of retribution, and when people cannot communicate freely they cannot communicate effectively, and everything from education to workplace relations to social /intimate relationships break down completely.

Where would that leave us all?

_____________________

(I’m sorry: WordPress was being weird, and I had to re-post this, losing the comments already made.)

Haven’t heard from Gene, Donald and Debbie for a while. It was time. And I need them this morning…

1. Laws? What laws? This is GOOD racism… Black Minneapolis native and entrepreneur Jesse Ross is spending $3.8 million as part of his “Wealth Redistribution Project to establish a 68,000-square-foot facility to house 15 to 20 businesses, and those with white owners need not apply. There will also be even space for weddings and conferences; its unclear how or if Ross will discriminate regarding these as well. His plan is illegal, after all. One of the results of all the “diversity, equity and inclusion” virtue-signaling is that a lot of people have forgotten what illegal racial discrimination is. Ross is clearly in this category, and so are the local corporations the always ethically clueless city of Minneapolis,which have provided him with cash grants to discriminate against whites.

The news media is doing its part too. In its story about this exercise in compensatory racism, NBC’s KARE 11 says, inspirationally, that the project is “an investment reaching far beyond dreams once thought unattainable.” It IS unattainable, you fools, unless he’s allowed to break the law.

But to be fair, this basically follows the same logic as Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness EO.

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I wonder if KFC is planning a cheesy chicken promotion for Armistice Day…that’s today, you know. On this date in 1918, the Great War, the War to End All Wars, ended when Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. Nine million soldiers had died and 21 million were wounded. Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain each lost a million or more lives. At least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure. The war, now known as World War I, also traumatized a generation, helped spread the Spanish flu pandemic (which took 50 million or more lives), and led directly to World War II.

Yes, the War to End All Wars was substantially responsible for starting the worst war of them all.

Yet not one in a hundred—a thousand?—Americans can explain coherently what the war was all about, why the U.S. entered it, and what were the major events that defined it. It is barely mentioned in schools. There has been a WWI memorial on the D.C. Mall for decades, and it is largely ignored by tourists. Do you know what it looks like? Here it is…

Then, last year, a new one was unveiled on Pennsylvania Ave, with so little publicity that I missed it. Here it is:

Meanwhile, Armistice Day, once a holiday to mark the end of this human-made cataclysm, was eliminated, with Veteran’s Day taking its place in 1954. There’s nothing in the commemoration of Veteran’s Day that even references The Great War.

1. Who couldn’t see this coming? Two historically black churches in Jackson, Mississippi, were deliberately set ablaze on Election Day morning. There were five other suspected arson cases all seven  in the area of Jackson State University, a historically black public university. Obviously, this was the work of those racist, white supremacist Republicans, or so Democrats were quick to declare. Mississippi Democrat congressional candidate Shuwaski Young pounced, releasing a statement calling the fires acts of “terrorism,” saying, “We will not allow domestic terrorists to suppress our right to vote. I ask all Mississippians to GO VOTE regardless of this decades-old intimidation tactic to suppress our votes today. Just go VOTE.” (For him, of course) Commenters on his post chimed in about the dire threat of white supremacy.

Here’s Delvin McLaurin, the man who was arrested as the likely arsonist:

Damn those white supremacists! Continue reading →