It was, finally, a busy week at ProEthics—law firms and others are finally paying attention to ethics again after being preoccupied by the #@$%(!! Wuhan virus—so I wasn’t able to cover everything I should have or wanted to.
As always, I’m hoping that the Open Forum participants will make up for my inadequacies.
Please keep comments germane to ethics, civil, and brilliant!
“It’s all I can stands, ’cause I can’t stands no more!”—Popeye, sailor and American icon.
The column (below) by periodic New York Times opinion writer Wajahat Ali has been bothering me for over a week now. The moment I read it, I wanted to rush to my PC and tear it apart. Then I began questioning the exercise on a cost/benefit basis. Lunatic, hateful, biased pieces like this come out in the mainstream media every day; I can’t, and shouldn’t, use my limited time for Ethics Alarms debunking them all, for to objective, discerning readers, they debunk themselves.
Yet, as Thomas More futilely, fatally and correctly maintained at his trial, silence implies consent. This stuff is poisonous to our society and civil discourse. Moreover, Ali’s bile is especially illustrative of the Left’s current anti-America propaganda: it hits almost every one of the Big Lies, false narratives, hypocrisies distortions and fear-mongering appeals to emotion that threaten to tear the nation apart. It transcends unethical to border on evil. So after having this thing impinge on my sleep for a fifth night—I’m not exaggerating— I have to vivisect this monstrosity, for my own sanity if for no other reason.
Here is the whole essay, which was originally published at the now thoroughly deranged Daily Beast. (There’s hope in this: maybe it was too far off the rails even for the Times.) Read it, please. Its title, flagrant clickbait, is “Is It Time for Me to Leave America?” (Go ahead and read it on Yahoo, where that link takes you.) I’ll be back soon in Part II to take it apart.
You can also read it below….
I apologize for not posting anything in the last two days on the anniversary of D-Day. This past Memorial Day, Grace and I, and my sister were completely immersed in World War II as we honored my father, and I had watched “The Longest Day” again during the weekend. Somehow June 6 came up too fast this year. Even acknowledging its many flaws, my Dad liked that WWII movie far more than most, because all of the anecdotes (right out of Cornelius Ryan’s book, which is better than his screenplay) reminded him of his own weird experiences in combat. (Dad’s least favorite war movies? A tie between “The Battle of the Bulge—with barely any snow in evidence and Sherman tanks playing Tiger tanks, and “Saving Private Ryan.”)
D-Day also had a strange place in the Marshall family’s consciousness. Dad was scheduled to be an observer during the invasion, but was sidelined when an idiot in his platoon used the pin of a live hand-grenade to dig mud out of his boot, blowing up himself, two other soldiers and my father’s right foot, and sending Dad to a hospital for months. The surgeon who later fixed Ted Kennedy’s broken back rebuilt my father’s foot sufficiently that it could be stuffed in a boot to allow him to get back into the war during the Battle of the Bulge. But he liked to remind my sister and me that we probably owed our existence to D-Day, specifically the fact that he wasn’t killed “observing” it.
1. The arrogance of anti-gun zealots. I just inserted myself into a thread launched by a Facebook friend expressing horror that parents entering a pediatric hospital would (legally) carry their guns inside. One of the Facebook friend’s Facebook friends wrote “I’m sick of your rights” and another wrote,”No one needs a gun.” Signature significance in both cases, and I told them both why.
2. Ethics Alarms Thread of the Year. I spent a long time trying to choose which of the uniformly excellent comments on the post Update: The Great Stupid Meets The Sandy Hook Ethics Train Wreck, and decided that there were just too many. I therefore declare the whole thread Comment of the Day-worthy, something I’ve never done before, but, looking back, probably should have. Some highlights to send you over there:
And many more: those are just examples, not necessarily the highlights. Continue reading
The most famous event that occurred on this day in U.S. history was the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968. Assassinations are unethical, of course, though Bobby Kennedy was quite likely a dangerous man to have in the White House, as he was perhaps even more of a sociopath than the typical Kennedy, such as Jack and Teddy. Less dissonant as an ethical landmark is George Marshall’s 1947 speech planting the seeds of the Marshall Plan—the name has a certain ring to it, somehow!—by calling on the United States to aid in the economic recovery of postwar Europe, which it did by sending billions of dollars to Western Europe to rebuild the war-torn countries. This was not altruism, however, but pragmatism: there was a quite legitimate fear that the contagion of Communism was in the air and likely to spread. The Marshall Plan was a Cold War strategy, and nobody can say whether it “worked” or not. Western Europe was able to resist communism, but that might have just been moral luck.
A notable unethical historical episode was the work of President Grover Cleveland, known as “Grover the Good.” The name “Grover the Mixed Bag” would be more accurate. This time, in 1888 (as Jack The Ripper was getting ready to murder his first victim in Whitechapel). Johanna Loewinger’s Civil War veteran husband died 14 years after being discharged from the army. Upon his death in 1876, his pension was discontinued. Johanna, applied for a widow’s pension, but was denied since her husband died from suicide by cutting his own throat rather from wounds suffered while fighting for the Union. (He had been discharged for chronic diarrhea.) His widow claimed that the war had driven him mad and was the reason for his death. After she failed to get the pension she felt she was owed, Johanna appealed to a member of Congress to petition the President. Grover denied the widow’s petition.
1. I don’t even know what to say about this. Here are Burger King Austria’s special Pride Month Whoppers, with two bottom rolls or two tops. I thought it was a joke. It’s not.
2. Who does he think he is, Ricky Gervais? David Weigel, who covers politics for the Washington Post, retweeted a tweet that said,: “Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if it’s polar or sexual.” His colleague Felicia Sonmez, who also covers politics, wrote: “Fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!” Allowed! I agree that the tweet was inappropriate in a workplace setting, but the proper response would be a little reminder from the brass. Weigel, however, felt it necessary to grovel, and tweeted, “I just removed a retweet of an offensive joke. I apologize and did not mean to cause any harm.” Washington Post COO Kris Coratti Kelly announced, “Editors have made clear to the staff that the tweet was reprehensible and demeaning language or actions like that will not be tolerated.”
The action was a joke. It had the form of a joke, and was intended as a joke. If I cared enough and my sock drawer weren’t a mess, I’d do some research into the kinds of jokes about men, Republicans, President Trump and his supporters Post staff have retweeted. I’m pretty sure what I’d find. Like everything else, satirical humor goes in only one direction in D.C., and the reverse “will not be tolerated.”
3. Speaking of bias..Take the New York Times. Please! I have a Facebook friend who really and truly announced that he was a fan of Times op-edderess Michelle Goldberg. She is biased as well as intellectually dishonest, and does not deserve a regular platform in the Poughkeepsie Weekle Packet, much less the New York Times. Her continued existence there is signature significance, so I felt vindicated to see this column last week: “The Amber Heard Verdict Was a Travesty. Others Will Follow.”It began, “The verdict in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard is difficult to explain logically.” Difficult to explain logically to whom? Heard got the Washington Post to publish her op-ed that made defamatory accusations against Depp that she couldn’t back up, statements that alleged as fact matters that could not be shown to be fact, which is the essence of libel. Not only that, she promised the ACLU a large contribution in exchange for assisting in writing the piece, and the organization testified that she stiffed them, not that they didn’t deserve being stiffed, since taking sides in celebrity domestic disputes is not exactly in the organization’s mission statement. Heard was unequivocally exposed as a serial liar, but never mind: Goldberg makes it clear Heard should have won the suit because other women have been abused by powerful men, and because “Believe all women” must be the norm. The jury should have rejected Depp’s defamation claim because his victory hurt the cause. “Even if Heard lied about everything during the trial — even if she’d never suffered domestic abuse — she still would have represented it,” Goldberg writes. Continue reading
Indeed, Major Clifton. You can’t get much crazier (or stupid) than this.
As I have related here before, in my fortuitous accidental opportunity to chat privately with genius Herman Kahn many years ago, he observed that societies periodically suffer mass amnesia and forget why traditions, rules and policies that had existed for centuries exist. They then try something new that seems like a good idea at the time, only to be reminded it is, in fact, a terrible idea, and one that everyone once knew was a terrible idea, which is why it had been wisely dismissed centuries or even eons ago. This cycle is needlessly destructive, and those who trigger it are incompetent and irresponsible, usually choosing to adopt magical thinking over cold, hard reality because it supports their ideology. For some reason, or because of a cosmic practical joke, the United States is being tortured by such misbegotten inspirations. “Hey! Let’s just let anyone into the country who wants to come!” “Let’s defund the police!” “Let’s give up on stopping people from getting addicted to drugs!” “Let’s wear masks over the lower parts of our faces all the time, just to be safe! And make our kids do it too!” “Hey, why not spend as much money as we want even when we’re already deep in debt?” (I had to stop myself mid-list because the examples popping into my head were obviously going to keep coming.)
New York City has embraced one of the more ridiculous of the ideas arising out of magical thinking, societal amnesia and The Great Stupid: “restorative justice.” Part of an ambitious reform package created by former NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio (“Hey! Let’s take advice from one of New York City’s most disastrous failures ever!”), restorative justice is, like so many recent terrible ideas, a response to the uncomfortable results of cultural pathologies in the black community. In 2019, De Blasio announced the criminal justice revolution, which was, he explained, necessary because ““For far too long, this city’s answer to every societal problem was to throw people in jail. We lost generations to mass incarceration, mostly young men of color.” Yes, it was “disparate impact” again! Punishing criminals and enforcing laws had a disparate impact on black Americans, because they are still committing a disproportional number of serious and violent crimes. Solution: Stop punishing criminals and enforcing laws!
Indoctrination is everywhere, and you WILL be assimilated. Waiting for my car to be delivered from the garage by Valet Parking at the D.C. Marriott Hotel, I saw that there were four channels playing in the lobby for guests: CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg and Fox…Sports. The news channels were all braying about Peter Navarro, a Trump advisor I barely remembered, being indicted as if it were the equivalent of the Watergate tapes being revealed. Fox News had more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined for very good reasons, by never mind. THAT news is biased…
1. Lazy! Speaking of propaganda, the ostentatious “Pride Month” pandering is already suffocating and it’s only the 4th. Why is a month dedicated to LGBTQ promotion? Wouldn’t it make more sense to promote heterosexuality—you know, for survival of the species purposes? Pretty much every day is “Pride Propaganda Day” now—isn’t the Month redundant now? And what the hell is there to be proud of? Holding that someone should not be awash in shame for something they have no control of isn’t the same as concluding they should be proud of it. I’m not ashamed of being bald, but why would I be proud of it?
The corporate pandering is particularly nauseating (and suffocating), with rainbows attached to everything. One, it reminds me of the saccharine Seventies and the costumes in “Godspell,” and Two, I think of that kid pouring maple syrup on everything on his dinner plate in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” “What in the Sam Hill are you doing?” Scout blurts out, rudely. I feel like her. A progressive website was shocked and angry to discover, and complained accordingly, that 25 major corporations that have been the most publicly rainbow-besotted also donated more than $13.2 million to what it calls “anti-LGBTQ politicians” since the start of 2021. Well, to progressives, holding that teachers shouldn’t be giving classes in fellatio to third-graders is “anti-LGBTQ,” but more to the point, those corporations are all insincere, and following what they perceive as virtue-signalling mandates, just as they were when they sucked up to Black Lives Matter. Continue reading
I owe some forum hours to the Commentariat after getting last week’s edition up so late.
Have at it!
What a mess!
I watched the controversial Netflix Ricky Gervais special. I find Gervais funny but tiresome after a while, and a lot of the jokes are cheap: taking dumb tweets from his detractors and highlighting what’s dumb about them is the epitome of low-hanging fruit, for example. Are his jokes about trans individuals hateful and “dangerous”? If you claim to be woman and have a penis, I think at very least you are obligated to appreciate the opportunity for ironic and absurdist humor, and Gervais’s mockery of the pronouns battle is both funny and illuminating.
His most provocative comment is at the very end, as he defends humor in general against the assault of the offended. He’s a joke absolutist, which I question ethically, but his tale about he and his brother making a pact that if they ever thought of a remark that was funny, they would say it, “win, lose or draw,’ with no self-censorship has me intrigued. His reasoning is that humor serves as a balm for humanity, and there is a net loss if fear of one person’s negative reaction kills an unborn joke that might cheer, and uplift the spirits of others. At it core, this is a utilitarian argument.
1. When the only tool you have is a hammer... NYC City Councilwoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents neighborhoods in Brooklyn, shot off this tweet:
What a bigot! What an idiot! She was so sure a white guy did the killing that she tweeted this without even checking, and sure enough, he was black. She’s the epitome of the current knee-jerk strategy of her party in response to virtually everything now. (Did I mention her party? Did I need to?)
I refused to do a post on the epicly stupid Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial (which I call the “Deppamation trial,”), but now that the verdict is in, I have some passing observations. If you haven’t heard, the jury vindicated Depp, awarding him Depp $15 million that due to a cap on Virginia’s punitive damages, will end up being only $10,350,000. Heard got an unsatisfying two million based on one of her allegations against Depp. Meanwhile:
Yecchh.
1. I’m sure you will all be thrilled to hear that John Hinckley has been cleared to be a free man as of June 15. I know Jody Foster must be thrilled. I accept the conclusion that Hinckley was delusional when he shot Ronald Reagan, press secretary Jim Brady (inflicting permanent brain damage, a police officer and a Secret Service agent. Nevertheless, I believe that an assassin or would be assassin that inflicts such harm on the nation should never see the light of day again, no matter how mentally healthy treatment may render him. An assassin even crazier than Hinckley robbed the nation of President James Garfield, who might have been one of the great ones. We hanged him. I’m glad. Reagan was never the same after he was shot, and the least Hinckley should pay in compensation is his freedom.
May 31st is one of the really bad dates in U.S. history.
On this date in1921, thousands of white citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma attacked the city’s predominantly black Greenwood District, burning homes and businesses to the ground and killing hundreds of people. It was one of the worst incidents of racial violence in the nation’s history. Ethics Alarms noted the event last year, and the New York Times did an excellent retrospective here.
Teaching such important race-related events in public schools isn’t “Critical Race Theory,” and the fact that the Tulsa race massacre—which is an accurate description whereas “Tulsa race riot,” the traditional name, is not—has been largely ignored (or covered up?) in school history curricula is indefensible. The significant distinction is whether the event is placed in proper context with U.S. progress in race relations and equal opportunity.
Relegating it to the shadows of history, however, is not an option.
1. This time, Republicans really did “pounce.” EA has noted the observed phenomenon of the mainstream media deflecting from actual Democratic Party scandals by focusing on Republican/conservative reaction to the scandals. Indeed it is a marker of the mainstream media’s bias. However, this Newsweek headline is fair and appropriate: “MAGA Republicans POUNCE on Nancy Pelosi’s husband’s DUI.”
Why is a DUI offense by the Speaker of the House’s spouse worthy of so much commentary by the conservative media? It isn’t, that’s all. It is just a cheap way to try to embarrass Pelosi. Her husband wasn’t elected. He has no substantive importance to the nation at all. I don’t care about his DUI, his recent root canal, or the fact that he told a dirty joke to the plumber. None of that is news, or even interesting.
Every relative of a politician isn’t like Hunter Biden. Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 