U.S. Society

Unethical Tweet Of The Month And Ignorant Education Administrative Decision Of The Century: The Falls Church Virginia School Board

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

virginia Tweet

The legacies of Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and George Mason, instrumental in adding the Bill of Rights to the Constitution won’t make students and staff feel safe and inspired.

They really tweeted that.

I thought I had already posted this minutes before my 6:oo PM ethics seminar via Zoom started three days ago, and somehow I didn’t. I left the post in a more or less “res ipsa loquitur” state, making no further commentary, and ending the misfired bloggery with “Anyone who needs to have what’s wrong with this explained to them doesn’t belong on an ethics blog anyway.”

That’s still true, but I can’t say the failure of the news media to cover the story can be justified on the same basis. It has been covered here locally, but not nationally. Why is that? Wouldn’t you say that the decision of a large, D.C. area school district in Virginia to rename public schools honoring prominent Founders from Virginia because their names won’t inspire students but rather make them feel “unsafe” instead is big deal? A bit alarming, mayhap? A metaphorical canary not only dying in the mine of the Land of Liberty, but a chorus of dead birds performing a production of Götterdämmerung, one might conclude?

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The Standard Ethics Alarms Designations (Ethics Dunce, Unethical Quote) Fail To Adequately Describe The Significance Of This

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments

YouTube Censorship

YouTube announces that it is “supporting the 2020 U.S. election”:

Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come.

What does the “safe harbor” date have to do with justifying YouTube’s censorship? There are live lawsuits and investigations underway. Who or what is YouTube to decide when an election is fair, legitimate, or settled? If YouTube is so concerned about not undermining public faith in U.S. elections, why is this video still available, among many others? For that matter, why is YouTube still hosting 9-11 conspiracy videos, like this one?

Not only is YouTube’s nakedly partisan censorship not “supporting” the election, it is undermining the reason for the elections, which is continuing American democracy. What this looks like is an effort to shut down dissent and prevent lingering questions about matters of legitimate disputes and suspicion, and even if they are not legitimate, YouTube, aka Google, should not be the arbiter of the matter, or any matter?

What happened to “Democracy Dies in Darkness”? Why aren’t citizens of all partisan leanings alarmed at the increasingly shameless efforts by the news media, Big Tech and social media to sanctify Joe Biden’s election in an exact reversal of how President Trump’s election was undermined from election night 2016 all the way to this moment?

Meanwhile, Ethics Alarms is dependent on YouTube, especially since WordPress, despite adding a video “block,” doesn’t make it easy for me to embed videos from other sources. I’d like to stop using this openly biased, pro-totalitarian, hypocritical, double-talking ally of single-party rule.

This is a ruthless, dangerous, unethical, Machiavellian company with far too much power to abuse.

Now THIS Is “Orwellian”: Dictionary.Com Alters The Meaning Of “Court Packing” To Fit The Democratic Party Narrative.

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

quotes-1984-george-orwell-hd-wallpapers

“Court packing” has meant the same thing since the term was devised to describe what President Roosevelt attempted in 1930, when he became frustrated with the conservative Supreme Court’s repeated ly finding his Depression programs unconstitutional. FDR decided to change the structure SCOTUS itself to allow him to create a liberal majority, expanding the number of justices so Roosevelt could appoint political allies. It was the expansion of the Court that was instantly dubbed “packing the court”; the expression had never been used before. “Packing the court” or “court packing” immediately sparked a negative backlash from the public and press: even Roosevelt’s supporters found the plan to be an ominous effort to change the rules when the existing system didn’t produce the results the President desired. FDR was forced to abandon his court-packing plan, and ever since, for 90 years, “court packing” has meant what FDR proposed…increasing the size of the Supreme Court to create an ideological majority suiting the President in power.

But when Democrats announced that their revenge for the President adding consrvatice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court would be to “pack the court,” they declared that “packing the court” was what the Republican had been doing by confirming Trump’s three nominees during his term, so their intention was fair and reasonable “tit for tat.” Coincidentally, Dictionary.com conveniently changed its definition of “court packing” to accommodate the Democratic Party’s rationalization sometime during November, sparking this Twitter thread:

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Ethics Dunce: Santa Claus

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

In a video that has “gone viral,” a mall Santa, socially distanced of course, engages in conduct that by Ethics Alarms standards triggered a duty to confront on behalf of the mother of the child he mistreated.

I wish we could determine when and where this episode occurred; I half expect to find out that it was staged by Breitbart or James O’Keefe. Assuming the video is genuine, howeverit is an example of a Santa Claus seriously abusing his authority.

In the video, a little boy is seen sitting across a table from Santa who asks, “What do you want for Christmas?” The child inaudibly asks for a toy gun, and Santa responds, “No guns.” Even after the mother clarifies that her son only meant a Nerf gun—you know, these sinister playthings…

Best-Nerf-Guns-for-Toddlers

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“Duty To Confront” At The 7-11

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Well, your friendly neighborhood ethics scold, unlike Democratic mayors and governors, is dedicated to doing what he urges others to do. In tonight’s case, I was obliged to follow through on the duty to confront (or the duty of confrontation), which has been a frequent theme here. I think it all came into focus for me when two jackasses at a Washington Nationals game were taking up two parking spots in the lot so they could “tailgate.” When I pointed out that they had only paid for one spot and were blocking where I wanted to park, their answer was “What are you going to do about it?” They chose…poorly. But I digress.

Tonight I was running an emergency errand to the local 7-11, and for some reason—free beer?—the parking lot was packed. Cars were double-parked, and I witnessed two near-accidents; it’s always been a badly designed lot. I had to cicle the block twice before I saw a space. And in the middle of it all the whole time, as other vehicles also searched for places to park, was a car with its hazard lights flashing, squatting in a spot right outside the store’s door, as the woman at the wheel blithely played, texted or whatever on her cell phone.

I went into the 7-11 and pointed her out to the two employees there. “You know, she’s preventing your customers from parking,” I said. “Oh, she’ll leave in a minute,” I was assured by one of the clerks, who obviously wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation. Neither was I: I was late getting home, I was hungry, and it was raining. By now, there were some empty spaces, including the one on the driver’s side of her car.

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End Of Week Open Forum, Or, If You Like, “The Friday Forum”

/ Jack Marshall / 47 Comments

Friday

The last open forum was only two weeks ago, but I am considering having a commentary free-for-all more regularly, indeed every week. This is an experiment: the open forums have been remarkably consistent in attracting 30-40 comments, which I would like to see increase of course. They also have the virtue of buying me some time to complete multiple Ethics Alarms projects that, as many of you keep reminding me, have been stalled or languishing: the grand finale of the Wuhan virus series, the last of the the Big Lies (that the President mismanaged the pandemic AND caused the lockdown-driven economic collapse—I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that the most ridiculous and unsupportable of the Big Lies turned out to be the most effective), the half-finished Ethics Guide to “Miracle on 34th Street,” which has been in aspic for a year, and even, after several years’ hiatus, maybe the year-end Ethics Alarms Awards for the Best and Worst of Ethics.

Then there is always that annoying thing called “work”….

Yes, that would be the second “Dobie Gillis” reference this week. That’s a good thing.

As always, keep it civil, keep it relevant, be bold and brilliant, and “go do that voodoo that you do so well!”

If House Democrats Have Functioning Ethics Alarms, They Won’t Do This…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

hand-with-burning-matchstick-

Wait, what am I saying?

Iowa certified Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican, as the winner in the state’s 2nd Congressional District by nearly the thinnest of margins, defeating Democrat Rita Hart by only six votes. Hart hasn’t challenged the result. What she has done is to ask Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, to have her House majority seat Hart anyway. The theory, apparently, is that this strategy will force Iowa to review the current ballot count. Right now, the Miller-Meeks victory will be investigated by the House Administration Committee.

The Washington Times, which reported this last night, says, “The refusal by a Democrat to accept certified results is likely to fuel supporters of Mr. Trump, who believes he has valid reasons for contesting his apparent loss.” Ya think?

If you want a “literal civil war,” as some illiterate conservative hotheads are already claiming we have, this is a great way to push us in that direction, and I might grab a musket myself. Are Democrats really so deluded and power mad that they would try to seat a defeated House candidate by fiat in defiance of the state’s certification even as they deride the President’s campaign for challenging the results in several key states where vote-counting shenanigans appeared to be rampant?

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From The Ethics Alarms Archives: “Cool It”

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Ruined Lincoln momument

As I promised as a follow-up to the linked post from Frontline, here, from the Ethics Alarms archives, is a post I wrote on March, 23, 2010. It had just two comments, but then fewer than 200 people have ever read it, according to my blog’s statistics. I guess that means it’s all my fault: if I had just been prominent and successful enough to justify anyone paying attention to what I wrote, maybe the last decade’s rot could have been averted.

I guess we’ll never know.

“Sigh.”

At least the old post can serve a purpose now, as perspective, or perhaps to remind us that we really have no excuse if our marvelous experiment is brought down by hate and dead ethics alarms.

It was all there to see long ago, and there was plenty of time to stop it. All it took was leadership.

***

COOL IT

To listen to the conservative talk radio circuit and read the Right’s wing of the blogosphere, one would think that the United States is in the midst of a coup right out of “Seven Days in May,” or a foreign take-over like the one portrayed in “Red Dawn,” or even an alien infestation by disguised lizards, as in the sci-fi mini-series “V.” Hysteria is everywhere. Dark threats of revolution are not being whispered, but shouted. “I really think civil war is inevitable,” one blogger wrote yesterday….

Cool the rhetoric, guys. This is irresponsible, and completely unwarranted. It is also dangerous, because it takes what is at its core a principled disagreement about national policies and recasts it as a sinister plot. If Republicans and conservatives really think this is the way to regain power, they are both wrong and deranged. This is destroying the country to save it.

I know, I know. The Angry Left paved the way for this kind of toxic distrust. For eight years it shouted that the Bush administration was some kind of evil empire run by evil geniuses (but stupid evil geniuses) that gleefully stole two elections, engineered a fake terrorist attack to take away our rights and a fake war to enrich their oil baron pals, and intentionally let New Orleans suffer because, you know, they all hated black people.

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Ethics Quote Of The Month: Justice Neil Gorsuch

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

First-Amendment-on-scroll1

“It is time—past time—to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques.”

That is the final line of  Justice Gorsuch’s concurring opinion to the SCOTUS majority’s per curiam ruling, released last night,  in favor of New York Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish groups that sued over the state’s limited religious service attendance rules in response to the Wuhan virus.

The majority’s ruling concludes in part,

Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pandemic,the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.

The emerging new Left no longer regards religious liberty as a big deal—ironic, since today we celebrate the group of religious expatriates who helped found our nation to escape religious persecution. The entire opinion, the concurring opinions of Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, and the dissenting opinions of Chief Justice Roberts, Sotomayor and Breyer (Roberts argues that the case is moot) can be read here.

There can no longer be any reasonable doubt that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominations have provided the nation and its citizens with crucial protection  from a furious assault on its core rights by the suddenly “ends justify the means” obsessed Left. State and city government resorting to arbitrary edicts during the pandemic is but a preface to what is coming over the next four years.

If for nothing else, Americans who cherish the liberty that makes the nation unique and the hope of the world should give thanks this day for President Trump, and the Supreme Court he has left as his legacy.

 

 

Pre-Crummy Thanksgiving Warm-Up, 11/25/2020

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Friend thanksgiving

1. It’s a good thing I’m not a conspiracy theorist…because it would then be easy for me to conclude that the Wuhan virus lock-downs, travel restrictions and dictatorial measures enacted by various Democratic Party-run states as well as the would-be edicts of the CDC are part of a calculated plan to weaken the family, isolate and divide the citizenry, undermine religion, increase fear and desperation, and further weaken American traditions and institutions, all for the purpose of paving the way for a totalitarian, single-party takeover. Killing Thanksgiving, which has been on the anti-American hit-list for a long time, would be an obvious and effective step in such a plotan.

Fortunately I am not a conspiracy theorist, and I view these developments from the perspective of Hanlon’s Razor. However, Thanksgivingcide this year, though not premeditated, will still advance the cause of the fascists of the Left, who are real, powerful and with the election of Joe Biden, on the ascendance.

What is particularly galling is that it is nearly impossible to hold a Thanksgiving family dinner this year even if one wants to be defiant, as I do. The various quarantine rules make traveling futile. The fearmongering has worked: my sister, for example, is now a full Wuhanphobic. She wouldn’t come into my home, and wouldn’t allow us in hers. I will not patronize another restaurant that requires diners to wear masks between bites, like the one in Arlington, Virginia we used last month to try to celebrate my son’s birthday—I’d rather starve—or rush to put the damn things on whenever a waiter nears the table.

Next up, Christmas. That’s been on the Left’s hit list for a long time too.

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