U.S. Society

Here’s A Revolutionary Ethical Concept: Admit To The Public When You’ve Screwed Up Instead Of Treating Them Like Idiots And Defaulting To Obvious Lies

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

After last night’s disastrous debate in the Pennsylvania Senate race that may determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, John Fetterman’s campaign said that he “dominated.” Yes, it really said that.

Perhaps it was covering its own incompetence: he should not have been allowed to debate at all. Ducking the debate would have done less damage to Fetterman’s prospects than the painful display last night. Horrified audiences were subjected to Fetterman responses like…

  • “We all have to make sure that everyone that works is able to. That’s—that’s the most American bargain, that if you work full time, you should be able to live in dignity as well true.”
  • “And I believe they haven’t have any businusses being being. You can’t have businesses being subsidized by not paying… individuals that just simply can’t have avave [?] to pay their own way.”
  • Then there was the endless dead air when Fetterman was asked about his flip-flop on fracking. Finally he said, “I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t — I support fracking, and I stand, and I do support fracking.”

Despite claiming that their candidate triumphed while his campaign was falling apart in chunks on TV, Fetterman’s spokespeople blamed malfunctions in the special closed captioning system he required. The technicians responsible responded that the system worked perfectly. Continue reading →

Monday Night Ethics Fights! 10/24/2022…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

For your cultural literacy enlightenment of the day, the painting above is George Bellows’ “Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Firpo,” depicting the most dramatic moments in one of the most famous fights ever before professional boxing fell into corruption, disrepute, and irrelevance. The date was September 14, 1923; the place was the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fighters were National Boxing Association heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and Luis Ángel Firpo, the heavyweight champion of South America known as the “Wild Bull of the Pampas.” The match only lasted two rounds of a scheduled 15, but the fight included 11 knockdowns, notably the one portrayed in the painting (which hangs in the Whitney), when “the “Manassa Mauler” actually knocked Firpo out of the ring.

1. Stacey Abrams, who once was thought to be Joe Biden’s likely VP pick (since he was limiting himself to unqualified black women) is proving herself to be the incompetent clown the aware and non-politically correct pegged her as long ago. Now running ten points behind in the polls behind the man she claims “stole” the governorship from her in their first meeting, Abrams decided to appeare on stage at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena during the Lizzo concert with opening act Latto, holding up a sign that read “My Body My Choice.” Abrams is determined to go down pimping for abortion even though all evidence shows that the issue is not one of those primarily on voters’ minds. Her stunt was particularly ill-considered since she held up the sign in front of a sign announcing Latto’s biggest hit, “Pussy”:

Stay classy, Stacey!

2. Another effort to target a Christian baker by gay activists has failed, though not before causing a lot of expense and wasted time to the baker. Cathy Miller is owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, and was asked in 2017 to bake a special same-sex wedding cake for Eileen Del Rio and her fiancé. Miller felt that doing so would be a violation of her religious beliefs. (I disagree, but I also object to customers setting out to bend others to their wills). Miller offered to refer the job to a competing bakery, or to sell the couple a pre-made cake they could have customized elsewhere. No, the same-sex couple wanted to punish the baker. After their complaint, which was the plan all along, California’s Department of Fair Housing and Employment filed legal action against Miller’s business under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law aimed at protecting consumers from discrimination by businesses on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. Last week, the Superior Court of California in Kern County ruled against the militant couple. Miller’s lawyer called the ruling ironic since “a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs.”

I don’t know why both parties in such a controversy can’t be reasonable and compromise, but since they can’t while The Great Stupid runs amuck, this was the right, and most ethical, result.

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2022 Mid-Term Elections Panic Report: The New York Times Editors Endorse Terrorism

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

There are a lot of signs that the Woke, the Left, the Resistance, Democrats and the news media that filters reality for their objectives are collectively losing their grip in theincreasingly unavoidable realization that their dreams of societal transformation in America are going to be significantly hobbled by the upcoming vote-fest. We saw this stage coming (or should have) some time ago, with perhaps the most striking confirmation arriving when Joe Biden decided to channel Der Fuhrer while calling half the population fascists. Yet I didn’t see this coming, because I am a sap, and persist in my childish idealism telling me that as wacko as they seem right now, these are all traditional, ethical Americans at heart who are just having a bad six or seven years.

In the span of less than a week, the New York Times editors thought it responsible to publish two op-ed columns extolling the virtues of terrorism when not enough people want to do what the Good, Wise, Smart People—you know, like them—have decided is best. Jamelle Boiue, whose usual specialty in Times punditry is anti-white racism, actually lionized John Brown, whose body not only lies a-moldering in the grave but was an engine of random murder and terrorism.

Channeling W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1909 ode to Brown (the populists of that era often admired the lunatic: Clarence Darrow was also an admirer), Bouie agrees that Brown was motivated by “social doctrines of the French Revolution with its emphasis on freedom and power in political life” (Speaking of terror!), and his “inchoate but growing belief in a more just and a more equal distribution of property.” He continues in part,

“Has John Brown no message — no legacy, then, to the twentieth century?” asks Du Bois. “He has and it is this great word: the cost of liberty is less than the price of repression….Viewed in this light, Du Bois says, the memory of John Brown stands as a “mighty warning” to the United States and its peers. To wait to rectify the sins of the present — to sidestep justice in favor of comfort — is to make the final price of liberty all the more expensive…

“What Brown decided, Du Bois continues, was that he had to strike a blow for justice in his time. “It will cost something — even blood and suffering — but it will not cost as much as waiting…Du Bois’s broadside against hierarchy and exclusion still lands with as much force in 2022 as I’m sure it did in 1909. His warning that the tolerance of injustice will only lead to darker places and “darker deeds” is still relevant. And his closing reminder that without real “equality of opportunity” the best in humanity cannot be “discovered and conserved” remains as true now as it was then.”

Who’s advocating civil war now?

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“What’s on the Minds of 12 Young Voters?” Not Much, And Not Enough

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It is usually depressing when one digs into the sausage-making that is elections, and the recent New York Times inquiry into the pre-election reasoning of 12 young voters (20-somethings, with one 18-year-old) is especially so. Luckily, the statistics show our young voters to be the least likely to actually bother to cast votes, but still, these are the citizens we’re rearing, and attention must be paid.

Here is a summary of what they told the Times…

Jayda Priester, 25 [Atlanta]: “The most important issue for me is defunding the police. I am hugely for defunding the police and putting other resources available for crisis management, de-escalation.”

Me: Jayda says she hasn’t decided whether to vote at all. Good. Anyone who even considers defunding the police is too ignorant, naive and foolish to be a responsible citizen.

Kyle Moore, 28, [Wisconsin]: “I feel like the 20s generation does not express or voice their opinion as strongly as they should, like the older generations. They hold back more and don’t come out and voice or vote clearly enough to see the country succeeding.”

Me: Kyle should read the responses of the other 12 “young voters,” like Jayda. Opinions that misinformed don’t contribute anything positive to the national discourse. Maybe the smarter ones are holding back because they know they don’t understand matters sufficiently to have an informed opinion.

Kadie Mercier, 29, [Philadelphia]: “As an emergency-department nurse, we see people come in all the time that are in very poor health because they’re unable to afford their medications or find a primary care provider. And so it’s something that I’m really passionate about, making sure these people can avoid coming to the emergency department.”

Me: Kadie is apparently a single issue voter, and is informed to some degree on that issue. Single-issue voting is irresponsible, and thus unethical, but it has the advantage of being uncomplicated.

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Morning Ethics Wake-Up, 10/21/2022: Krugman, Logan, Justice Barrett, Garbage And Poop

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

October 21 reminds me that I’m only up to Woodrow Wilson in the Ethics Alarms examination of qualified competitors for Joe Biden in the “Worst U.S. President Ever” Competition. Biden, as we can see every day, looks worse and worse, but this date in 1921 stands as a reminder that a President whom conventional historical wisdom usually relegates to the bottom of the barrel was more than the corrupt, sex-obsessed boob he has been portrayed as by predominantly Democrat academics. On October 21, Harding gave a brave speech in Alabama condemning lynchings, which at that time were occurring in the South at a rate of about two black men lynched a week. Harding, in contrast to his Jim Crow-supporting predecessor, Wilson, advocated full rights for African Americans as well as suffrage for women. He supported the Dyer Anti-lynching Bill in 1920, which passed in the House but died in the Senate, thanks to the determined resistance of Southern Democrats.

1. Garbage to the left of me, garbage to the right…today’s refrain on Fox News is that the record-setting early voting in Georgia “proves” that  Biden and Stacey Abrams calling the new Georgia election law  “Jim Crow 2.0” was race-baiting and lies. The Democrats’ despicable rhetoric was indeed race-baiting and dishonest, but the voting turn-out proves nothing of the sort. How could it? Less than 50% of the public votes; less than 50% would probably vote if all they had to do was to do so psychically. For all anyone knows, all the extra early voters haven’t been affected by the new rules at all, and would have voted if the law had never passed. Next, Abrams, who really is a horrible character, tried to answer the conservative media’s mockery by “clarifying” that she never meant that the new law would stop anyone from voting who was willing to put in the effort, just that voting should require no effort at all. Oh. But Jim Crow actually made it impossible for blacks to vote no matter what they did. I feel like I’m watching a debate between an idiot and a con-artist… Continue reading →

Is Everyone Being Unfair To Kamala Harris?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments
Nobody says that public philosopher Jordan Peterson is an inarticulate boob, and Veep Kamala Harris now has an unshakeable reputation as one. Yet Harris has never exceeded the level of Authentic Frontier Gibberish spewed by Peterson in that clip, which cannot be claimed to have been “taken out of context”: there is no context under the stars in which Peterson’s blather is anything but doubletalk delivered with stunning passion. It immediately reminded me of the Monty Python classic about “meanings,” here.

I confess; when any public figure engages in such blatant oral obfuscation or convoluted rhetoric, I am suspicious of their trustworthiness from that point onward. Ann Althouse, however, defends Peterson, and, by extension, Harris (and Joe Biden and many more) by writing today,

We’re living in a time when your worst few seconds will be ripped out of context and held up to discredit you. Better never to speak on camera at all than to risk creating one of these horrible clips to be used against you. We’re created a mediascape where only the cocky and reckless will speak freely. Ironically, Peterson will be one of those people. Everyone else will shrink out of public view.

Is it unfair to expect public figures and those who opine and speak for a living to do better than that, though? I know I’ve had some bad moments on the radio and in public presentations over the years, but surely there is a level of gabled thought and rhetoric that can be fairly taken as signature significance, and proof that a speaker just isn’t worth paying attention to.

Or is that unfair?

The Curse Of The 10-Year-Old Rape Victim

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Democrats really are relying on the Dobbs decision and the substantial blood-lust among a large segment of their constituencies for maximizing dead fetuses to rescue the 2022 mid-term elections from what should be, by all measures, a catastrophe for the Woke. Wow. Running primarily on abortion as the #1 national issue would be bizarre under any circumstances—it is, after all, a matter that specifically involves the ending of innocent human lives—but doing so this year, when so many other problems concern American citizens more than making it as easy as possible to off living human beings in wombs, is particularly weird. But then, as EA has noted before, it’s all the Democrats have other than claiming that Republicans are fascists while they act and talk like…fascists.

The rest is deny, deny, deny: The economy is wonderful! The border is secure! Gas prices aren’t that high, and you should be buying electric cars anyway! Crime surge? What crime surge? “Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,” as the King of Siam would say.

The depressing thing is that for close to 50% of our under-educated, misinformed, gullible and dim population, this pathetic platform of rationalizations and lies will be enough, and their response will be, “Sound good to me!” It is the pro-abortion arguments, however, that are particularly outrageous. Yesterday Ethics Alarms noted an op-ed by a physician that called a procedure unrelated to ending a pregnancy “an abortion.” Yahoo! offered an article this week headlined, “America is facing a diaper crisis, and the anti-abortion movement is making it worse.” Such warped utilitarian logic is supposed to carry Democrats, if not to victory in November, at least to a less crushing defeat. Good luck with that. This is a party with no shame in 2022.

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Mayberry Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

A theme here at ethics alarms is that ethics, unlike morality, is fluid and dynamic. Society gains in ethical enlightenment over time with reflection and experience.

Since I have been severely limited in my activity of late, I found myself watching an episode of the classic sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show.” Many, indeed most, of the popular shows from the Fifties-Sixties era feel stilted and naive today, but not all of them: “The Andy Griffith Show” is one that holds up beautifully. Like many TV shows then (but few today), the continuing saga of Sheriff Andy Taylor’s challenges as a single dad and the center of sanity in a small town full of Southern eccentrics often focused on societal values and ethics lessons, though it never crossed into preachiness.

The episode I happened across, “One Punch Opie,” was about peer pressure and bullying. A new kid in town is bullying the other children to do things they shouldn’t, like raid Mr. Foley’s fruit and vegetable stands outside his store and steal apples and tomatoes. When Opie (the then-unbearably cute Ron Howard) refuses to follow the gang, the much larger kid threatens him. Opie ultimately confronts the boy who quickly proves that he is a coward, and backs down, ending his malign influence over the other boys.

The bullying theme was not what struck me about the episode, however. The new kid breaks a street lamp with an apple, and Sheriff Andy has Opie round up the other boys who witnessed the crime so he can have a chat with them. (The troublemaking new kid refuses to come along.) The boys all say they witnessed the act, but didn’t throw the fateful fruit. Andy tells them that he’ll let their error in judgment go this time, but the next time, he’ll tell their fathers. “And you know what that means,” Andy says. “It means you’ll get a whippin’!”

Yes, in 1962, a wise and reliably benign TV authority figure casually referenced corporal punishment—probably with a belt, no less, as Andy didn’t say “spanking”—- as a fact of childhood and responsible parenting. Nobody blinked. Sixty years later, such a statement would cause an uproar, and be considered an endorsement of child abuse.

What accepted conduct today will seem equally wrongful in sixty years?

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 10/17/22: “It Isn’t What It Is” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I want to thank everyone who sent good wishes and good advice last week, which was a multi-level disaster here on all fronts. It drives me crazy, but I’m just going to resign myself to the reality that there will be no catching up on all the issues I wanted to write about and should have posted on here. Ethics stories and their related issues are relentless, and I’m still limited in the amount of time and energy I can devote to Ethics Alarms while sitting, typing and thinking are still painful. And I’m just going to try to stop obsessing about blog traffic. To hell with it…if a week of lighter than usual content chases readers away, that’s their problem.

1. On polls and manipulation The New York Times thinks it’s headline-worthy that their latest poll shows Republicans with an edge going into next month’s mid-term elections. This is because the overwhelmingly Democratic Party-allied pollsters have been desperately trying to convince their client’s supporters that all is well with obviously rigged, incompetent and biased surveys. There would literally be no historical precedent for Democrats not getting slaughtered in the upcoming elections. We have been watching a year-long disinformation campaign and an epic example of the Left’s “It isn’t what it is” gaslighting addiction on a grand scale. It’s more than just unethical: it is Orwellian, and that’s another reason the Democrats deserve to lose, and lose big.

Of the Times, Ann Althouse writes (so I don’t have to):

I’ve seen so many articles in the NYT that seem designed to enthuse Democrats. I’m heartily sick of them, and the efforts are ludicrous. They’re not even effective at doing this thing I don’t think the NYT should be doing.

Do you think the Times will ever figure out that they shouldn’t be doing this because it’s not journalism?

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