Last week’s forum was a dud, but it was a holiday week, so I have hopes that this one will be more lively. I’m counting on you, since the previous post was written with great difficulty after my head exploded from reading that Barack Obama told an audience that using the criminal justice system against political foes was “crossing a line.”
I’m still wiping blood, bits of skull and brain off my computer screen and keyboard…
Oh, shut up, Barack!
In a speech yesterday at his foundation’s Democracy Forum, Barack Obama demonstrated his abundance of gall by calling for an end to “divisiveness” and for Americans to embrace compromise while building coalitions, something he refused to do as President.
Obama, after pledging to be a President of all the people, “bringing black and white together,”also exacerbated racial divisions like no President before him since Woodrow Wilson, a big Jim Crow fan. He chose to avoid political compromise during his entire term, laying the foundations of the gridlock we have seen since with the enthusiastic assistance of Nancy Pelosi in the House and the now thankfully dead Harry Reid Senate. As a former President, Obama did not extend his successor the same courtesy George W. Bush extended to him, which was to stay on the sidelines and withhold public criticism. He vividly illustrated why the unwritten rule and “democratic norm” in the U.S. has been that former Presidents, as the New York Times stated in 2007, “should speak respectfully of their successors, or at least with some measure of restraint.”
Did you know that Donald Trump doesn’t respect “democratic norms”?
Above we see that there are now photographs of the face belonging to the man who assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson yesterday. Those images will doubtlessly be subjected to facial recognition software that will make use of Big Data containing the images of millions of Americans who have allowed photos of themselves to be posted on social media.
My wife loved British procedurals, and frequently expressed her opinion that it seemed creepy and Big Brotherish that everywhere and everyone in Great Britain seemed to be under surveillance by CCTV, which was the key to solving the crimes in those shows with boring consistency. It is evident that the United States is rapidly getting to the same point. In cases like yesterday’s brazen daylight hit job, this development seems like a means justified by the desired end, but what guarantees do we have that the government and law enforcement will stop at that end?
In “Minority Report,” the film version of Phillip K. Dick’s dystopian future (well, one of them) showed everyone’s retinas being scanned constantly for both government and commercial purposes as they walked along the streets of D.C. In the latter case, the technology allowed street advertising to speak directly to individuals as they passed by: “Mr Williams! You have a cold! Come on in, CVS has just what you need to make you comfortable!” If this is science fiction, it is just barely so.
Like my late wife, I find this creepy and ominous. So…
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Since the election, the New York Times ethics advice columnist “The Ethicist” has been featuring a series of hopelessly dunderheaded questions from Trump-Deranged New York Democrats. “Should I cut off my Trump-supporting mother?” was one that Ethics Alarms discussed recently. I have to assume Kwame Appiah is getting a lot of these questions and thinks they really need more of an answer than “Grow up” or “Here’s the number of an affordable therapist.”
They don’t.
There were two more of this ilk today: “Is It Fair to Assume a Best Friend Is Bad and Selfish if She Supported Trump?” and a woman who felt her husband divulged a damning confidence by telling his adult children that her grandson had voted for Trump, as if he had informed them that the kid was a member of the Klan. Nobody who voted for either candidate should feel ashamed of their vote or feel they have to defend it.
Since The Ethicist’s employer is significantly responsible for these people’s current disability, being one of main purveyors of the “Trump is a fascist” fearmongering, I hold that Prof. Appiah has an obligation to give tough-love to these fools. Tell them that bias has made them stupid, that it is no more “selfish” or “ignorant” to vote for one candidate over another, and that the toxic delusion that those who reach a different conclusion than you regarding society, the culture, national policy and leadership are evil as opposed to merely having a different opinion.
I’ve received several inquiries about how to send gifts, or donations, or whatever they would be called, to Ethics Alarms. I was going to respond yesterday, but “Giving Tuesday” annoys me, so I put it off a day.
I’m enrolled in both Zelle and BILL, though I must say I’m unimpressed with both so far, and my bank loused up my attempts to set up Stripe. Obviously, I appreciate any expressions of appreciation: I don’t work on Ethics Alarms for money, but I have to do something for money. I know many of you have sent suggestions for monetizing the blog, but it is more important to me to have readers than to make this a profit center. I think, all things considered, EA had a good year even if I personally did not.
I also appreciate feedback, on the blog or off: my email is jamproethics@verizon.net, my phone in the office is 703-548-5229, and my address, should you be moved to engage in holiday charity (but I’m not a non-profit!) is
Jack Marshall, 2707 Westminster Place, Alexandria, VA, 22305.
I have long believed that baseball’s Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t understand the game he oversees and maybe even doesn’t like it much. My assessment (I’ve been proven right a lot lately, have you noticed?) has been confirmed in a recent baseball podcast in which Manfred was the guest. He expressed enthusiasm for the proposed rule change being called “The Golden At-Bat.” If enacted, this gimmick would allow a team to send its best hitter up to the plate in any situation whether it was his turn in the lineup or not, but only once a game.
This disgusting device is what one might expect from a leader who inflicted the “zombie runner” on the game because people who weren’t baseball fans don’t appreciate extra-inning games and the players don’t like having to play overtime without compensation.
The Athletic’s Jason Stark, who tried to write a neutral report on this monstrosity, asked former manager of the Rays, Cubs and Angels, Joe Maddon, what he thought. Maddon is as close to an intellectual as one is likely to find in baseball (which is not all that close), and he found the concept repulsive.
—Elizabeth Williamson and Charlie Savage in “Kash Patel Has Plan to Remake the F.B.I. Into a Tool of Trump”
The news media is clearly frightened that its various methods of spreading propaganda on behalf of the Left and that totalitarian-leaning cabal’s strangle-hold on the government is imperiled by Donald Trump’s return. The article that the quote above comes from is an excellent example. Good.
Gee, Trump’s FBI nominee Kash Patel (above) will actually use law enforcement to enforce the law. The Horror. Providing leaks to reporters, from inside the government or from inside any legitimate organization, is a breach of ethics warranting dismissal and civil penalties. For a lawyer to do it is grounds for disbarment. In many instances, leaking to the media by a government employee is illegal. Continue reading
What was Whoopie saying in this clip as she tried to explain why Biden pardoning Hunter is defensible? Start it at the 10 minute mark: do NOT watch the whole thing because it will lower your IQ by 20 points.
In honor of the great Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason), who when caught with the undeniable evidence of his own lies or misconduct, stammered uselessly (on “The Honeymooners”) “Huminahuminahumina….” Ethics Alarms, on this date, December 2, 2024, hereby creates “The Grand Huminahumina,” which will be henceforth awarded to the public figure who best emulates poor Ralph by babbling incoherently under pressure.
One note in defense of Whoopie: she’s technically correct that breaking a promise isn’t technically a lie, unless it can be proven that the promise-breaker intended to break the promise when he or she made it. Breaking a promise is a breach of integrity and trust, but not necessarily honesty.
It is just as unethical as lying, however, unless conditions have materially changed since the promise was made. In the case of the Bidens, they have not.
Brooks’ featured reaction is much, much more unethical than #1. After all, Gaffigan is only a stand-up comic (and a pretty decent actor), and carries no authority with his opinions. Brooks, however, does, although after he accepted and ran with his lucrative job as a Times fake conservative (the technical term is “sell-out”), he shouldn’t.
The latest evidence of Brooks’ pompous advocacy of nonsense was on the PBS News Hour, where he for some reason shares a show with knee-jerk, race-baiting progressive hack Jonathan Capehart. I guess because Capeheart is a black, gay progressive hack while Brooks is a white, heterosexual, under-cover progressive hack, this is what NPR regards as “balance.” Here was Brooks’ pronouncement regarding what Democrats have to do in the wake of Trump’s re-ascension to the White House. As with the previous installment, I’ll have some comments.
This is the day before my birthday, once a relatively welcome event, now taboo, as December 1 was the day I found my wonderful father dead in his favorite chair after he died in his sleep at the age of 89. I can’t shake the sense that my father’s exit from the world was of more import than my entering it, though I know he would disagree. My sister has convinced me to let her tale me to see “Wicked” tomorrow evening, which will be the first movie I have seen in a theater since 2019. I consider this excursion ethics research and an obligation of cultural literacy. Is the film “woke”? Is it another Hollywood propaganda effort but one that is subtle enough not to alienate audiences, like Disney’s recent output? Are conservative critics just seeing the movie through jaundiced eyes? Are there any songs in the show that are genuinely memorable, unlike the songs in virtually every other Broadway hit musical since “Les Miz”?
As was pointed out by commenter John Paul here, the film version of “Wicked” has an unethical title, as it is in fact only the first act of the musical despite clocking in at over 150 minutes, almost as long as the stage show. There will be a “Wicked” Part 2 for sure: if the film had tanked, it would have been quietly cancelled, like the the planned second installment of “The Golden Compass” and the promised sequel to “Silverado.”
Now ponder this deranged NYT comment on a Times story about the film:
Yikes. Yeah, a musical spin-off of “The Wizard of Oz” would have overcome the epic incompetence of the Harris campaign if only it had been released earlier. That may be the wackiest excuse for Trump’s win yet.
Meanwhile…
Ethics Alarms 