Saturday Afternoon Ethics Catch-Up, 1/27/2024

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I write this in a state of advanced disgust over the predictable but still nauseating reaction by the legal ethics community (as represented on the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers, of which I am a member) to the still roiling Fani Willis scandal. This is a, I estimate, a 80%-20% woke profession, and I may be being generous. Not only did group’s hyperactive listserv conspicuously ignore the story despite it being by far the most high-profile legal ethics controversy in many months, but when the topic was finally broached yesterday, it was to brush aside the obvious conflict of interest as irrelevant to the case’s defendants, including Donald Trump. (This is a passionately Trump-Deranged group to the point that vocal dissenters are risk professional blackballing.) This CNN opinion piece by a member has been virtually unanimously praised, despite employing blatant “whataboutism”: “Willis may have engaged in nepotism (as when President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert Kennedy to be US attorney general or when Trump appointed his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner to positions in his presidential administration).” For some strange reason, the legal ethicist association seems to be willing to accept the dubious proposition that even though Willis’s alleged legal lover is profiting greatly from his involvement in the case (and that she may be receiving benefits from that profit in the form of travel and other baubles of affection), this could not reasonably be seen as a factor undermining her required independent judgment in managing the case as his supervisor.

Well, the group is still a valuable resource the 95% of the time that progressive politics aren’t involved…

1. Oh…about that headline! It’s my “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” note of the day. It’s a real headline from a real story, but dates from March 2023. Legal Insurrection wrote about its author here. But I missed it, and as the saying goes, if it’s new to you, it’s still news….

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Stop Making Me Defend Harvard!

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Maybe there is some hope for the tarnished Ivy League progenitor after all. Maybe.

I cite as the evidence for this the near unanimous beat-down a Harvard Crimson editor received from the presumably Harvard community commenters on an arrogant screed called “I’m Trans, and I’m Not up for Debate.” If there ever was smoking gun evidence of the political Left’s attitude toward opposing views, unwelcome speech and “offensive” ideas, this is it.

The essay, posted in the venerable Harvard student-run daily newspaper, begins, “For a community that represents such a small percentage of the population – less than one percent – trans people have occupied a strikingly large portion of public and political discourse.” Why yes, and whose fault is that? Who decided that public school teachers had any business delving into the problems of that tiny percentage of the population, or that the sliver would decide to assert imaginary rights, like being able to crush women in athletic competitions?

“As a transgender person, it has been exhausting to watch my community’s basic rights put into jeopardy and framed as subjects for debate,” undergrad E. Matteo Diaz ’27 writes. “Should trans people be allowed in public bathrooms? Should we be allowed to play sports? Should we be included in school curricula? Should we have access to healthcare? We are treated like a question to be answered, a problem to be solved,” he (She? Readers are never ordered to use specific pronouns) continues. “To cast trans rights as a “debate” suggests that the opinions of all parties — however ignorant of the reality of trans existence — are equally deserving of merit and consideration,” we are told.

Well all righty, then! No debate! What trans activists say must be accepted as revealed truth! How typical of the 21st century Left: challenging the cant is blasphemy. More:

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Why is Planned Parenthood Promoting Premarital Sex?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It couldn’t be that it’s trying to drum up more abortion business, could it? Nah, that would be…unethical. Unless, of course, one likes abortions.

Watch, if you have the stomach for it, that video above, which Planned Parenthood promoted this way:

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More Evidence California Doesn’t Get That First Amendment Thingy…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

It’s not the only one, but still…

Assembly Bill 1831, introduced by California Assemblyman Marc Berman (D–Palo Alto) this month, would expand the state’s definition of child pornography to include “representations of real or fictitious persons generated through use of artificially intelligent software or computer-generated means, who are, or who a reasonable person would regard as being, real persons under 18 years of age, engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.”

Does Berman comprehend why the possession of child pornography is a crime in the first place? Clearly not. Somebody please explain to him that the criminal element in child porn is the abuse of living children required to make it. The theory, which I have always considered something of a stretch but can accept the ethical argument it embodies from a utilitarian perspective, is that those who purchase or otherwise show a proactive fondness for such “art” in effect aid, abet, encourage and make possible the continuation of the criminal abuse and trafficking of minors. It is not that such photos, films and videos cause one to commit criminal acts on children. That presumption slides down a slippery slope that would justify banning everything from Mickey Spillane novels to “The Walking Dead.”

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Ethics Dunce (Still!): Harvard University

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

face

It’s quite possible, I think, that Harvard’s ethics rot is so entrenched and endemic that it can never be fixed, even by Barack Obama.

Here’s the latest revolting development. Harvard’s Interim President Alan Garber announced in an email that Professor of Jewish History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Derek Penslar will co-chair its new anti-Semitism task force, established to deal with the concerns of students, faculty, donors, elected officials and the public at large over demonstrations on the Harvard campus calling for the elimination of Israel and the murder of Jews.

Penslar is, shall we say, not the ideal candidate to encourage trust in the task force’s dedication to its task. He signed a letter in August accusing Israel of running a “regime of apartheid,” stating in part, “Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it.” He has also said on more than pone occasion that the problem of anti-Semitism at Harvard is being exaggerated, while quickly pairing it with Islamophobia. “Yes, we have a problem with antisemitism at Harvard, just like we have a problem with Islamophobia and how students converse with each other,” Penslar said this month. “The problems are real. But outsiders took a very real problem and proceeded to exaggerate its scope.” Jewish Insider reported that Penslar told the Harvard Crimson in late December that the amount of media focus on anti-Semitism at Harvard has “obscured the vulnerability of pro-Palestinian students, who have faced harassment by actors outside of the University and verbal abuse on and near campus.”

Being “Pro-Palestinian” is the exact equivalent of advocating the killing of Jews, and will be until the official mission of Hamas and other Palestinian groups is altered to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

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On NYC’s “Social Media Is a Health Hazard” Advisory

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

New York City proudly proclaimed this week that it is the first city in the U.S. to issue an advisory officially designating social media as a health hazard, and illustrated its achievement with head-exploding nanny state (nanny city?) overreach in a “health advisory.”

What the document mostly demonstrates is the culture’s flat learning curve regarding unstoppable cultural developments. In earlier generations, it was dime novels, dancing, jazz, rock-n-roll, TV and rap lyrics that communities sought to ban to protect the young. Now it’s social media. These are desperation screams in the dark. It is amusing, I must say, to see a far-left East Coast city government like New York’s take this course: traditionally it has been conservatives and their church-going contingent in Middle America who have advocated radical steps to”save the children.” “A pool table, don’t you understand?”

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Last Chance January Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

January is always slow around these parts thanks to holiday hangovers, but January 2024 was especially quiet. I have no idea why; it was certainly full of ethics news, and I know (by looking at my backed-up inventory) that I didn’t cover everything I should have.

This is the last chance to salvage the month’s honor and send us into February with some momentum.

So belly up to the bar….

Mutual Assured Destruction in Arizona

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

At least I hope so.

What’s going on here?From my perch, I see two Arizona politicians I wouldn’t trust to take out the trash setting each other’s career on fire. And, with any luck, both will burn to the ground.

The chairman of Arizona’s Republican Party, Jeff DeWit, resigned this week a day after The Daily Mail released a 10-minute recording of his conversation with Kari Lake, the recent losing GOP candidate for Arizona governor, seemingly offering her a bribe to drop her plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024.

The recording reveals Jeff DeWit, the state party chair, telling Lake that there are “very powerful people that want to keep you out” of the race. He says they told him to ask her if “there any companies out there or something that could just put her on the payroll and give her — to keep her out?” DeWit repeatedly urges Lake not to repeat what he is saying to anyone, and asks, “Is there a number at which — ” before Ms. Lake interrupts, saying “I can be bought?” “Not be bought,” he answers, just, you know, wait a few years before running. She sounds offended by the offer. “That’s immoral — I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror,” she says on the recording. DeWit persists: “I actually just wish you’d give me a counteroffer that’s big. Lake answers: “I can’t be bought.”

Holy cow, as Phil Rizzuto used to say.

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NOW Will You Sign My Petition?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I got a lot of eye-rolling, real and metaphorical, after I announced my petition aimed at persuading the Harvard Corporation to address the university’s credibility problem in the wake of the Claudine Gay scandal by offering the Harvard presidency to Barack Obama. As far as I can tell, I was among first to make the suggestion in print.

Today the New York Post reports, “Last week the Harvard presidency job was offered to Obama. He deferred the suggestion. Didn’t outright reject. Deferred.”

My Change.org petition pretty much died on the vine last week. Maybe a surge of support could tilt O toward Cambridge and give him something to do besides operating a shadow third term in the White House.

See? I’m smart! Not like everybody says, dumb! ….

A Boomerang For Republicans In New Hampshire [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

OperationChaosII

You may recall that Rush Limbaugh was lambasted in the non-conservative media when in March of 2008  he launched Operation Chaos.  Rush directed his zombie followers to vote in Democratic primaries for Hillary Clinton to stop Barack Obama from clinching the Democratic nomination early and to maximize the chances of a messy Democratic nominating convention. In 2016, Rush declared Operation Chaos, The Sequel open for business.   He instructed the Dittoheads to vote for socialist Bernie Sanders, whom none of them would consider voting for in a real election even if someone was pulling their fingernails out with pliers to make them Bernie Bros.  Instapundit, Newsbusters and other rightward sites cheered Operation Chaos II on.  As Ethics Alarms concluded at the time, “Conservatives are no more ethical than progressives, it’s just that their lack of ethics expresses itself in different ways.”

Or the same ways, in some cases. Trump Derangement, after all, justifies anything and everything, so Democrats in New Hampshire pulled off their own version of Operation Chaos (and didn’t even give credit to Rush, since departed to that Big Talk Show in the Sky, for their inspiration).

Exit polls in the New Hampshire primary indicated that  70% of Nikki Haley’s votes came from from non-Republicans who, at least one analyst surmised,  had no intention of voting for her in a general election. They would be Biden voters, presumably, and some said so. More non-Republicans voted for Haley, in fact, than Republicans. (Also, Haley got more votes than the President did, but you had to write in Joe’s name, so that may not mean much.) Haley received a paltry 40,938 Republican votes compared to Trump’s 172,202, but the Left’s version of Rush’s unethical stunt allowed the mainstream media to spin the results into a “Trump is weaker than he thought” narrative.

In 2016, I wrote that “Rush’s steaming pile of depraved Machiavellianism is not worth my composing a new brief against it.” Then, I reprinted part of what I had written  about Operation Chaos the first time. For the sequel, I substituted Bernie for Hillary. This time, I’ll use Nikki Haley, and I also have to replace “Republicans” with “Democrats” and strike the references to conservative pundits like Mark Levin who were cheering on Rush’s stunt.

And yes indeed, it is satisfying that the GOP and conservatives were hoisted by Rush Limbaugh’s stinky, unethical old petard. Continue reading →