Ethics Quote Of The Month: Heather Mac Donald

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“When government abdicates its responsibility to maintain public safety, a few citizens, for now at least, will step into the breach. Penny was one of them. He restrained Neely not out of racism or malice but to protect his fellow passengers. He was showing classically male virtues: chivalry, courage and initiative. Male heroism threatens the entitlement state by providing an example of self-reliance apart from the professional helper class. And for that reason, he must be taken down.”

—Heather Mac Donald, in her scorching essay, “Daniel Penny is a scapegoat for a failed system”

That paragraph continues,

A homicide charge is the most efficient way to discourage such initiative in the future. Stigma is another. The mainstream media has characterized the millions of dollars in donations that have poured into Daniel Penny’s legal defense fund as the mark of ignorant bigots who support militaristic white vigilantes.

There is no way law enforcement can or should avoid at least exploring a manslaughter charge when an unarmed citizen is killed after a good Samaritan intervenes in a situation that he or she sees as potentially dangerous. Nevertheless, what appears to be the planned vilification of ex-Marine Daniel Penny by Democrats and the news media to put desperately-needed wind back in the metaphorical sails of Black Lives Matter and to goose racial division as the 2024 elections approach graphically illustrates just how unethical and ruthless the 21st Century American Left has become. (I know, I know, we don’t need any more evidence…). Mac Donald’s essay is superb, as many of hers often are. Do read it all, and them make your Facebook friends’ heads explode by sharing it.

Here are some other juicy and spot-on excerpts:

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Signature Significance Cubed: This Weekend’s Despicable Political Cartoon By The Washington Post’s Ann Telnaes

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

It is signature significance for a political cartoonist to issue such a cheap, dishonest, juvenile, partisan and unfunny cartoon even once: no cartoonist with wit or taste would create such garbage

It is signature significance for the editors of a newspaper that it would allow such junk to appear in the paper’s pages. Doing so proves that the newspaper has no journalism standards.

It is signature significance that any Washington Post reader would approve of such a cartoon. Such a reader must be either ignorant, biased into crippling stupidity, or corrupt.

Just to point out the obvious lies, distorions and hypocrisies in the cartoon:

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OK, I Admit It: Target Is Making It Difficult To Maintain The Ethics Alarms Anti-Organized Boycott Position…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Fox News reports…

“Target Corporation is partnering with a K-12 education group for which focuses on getting districts to adopt policies that will keep parents in the dark on their child’s in-school gender transition, providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools…”GLSEN leads the movement in creating affirming… and anti-racist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students. We are proud of 10+ years of collaboration with GLSEN and continue to support their mission,” Target said. The retail giant provides annual donations to GLSEN. GLSEN calls for gender ideology to be integrated into all classes, even math. It provides educators instructions on how they can make math “more inclusive of trans and non-binary identities” by including “they/them” pronouns in word problems. In another example, GLSEN recommended that teachers intervene if students are making graphs about sex and gender to ensure it includes the ideology supported by GLSEN. “When students are creating their own surveys, if they want to include data for biological sex, teachers need to be sure they include both intersex and other as choices.””[A]nd if the students want to include data for gender, a variety of choices need to be included, such as agender, genderfluid, female, male, nonbinary, transman, transwoman, and other,” a lesson plan continued….

To date, the retail giant has donated at least $2.1 million to GLSEN, which offers districts and students guidance on how to hide gender transitions from parents. 

For example, its policy for districts said, “[The local education agency] shall ensure that all personally identifiable and medical information relating to transgender and nonbinary students is kept confidential… Staff or educators shall not disclose any information that may reveal a student’s gender identity to others, including parents or guardian… This disclosure must be discussed with the student, prior to any action.”

Corporations have many of the same rights as individuals, and if Target wants to contribute to an organization that guides schools to conspire against parents and indoctrinate students into LGBTQ+ ideology and political agendas against the wishes of their parents (where doing so is legal), it has that right. Similarly, I have the right, and, I believe, the ethical obligation to ensure that none of my money finds its way to GLSEN or any similarly unethical organization through Target.

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Unethical Quote Of The Month: Pope Francis

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others…”

—Pope Francis in Canada  last July 22, in an irresponsible statement that is now being circulated and quoted in furtherance of ethical relativism.

Running across this quote has already ruined my weekend. Pope Francis has made a lot of dumb statements in his tenure, and dumb things do a lot of damage when coming from the mouths of those who carry great influence and power, and who are invested with moral authority. That is why they should be careful. Francis isn’t careful, which makes him an irresponsible and reckless Pope.

“Never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others” was the first part of a sentence that concluded with “or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others.” He was in the midst of a grovel tour in Canada, self-flagellating for the still ongoing Catholic Church sexual predator scandal as well as allegations of Catholic Church abuse of indigenous peoples in North America. I guess he got carried away, because the “all cultures are equal” claim is absurd and dangerous, as well as factually wrong.

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On The Lincoln Project’s “Open Letter” To Ron De Santis

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I have sometimes taken flack here for the blog’s liberal use of the term “asshole,” widely regarded as a vulgarism, to describe certain individuals or their conduct when no other description seems to suffice. I would offer the letter above as further evidence that in some cases, nothing other than “asshole” will accurately characterize the individual or individuals at issue. Indeed, I confidently offer this translation of the letter:

Hello! We’re the Lincoln Project, and we are entirely made up of assholes who depend on Donald Trump’s continued political viability to justify our pathetic existence and raise money for our own enrichment. But if you’ve been paying attention you probably knew that already…

I love the letter; if I ever write another book, I’ll use it as a graphic illustration of the unethical mind. It’s such a wonderful self-indictment, immediately beginning the list of its ethical breaches with incompetence. The Lincoln Project is a professional trolling operation, and it can’t even do that well.

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(Pssst! The “Travel Advisories” Issued By The NAACP And Other Groups Are Just Unethical And Cynically Misrepresented Boycotts)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The least organizations can do is to have the integrity to call their boycotts “boycotts.” In its latest partisan and divisive move debasing the organization’s original mission, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People issued a travel warning last week, claiming the sunshine state “devalues and marginalizes” issues facing “communities of color.”

“Florida is openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals,” the NAACP said. “Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color.”

Funny: “people of color” are a lot safer in Florida than they are in, say, Chicago, and the NAACP hasn’t issued any “travel advisories” about that perilous locale. Never mind: The Human Rights Campaign, knowing a neat trick when it sees one, issued its own imaginary travel advisory replete with misleading claims about Florida “banning books.” LULAC has gotten into the act too, as the progressive, pro-open borders Latino advocacy group urged people to avoid traveling to Florida because a new immigration set to go into effect in July will punish employers for hiring illegal immigrants. Other organizations supporting illegal immigration have sent out “travel advisories” regarding Florida.

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Ethics Dunce: Target (Again)

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Morons.

Yesterday Target sent out a mass internal email (above) continuing the woke pandering that has already cost the company billions in stock losses. The posturing and now the doubling down makes no sense from a business perspective or an ethical perspective. The chain had to close over a hundred outlets last year: this is just management incompetence that endangers the jobs and livelihood of the same people the email is “thanking.”

Here’s the text, in case you have as bad reading vision as I do:

“Yesterday was a very hard day for Target, and as CEO Brian Cornell said, thank you for the care you’ve shown each other, our frontline teams, and the LGBTQIA+ community. Today brings more reflection, pain and the need for continued care as our team, hometown and world remember the murder of George Floyd. As you make space to take care of yourself and each other, know that you can always tap into these tools from Team Member LIfe Resources, and as Mental Health Awareness Month continues, turn to Take Five to Take Care hub for more wellbeing support.”

I wouldn’t personally boycott Target because it is promoting gonad-tucking bathing suits for mentally-ill men, but I might stop frequenting a store that wants to celebrate the George Floyd disaster as if it were the Alamo or The Maine. There was literally nothing good that came out of the Summer of Floyd. People died, communities set themselves up for more crime and violence by rejecting the police; rioting spread across the nation, the justice system was compromised by a jury allowed to deliberate despite prejudicial influences during the trial, and then apparently ignored the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to convict Derek Chauvin.

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Last May 2023 Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I had one last chance to use the cheery song from “Camelot” again, so I took it. The 2023 revival of that show opened to near unanimous pans from critics in April (ironically); the book had been over-hauled by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin, and arrived with black knights of the Round Table among other panders to the woke Broadway crowd. It also arrived without Julie Andrews and Richard Burton, which was the real killer: the original “Camelot” had iconic stars, lovely stars, spectacle, and a really bad book (unlike the classic book it was based on, “The Once and Future King” by T.H. White. It also had a wistful title song that was turned into the valedictory of the Kennedy Presidency, ending with “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot!“

In Sorkin’s version, Guenevere refers to the song as “dumb” and, later, as “that stupid song about the weather.” Nice.

Cheer me up with fascinating ethics observations, please:

Ethics Observations On The Machete-Wielding CUNY Prof.

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Does anyone recall anything like this happening in previous crazy times, like the mid-Sixties? If you somehow missed this episode, “listen my children and you will hear…”

Shellyne Rodriguez was an adjunct art professor at CUNY Hunter College in New York City. When she saw a group of pro-life students, members of Students for Life, distributing anti-abortion materials on campus earlier this month, she attacked, throwing their pamphlets in the air and screaming at them, saying,

“You’re not educating shit! This is fucking propaganda! What are you going to do like anti-trans next? This is bullshit! This is violent. You’re triggering my students!”

After a shaken student tried to babble and apology (for existing?)Rodriguez responded, “No, you’re not! Because you can’t even have a fucking baby. So you don’t even know what that is…Get this shit out of here, fuck this shit!” Then she threw the group’s pamphlets off their table.

Hunter’s pro-choice student group, CUNY for Abortion Rights, tried to defend the indefensible, thus destroying their own credibility, stating (falsely)

“Hunter College adjunct educator Shellyne Rodriguez approached the display, constructively critiqued the group members, and eventually physically took down items from the table.  Her actions to shut down the tabling were fully justified, and are part of a long and celebrated CUNY legacy of confronting groups such as military recruiters who disseminate misleading information. Anti-abortion groups are in collusion with anti-queer and trans, anti-labor, anti-Palestinian campaigns, in a larger [sense] violate people’s bodily autonomy, economic well-being, and collective determination.”

The statement was co-signed by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance.

But wait! There’s more!

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Cognitive Dissonance Alert! Can I Still Ethically Enjoy “Tie Me Kangaroo Down”?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I’ve enjoyed that early Sixties novelty song “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport!” since I first heard it. It’s genuinely funny, employed black humor ahead of its time, and is cleverly written and performed. But I never bothered to learn who sang it or wrote it, until I learned the answer to both questions this morning when I read the obituary of Rolf Harris, who did both.

Rolf Harris was a popular British entertainer and TV personality who was convicted of sexually abusing young girls, and sent to prison. He never apologized to any of his victims (though he did apologize for using the racially charged slang “abo” in his hit song).

Ick. Here’s the Cognitive Dissonance Scale again…

The scale indicates positive and negative attitudes regarding people, places, subjects, events and ideas. Remember that like it or not, things that are connected tend to pull the things they are connected to up or down the scale. “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport!” is far from my favorite song, but it’s a solid +5 on the scale. Famous male celebrities who use their power and fame to sexually abuse children, however, are at least at -100, or lower. I don’t know how I can listen to a silly song and still be amused while my mind is telling me that the singer and author was a predatory monster.

And yet…and yet…I have written here many times that it is unethical to downgrade a critical assessment of a work of art because of the character of its creator, and that the art and the artist should be considered separately,

I believe that. I just don’t know that I can do it.