(It was obvious to me!)
Records reveal that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) has unethically and criminally used charitable contributions to enrich family members of the Black Lives Matter cabal, and of course, the leaders of the cabal themselves.
Gee. What a surprise.
Tax filings show that…
I find the latest query posed to The Ethicist to have such an ethically obvious answer as to be unworthy of publication, unless the objective was to demonstrate how weak and intellectually dishonest ethical the position of pro-abortion advocates is.
Here it is:
I’ve always supported a woman’s right to choose, not least because legal access to abortion once saved me from an untenable situation. I also believe that if a woman chooses to abort, her wish should supersede any opposition to it by the father. The physical, practical and emotional effects on a woman obliged to carry a child to term (and to care for it afterward) are, in my view, far more significant than they are for the father.
But what about the reverse? What about a case in which the father (in this case, my son) is adamantly opposed to having a child, but the woman (his ex-girlfriend) wants to keep the pregnancy? While it’s not relevant to the moral question, the pregnancy is shockingly unexpected given a medical issue of the father’s. And the couple’s relationship has almost no chance of success, even without a pregnancy. Given that the woman has neither a willing partner nor a job and is already responsible for a child from a previous relationship, her decision to continue with the pregnancy is viewed by most in her circle as reckless and certain to risk her already precarious mental health. Here, her right to choose to carry the child will have a profound impact on three (soon to be four) people and is likely to be very difficult for all.
Is it right to force someone to be a parent, even if in name only? Many people, me included, would say no if that person is a woman. Recent events have shown how fraught this issue is. And yet a man who does not wish to be, has never wanted to be and was told that his chances of ever being a parent were nil can find himself in a situation where his opposition carries no weight. While it’s evident that he will have financial obligations, what might his moral responsibility be?
What a god-awful, ethically-obtuse letter to be send for publication, never mind circulated by an ethicist! Let’s see:
Politico and other outlets are flogging a new poll from Marquette Law School released Tuesday found that 40% of adults approve of the Supreme Court’s actions, while 60% disapprove. This really isn’t news; it’s fake news in “The Sun is hot!” category by now. Gallup, which has been tracking the trust levels in American institutions for decades, wrote last September that “the 41% of U.S. adults who currently approve of how the Supreme Court is handling its job is statistically similar to the 40% to 43% ratings over the past two years. The court’s approval rating first fell to the record-low 40% in September 2021.” A single percentage point, obviously, is well within the margin for error in any poll and is not significant, and not significant means “not newsworthy.”
So the #1 villain in the ongoing destruction of the Supreme Court’s level of trust and approval among the public is…no surprise—our unethical, despicable, democracy-undermining news media. Since Roe v. Wade was finally knocked down by the Dobbs decision but even before, our “advocacy journalists,” or “journalists,” have made it their mission to erode public support for SCOTUS as part of their goal of forcing the Court to the ideological left so it can advance progressive agenda items that the Democratic Party can’t accomplish the way democracies are supposed to—you know, by passing constitutional laws.
I use Mediaite to track down ethics stories occasionally, though not nearly as much as I did when the site tried to achieve some degree of balance. Now, as part of the site’s contribution to the Axis’s panic operation, Mediaite is almost all Trump or GOP-bashing, all the time.
Yesterday it featured this story: “Witness Tells Off Republican Senator in Hearing on Abortion: ‘Don’t Ask a Question If You Don’t Want to Know the Answer’” The Senator in question was Sen. John Kennedy (R-La), particularly reviled by progressives because of his skill at making unqualified Biden nominees, usually of the DEI variety, reveal themselves as the fools and hypocrites they are. One reading that headline is supposed to assume that a pro-abortion witness bested the Senator. Far from it.
The exchange began with Kennedy asking a witness regarding late-term abortions, “Should the mother at that juncture have the right – clearly a viable child – to abort the child?” The witness dodged the question by pronouncing the scenario “unlikely.”
I bailed on Netflix’s Baby Reindeer series mid-way through the second episode, and wish I had quit earlier. I found the sordid tale of a dim-witted would-be stand-up comic and the sociopathic woman who stalked him too unpleasant and infuriating to stomach. I think I’d rather watch cattle be slaughtered. For some reason the thing is popular, however, and now it’s the object of a lawsuit.
Fiona Harvey, who says she is the real life inspiration for the series villain, the stalker Martha, has filed a $170 million lawsuit against Netflix alleging defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of privacy.” [ NOT “right of publicity,” which is how I managed to type it first time around.]” The sum includes totals for damages, “loss of enjoyment and loss of business” plus “all profits from ‘Baby Reindeer’.”
Stories like this one remind me just how deep and complex the ethics void is becoming in our society and institutions. The hackneyed way of describing it would be “Why we can’t have nice things.” It is an ethics mess, rather than an ethics train wreck, just an icky, stinky, pile of unethical goo emanating from people and places that can’t be trusted.
Let’s pick our way through it. Get your gloves and Lysol, and put a clothespin on your nose…
More of the accumulating evidence that our society’s standards and ethics are rotting from the head down…
Comedian George Lopez walked off the stage at Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville, California mid-way through his stand-up set when hecklers and inebriated members of his audience made it impossible for him to continue in his judgment. (He oughta know, after all.)
The comic gave the group three chances to quiet down, and when they did not, put the microphone back on the stand, said, “That’s cool, thanks,” waved goodbye and walked out. It was not cool, of course, and Lopez accused the casino of failing to provide adequate security and management. “It’s the venue or casino’s job to provide a good experience for both the artist and the fans, but the casino failed in this regard. The audience was overserved and unruly, and the casino staff was unable to provide a safe and enjoyable experience for the artist and guests,” Lopez’s representative said. “George is not obligated to perform in an unsafe environment. He feels badly that those who came to see the show were unable to do so as a result.”
Indeed. I would think that goes without saying, which is our way of saying “res ipsa loquitur.” Naturally, however, as is the growing trend among those in positions of responsibility these days, the casino management refused to accept responsibility, blaming Lopez.
There are few topics I have vowed to flag every time they raise their ugly metaphorical heads. The fake statistic about women earning only “76 cents” for every dollar a man earns for the same job. The implication that lawyers are endorsing the conduct or character of their clients. The lie that Al Gore won the 2000 election but that the Supreme Court “handed” the Presidency to George Bush. “Hands up, don’t shoot!” More recently, I have resolved to not let media hacks get away with the statement that the claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” is “baseless.” The rampant misuse of the term “ad hominem” is another one.
The annoying issue came up again in the exchange with an EA reader I referenced in this post (#7). He accused me of being a “phony ethicist” because I criticized Clarence Thomas’s flagrant breach of ethics in his accepting (and not disclosing) copious gifts and financial benefits from a well-known conservative billionaire, and yet, he claimed, didn’t criticize Present Biden’s complicity in the profitable influence peddling of his ne’re-do-well son. Of course, I have done the latter, multiple times, and in response to my tart message back that he didn’t know what he was talking about and couldn’t tell an ethic from a writing desk, he shifted his argument to saying I was a “fake ethicist” because I never wrote about Justice Sotomayor’s failure to recuse herself in Greenspan v. Random House.
I didn’t recall whether I had commented on that case or not (the complainer didn’t know either), but it didn’t matter. I resent being told that I am neglecting my mission because I didn’t write about what some reader wanted me to write about. My two standard answers to that complaint are 1) “Start your own damn blog!” and 2) “Bite me.” As I explained in my response,
What a freak Ethel Merman was! She was 68 when she performed that madly optimistic Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse song, one of my all-time favorites (Newley sang it better).
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced that it will stop requiring a diversity, inclusion, and belonging statement as part of its faculty hiring process. Dean of Faculty Affairs and Planning Nina Zipser announced that the change was made because existing requirements were “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather” and potentially confusing for international candidates. Sure. This is a face-saving explanation, because Harvard’s DEI obsession has lost the staggering school alumni support, donations, prestige and credibility, and also because DEI is a fad that couldn’t stand up to long term scrutiny.
It’s also discriminatory.
And stupid.
I just realized that those words can be put in any order and still communicate the same message….
Keep it ethical, now…
Ethics Alarms 