Ethics Quotes Of The Month: Andrew Sullivan, Victor Davis Hanson, And Me

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Before I get to the known and celebrated intellectual pundits, let me begin with what I wrote about Harvard in January of 2021. It is my blog, after all, and people kept telling me I had “drunk the Kool-Aid” and slavishly followed the Fox News narratives. In fact, I have correctly documented the abandonment of ethics by journalists and educators as they chose to become full-time propagandists and allies for the extreme progressive mission to dismantle American values and liberties. I had warned about how far Harvard was straying from its original mission for years before this, but the passage has a nice ring to it this morning:

“Harvard, beginning approximately during the regime of the previous president, Drew Faust, has been infested with serious ethics rot, and it continues to progress. I have documented some, but far from all, of the most disturbing aspects of this process, like the University’s practice of discriminating against Asian-American applicants (as well as whites, of course), which they are now defending in court. What is supposed to be the role model for the entire higher education system in the United States continues to give credence and respectability to unethical practices and values, spreading its own affliction to other institutions far and wide. Worst of all, it is indoctrinating its students to be anti-American, anti-individual rights, anti-Western civilization and culture allies of the radical Left, while attempting to demonize opposing views on campus and off.”

I’ll admit that I didn’t foresee the passive acceptance of anti-Jewish, genocidal hate on Harvard’s campus (Jews are the oppressors now, see, and non-traditionally cast as theNorth America-stealing whites, with Palestinians and Hamas playing the roles of Native Americans), but those who have followed the Harvard saga on Ethics Alarms were better prepared for this revelation than most. I announced in 2021 that I was boycotting my big class reunion in 2022 and wrote why in Harvard’s published compendium of class member updates. Mine was the only such protest: I suppose my reward is that I don’t have to wear a paper bag over my head now.

Andrew Sullivan, the natural conservative who tries so hard to be acceptable to the Left because that’s where all of his LGTBQ friends reside, delivered his ethics quotes in a substack essay, “The Day The Empress’ Clothes Fell Off.” He begins,

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Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck Update, Woke Universities’ Hypocrisy Exposed: Addendum

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

As I assumed it would, the uproar over the three college presidents’ embarrassing testimony regarding anti-Semitism has continued, and presumably will continue for quite a while. I want to highlight a few developments that I came upon after writing the earlier post.

  • Harvard president Claudine Gay issued a mewling apology to her campus.“I am sorry,” Gay said in an interview with The Crimson.“Words matter. When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret.” Yes, she really talks like this.

    “I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay went on to say in the interview. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged. Substantively, I failed to convey what is my truth.”

I’ve been writing a few posts lately examining my biases. One bias I don’t intend to overcome is the strong wave of nausea I experience when anyone talks about their “truth.” The rhetoric smacks of ethics relativism, and, in the immortal words of the iconic New Yorker cartoon, “I say it’s spinach, and I say to hell with it.” Continue reading →

Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck Update: Woke Universities’ Hypocrisy Exposed

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The backlash and debate over the ridiculously inept responses by the presidents of MIT, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania regarding anti-Semitic demonstrations on their campus touches on too many ethics issues for me to organize coherently right now, especially since I have been inundated by emails and phone calls from many people with diverse and perceptive thoughts about the matter. I’m going to devote this post to individual items related to the college leaders’ disgrace.

1. A core ethics conflict is the question of when campus demonstrations and speech cross a line into speech that undermines the educational mission of a school. A college is not required by the Constitution to permit all speech; the Supreme Court has been clear that when speech begins to interfere with the educational functions of a school, it can be disciplined and curtailed. The problem all three school presidents encountered is that their universities’ past record of restricting (or allowing to be restricted) conservative speech and speakers on campus made their stand appear to be that anti-Semitic speech on campus was tolerable even when it creates a hostile living and studying environment for Jewish students. As the prosecutorial Congresswoman pointed out while grilling the three women, racist sloganeering on campus would be swiftly shut down as harassment on their campuses. How can the double standard be justified? Answer: it can’t be.

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Friday Open Ethics Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I would think that the forum should be roiling today. It will also give me some time to finish a post about the aftermath of the humiliating performance by the three college presidents before Congress this week..

Just In Case You Don’t Appreciate How Much Of A Progressive Hack Site Politico Is….

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

…consider this coverage of the Jamaal Bowman censure. Some quotes:

  • “The House voted mostly along party lines to formally reprimand Rep. Jamaal Bowman over triggering a fire alarm last September, the latest episode of the GOP’s censure ire.” That’s the first sentence, essentially “Republicans pounce.” Bowman broke both a DC misdemeanor law by deliberately pulling a fire alarm without any fire, a federal law by disrupting a vote in Congress, and the House ethics rules as well. Politico frames this as a contrived partisan “gotcha!” by Republicans as in“There they go again, making a big deal out of nothing.” This is ethics corrupting behavior by Politico.
  • “Bowman (D-N.Y.) is the third Democrat that Republicans have voted to censure this year.”  Same thing: the sentence implies that the censures were just partisan attacks without basis. Twenty-two Democrats joined  Republicans in censuring Rep. Tlaib, whose repeated statements and tweets excusing Hamas while rationalizing the anti-Semitic chant “from the river to the sea” were exactly the kind of conduct condemned by the House ethics code. The hyper-partisan conduct in both cases was by the Democrats, most of whom couldn’t bring themselves to enforce Congress’s ethics standards as they must be enforced to protect the integrity of the institution. The House failed to censure Rep. Adam Schiff for his repeated lies in the media about the evidence of Trump campaign with Russia because Democrats protected him. The significance of the three censure votes involving Democrats is that the party’s ethics have rotted so thoroughly that Republican look relatively chaste by comparison.
  • “Bowman already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for pulling the fire alarm in a House office building during a chaotic vote on government funding at the end of September. The lawmaker had also agreed to pay the maximum fine, but some House Republicans who’d been incensed by Bowman’s actions demanded further punishment.” That commentary is moronic, and deliberately misleads readers. Its thrust is “he’s suffered enough,” as if the legal consequences of Bowman’s actions should preclude official sanctions by Congress. They are separate and distinct. Moreover, Bowman’s obvious lies about mistaking the fire alarm for a device that would unlock the door were worthy of House discipline themselves.
  • “Some on the right have charged that Bowman triggered the alarm to obstruct or delay the House proceedings that day, though he’s maintained he did not intentionally set off the alarm.” “Some on the right?” Bowman was caught on video doing exactly what he repeatedly claimed he did not do—still claims, in fact.  In the video, he doesn’t try to get out of the building; he takes down the two signs that would undermine his lie about finding the doors locked and mistakenly pulling the alarm in  a state of confusion and panic. The evidence is clear and undeniable: he intended to pull the alarm.  Politico’s report sets out to mislead readers who haven’t followed the story so they will believe there is a legitimate controversy over Bowman’s actions and intent. There isn’t. Democrats decided to support an obvious lie.

Politico is considered a major political news source. It is biased and unreliable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ethics Heroes: Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), Rep.Jahana Hays (D-Conn) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The three Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Pappas, Hays and Gluesenkamp Perez, had the courage and integrity to join Republicans in a successful effort to censure “Squad” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., for pulling the Cannon House Office Building’s fire alarm in September and, by extension, lying about it outrageously. Earning half-Ethics Hero status were Democratic Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Glenn Ivey of Maryland, and Deborah Ross of North Carolina, who all voted “present,” helping the Republican motion for censure to succeed. Although he should have been forced to resign, at least this was a public rebuke of Bowman making him the only the 27th lawmaker to be censured by the House out of thousands in four centuries.

That more Democrats couldn’t put aside party loyalty and their blind enabling of inexcusable conduct that violated both the law and House ethics rules is one more black mark on the party’s recent ethics record. Typically and nauseatingly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. described Michigan GOP Rep. Lisa McClain’s censure motion this way: “We’re all on the House floor wasting time talking about fire alarms. Not the economy, not inflation, not affordable housing, not lowering costs, not the gun violence epidemic that continues to claim the lives of our young people all across America.” What a jerk.

The issue was not “fire alarms” but the ethical duties of members as high elected officials, representatives of their districts, lawmakers and exemplars of law-abiding conduct. Jeffries should have been leading the effort to rebuke Bowman. Leaders like him are why Bowman felt secure in behaving as he did.

A Boy Who Identifies As A Girl Won An Irish Dancing Competition…Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I was thinking of making this an ethics quiz, but I couldn’t decide what to ask.

The Daily Signal reports—an exclusive!—that a teenage boy who identifies as a girl is heading to the Irish Dancing World Championships after placing first in the U14 2023 Southern Region Oireachtas competitions. The conservative website tells us that the winner competed as a boy and placed 11th in the world in the Coimisiún Le Rincí Gaelacha (CLRG) World Championships just eight months ago, in April 2023. (These kids just grow up and change sex so darn fast these days!). In the meantime, a “non-binary” contestant won another Irish dancing competition in August.

Irish dancing competitions are typically divided by gender. The Daily Signal reports, “Parents of girls competing in Irish dance are frustrated and outraged, saying that they cannot understand why a boy with physical advantages is allowed to dance against their daughters.” Huh? I would think a male would have only physical disadvantages in competing against girls in a dancing competition, just as a male dancer would be at a disadvantage trying to win the part of the Sugarplum Fairy in “The Nutcracker.” I assume female Irish dancers are supposed to appear, well, feminine while wowing judges with their footwork. If not, why is the competition restricted to girls?

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While We’re On The Topic Of Derek Chauvin…

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

…do you know what the difference is between him and this Alabama cop?

Moral luck. That’s all.

If the tasering killed the man, and it was possible, she’d be exactly as culpable as Chauvin. She might be more culpable, because her victim wasn’t actively resisting arrest when she used the weapon.

“Does Anybody Care?” The Justice System’s Ominous Sacrifice Of Derek Chauvin

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Glenn Loury, is an economist, academic, and author who holds the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University. Since he is tenured, Loury doesn’t feel constrained by the lock-step ideological conformity so many of his race (he’s black) hew to in the wake of the George Floyd Freakout. In his latest newsletter on substack, Loury writes in part,

Poetic truth “thri[ves] more by coercion than reason,” accusing all who dispute it of complicity with the ineradicably racist system that governs and has always governed the country.

That Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown is one such poetic truth; that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd is, I believe, another. Despite the aptness of Steele’s term, poetic truth is no truth at all, nor is it particularly poetic. It is power masquerading as fact, brute force in the guise of knowledge. The cities that burned across the country following Floyd’s death were expressions of such a truth, as was the incarceration of the police officers convicted of a crime they did not commit. The scramble to implement race-based policies and quotas, to elevate self-appointed gurus of “antiracism,” and to proclaim, against all evidence, the unreconstructed nature of American society were all tendrils of the same truth, which still threatens to assert itself whenever an incident emerges that fits its preferred pattern.

The cost in life, limb, and property incurred by this particular poetic truth would be bad enough. But I fear that, in the aftermath, when the embers have cooled and Chauvin’s name has been forgotten by everyone save his family, the true danger of the poetic truth of George Floyd will come to fruition.

Later in the piece, Loury quotes John McWhorter, the New York Times pundit: Continue reading →

It’s Time To Play That Exciting New Game Show, “Who’s The Dictator?” !!!!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Hello everybody! Welcome to “Whose the Dictator?” the popular ethics game show!  Welcome panel! And here’s today’s challenge…

You see before you two Presidents: one, Joe Biden, a Democrat and current residence of the White House. Next to him is Donald Trump, previously President, and currently seeking to be the candidate of the Republican Party for his old job in 2024. Currently, the mainstream media is calling Mt. Trump an aspiring dictator, based on banter with Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall. Here’s CBS’s report…as you know, CBS is the most trusted name in news, being the network that gave us Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Dan…never mind, let’s stop at Walter:

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday in Fox News Town Hall that he would not be a dictator “except for Day One” if he is elected to the presidency next year.

In a taped town hall with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity in Iowa, the former president was asked whether he would use the presidency to “abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people” several times.

“You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.

“Except for Day One,” Trump said.

When asked to clarify, Trump said he would use the presidency to close the border and increase oil drilling in the U.S.

“That is not retribution,” Hannity said.

“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no. Other than Day One.’ We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” Trump said.

The Biden campaign immediately pounced on the comments in a campaign email and posted a clip of the exchange to X.

“Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one. Americans should believe him,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said.

The report didn’t bore anyone by discussing why “drilling, drilling, drilling” suggests dictatorial conduct or aspirations, or what the statutory authority is for the President closing the border legally and constitutionally, but, as you know, panel, the American voter is already fully cognizant of and sophisticated in its knowledge of these things, thoroughly educated on the President’s role in constitutional government and the limits of Presidential power thanks to the excellent training in civics that our public school system provides. Besides, everyone knows what Trump is like and what his real motives are, right?

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