What else is there to say?
A Facebook Communist friend posted that, and I know he believes it. What kind of indoctrination, propaganda, and unethical social bubble makes an intelligent man think that bigoted analysis is true, fair, reasonable or responsible?
And I guarantee that no one will criticize or argue with that asinine post.
One of Ethics Alarms’ five commenters, indeed one whom I have had the pleasure to meet in person, took the plunge I will not take and wrote a Facebook post focusing on the Minneapolis I.C.E. shooting, noting that so many critics of the agent involved are displaying ignorance regarding the kinds of instant decisions “first-responders” must make in unpredictable and dangerous situations.
Since his was, typical of his contributions here, persuasive, measured, articulate and non-confrontational, one might assume that the responses to his post might reflect thoughtful consideration. In most cases, one would be wrong in that assumption.
One bright commenter wondered why the agent who fired on I.C.E.-defying protester Good didn’t “shoot out a tire” as her car came at him. Another analogized the Good scenario to this: “So when a masked man with no identification breaks down your door in the wrong house, brandishing a gun and yells at your terrified wife to drop to the ground and it takes her 5 seconds to understand the situation as she is frozen in fear, then turns to run it is perfectly fine for her to get 3 headshots because she might have had a weapon?”
I don’t know how it is possible to respond to someone who thinks that is a valid argument, except with the “Cheers” classic. “What color is the sky on your planet?”
I started really being annoyed at this when “The Gilmore Girls,” an annoying chick TV series to begin with, began featuring the single mom’s boyfriend who wore his cap like the guy in the photo. The graphic is a screen shot from a Tik-Tok video in which the guy is railing against wearing caps like that because you look like an idiot when you do. Verdict: True. In fact, I assume anyone who wears a baseball cap that way IS an idiot. It looks stupid, it defeats the purpose of the brim—there is no excuse for it whatsoever, except, in the opinion of the guy in the video, it is an attempt to look “like a ‘bad boy.'”
Oh. Well that’s all right then!
[The Powerline weekly meme collection is especially deft today]
Again I was preparing a detailed analysis of why I believe Trump Derangement is important as a category, a diagnosis, and an acknowledgement of spreading national psychosis, not as an insult or an ad hominem attack. Again I was derailed by what I laughingly call “life.” But at the risk of piece-mealing a topic that deserves serious focus: I was reminded of the issue when a good friend wrote on Facebook last night to the usual unanimous praise and agreement of the Bubble after another fact-free rant, “If you voted for Trump, de-friend me and fuck yourself!”
You see, I view that post as signature significance for clinical Trump Derangement. She doesn’t know how many of her friends voted for Trump in 2024, or why, but no matter what her relationship with them may be, however much they may care about her, how many acts of kindness or love they may have blessed her with, regardless of what they have achieved or suffered and who they have helped in the other spheres of their lives, the simple, civic act of voting for the current President of the United States is sufficient justification in her jaundiced eyes to condemn them and demand that they cut themselves out of her life.
That’s nuts.
Ace EA commenter Ryan Harkins, as he often does, flags the ethics conflict in the current escalating controversy over President Trump’s mass deportations, a.k.a, “Enforcing the immigration laws after a rogue Presidency refused to do so for four years.” The point he raises is not only a valid one but an important one, not just regarding this issue but others. I’m going to append a fairly long addition to Ryan’s excellent work, but first of all, here is his Comment of the Day from “Friday Open Forum, Dedicated To Major Tipton…”:
***
Here’s my concern about the situation we’re in. I would liken it to inconsistently disciplining your children. If you only irregularly discipline your child for a particular infraction, the child learns that most of the time, he can get away with that infraction. When that infraction is then punished, the child reactions disproportionately because he’s used to getting away with the infraction, and he believes that if he makes noncompliance painful enough, it will discourage further disciplinary action.
That seems to be the case we’re in with illegal immigrants. We’ve been very poor at enforcing our immigration laws, and so many said illegals and the communities around them grew complacent about the laws not being enforced. When the laws are enforced, it comes as a great shock, and the immediate reaction is to scream about how unfair it is. And to a certain extent, I do agree that it is unfair. It is unfair to cultivate the expectation that a law won’t be enforced, only to turn around and enforce it. But it is unfair because of cultivating that expectation, not because of the subsequent enforcement.
The significant problem is the whiplash effect of enforcement/non-enforcement depending upon who is in charge. We’ve run the gamut of no enforcement (even inviting in illegals), to soft enforcement, to promises of citizenship, to harsh enforcement. To anyone watching from outside the country, it is like dealing with a schizophrenic or someone suffering from multiple personality disorder. Worse, because we keep seesawing back and forth, the expectation right now is that by keeping up a defiant stance against the current administration, illegals and their allies can simply wait for the winds to change and go back to their lives as they’ve been.
I know this aspect of the situation glosses over the deliberate effort of radicals to the destabilize the nation, the outrage over the money spigots that are being closed, the efforts to import in reliable Democratic voters, and the genuine concerns over destabilizing families that had, admittedly against the law, put down roots and became productive members of their communities. But it is a serious problem that we seem to be lurching one direction, and then back the opposite way, with every swing of political power. This has been exacerbated by most policy changes coming from executive orders, which are easily undone, rather than congressional legislation, which is much harder to walk back.
At all.
Ethics Alarms has repeatedly pointed out that it is unethical to waste time, passion and civic debate on nice, hopeful, idealistic policy objectives that are literally impossible. The anthem for these positions, again as I have noted ad nauseam, is my least favorite John Lennon song, “Imagine.” Yes, I regard anyone who takes that tripe seriously as mentally-challenged and historically, economically and politically illiterate. The official political ideology of these misty-eyed utopians is, of course, Communism.
Utopians, which include at the lower levels of delusion progressives generally, persist in the belief that human nature isn’t an immutable constant and that certain principles of reality can somehow be wished away if we all close our eyes and hope hard enough. Thus we keep hearing that there shouldn’t be wars, violence, hunger—President Franklin Roosevelt, in his cynical, pandering “Four Freedoms” speech, actually said that there should be freedom from “want.” Riiiight, Franklin, like that’s going to happen.
New Yorkers, in their infinite ignorance, elected utopian (and communist) Zohran Mamdani as their mayor. The charismatic demagogue ran on all sorts of claims that various things should be achievable by government without his having any experience whatsoever in making and executing policy. Yesterday, the New York Times reports, Zohran engaged in a signature significance example of irresponsible wishcraft, handing out vouchers for free tickets to a theater festival featuring experimental works. “The shared laughter in a crowded theater, the eager debrief after a musical, the heavy silence that hangs over all of us in a drama — these are moments that every New Yorker deserves,” Mamdani said.
Got it. Everyone deserves live theater, see, so there. It costs too much, though, so “POOF!” let’s make it cheaper.
My sympathy for Hillary Clinton has finally run out.
For a long time, I have wanted to give Clinton every bit of leeway imaginable since her fluky, statistical anomaly Electoral College loss to Donald Trump in 2016. It’s an ethicist thing; the Golden Rule is strong here. What must it feel like to be that close to achieving your dream and to have it yanked from your grasp at the last moment? Oh-oh…I’m making Hillary sound like Moonlight Graham.
Still, I can understand why she has been so bitter and angry ever since. On the other hand, to go from “Field of Dreams” to “The Godfather”: this is the life she has chosen. “Politics ain’t beanbag.” It’s been 10 years. Time to grow the hell up.
Hillary’s latest outburst of Trump Hate—always wrongly placed because her own ineptitude, corruption and foolishness lost her that 2016 election—-came on the anniversary of Teddy Roosevelt’s death—wait, no, that was the worst thing that ever happened on a January 6th, but Hillary was using the date to misrepresent the stupid January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. Clinton posted a comment on X, declaring, “Five years ago today, Donald Trump urged his supporters to attack Congress and the Capitol over a proven lie.”
This isn’t a “Morning Ethics Warm-Up.” I am really just trying to keep up: right now I’m going to list quotes, videos and news developments relating to the apparent complete meltdown of the Axis of Unethical Conduct over the reality that President Trump is crushing so many of their schemes, dreams and delusions. The American way, the democratic way (ironically), would be to make fact-based, unemotional arguments, keeping the rhetoric civil, telling the truth, not trying to inflame the passions of the dumb, the illogical and the ignorant, and maybe even avoid saying “fuck” in the process.
In the intro to todays Friday Open Forum, I mused about designating this chapter of “The Great Stupid,” the social pathogen launched in 2020 with the simultaneous weaponized freakout over the Wuhan virus paired with the cynical and dishonest weaponized hysteria over the death of a single, over-dosing black perp under ambiguous circumstances involving a white cop, as “The Big Crazy.” For now, at least, I’m going to do that.
I chose that post above by Congresswoman Janelle Bynum (D-OR) to lead off as a perfect example of how Democrats are behaving. (Thanks to Matthew B for the pointer.) Here is a U.S. Congresswoman implying that the President of the United States has ordered law enforcement officials to shoot citizens. Law enforcement is “terrorism.” In past, non-crazy times, a public statement like that would be amply grounds for a bi-partisan Congressional rebuke.
Meanwhile:
—In New York City last night, a huge crowd chanted, “Kristi Noem will Hang!” and “Save a life, kill an ICE” as they gather to protest the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Nice. This is a violent party that has lost all ethical bearings.
—This is the kind of divisiveness and bigotry the DEI and intersectionalism ideology has fertilized. Mamdani’s racist aide is another example. These are not outliers:
—The lies that are being spread about Rachel Good are audacious, and yet many of my smart (well, they once were) Facebook friends are repeating them as fact. She was just an innocent, apolitical mom picking up her child from school and got caught in an I.C.E. raid! No, in fact Good was “an anti-ICE warrior” and part of a group of activists who worked to “document and resist” the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota. After she moved to Minneapolis, Good joined “ICE Watch,” a coalition of activists dedicated to disrupting ICE raids in the sanctuary city. Colleagues have told reporters that Good was “trained” in methods of interfering with I.C.E. Ramming agents with cars has been one of the practices of ICE Watch across the country.
—The NeverTrump conservatives who bloviate at “The Bulwark” apparently have neither shame nor comprehension of the English language. Tim Miller, a Bulwark podcaster and a contributor to MS NOW said that he was “shaken” by the number of people who thought assassination was the appropriate punishment “for not following a masked federal agent’s orders.” Yeah, that’s a fiar characterization of what happened in Minneapolis Rep. Dan Goldman and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani both the shooting “outright murder.” Who would believe any of these people after statements like those?
Yeah, it’s crazy out there.
I’m thinking of designating this chapter in The Great Stupid as “The Big Crazy.”
And one whole side of the political spectrum wants it to be crazy. You can talk about whatever intrigues you here, of course, but I wanted to post this Twitter/”X” statement from “Cynical Publius,” an articulate and clever conservative, which I believe is spot on:
Dear Democrat ICE Protestors:
Hi. How have you been? I know we don’t see eye-to-eye on much, but I am hoping you will nevertheless give me 5 minutes of your time, if for no other reason than for your own protection. I am going to speak some hard truths. Please listen. First of all, everything Trump and ICE are doing with illegal aliens is totally legal. They are completely operating within the bounds of federal law. The deportations are legal. The raids are legal. The detentions are legal. Your Democrat leaders know this, and they know it would be politically disastrous to just say “ignore the law.” Instead, they are attempting to delegitimize ICE while skirting around the full legality of what ICE does. To accomplish this, they need to paint ICE as being truly, horrifically evil. Nazi-level evil. They NEED that to be the image the public sees. That’s where you come in. When Democrat politicians, “organizers” and journalists send you out in the street to obstruct ICE operations, they are doing so with the specific and deliberate attempt to create a situation where ICE kills a bunch of seemingly “peaceful” protestors, all for the cameras. They want another Boston Massacre. They want another Tiananmen Square. They want another Kent State. They are desperately hoping for the deaths and injuries of scores of people just like you. THEY WANT YOU TO DIE IN FURTHERANCE OF THE CAUSE. Did you not know that already? Renee Good was a nice start, but she screwed up by hitting the ICE agent with her SUV. What they need is dozens of Renee Goods who—based on what the cameras show and do not show—were murdered in cold blood by ICE. THAT IS THE GOAL OF YOUR LEADERSHIP. Did you realize that people like Tim Walz and Hakeem Jeffries see you as mere cannon fodder in their war on America? Did you know that? It’s not that they specifically want you, John Doe at 123 Main Street, to die, but if you are one of the victims, so be it. All for The Cause. Is this what you signed up for? To be a martyr? If so, good for you. But if not, please consider my words. For your own good.
Best regards, CP
Over to you, Clarence…
Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!
Funny, though: they left out her love of puppies, how she volunteered at a soup kitchen, and cried at the end of “The Way We Were”…
Ethics Alarms 