Ethics Tip (To the Biden Administration): You Can’t Resolve an Ethical Conflict By Taking Contradictory Actions Simultaneously

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I would think that would be obvious to mature, competent, experienced and responsible policy-makers. But perhaps that’s not relevant here…

I awoke today to the news that the United States has air-dropped “humanitarian aid” into Gaza. Three US C-130s dropped 66 palettes of food, 22 from each aircraft. Biden complained last week about the slow pace of assistance flowing into Gaza, the Israeli campaign against which the United States is supporting with its funds. Wars against enemies are designed to make the populace under attack less well-off, eventually to the point where their government says “Enough!” and surrenders. Aid to a population under attack is intended to make the population under attack better off. Simultaneously funding an attack on a region and sending aid to that region isn’t ethical. It is offensively cynical, not merely refusing to make a decision, but making contradictory decisions to appeal to groups with diametrically opposing interests. Sending aid of any kind to the enemy of the nation we are supporting in a war can accomplish little more than extending that war. The most ethical way to engage in the unethical practice of warfare is to end it as quickly as possible.

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So It’s Come to This: A Question About Sandwiches Reveals the Insane Ideological Divide and the News Media’s Bias

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

I’m embarrassed to have to write about this crap.

Earlier this week former New York Times editor Adam Rubenstein published a tell-all about his experiences at the paper in “The Atlantic.” His theme: the oppressive progressive bias that made him feel like an outsider.

Rubenstein related a minor incident when he was criticized for saying that Chick-fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich was his favorite after being asked about his sandwich preferences at his orientation. Rubenstein wrote that an HR rep replied, “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people,” and the other Times employees signified their approval of the rebuke by snapping their fingers.

So the Times hires Beatniks now! Good to know.

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I’m All in Favor of Female Athletes Refusing to Compete Against Transgender Athletes Who Went Through Puberty As Males…But in Pool???

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Activist Riley Gaines has announced that “Any woman who doesn’t compete and loses out on prize money, I will happily pay the fee out of my own pocket. In any sport.” Now she’s putting her money where her tweets are. “At the European Pool Championships, female player, Kim O’Brien, forfeited the women’s final where she was set to play male player, Harriet Haynes,” she wrote. “I am happily paying her the prize money she lost out on. Stop playing their game. More of this!!”

Isn’t this the weakest possible example for Gaines’s crusade? I don’t understand why pool or billiards competitions are segregated by gender. It’s not a strength sport, or an endurance sport. I may be missing something, but I can’t imagine why a woman can’t compete on even terms against any man in pool. Gaines seems to be falling into a sexist trap. Woman aren’t unable to compete on an equal basis with men in everything.

Friday Open Forum

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I woke up all set to write about the pernicious effects of consequentialism, since I am kicking myself for not forcing Grace to go to the ER the night before she died. I was certain something was wrong, but not fatally wrong, and she was adamant that all she needed was a good night’s sleep. If she wasn’t better in the morning I had resolved to call the EMTs.

Right now, I’m too exhausted to write much more than that.

Grace Marshall, April 8,1952-February 29, 2024

/ Jack Marshall / 91 Comments

I woke up this morning to find that Grace, the love of my life, my partner, lover, best friend and more, had passed away during the night. I had no warning at all; she had been having some health issues but nothing that suggested that she was in mortal peril.

We were married for 43 years.

I had a scheduled legal ethics seminar, and, of course, taught it as planned. After all, it was about professionalism.

I may write some more about this, depending on how I feel as the day goes on.

Ethics Quiz: Slapping Down the Daughters of the Confederacy

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

On the heels of the previous post about intolerant progressives came my awareness of the news that both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, passed bills that would eliminate long-standing tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that was founded in 1894 for female descendants of Confederate soldiers. The group’s mission was and is to honor Confederate ancestors through memorial preservation—an increasingly difficult job—and charity work. It is currently exempt from paying property taxes and recordation taxes, which are charged when property sales are registered.

This week the State House of Delegates passed a bill revoking the group’s exemptions as well as the property tax exemptions for two other Confederate heritage groups, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Inc. and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society.

To state the obvious, the three non-profit groups have been targeted because many legislators don’t like their beliefs and activities. Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said it was important to revoke the exemptions from “organizations that continue to promote the myth of the romantic version of the Confederacy.”

How dare they?

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Do Progressives Realize What They Are Becoming?

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

It’s a serious question. Several episodes lately have reminded me of the ubiquitous saying about how we all risk becoming the thing we most hated in our youth, or that we inevitably turn into the person we hate most, etc. There are too many versions of the quotation to list.

I started my mind wandering down these dark corridors while researching a post I may never write about Harvard’s gobsmacking alumni magazine this month, as various writers and revered minds tried (and failed) to make sense out of the university’s recent travails without, somehow, saying anything critical about the woman at the center of them, deposed Harvard president Claudine Gay. After all, she is still on the faculty (and black, and a woman, and a DEI warrior), so being overtly negative about her conduct—as in making her accept responsibility—apparently would be too transparent to countenance.

In an essay reprinted from the “Chronicle of Higher Education,” Derek Bok (who became president of Harvard while I was a student there) wrote about the school’s cultural challenges, and, I noticed, never mentioned the term “progressive” once in his article, only the term “liberal.” And I thought, “Wow. Talk about being out of touch.” Does Bok really think today’s militant, intolerant, censoring, bullying, doctrinaire progressives would qualify as liberals in his era? Sure, they embrace many of the same agenda items, being anti-war, pro-drug use, wanting abortion on demand and other Sixties obsessions. But they are anything but liberal in the classic sense.

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I LOVE This Lawsuit! It Might Be the Best “Great Stupid” Lawsuit Yet!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Mohammad Yusuf, a 43-year-old Chicago police officer, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city because it refuses to allow him to change his race from “white” to “of color,” or something. The Chicago police department allows cops to change their gender identity according to whim, and he argues that this is a double standard.

Yusuf “currently identifies as Egyptian and African American.” When he first joined the force in 2004, the Great Stupid had not yet spread darkness over the land, and he only had a few race option to choose from, he says. Now he believes Caucasian is inaccurate, and besides, despite the woke Chicago police department claiming to have a race-neutral and merit-based promotion system, Yusuf claims he has been “repeatedly bypassed” for promotions in favor of less qualified black officers.

No, really? I don’t think Chicago would ever be a party to something like that, do you? Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, as the saying goes.

Did I mention how much I love this lawsuit?

Yusuf even provided his 23andMe genetic testing results to prove he is mixed race and it all depends on which he chooses to identify as when it comes to tribal designations and their DEI rewards. Still, the police department obstinately refuses to allow him to be black. It’s strange, his lawyers argue, that other officers can change their genders on official records, since no genetic test would back that up. That Y chromosome is there for life. Is this not a double standard?

“While other CPD officers are afforded the opportunity to have their gender identity corrected to match their lived experience, Officer Yusuf and others in similar positions are barred from obtaining accurate racial designations that align with their racial identity,” the suit says.

Isn’t this great?

Biden-Supporters Are Officially Ethically Estopped From Complaining That Trump Lies

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

President Biden went on Seth Myers’s late night show this week to bask in a fawning interview by a partisan supporter who wouldn’t ask him any questions harder than “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?,” and still managed to screw up.

After the show’s taping, Biden was confronted by reporters while licking an ice-cream cone and asked when a Gaza ceasefire might occur. “I hope by… the end of the weekend,” Biden answered. “My national security advisor tells me we’re close. We’re close. It’s not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a ceasefire,” Biden said. That was great news for anti-Israel progressives, and right before the Michigan primary, where Biden was likely to face Arab protest votes against his re-nomination.

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