Comment of The Day: “Saturday Night Ethics Fever, 8/27/2022: Davy Crockett, and Other Ethics Stories…”

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

This is an epic Comment of the Day by Steve-O-in NJ, really about three in one, and since it is so long and worthy of pondering, I’m not going to be my usual verbose self in an introduction.

Here is Steve’s Comment of The Day on the post, “Saturday Night Ethics Fever, 8/27/2022: Davy Crockett, and Other Ethics Stories…”

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Just a few late thoughts from a long time student of history who doesn’t like the way its pages are turning now….

I wouldn’t worry so much about the rhetoric that the President and his underlings are flinging around at this point. What I would worry about is the actions that will follow.

I thought that a lot of the rhetoric about putting supporters and members of the previous administration in jail or removing them from public life was just that, rhetoric delivered by overheated partisan journalists who ultimately don’t get to make decisions or try to make their overheated rhetoric a reality. I sneered at Jennifer Rubin, who is nothing more than a partisan hack who let Trump derangement syndrome melt her brain. I lashed back out at Leonard Pitts, who might bark viciously, but is ultimately no more than a barking partisan dog. I thought that ultimately these people were just loudmouth extremists who had been given undeserved megaphones, and their talk would ultimately go nowhere, as the Democratic Party settled into actually governing and trying to deal with the problems that this nation is facing, and they are myriad.

The thing is, the Democratic Party never really settled into governing, because governing in the nation’s best interest was not their primary goal. It has not been for probably three decades. Their primary goal has been ultimate power. A majority of the Democratic Party now really believes that this nation would be better off as a one-party state, with them as that one party. However, their failure to govern is producing some less than stellar results, and I don’t need to tell you what they are because you’ve seen them. If they continued on the path they were headed down at the beginning of this year, they would have been doomed.

However, instead of tacking to the center and trying to come up with some solutions to the real problems we face, which I won’t list because we’ve already listed them several times, they’ve decided this is the time to move to eliminate the opposition. You can say that’s silly. You can say that could never happen here. You could say this is a special case because Trump is just such a threat to make this country slip off the path it was intended to follow. However, if you said those things, you would just be fooling yourself and trying to fool those around you. The fact is that this attempt to put one’s political opponent in jail is unprecedented. Continue reading →

It’s Comment Of The Day Sunday! First Up: COTD On “Stop Making Me Defend Eric Swalwell!”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Once again, I’m waaaay behind in posting deserving Comments of the Day, so this will be the first of several posted today. Long-time commenter Dwayne N. Zechman tackled the question of why the belief in Natural Law does not require belief in God, and did a superb job.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Stop Making Me Defend Eric Swalwell!”:

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“The problem is how do you convey the idea that natural rights simply exist without suggesting a creator?”

The same way you convey the idea that GRAVITY simply exists without suggesting a creator. Or take your pick of any basic, unmoving truth that exists as a part of the existence of the Universe: Newton’s laws of motion, Conservation of Mass, Conservation of Energy, tidal forces, the way water almost uniquely expands when it freezes instead of contracts, the list goes on and on.

What all of these things have in common with mankind’s natural rights is that they undoubtedly exist, and that their existence is NOT the result of any human being anywhere making a decision that they should exist.

One can dive deeper into the actual reason and possibly conclude that there is a “Creator” of some sort or not, but it doesn’t change the basic tenet that such things do exist, have always existed, and will always exist–and no human decision, be it individual or collective, can change that. Continue reading →

Saturday Night Ethics Fever, 8/27/2022: Davy Crockett, and Other Ethics Stories…

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

For once, here is a germane Davy Crockett historical ethics note that has nothing to do with the Alamo. The episode is relevant to the recent vote-buying Hail Mary by President Biden, using tax-payer funds to deliver a large monetary gift to those who took on a financial obligation, derived its benefits, and were complaining that requiring them to pay their debts was “unjust.” It comes from an essay published in Harper’s Magazine in 1867, first flagged by the Foundation for Economic Education in 2008, and today by Instapundit.

A bill was taken up in the House of Representatives appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer, and several impassioned speeches had been made on the bill’s behalf. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Rep. Davy Crockett (D-Tenn) rose to speak. He said,

“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

The bill, which up until that point had been considered a cinch to pass overwhelmingly, was voted down. Later, the Harper’s piece claims, Crockett was asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, and replied by telling the story of a man who told him he would not vote for him again because he had voted for a Treasury pay-out of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children as a result of a recent fire in Georgetown. The man, as Davy told it, explained in part,

“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. …The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man…while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other…So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better…

Crockett claimed that he replied,

“‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”

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From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur”Files: Rob Reiner Provides A “Bias Makes You Stupid” Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Bill Maher managed to goad outspoken Trump Deranged Hollywood progressive Rob Reiner into a spectacular demonstration of what his lockstep ideology does to brains. From Newsbusters, which generously watches Maher’s HBO show so I don’t have to:

BILL MAHER: Let me ask you a more nuanced question about, is it okay to have a conspiracy to get rid of Trump. This came up this week because my friend Sam Harris was on a podcast and he said—

ROB REINER: What do you mean a conspiracy to get rid of Trump? 

MAHER: I’m going to tell you.

REINER: Okay. Thank you.

MAHER: He was talking about—

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: I’m going to defer to my lawyer here. 

MAHER: Truer than you know. They were talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop which was a story and now all the mainstream press has finally admitted it was a real story, it was a real laptop with, now look, let’s not pussyfoot around this, he was selling the influence of his father, Joe Biden. 

I mean, most political sons do, but let’s not pretend that, at least, wasn’t going on. I mean the guy, some guy from China gave him after a dinner, an $80,000 diamond, after dinner as one does. 

REINER: Yeah.

MAHER: If you are Naomi Campbell, but it doesn’t usually happen. Okay, so, Hunter Biden’s laptop was buried by the press, even the head of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, said that was a mistake. They buried this story because they remembered what happened with James Comey and the letter 11 days before the 2016 election. Comey said we have to reopen this email investigation with Hillary Clinton and it probably was the—I mean, she ran a horrible campaign, didn’t go to Wisconsin, we know all that. This is probably the last thing that sunk her. 

So, Sam Harris says it was appropriate– “it was appropriate– for Twitter and the heads of big tech and the heads of journalistic organizations to feel that they were in the presence of something that is a once-in-a-lifetime moral emergency,” meaning Trump. 

So, he’s saying it’s okay to have a conspiracy to get rid of somebody as bad as Trump. It’s a little bit of a thorny question because once you go down this road, this is sort of where we are in this country, the other side is so evil, anything is justified in preventing them from taking office, is it? 

REINER: No, no, you know it’s not justified? Using armed violence to try to kill people in the Capital. That’s not justified. 

MAHER: Answer this question. Is it, was it, answer this question—

REINER: What is the question?

MAHER: –was it appropriate. The question [crosstalk] is was it appropriate bury the Hunter Biden – 

REINER: You’re talking about the press doing that? 

MAHER: He’s saying that’s what they did and that is what they did, they buried the Hunter Biden story before the election because they were like we can’t risk having the election thrown to Trump, we’ll tell them after the election. 

REINER: And we know for fact that that’s what they did? 

MAHER: Of course, you don’t follow this? 

REINER: No, but, I’ve been saying that you know for a fact that’s what they did, I don’t know what they did. 

MAHER: I know, because you only watch MSNBC. 

REINER: No, that’s not true. That’s not true.

MAHER: Well, then you would know about this. 

REINER: I do know about that.

MAHER: Well, you’re acting like you don’t.

REINER: I do—I do know about that. I do watch Fox, but the point is we’re going to prove now that the press played, you know, tried to—

MAHER: They’re admitting it!

REINER: The press is admitting it?

MAHER: That’s not—yes, that’s not even an issue anymore, they’re saying yes we basically did this because we didn’t want this to throw the election. Yes?

KLOBUCHAR: I don’t know that they’ve all said this and I believe strongly in the First Amendment—

MAHER: Well, the New York Times definitely didn’t–

KLOBUCHAR: My dad was a reporter, I believe in it and I think you have to make sure you’re treating people fairly, but I think Rob’s point here is we are dealing with a man who used to be the president right now who literally tried to lead an armed insurrection and that’s why we are so focused on this right now.

Observations:

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Ethics Dunces: The Operators Of Detroit’s Belle Isle Park

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

This place should not be in business.

The Giant Slide at Belle Isle Park reopened last week after being closed for two years because of the pandemic (how this ride could possibly be a virus-spreader is beyond me, but that’s The Great Stupid for you). The 50-foot metal slide has been a  Detroit summer tradition since 1967. When it went back into operation last week, however, “the waxing was a little robust,” according to Ron Olson, the chief of parks and recreation for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. It’s nice that he can be so cavalier about people nearly breaking their necks. As a result of that robust waxing, every bump in the slide sent fun-seekers airborne, as you can see from one of the many videos made of the thing above. One woman bumped her head and lost her phone, headphones, glasses, a shoe and even a sock on the way down.

What fun! GMAC Cash, a Detroit rapper, even put the experience to song: “You can break your back, on the Giant Slide,” he raps. “You can even break your neck, on the giant slide. You can even bump your head, on the giant slide.”

Apparently nobody connected with the park bothered to stage a few test runs to see if the slide was safe after being put back into service after two years. No state agency checked it either, though most such amusement park attractions have to be inspected before the public can use them. It gets worse. Even though the ride was obviously dangerous, over 500 sliders risked their necks before the slugs operating the park thought hard about the violence they were seeing and said, “Ya know, maybe we need to fix this.” Then they closed the ride. (It reopened last weekend.)

The ethical values on display here are competence and responsibility, or rather the lack of them. The fact that nobody was seriously injured is pure moral luck. This is how people get killed.

The episode ranks an “Otter”:

Ethics News Flash: There Is Admirable Ethics News From New York!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

New York is the East Coast dead ethics twin of California, one of the most damaging ethics corrupters among the states, and a constant anchor on any efforts to keep the culture from rotting. With one unethical mayor elected in New York City after another, the depressing Andrew Cuomo to Kathy Hochul hand-off in the State House, the corrupt and irresponsible state legislature, two habitually unethical U.S. Senators and the state’s determination to defy U.S. immigration law and the U.S. Constitution (I don’t have time to get into the rest, like the New York Times, Broadway and the Yankees), the entire Empire State has become on ongoing bad ethics pageant. Thus it is a shock, a relief, and a glimmer of hope that the it finally has generated a significant positive ethics development that should prompt the rest of the country to follow its lead.

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Unethical Quote Of The Month: NY Gov. Kathy Hochul

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“We are fighting for democracy. We’re fighting to bring government back to the people and out of the hands of dictators. Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro – just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong. OK? Get out of town. Because you don’t represent our values.”

—-New York’s unelected, acting-Governor Kathy Horchul, fighting for democracy and against dictatorship by ordering American citizens out of her state because she doesn’t like their political beliefs

Wow. How must it feel to New Yorkers to get rid of a thuggish governor like Andrew Cuomo and have this as his replacement? Well, come to think of it, it probably feels fine, since they continue to vote for unethical hypocrites election cycle after election cycle. Nonetheless, Hochul is special. Democrats have been projecting their own totalitarian ways on their political opponents for many moons now, but seldom has the flagrant absurdity reached this epic level of self-indictment. Does Hochul even know what democracy means? Does her party? “Get out of the state if you won’t do things my way”? Exile for  dissidents?

We saw this before from Democrats—if a GOP mayor or governor ever demanded that her opponents move out, I missed it—back in 2012. Then the mayors of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City all vowed to ban the fast food chain Chick-Fil-A  from their cities because its CEO Dan Cathy expressed his support for a traditional definition of marriage, meaning that same-sex marriage was not on his list of favorite things. Pundit Ed Morrisey called their grandstanding the beginnings of “the easy slide into fascism.” Ethics Alarms called it “Democratic politicians attempting to use the power of elected office to stifle free speech and impose mandatory thought conformity,” and elaborated in part, Continue reading →

The Little League Cotton Fiasco: Good Job, Everybody! Now U.S. Race Relations Are In Ethics Zugzwang!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Boy, do I hate this story! As they say in “City Slickers,” “If hate were people I’d be China.”

During the Sunday broadcast of the MLB Little League Classic between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox, ESPN cameras zoomed in on white Little Leaguers on the Davenport, Iowa team putting stuffing from a plush animal in the hair of second baseman Jeremiah Grise, who is black. This immediately triggered a full-throated cry of racism from the professional race-baiter, because, as you know, this is a racist nation with a racist history and a population full of racists and a black American is hardly any better off than Emmett Till.

Social media erupted with outrage. ESPN piously explained that it was investigating (the supposed scandal that it had triggered.) The social justice warriors and race grievance hucksters followed the path of Carolyn Hinds, a Toronto-based film critic and journalist who saw the viral footage and tweeted that it was “exactly what we think it is and some people need to be taken to task.” (She, of course, didn’t know what was going on, but since it confirmed her biases, said that she knew.) Hinds wondered if the actions were “something that happens regularly with this team,” and what kind of lessons about racial tolerance were being imparted by the players’ parents. The Little League, predictably, tried to grovel away the episode, saying that the kids had “no ill-intent.”

That didn’t come close to illuminating the episode The team’s conduct had nothing to do with racial intolerance, but the obscene reaction to it did. It turned out that both Grise and his white teammate put the cotton-like stuffing in their hair. They were performing an homage to Hawaii Little League star Jaron Lancaster, who has a cool white-dyed Mohawk. There was nothing racial in the conduct at all. ESPN just happened to only show the black kid.

Just an honest mistake, I’m sure.

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Breaking News On The Stolen Election “Lie”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I still see it almost every day: a reference to Donald Trump’s stolen election “lie.” Trump, as is his wont, makes this slur too easy by his usual sloppiness of expression. First, he employs the language of certainty to express a belief that cannot be verified, and second, he keep focusing on voter fraud. However, as Ethics Alarms had indicated on many days in in many ways, there is a substantial likelihood that Trump’s second term was stolen from him (and the nation), not by fraud but by the continuous series of deliberate and unethical acts of sabotage committed against his Presidency, administration and campaign by Democrats, progressives, the news media, social media, popular culture, Big Tech, NeverTrump Republicans and the “Deep State.” (As an aside, the denials by the Left that the Deep State exists remind me of the once commonplace denials by Italian-Americans that the Mafia existed.)

This week, two bits of evidence supporting this position emerged:

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Open Forum, Insert Foot…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Or not…

I got myself and my company fired this week for being overly candid (and vociferous) in expressing my objections to the lazy, careless, incompetent support I received from the organization’s staff before and during a CLE seminar via, yecchh, Zoom. Essentially I cared more about the quality of the program than they did.

Well, it’s not the first time I’ve done this over the years; it’s reassuring to know I haven’t changed.

Here, in Friday’s Open Forum, candor is valued above all.

Have at it.

As for my misadventure, let us never speak of it again….