September 29 should be celebrated as Barn Door Fallacy Day. More than the last historical episode I flagged as illustrating the phenomenon, the Tylenol poisoning fiasco (I’m taking Tylenol this very second, because I’m in agony) illustrated the human race’s irrational instinct to go overboard after an unprecedented event by installing measures that would have prevented it if a time machine were available.

Flight attendant Paula Prince bought a bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol on this date in 1982, and was found dead two days later. Six other people had died in northwest Chicago, and investigators eventually realized all seven victims had taken Extra-Strength Tylenol poisoned with cyanide. Extra-Strength Tylenol was recalled nationwide, but the only contaminated capsules were found in the Chicago area. The poisoner was never caught, but the cost to consumers and corporations of the sudden rush to make all containers “tamper-proof” is in the billions. I think about that random killer every time a have to grab a knife to cut off what is supposed to be an easy peel-off paper seal to use a new bottle of Ketchup or to open new jar of peanut butter. Thank to our product liability jurisprudence: once there was a high-profile poisoning of a container, all manufacturers faced liability if their product was similarly contaminated. It was suddenly “foreseeable.”

Manufacturers have no choice, I suppose, and a statistical cost-benefit analysis that balances the expense of eliminating the tiny risk with the odds of another deadly incident carries unacceptable perils of reputational devastation if metaphorical lightning strikes twice. Then there is always the copycat phenomenon to worry about. Essentially, the Tylenol tragedy shows how societal trust among millions can be shattered permanently by a single sociopath.

Once Americans trusted each other not to poison food and drugs just because they could. Now we don’t. Can’t.

1. Officials who use religion this way undermine both their own credibility and religion. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who took over after Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned, told members of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, “There are people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants. You know this. You know who they are. I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, ‘We owe this to each other. We love each other.’ Jesus taught us to love one another. And how do you show that love, but to care about each other enough to say, ‘Please get vaccinated because I love you. I want you to live.'”

Ick, ptooi, yuck, gag, gack! So, the first female governor of New York is also an idiot, though not the first. Let’s see: pandering, exploitation, appeal to authority,and fear-mongering. The odds that an unvaccinated worshiper will die is less than 1%. “Jesus would want you to get vaccinated” is presumptuous and insulting.

Good luck, New York.

2. Paid liar ethics…is it fair to keep pointing out what a hack Jen Psaki is? I found myself defending one of her endless series of obfuscations and double-talk spin attempts to my wife, saying that every White House press secretary has an impossible job and has to engage in daily misrepresentation or excuse-making to a greater or lesser extent. Her response: an ethical person doesn’t take that job.

Jen was in top form two days ago, when she responded to reporters citing data indicating that President Biden’s proposed increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 to 26.5% would lead to lower wages for workers and higher prices. Psaki said, “There are some… who argue that in the past, companies have passed on these costs to consumers. We feel that that’s unfair and absurd and the American people will not stand for that.” 

There aren’t “some who argue” that. It is a matter of history and predictable cause and effect. Companies pass on costs to consumers. Fact. “It won’t happen because ‘we’ think that’s unfair” is magical thinking. It instantly reminded me of a memorable discussion with my parents when they were both in their late 80s.

My mother suddenly said, “Do people wake up feeling fine and then just drop dead the same day with no warning?” My father, who was always amused by my mother’s ongoing battle with mortality, said, “Of course! It happens every day, to millions of people! It could happen to either of us, today!” “Well, I just refuse to accept that,” Mom replied. “You have no choice but to accept it, Eleanor,” Dad said, laughing. “That’s how it works.” “Nope,” she insisted, not smiling a bit. “I don’t accept it.”

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Clearly, everything I know about life I learned from “Animal House.” I know. Sad.

I am foolishly trying to get up one last post before starting out on the 2 hr and 34 minute drive in the dark to Charlottesville, where I will be doing a three hour CLE seminar in a debate format with my old friend and tormentor John May. John, among other things, is a much-sought after defense attorney for lawyers accused of malpractice and ethics violations. In the matter of legal ethics, he takes a pragmatic, law firm practice approach, so in this course, titled “Ethics Wars!,” he plays Darth Vader to my Yoda. At least that’s how I look at it. You can find details about the session here, where you can sign up for the live or recorded version.

1. Birth of a Big Lie. In Del Rio, Texas, tens of thousands of people who have illegally crossed the border have been living for more than a week in a makeshift camp under a bridge. A photographer took a photo of a Border Patrol officer on horseback trying to stop people who were trying to cross the Rio Grande River illegally. Sawyer Hackett, who works for former Obama HUD Secretary Julian Castro, tweeted it out claiming, “Border patrol is mounted on horseback rounding up Haitian refugees with whips. This is unfathomable cruelty towards people fleeing disaster and political ruin. The administration must stop this.” Of course, the Border Patrol doesn’t use “whips,” but facts don’t matter, and a Democratic Administration prefers to vilify and falsely impugn its own law enforcement officers when to advances the narrative of the Good Illegal Immigrant.” Biden’s paid liar Jen Psaki appeared on CBS Morning News on claiming that Border Patrol agents’ actions were “horrific and horrible.” “That’s not who the Biden and Harris administration is,” she said.

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A member of the House of Representatives, backed by thousands of likes and retweets, erupted:

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Crazy progressives are not good for anyone. Bias makes you stupid, but crazy makes you dangerous. What is causing all of these meltdowns, in which previously respected people and institutions on the left side of the ideological spectrum throw their trustworthiness to the winds? Is it panic? Desperation? The obvious catastrophe that is the Biden administration? The decisive demonstration that the Russian collusion hoax was a Clinton-led conspiracy? The frightening specter of a Trump return? Abortion and affirmative action dishonesty finally facing principled challenges? What?

I don’t know, but the signs are portentous…

• Biden’s National Park Service, which operates Ford’s Theater (where Lincoln was shot) tweeted for no discernible reason,

What the hell? Damn right we put Lincoln on a pedestal, and also in a big chair over-looking the Mall and the Capitol. That’s because the nation owes its existence to Abe, as well as the best expressions of its ideals. Why would the operators of the memorial to Lincoln’s death issue such a weasel-worded invitation to diminish Lincoln’s legacy? Ford’ Theater only exists today because of Lincoln, just like the United States of America. The anti-American wacko segment of the critical race theory cabal is now handling communications for Ford’s Theater, is it?

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Today is a big ethics date: on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced that his Emancipation Proclamation was on the way. Finally issued on January 1 of the next year, its primary initial significance was that the document defined the Civil War as a fight to abolish slavery, not merely to restore the Union. In fact, the Presidential order to come couldn’t free anyone, since it only applied in practice to Northern states where slavery was already banned. On this date, Lincoln told blacks in the Confederacy that they would be free within 100 days. Well, theoretically, anyway. The proclamation, when its official version arrived, also called for the recruitment and establishment of black military units among the Union forces. An estimated 180,000 African-Americans went on to serve in the army, while about 18,000 served in the navy.

The redefinition of the war’s mission announced on this date was a political masterstroke. Suddenly, backing the Confederacy meant favoring slavery, so anti-slavery Great Britain and France could not ally themselves with the South.

1. Not a play review, just more propaganda for open borders...New York theater is back, and so is the “Good Illegal Immigrant” trope. A new play called “Sanctuary City” is being cheered on by critics, although, or perhaps because, its theme is that it’s just so mean and cruel for the United States to enforce its laws against “undocumented immigrants” (that’s illegal immigrants to the honest). The review is headlined, “Slamming a door on a Dream.” The use of the dream metaphor is deliberate deceit; that one may dream of achieving one’s goals by breaking laws doesn’t make the act of breaking those laws any more justifiable. As with “they just want a better life!”, this is an appeal to emotion over facts. Bank robbers want to be rich_–they just want a better life too. So do cheating husbands who kill their wives for the insurance money. That the news media continues to enable this dishonest and unethical theme shows us just how untrustworthy they are. Here’s nauseating last line in the review by Jesse Green, a regular panderer to the woke: “Newark may be a sanctuary city, but there is no sanctuary to protect you from the necessary betrayals of those you love — including your adopted country.” No. It is a betrayal of U.S. citizens to allow lawbreakers to force their way into our country, and it isn’t a foreign citizens’ adopted country until we choose to adopt them.

2. Nah, the critical race theory movement being pushed in the schools isn’t racist! Look:

Yes, this is the largest teachers union in Pennsylvania eagerly promoting a workshop that attacks parents based on their race. Verdict: racism is unethical. So-called anti-racism based on racism is unethical. The sky is blue, and the sea is wet. [Source: Not the Bee]

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One of them has got turn up eventually, right? RIGHT???

Attention should be paid to this date, September 20, for a couple of reasons.

Chester A. Arthur, one of my favorite Presidents and ethics stories, was sworn in today after the death of President James Garfield, who looked like he might have been a great one. I already have reposted this year the story of how a disabled, middle-age woman nobody had ever heard of secretly turned Arthur from a corrupt hack (he had never held elected office before becoming President of the United States) into a principled and courageous leader. I was tempted to put it up again when I saw the PBS documentary based on “Destiny of the Republic” by Candace Millard, which was the best-selling history that revealed the impact of Julia Sand. Incredibly, the documentary failed to mention Sand at all! Having studied Garfield and his murderer, Charles Guiteau, I was familiar with most of the information in the book but not the Sand episode, which I felt and still feel was the most important part of the book both historically and ethically.

The other ethically significant event to occur on this date was the 1973 tennis match between top women’s player Billie Jean King, 29, and Bobby Riggs, 55, at that point in his career a self-promoting huckster and loud-mouth, but not much of a tennis player. Somehow, this obvious mismatch was dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes,” enabling it to attract a huge TV audience, and King’s victory became a tipping point in the women’s equality movement. I liken it to the George Floyd fiasco in that respect: the contrived symbolism of the event overwhelmed the facts. Riggs, who one was a highly-ranked male tennis pro, had been shooting off his mouth about how even a broken down senior player like him was better than the best women in the sport. He was trying to get a play-day and a resurgence of lucrative fame by goading a female pro into a match, and it worked: Australian Margaret Court, then #1 in the female pro ranks, took the bait and choked, playing horribly while losing to Riggs’ soft serves, spin shots and lobs. Her friend King set out to redeem her, and won in straight sets, proving that one of the best female players in the world in her prime could defeat a male player almost twice her age. Wow.

The lesson: when enough people really, really want something to be true, they’ll decide it is true regardless of the facts.

1. From the “How Stupid Do They Think We Are?” files: The New York Times gives front page attention to First Lady Jill Biden’s (I’m sorry, Dr. Jill Biden—and she can call me “Dr.” too, since I’m as much one as she is) determination to make Joe’s campaign promise to bring “unity” back to the U.S. a reality. The promise was offensive when it was made, and if FLOTUS really thinks it is achievable, she’s a Doctor of Delusion. The recent revelations about how the Clinton campaign conspired to create a false conspiracy narrative that crippled Donald Trump’s Presidency while Democrats accused the Americans who voted for him of being racists, xenophobes, fascists and morons establishes how shamefully the Axis of Unethical Conduct set out to divide the public in order to regain power. It’s impossible to govern effectively without some measure of national unity, as they knew when they shredded any hope of such unity to sabotage Trump. Now that they are hobbled by the very conditions they set out to create, the sadly inadequate leader they foisted on the nation wants unity back. Gall, chutzpah, naivete, cynical, hypocritical, ethics estoppel, stupid, insulting—I can’t find a word or phrase sufficiently harsh to describe such a goal. They can’t be trusted with unity, and they don’t deserve it either. Good luck, Jill.

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