U.S. Society

Wow! This Story Is Embarrassing to SO Many People Who Deserved to Be Embarrassed!

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

An easy “Nelson.”

A British jury last week convicted Lydia Mugambe of forcing a young Ugandan woman to work as her slave after tricking her into coming to the U.K.

Mugambe, studying for a doctorate in law at the University of Oxford when she got into the slave business, is a high court judge in Uganda (DING!),a criminal tribunal judge at the United Nations (DING!), and previous Human Rights Fellow (DING!) at Columbia University (DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!—Is Columbia having a bad month or what?)

Mugambe’s passionate social justice activism for “gender-based justice” (DING!) previously earned her the People’s Choice Gavel Award from Women’s Link Worldwide (DING!). In 2022 Mugambe also won the Vera Chirwa Human Rights Award of the University of Pretoria, South Africa (of course DING!) , for her work to ensure gender-based justice in Africa.

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The Latest Disingenuous Excuse For Harris’s Defeat: “No Daylight”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Kamala Harris lost the election because she was an empty suit, DEI Vice-President who tried to fake her way to the finish line while running one of the most incompetent campaigns in American Presidential history. There’s no mystery. It didn’t help that she was inextricably linked to the worst administration ever, slowly being revealed as a four year fraud on the American public. What’s the mystery? The constant, futile and insulting efforts we keep hearing by apologists for the Harris debacle are continuations of the denial and the “it isn’t what it is” gaslighting that has been the standard operating procedure for the Axis of Unethical Conduct since 2016.

Now comes Amie Parnes at The Hill to explain the real reason the Worst Presidential Candidate Ever lost to Donald Trump. President Biden kept insisting that “there be no daylight” between the policies of his adminsitration and what Harris advocated on the stump, in interviews, and in the statments of her surrogates: “Almost everywhere she went, Harris walked among former Biden aides who sought to defend his presidency. Her campaign was run by a former White House deputy chief of staff…and a phalanx of department heads who had served Biden until the previous month.”

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Ethics Movie: “The Company You Keep”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

2012’s “The Company You Keep” was the last film directed by Robert Redford, which tells you something. Redford is an excellent director but often not a commercially popular one: this movie, about aging Sixties radicals and their slow-dawning realization (or not) that their “movement” was ethically and logically flawed did not do well at the box office, and after his previous ethics movie (“The Conspirator,” which I posted about here) bombed, Redford’s days of getting studios to bet on his work were over.

“The Company You Keep” is not as good as “The Conspirator,” but it is surprisingly relevant in 2025 as we watch the American Left struggling with its hypocrisy, foolish utopianism and increasingly obvious hatred for its own country. Redford plays a former Weatherman (“The Weathermen” was the violent faction of the Students for Democratic Action) who has been in hiding in plain sight since a domestic terrorism action by the group turned fatal. When his long-standing alternate identity as a prominent lawyer is outed by an idealistic young journalist, Redford goes on the run. In the process he encounters former fellow-revolutionaries, some of whom still burn for the cause.

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Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

The first post today already has me dreading what is to come, and, believe it or not, the next one is even more stupid than that one.

Help me out here by adding some challenging, enlightening, erudite discussions on the finer points of ethics while I stand over here wondering what the world is coming to, and trying to avoid the most likely answer…

Ethics Quiz: Scattering Ashes

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

See? The Washington Post still has some uses! A recent sort-of, kind-of, tongue-in-cheek essay by Rick Reilly raised an issue that has gnawed at my consciousness for a long time, namely the practice of scattering a loved one’s cremated remains in public places. A brief summary of my gut reaction: “Ick!”

Reilly writes in part,

Can you stop scattering your dearly departed’s ashes all over my favorite golf course? I want to play Pebble Beach, not your grandpa….Oh, and please stop littering your labradoodle’s ashes on the beach near my house. (A) Cremated remains include tiny fragments of bone and teeth and God knows what else, (B) I run there — barefoot, dammit — and (C) It’s illegal for dogs to be on the beach, whether on a leash or in a Folgers can. In fact, this obsession with unauthorized scattering of dead things all over America’s prettiest places needs to perish, too. Our most famous ballyards deal with these messes all the time….How many Cubs base runners have slipped rounding people’s uncles?

That’s pretty much the flavor of the whole piece, but as it coincides with a bias of mine—I think scattering ashes is pagan nonsense and stupid—it has the ring of truth. (And Tom Cruise sure didn’t love getting covered with the stuff in “War of the Worlds.”) The author concludes,

…3.2 million people die every year in America, and, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, 62 percent ask to be cremated. That’s more than double the rate 20 years ago. And nearly half say they “would prefer to have their remains scattered in a sentimental place.” Which would mean nearly a million incinerated Americans annually coating the sequoias at Yosemite and choking the loons on Golden Pond and sprinkling the churros of Santa Monica. It’s just bad taste.

Is it “ick,” unethical, or a perfectly loving and spiritual practice? As usual with the ethics quizzes here, I have my mind open at least a crack.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is scattering incinerated human remains in public places, in the air or in the oceans responsible, fair and justifiable?

Three Word Summary of “Working at Anheuser-Busch, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement”: “It was D.E.I.”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“The principles that built great American companies are simple: Hire the best people, serve your customers well and let merit and financial results determine success. While expanding opportunity and making employees feel welcome are worthy goals, how D.E.I. policies were carried out often strayed from these foundational principles and might have even created other forms of discrimination.”

It might have even created other forms of discrimination! Gee, ya think?

In a jaw-dropping example of the “Tell me something I don’t know” variety of journalism, the New York Times gives us “Working at Anheuser-Busch, I Saw What Went Wrong With the D.E.I. Movement” (Gift link!). Anson Frericks tells us that water is wet with the solemnity of a doctor announcing a cancer diagnosis. He was shocked–shocked!—when his company, having announced its commitment to “DEI,” turned down a beneficial distribution arrangement with another company because “being associated with Black Rifle was too politically provocative, especially in progressive circles.” This, in 2022, two years after the beginning of the George Floyd Freakout, made Anson realize that his employers were more interested in virtue-signalling to the Looney Left than selling beer.

What did he think “diversity, equity and inclusion” was going to mean?

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They Make Such a Nice Couple! Ethics Dunce: Texas A&M University; Ethics Hero: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Texas A&M students started holding “Draggieland” (“drag” mixed with “Aggieland,” get it?) at the campus theater complex in 2020. Five years later, however, the tradition was slapped down as the school’s Board of Regents voted to ban all drag events on the 11 Texas A&M campuses.The board’s resolution reads in part,

“The board finds that it is inconsistent with the system’s mission and core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others, to allow special event venues of the universities to be used for drag shows [which are] offensive  [and] likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women.”

I’d guess a pre-law student with a closed head injury could correctly explain what’s wrong with that silliness, but luckily the student body at Texas A&M will have a better champion than that, The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, aka FIRE. FIRE moved in to fill the breach when the ACLU decided to be woke rather than defend free speech and expression regardless of which side of the partisan divide was attacking them, and this low-hanging fruitcake edict prompted the organization to file a federal lawsuit. It backs the Queer Empowerment Council, a coalition of student organizations at Texas A&M University-College Station and the organizers of the fifth annual “Draggieland” event that was scheduled to be held on campus on March 27, and aims at blocking the policy as a clear violation of the First Amendment. Which it is. FIRE asked a court in the Southern District of Texas to halt Texas A&M officials from enforcing the ban.

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Inadequate Notes on the State of the Union Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This is exhausting. It is why I dreaded another Trump term, even though re-electing the Democrats after they had so disgraced themselves with the Joe Biden administration was, n my view, indefensible. I don’t want to keep writing about all this crap: Trump’s habitual excesses and rhetorical hyperbole, the partisan factchecking, the Axis news media propaganda, the absurd spectacle of Fox News gleefully spinning everything Trump of the Republicans do as marvelous while CNN and MSNBC give the public stony expressions and unrestrained hatred of the elected President of the United States; the increasingly unhinged conduct of Democrats, and the pathetic declarations of Trump Derangement by my Facebook friends (How did that February 28 boycott work out for you, morons?) The State of the Union debacle and its aftermath showed that while some of this has moderated from Trump’s first term in office, its not nearly enough. Will it really be this way for all four years? I see no reason to hope that it won’t be.

I accumulated over a dozen episodes and articles that would support individual post here related to the aftermath of Trump’s speech, and I don’t feel like writing any of them. I’ll touch on some in what follows, a random set of largely disgusted notes and observations….

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Comment of the Day: A Spammed Commenter…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

…who shall remain nameless.

This:

“Experience the future of companionship with an AI girlfriend chatbot. Designed to listen engage and respond with intelligence and warmth this virtual partner offers meaningful conversations, emotional support, and personalized interactions. Whether you seek a friend a confidante or just casual chats this ai girlfriend chatbot companion is always there for you anytime anywhere. Enjoy a unique ever-evolving connection powered by artificial intelligence.”

I think a blow-up doll is more ethical. The product is as perilous as crack or heroin, and destined to cripple and manipulate vulnerable, lonely people, like, say, me. It is the logical and inevitable next step from 800 sex chat phone lines. They can’t be made illegal; someone will undoubtedly argue that AI girlfriend chatbots can be therapeutic and even, on balance, capable of accomplishing more good than bad.

Sure. As for me, I’m reminded of this post from 2017: The Unibomber Had A Point.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Unethical Quote of the Week: President Donald Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

President Trump just used his State of the Union message to call Joe Biden “the worst President in the history of the United States.”

I wasn’t going to watch any of the speech, both because I dreaded what excesses Trump would inflict on his audience and the behavior of the Democrats. But I just couldn’t resist tuning in: the Netflix series I was watching stunk, so I switched over to DirecTV and landed on NBC for literally 20 seconds, maybe fewer. And what did I hear but the President talking about the success of his border crackdown and then insulting his predecessor. I instantly turned off the TV and went to my office to post this.

There was no need to say what Trump said, and no excuse for it. It was just gratuitously nasty, graceless, divisive and hateful. It was historic though, so maybe progressives will be impressed.

No President has used that traditional speech to denigrate a predecessor, and few have used any Presidential speech to insult a previous White House occupant. Presidents, more than anybody, understand the rigors of the job and are expected to convey at least a modicum of respect for the other members of the select group who have taken on the daunting challenge of leading this chaotic, ambitious, essential nation.

I say this with full understanding that Trump’s assessment of Joe Biden was accurate: Ethics Alarms came to the same conclusion over more than a year of analysis. That doesn’t make Trump’s outburst any more forgivable. Trump’s insult sprung from nothing but the worst of his character: cruelty, vengefulness, lack of self-control, immodesty, crudeness. It also, again, showed the President’s astoundingly flat learning curve: his similarly gratuitous attacks in the past made lifetime enemies out of the late John McCain, the entire Bush family, and the Cheneys, with no compensating benefits. He likes upsetting people.

It is the mark of an asshole.