Meanwhile, in nearby Kenosha, a gun killed two and wounded one!
This is CNN.
U.S. Society
Ethics Leftovers, 11/26/21: “Truth Is Truth!”
Oh, yum.
1. The Zenith Of The Great Stupid? At least for stupid apologies: the Women’s March—you know, the groups that gave us Pussy Hats?—-actually tweeted this:
Deeply! I guess this means that Women’s March loyalists are expected to berate any merchant whose register come up with a charge that offends. We have offensive numbers now! Is there any point where recruits into Progressive Crazytown stop, listen to what their compatriots are saying (advocating, doing…) and realize, “Oh my God! These people I’ve been taking seriously are lunatics!”
2. In related news, a poll shows President Biden in negative territory in the approval polls of all but six states. I guessed four out of the five: I missed New Jersey, guessing New York instead. The rest, too easy for a quiz, are California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, and Hawaii. (D.C. is still not a state.) What can any state like about a Presidential performance as miserable as Biden’s so far? What is there to approve of? All I can think of is that they like the fact that he isn’t Donald Trump. Is that enough to approve of someone?
Post-Thanksgiving L-tryptophan Hangover Open Forum
There is absolutely no excuse, none, for readers to not engage in an epic ethics donnybrook in this week’s open forum. What else are you going to do? Watch young men begin their slow descent into premature dementia from successive concussions as thousands cheer? Watch the “Get Back” Beatles documentary? OK, that’s actually a good idea (I watched Part 1 last night), but that still won’t take up the whole day…
Ethics Quiz: Christmas Spirit Meets Hanlon’s Razor
Your Ethics Alarms ‘Welcome to Pre-Christmas Madness!’ Ethics Quiz:
Was this design malicious or just stupid?
Remember Hanlon’s Razor, so essential to keep firmly in mind during The Great Stupid: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Ethics Snacks Between Making The Stuffing And The Traditional Cranberry Salad, 11/24/2021: Trials, Pots, Pariahs And Cheapening Citizenship
Have a wonderful, ethical Thanksgiving tomorrow, everyone!
1. Trials and tribulations: All three of the men involved in the vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty of murder. Given the facts of the case, I don’t see how, and never could see how, any other result was possible even without the ever-present threat of rioting if even one of the men was acquitted. I also don’t understand why the defense lawyers couldn’t talk the men into pleading guilty. Maybe they tried. It is unethical for a lawyer to pressure a client into pleading guilty, so the “You can plead guilty or find yourself another lawyer” tactic is sanctionable.
The Post story includes this passage:
For many, the trial took on even more weight after the acquittal last week of Kyle Rittenhouse. The White teenager successfully argued that he shot three people — killing two — in self-defense, after driving to Kenosha, Wis., to help protect businesses and property when protests over the police shooting of a Black man turned violent.
“Many” ignoramuses. perhaps? There is no legitimate comparison between the two cases, and anyone who claims there is has slapped a neon-bright “I don’t know what I’m talking about” sticker on his or her forehead.
2. More trials and tribulations. I don’t understand this one at all. Jurors found organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 liable under state law for the injuries to counter protesters when the two groups clashed and a riot ensued The defendants were hit with more than $25 million in damages. The rally had a permit, the counter-protesters did not. The authorities did not adequately protect the “Unite the Right” marchers or do enough to keep the groups apart.
A rogue demonstrator, James Fields, used his car to kill counter-protestor Heather Heyer, 32, and is serving a life sentence for the crime. Yet the group, which was marching legally, is somehow liable for what he did. As far as I can see, the jury’s decision was based on the theory that the organizers’ rhetoric around the march was “hate speech” and that they should have known that it would incite violence.
The organizers’ rhetoric around the march was protected political speech, and this case is punishing ideas and words that the jury doesn’t like. It’s a dangerous, terrible precedent resulting from a political show trial, and should be overturned on appeal. (Read Simple Justice’s commentary here.) [Pointer: johnberger2013]
Thanksgiving Week Dead Zone Ethics Whispers, 11/23/21: The ABA, Kevin Spacey, BLM, Huma, And The Times Doesn’t Think All The News Is Fit To Print
This week is always the deadest of the year as far as EA traffic is concerned, and therefore doubly depressing. This year the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, an ongoing trauma, along with my wedding anniversary (41 years!) today, making me unpleasantly conscious of the rapid passage of time and opportunities, and Thanksgiving, which is an annual pageant of loved ones lost forever, was stuffed into four days. Along with all that, there is the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking and the other annoying preparations for judgemental guests—and the duty of getting ethics posts up that few bother to read.
But hey, I’m thankful! I am!
1. That’ll teach him! (Well, possibly not…) An arbitrator ordered actor Kevin Spacey to pay nearly $31 million to MRC, the production company that owned “House of Cards,” afterconcuding that Spacey breached his contract by violating the company’s sexual harassment policy. Spacey’s sexual harassment scandal, which began with a now withdrawn accusation and poor response by the actor, and then quickly mushroomed into multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. MRC severed its relationship with Spacey and the successful political drama he dominated, and cancelled the 2017 season after members of the production people came forward to allege a pattern of sexually predatory conduct.
This is an extreme example of what having dead ethics alarms can do to one’s career and life.
Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up 2: More Rittenhouse, Because Attention Must Be Paid
1. Now THIS is an intellectually dishonest op-ed…even for the New York Times, and even for Charles M. Blow. “Rittenhouse and the Right’s White Vigilante Heroes” made my mind snap back decades to a Phillip Roth anti-Nixon satire called “Our Gang.” At one point, as Nixon tries to scapegoat the Boy Scouts of America for something (I can’t remember what, but it doesn’t matter), the White House issues a statement explaining that the Scouts carry scout knives in numbers exceeding “the entire population of Chevy Chase, Maryland” and leaps to announcing preventive measures against the BSA “in order to prevent the slaughter of the residents of Chevy Chase.” Blow condemns the verdict in the Rittenhouse trial as “another data point in the long history of some parts of the right valorizing white vigilantes who use violence against people of color and their white allies.”
On the way to that hysterical conclusion, he writes, “One can argue about the particulars of the case, about the strength of the defense and the ham-handedness of the prosecution,” which is a weasel-worded way of saying that Rittenhouse was acquitted because of the facts of the case. “One can argue” about the verdict, but only if “one” knows nothing about the law and has swallowed the Left’s false narratives. Next thing you know, Blow is drawing, Roth-like, an imaginary line from Rittenhouse defending himself against three attacks by white felons to Jim Crow lynchings. Then, of course, the line goes to the January 6 riot at the Capitol, because until Donald Trump gets a stake through his heart, this is all the Democrats have as they fight not to be swept out of office. “One could argue”—there’s that “one” again!—” that the entire Jan. 6 insurrection was one enormous act of vigilantism,” Blow intones. First, that riot was not an insurrection by any rational definition of the word. Second, all riots are “enormous act[s] of vigilantism,” especially the rioting that Rittenhouse foolishly and recklessly injected himself into.
2. One more reason Donald Trump has reason to feel that the election was stolen...The facts as they unfolded in the trial showed that Politifact, the flagrantly left-biased fact-checking group, wrongly called Trump’s statement “False” when he said during an August 31, 2020, news briefing that Rittenhouse had acted in self-defense. “You saw the same tape as I saw,” Trump said. “And he was trying to get away from them, I guess; it looks like. And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him. And it was something that we’re looking at right now and it’s under investigation.”
PolitiFact wrote that while Trump “correctly describes some minor details about that night,” it insisted that his comments “grossly mischaracterize what happened — leaving out that by the time of the events he described, prosecutors say Rittenhouse had already shot and killed a man.” Right—in self-defense. Since when is “what the prosecutors say” “fact” before a trial?
PolitiFact was working at linking Trump to a “white supremacist” as further advancement of Big Lie #4. It was wrong, Trump was correct. Now, neither Trump nor Politifact should have had anything to say about what happened before the trial; Trump, because Presidents should not comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions, PolitiFact because it cannot declare what “facts” are before the facts have been determined.
The factchecking operations, which dishonestly claim to be non-partisan, were used by the media to compile their biased “lies lists” on Trump and by social media to justify banning him as soon as he had been vanquished. In this instance, PolitiFact implied that Trump was distorting the truth to defend a “white supremacist” …who, in fact wasn’t, but the news media and pundits kept saying he was.
Comment Of The Day: A Rittenhouse Verdict Inventory…Part III: Facts Don’t Matter
I’m sorry about the apparent obsession here with the Rittenhouse case, but I believe that the episode has ethical significance on many levels, particularly in the way it demonstrates that toxic progressive bias has headed into end game territory, sort of like with rabies when a victim becomes afraid of water.
What we are seeing and hearing is ugly and would be frightening if it wasn’t so self-evidently irrational. I guess we have seen other examples where political fanaticism causes vast numbers of previously functional Americans to blow out their critical reasoning fuses for all to see, but right now I can’t think of one so striking. Groups that cease to be capable of reason tend not to do very well after a while.
Yes, Steve-O-in NJ has another Comment of the Day, and yes, it’s long, but it touches perceptively on too many important matters to let go by. I especially admire his description of the “chain reaction.” (I could not disagree with his last sentence more, however.)
Here it is, on the post, “A Rittenhouse Verdict Inventory Of Ethics Heroes, Dunces, Villains And Fools, Part III: Facts Don’t Matter”…
***
So, the verdict is in and Kyle Rittenhouse walks on all charges. I thought about it, and as an attorney who has occasionally worked civil rights cases I do not see any bases for federal civil rights charges against him. Most of the federal civil rights statute has to do with punishing those who act under color of law to deprive individuals of their constitutional rights. Those statues are generally designed to bring down law enforcement officers who abuse their authority for no good reason. There is also the question of a hate crime, however, there has been no allegation nor proof that anyone he killed was a member of a protected class killed because they were a member of protected class.
The Federal statutes are simply not designed to give the federal government a second bite at every state murder prosecution that fails to make. I suppose the Feds could try to cobble together gun charges or terrorism charges (but that’s a very long stretch). However, they would still have to draw a jury pool from Wisconsin, and all of Wisconsin has now seen this trial and knows this would be just an attempt to punish someone for a crime he was already acquitted of. Jerry Nadler should have known better then to suggest this, but he was simply pandering to his base and his party’s base.
This was another classic domino situation of one breach of the law leading to more as described by the Hon. Guido Calabresi, senior judge of the Second Circuit Court of appeals, in an address at my law school graduation. Things were already tense in this country because George Floyd decided he would break the law and pass fake money, then resist arrest while high as a kite, then Derek Chauvin decided he would break the law and press George Floyd against the ground with his knee until he was fatally injured, then a huge number of people decided they would break the law and riot, then a whole lot of public officials decided they would break the law and fail to do their sworn duty to protect the people. While the nation was still reeling from this, Jacob Blake decided he would break the law and resist a lawful arrest, officers got heavy handed, and still more people decided they would break the law and riot, set fires, and destroy and ransack property that was not theirs to destroy or ransack. Kyle Rittenhouse unwisely decided to get involved in this mess, while armed. Three individuals with lengthy criminal records decided they would break the law and violate common sense and attack Kyle and try to kill him while he was armed for the rifle. Finally Kyle found himself with no alternative but to open fire, killing two and wounding a third.
Weekend Ethics End Notes, 11/21/21: Rittenhouse Hangover Edition
Arghh. Here’s one more thing to blame on Kyle Rittenhouse: in focusing on the deranged reactions to the verdict yesterday, I missed the opportunity to flag the anniversary of a landmark in world ethics: the beginning of the Nuremberg war crime trials on November 20, 1945. The trials were conducted by an international tribunal made up of judicial representatives from the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain. The defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. The trials lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions.
There is no question that had the war turned out differently, it would have been Allied generals and officials facing war crimes charges. It is often said that the trials were unprecedented, but there was a precedent, and it was cited as one at the time: the 1865 trial of Capt. Wirz, the Confederate Commandant of the Andersonville prison. That trial raised many of the same ethical issues as its successor. I have serious reservations about the ethics of the Nuremberg Trials, and I am sure that in this I am reflecting the objections of my father, a WWII veteran who felt they were the height of hypocrisy. “All wars are crimes against humanity,” he said.
On October 1, 1946, 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life, and three were acquitted.
1. Sorry, more Rittenhouse ethics offenses:
A Rittenhouse Verdict Inventory Of Ethics Heroes, Dunces, Villains And Fools, Part III: Facts Don’t Matter
Above is a comic I never heard of (but one with a regular platform), grandstanding over the Ritterhouse verdict as she reveals that she either has no idea what the facts are in the case, or is deliberately hate-mongering by sending lies into the public consciousness. She tells us that she takes her responsibility to “tell people what they need to know” seriously, and then tells them what isn’t true. “It’s not OK”, she says with great emotion. “For a man to garb a rifle, travel across state lines, and shoot three people and walk free.” In fact, it’s not “OK” for anyone to deliberately misstate the key facts of a controversial episode to the many ignoramuses who may be listening and are likely to be misled.
Rittenhouse did not “grab a rifle” and cross state lines. The law says that it is “OK” for someone—regardless of their race— to defend themselves with deadly force if they reasonably believe his life is at stake. Then she goes on to outright racism, claiming that whites have “always” escaped consequences when they engage in murder. She calls the judge and jury racist, for participating in a trial that acquitted a white man for shooting three other white men.
She seemed like an excellent introduction to this list of similarly dishonest, ignorant or hateful people showing their lack of fairness and critical thinking skills as they descended into hysteria and ugly rhetoric…because so many on the Left are receptive to it. This is not about a difference of legitimate opinion when Americans of note or in positions of influence and responsibility engage in inflammatory declarations based on a false description of what occurred.
Certainly the news media, even more than usual, played its “enemy of the people” role to the hilt, but its flagrant false reporting on the Jacob Blake shooting was four months ago. There is no excuse for anyone with integrity and responsibility still talking about the Kenosha police shooting “an unarmed black man” or representing Blake as anything other than a dangerous outlaw who was engaged in a crime, and justly shot. Because there was no racism or police brutality involved, the protests and riots supposedly prompted by the episode were contrived and based on incompetent (or intentionally incendiary) reporting. The subsequent narrative, that Rittenhouse was opposing “racial justice” and thus a “white supremacist” because he (foolishly, recklessly) sought to mitigate the destruction caused by an ongoing riot (triggered by an incident that only was “racist” in the overheated minds of the reporters and race-hucksters) cannot be defended.
The fools and dunces whose statements are noted below are shooting off their mouths (or social media accounts) in defiance of reality. As Bari Weiss points out in her substack essay (Pointer: John Paul),
To acknowledge the facts of what happened that night is not political. It is simply to acknowledge reality. It is to say that facts are still facts and that lies are lies. It is to insist that mob justice is not justice. It is to say that media consensus is not the equivalent of due process.
And, I would add, it is to say that just because politicians, celebrities, pundits and your Facebook pals are taking a position that literally makes no sense and is based on extreme bias and fantasy is not justification for following the parade.
Below is an incomplete list of the “Facts Don’t Matter” mob. Not surprisingly, I didn’t particularly respect any of these people even before they beclowned themselves in this ethics train wreck. Even so, there are serious problems in the culture (and the educational system) when so many default to gullibility, confusion, miserable logic and emotion. The unethical reaction to the Rittenhouse verdict is, perhaps, more significant than the verdict itself.
Ethics Alarms 