I have an early morning legal professionalism seminar I am holding on Zoom (yuck!), so I don’t have time to put up a competent post. I’m opening up the floor for topics, debates, whatever: just be civil and brilliant.
Here’s party favor: I discovered a free GAI detector, here. I haven’t tried it, but then a bot may have written this…
Here you go…
How do you like that one?
1.3 thousand “likes” and all those re-posts, including by three of my soon-to-be-lobotomized Facebook Friends. Outside of “We’ve bombed Iran,” nothing in the post is true or even logically supportable. About 2,000 FBI agents are assisting ICE out of more than 13,000, and 37,000 FBI employees over all. Calling Hegseth a “drunk guy” is certainly fair, don’t you think? And the grand finale is the head-exploding “it isn’t what it is” fiction, part of current DNC cant, that the only reason Kamala Harris lost is because of her sex rather than her myriad other problems, like being an inarticulate idiot, picking an even bigger idiot as her ticket mate, running a spectacularly inept campaign, and representing a Soviet-style puppet government that loused up virtually everything it touched.
Now here’s one of the approving responses it attracted:
Wow.
Wow. The only way anyone could write that Hillary Clinton was “one of the most qualified’ Presidential candidates is to have literally no knowledge of the American Presidency at all, which raises the question of why one would make an assertion like that in a public forum knowing you had no basis for it whatsoever. Saying the same about Harris is, against all odds, even more absurd.
The “Jaws” post, predictably, set off a lively debate about cultural icons, though, significantly, nobody yet has tried to maintain that “Jaws” isn’t one. Along comes halethomp with this Comment of the Day exploring the matter of whether Disney’s Marvel movies, now in decline, qualify as “iconic.” Personally, I don’t think so. There are iconic super heroes to be sure, but perhaps because they were late to the party, no Marvel character qualifies to stand next to Superman and Batman. No single film qualifies either in that genre by my standards: I think TCM host Ben Mankiewicz nailed it when he compared the Marvel film franchise to MGM musicals. Both genres have intense, loyal devotees, but neither has produced a societal- and culture-wide icon. Maybe “Singing in the Rain,” qualifies, but its a close call. Icons create lasting images, quotes, values and lessons that cross generations, ideally gaining vigor over time and becoming powerful cultural influences. Personally, having been familiar with the principle that great power confers great responsibility from other sources, I have been surprised that Spiderman’s Uncle Ben has been getting credit for it. No, I don’t think resuscitating a classic maxim that younger generations missed because of galloping illiteracy should qualify one for icon status, but that’s just me.
Here is halethomp’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Jaws Ethics.”
***
Two quotes within the original post and the comments stood out to me as examples of the cultural arrogance that Jack often laments, both applying to the Marvel franchise (I include the various streaming series in this). “A competent, curious, responsible member of society wants to see “Jaws” because 1) it is famous 2) it is a cultural touch-point 3) one should understand why people remember and care about it and 4) when the public embraces anything so completely,” and “Marvel movies like their predecessor print comics are just good versus evil with different characters.”
First, regarding cultural impact, there are few as great as the line “With great power comes great responsibility” which Uncle Ben tells Peter Parker just before dying. I believe a great cultural reference is one that most people know regardless of whether they know its origin. It is not necessary to have ever read a comic book or seen a superhero movie or cartoon to know that quote: in fact, it has been applied and misapplied by many people for generations. In Jack’s own words, Marvel must be recognized as a cultural touch-point.
With regard to this blog, Marvel movies and television shows should be required viewing for their ethics implications. I have not watched all of the Marvel programs. I have no interest in Ant Man, Doctor Strange, Ms. Marvel, etc. However, the best ones represent not just conflicts between heroes and villains but within individuals and society at large, and provide a visual, cultural reference to real conflicts that have existed in our society in parallel with those of the comics and screens.
It’s a leadership issue.
I generally don’t want to wander into policy debates unless there is a clear ethical component. Competence. Honesty. Responsibility. Results, as we discuss here so often, are usually the result of moral luck. All we can do, in situations involving high-level leadership decision-making, is evaluate what the basis of the decision was, and the process under which it was made. What happens after that is moral luck, chaos, essentially. As an ethicist, I try not to base my analysis on whether I agree with the decision or not from a policy or pragmatic perspective.
In military and foreign policy decisions, the absence of clear ethical standards are especially rife. There are some who regard any military action at all except in reaction to an attack on the U.S. as unethical, and sometimes not even in that circumstance. They are absolutists: war is wrong, killing is wrong, “think of the children,” and that’s all there is to it. Such people are useless except as necessary reminders that Sherman was right.
President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities is a matter of leadership, not ethics. Leaders lead, and are willing to make tough, often risky, decisions. The U.S. Presidency requires leadership, and strong leadership is not only preferable to weak leadership, it is what the majority of Americans has traditionally preferred. The Constitution clearly shows the Founders’ preference for a strong executive branch, particularly in the area of national defense. Yesterday, the President took advantage of the Constitution’s general approval of executive leadership when national security is involved.
I’m training a new Clarence Darrow for my legal ethics seminar employing many of Darrow’s Greatest Hits, and met him at his apartment in Arlington, VA. There is usually street parking which now is a absurdly 1) expensive and 2) automated, but as we all should know by now, the Unabomber was right, and we are slaves to gratuitous technology.
I had to park in an open space, then, instead of easily depositing a fre coins in a meter, had to walk half-a-block to the nearest parking station (and half a block away from my destination). Then I pushed a start button, plugged in my credit card, and pushed the maximum time allowed, 2 hours. I was informed that my “payment was complete” ($9.85!) and was to take the ticket the station would print and walk back to my car, get back in it, put the ticket on the dashboard visible through the window, and voila! A longer, more complicated, more expensive parking process, made so by the wonders of technology!
But no ticket came out. It churned, and it churned, then a red message flashed saying “Out of Order! Please go to another station.”
Oh no you don’t! The machine said my payment had already been accepted. I was not going to meekly allow this stupid system to make me pay TWO exorbitant fees for parking once. Nor was I going to abandon the space, which is what I saw another driver do when confronted with the same malfunctioning station.
Assuming that getting a sledge hammer and destroying the parking stations is out of the question, what ethical solution to the problem would you employ?
I’ll tell you what I did in the comments eventually. (Hint: It worked!)
Ethic Alarms has frequently used Superman Comics’ Bizarro World analogy to discuss the problem arising when a culture is so warped and so confused that normal ethical principles have no applicability. When one is in a culture where white is black, up is down and crazy is sane, it makes no sense to act according to traditional ethical values. They won’t work there.
The best and most ethical response to a Bizarro World culture is to follow the sage advice of the Amityville House and “Get OUT!” A common example of this problem is in the workplace, when one realizes that the culture is corrupt, incompetent and devoid of ethical considerations. The choices an ethical employee has are to remain in the organization and be corrupted by it, to devote oneself to changing the organization, which is often futile, or to quit.
The latest dispatch from uber-woke Oregon makes it clear that the Amityville House’s solution may be the only one remaining. The new session for the Oregon House of Representatives was opened by a performance by two black drag queens this week because it’s Pride Month, and that means that professionalism, dignity and decorum must be sacrificed because….well, just because. Democratic Rep. Travis Nelson (D, of course), the first openly LGBTQ+ African American Oregon legislator—he’s historic, so he can do no wrong!— invited Isaiah Esquire and Aqua Flora to perform for the session’s opening ceremony. The House speaker, also being a Democrat, didn’t have the integrity to tell him, “You are out of your mind! Absolutely not!” So the result was this:
Juneteenth is our first, and one hopes, last DEI holiday. The idea of having national holidays contrived to celebrate particular racial, ethnic and gender groups in an outburst of white male guilt is anti-American to the core and profoundly offensive. True, Rationalization #22 (“There are worse things.”) provides some solace; the holiday is hardly the worst thing that the national freakout over a drug-addicted black thug resisting arrest in Minneapolis and running into the wrong cop inflicted on the U.S. But the year Biden’s autopen established it, 2021, speaks volumes.
Meanwhile….
I call this pathetic, and depressing evidence of just how low the Axis and its supporters are willing to stoop to avoid admitting their obvious wrongdoing.
Desperate Democrats in my life started resorting to this in early 2024, despite its being strained and unethical. Trump, you see, was just as mentally fading as Biden. Sure, whatever you say, Trump Derangement Face! Maybe they even have convinced themselves that they believe this. “Listen to his rambling! The crazy things he says!”
Of course, Trump has always been like this, at least for as long as I’ve paid attention to him which has been several decades now. Nevertheless, no one can miss his extraordinary energy, his willingness to be seen and interviewed, and his resilience. There is, literally, no comparison with Biden’s obvious physical and mental deterioration, nor does it seem plausible that anyone would be able to hijack Trump’s power in the White House like Biden’s aides did to poor Joe.
But here’s Mediaite this week with a headline identical to several other Axis propaganda sites—yup, a memo must have gone out!—“Trump Drops Papers He Just Signed and Mistakenly Refers to the U.K. as ‘The European Union.’”
Oh yes, another reparations con from a Democratic mayor. What a surprise.
Arguably the most racist of all U.S. mayors, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, signed an executive order this week establishing a task force that will make recommendations for slavery reparations that would supposedly compensate black residents for policies long gone, while penalizing non-black residents for having the wrong color skin. These proposals “will serve as appropriate remedies and restitution for past injustices,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
Sure.
Johnson is wasting $500,000 on this popular progressive pipe dream, which is certain to actually help black Chicagoans not one whit, but he’ll be able say “I tried!” That will be worth half a million wasted dollars to this grifter, apparently.
The Mayor’s executive order does not put a dollar amount on any potential reparations, and it does not say who will be eligible if the task force recommends any payment in the city, because, just like San Francisco and California’s reparations virtue-signaling (at least to those who think giving away money based solely on the basis of skin color is virtuous), Chicago’s stunt will just cause more racial division.
Bad ethicist. BAD ethicist!
I don’t understand what warped ethics dimension the latest column [Gift link!] from “The Ethicist” hails from, but I wouldn’t recommend going there.
An inquirer wants to know if she should alert a new renter of a neighborhood home that the previous tenants left after telling her that the place has black mold, which can be deadly. “Our concern is that we’ve seen families with small children looking at the house. We believe that we might be in legal jeopardy if we were to inform prospective tenants about the mold issue, but what is our moral obligation?” she asks.
The inquirer means ethical obligation, though “Love thy neighbor (and thus don’t let him walk into a death trap)” is part of the most famous moral code of them all.
But I digress. After his usual long discourse, Prof. Appiah says, “You’re not under a moral obligation to act, and you wouldn’t be wrong to stay out of it.”
The inquirer would be absolutely 100% wrong, just as “the Ethicist” is! Of course there’s an obligation here: The Golden Rule, or reciprocity, dictates warning the new neighbor. So do absolutist principles, which hold human life to be the highest priority. We all share ethical responsibilities for our fellow human beings’ health and welfare. How many analogies do we need here? “Should I tell my new neighbor that I think I saw an escaped mass murderer in the house’s window?” “Should I tell my neighbor that I think I saw his landlord burying a body in the back yard?”
All the inquirer has to say is: “The previous tenant said that she believed your house is infested with black mold. I have no idea if that’s true, but I thought you should know.” There’s no legal jeopardy, and even if there were, the ethical mandate is to be principled and courageous: the health and welfare of innocent parties are at stake.
The supposed expert is paid to opine on ethics and reaches this indefensible conclusion? The New York Times need to find a new columnist for “The Ethicist.”
Ethics Alarms 