Ethics Takes No Holiday, 6/20/2022: Words And Kisses

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

To my shock and amazement, my 27 year old son appeared yesterday to wish me a happy Father’s Day. He gave me a big hug, and like his father and his father before him, he is not a hugger. It meant a lot more to me than any damn tie…

1. “Evil” is back streaming for a third season, and return of the odd and creepy drama created by Robert and Michelle King of “The Good Wife” fame reminded me of an unethical ploy by the series’ protagonist in its first season that I neglected to note in 2019. Katja Herbers as Dr. Kristen Bouchard was convinced that her professional rival, Dr. Leland Townsend (gradually revealed over the path of the series to be an agent of evil), had a vendetta against her and a young man facing incarceration. She surreptitiously taped a conversation with him in which he made damning statements, but for some reason only her side of the exchange registered on the recording device. To have his testimony in a hearing discredited, she asked a tech whiz associate to “deep fake” Townsend’s missing answers on the tape based on her (truthful and accurate, of course) memory of them. Then she played the altered tape for the judge.

Her rationalization afterwards was that the faked recording was a small wrong, but that without it a young man’s life would be destroyed and the evil plan of her rival would succeed. Since it’s quite possible that Townsend is the Devil himself or at least some denizen of Hell, the incident literally contradicted my favorite exchange from “A Man For All Seasons”…

It also illustrates the seductiveness of extreme utilitarianism.

2. The weekend debut of the latest installment of Pixar-Disney’s “Toy Story” franchise, which I wrote about here, bombed, with about half the box office that its predecessors had in their first outings. As with the all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot, the culture wars divide is offering contrasting reasons for the flop that support their respective narratives. Conservative writers argue that parents don’t want to take their kids to see animated films that promote gay relationships, and that Disney’s ham-handed woke politics has over-reached, alienating a substantial portion of the public. The other end of the spectrum blames conservatives for poisoning the market for the film by over-emphasizing “the Kiss.” Me? I felt my ideological arm being twisted uncomfortably hard in “Toy Story 4,” as each of the original’s sequels were more and more aimed at progressive messaging.

Disney has a problem. It successfully rose to domination in part because its products appealed to mainstream American values and aspirations, and was viewed as bolstering and supporting them. Recently, it has been betting, like many corporations, most of the media and of course the Democratic Party, that the Great Progressive Borg will assimilate all, and that resistance is futile. It has to pick sides, because cultural power has always been Disney’s engine. However, Walt had an uncanny understanding of the American zeitgeist. I don’t think his current successors do.

3. And speaking of Disney’s quarrel over Florida declaring that gay and trans teachers should keep their sexual histories, practices and activism out of the classroom, here’s a fun story. Alden Bunag, who described himself as “socialist high school teacher” in Hawaii, had a Twitter rant in which he accused conservatives who agreed with the recent prohibitions in Florida and elsewhere of “projecting.” “You’re fucking acting like we want to show kids porn or something, but something I’ve learned through the years is that whenever right-wingers accuse others of something, it’s DEFINITELY because they’re projecting”, he wrote…and then was arrested and charged with sending child porn pictures and video to another teacher and having sex with a 13-year-old student.

4. Oh no! Not “the p-word”! Ivanka’s chief of staff, Julie Radford, told the January 6 Star Chamber that President Trump referred to Vice President Pence using the “p-word.” What the hell is the “p-word?” Or maybe I should say “What the f-word is the p-word?” I actually thought they were talking about “pansy” until CNN’s Jake Tapper, to his great and glorious credit, said the word they were taking about: “pussy.” Ah! Of course!

“Pussy,” you know, doesn’t have to be “the p-word” if the ones using it are members of the feminist Pussy Squad wearing their pussy hats, but when Donald Trump uses the word (allegedly) not to refer to the female anatomy at all but to mean “weenie,” then it has to be referred to as the “p-word.”

There was a character on “The Sopranos” called “Big Pussy.” Did newspaper critics call him “Big P-word”? I don’t recall.

In its horror of “hate speech,” the emerging crazy Left will have us using so much coded speech that communication itself will be impossible, which is the idea. Lizzo recently released a single called “GRRRLS” with the Yeats-like lyrics,

“Hold my bag, bitch. Hold my bag/ Do you see this shit?/ I’m a spaz/ I’m about to knock somebody out/ Yo, where my best friend?/ She the only one I know to talk me off the deep end.”

A single angry tweeter, disability activist, Hannah Diviney, declared that Lizzo’s use of the word “spaz” was offensive and an ableist slur. Lizzo then immediately removed the word from the song. (Must…Obey.. the Mob…) In her case as well, the word (which many news accounts communicated as “s—“) wasn’t used to mean what the complainer was referencing, but never mind. So is “spaz” now the “s-word”? I thought the s-word was “shit,” which is in the same song. Guess not. Does that also mean that “bitch” isn’t the “b-word” any more?  What is?

We need a glossary of all the words that the Left wants us to never say, unless we have their permission.

On second thought, f-word that.

Ethics Dunce: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Bad, bad Ann. I’m very disappointed and surprised. In a post this morning, the usually reliable if eccentric law professor bloggress highlighted the anti-“pit bull” propaganda of DogsBite.org, an Ethics Alarms Unethical Website of the Month, and a vile purveyor of bad information that shares responsibility for the destructive “dangerous breed” laws around the country, discriminatory home-owners insurance rates, and the deaths of thousands and upon thousands of innocent, loving dogs.

Like the execrable website and the incompetent Times article it highlights, Althouse never clarifies the critical fact that there is no such breed as “a pit bull.” American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers,  Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and any mixture thereof, plus a number of breeds like American Bullys, Corso Canes, Doggo de Argentino, and especially American Bull Dogs are all lumped together as “pit bulls” by ignorant reporters and police, and even veterinarians, making the website’s assertion that a disproportionate number of dog attacks come from that “breed” a statistical whopper. Yet Althouse, whose husband once had a blog dedicated to dog photos and who is a dog-lover herself, just goes along with the deception, and worse for a lawyer, never points out the “evidence” is absurdly flawed. If you combine many breeds into a single “breed,” of course that “breed” will have a disproportionate share of whatever dog incident one is counting.

Continue reading →

ABC/Ipsso Poll Shows That Media Propaganda Plus Public Ignorance Is The Democratic Party’s Best Shot

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Or that, once again, the “resistance”/Democratic Party/ mainstream media” collective can fool enough of the people one more time.

Abe Lincoln will be watching with interest.

That appears to be the plan, at least once the hysteria-mongering over Roe v. Wade and various deranged shootings runs its course. An ABC News/Ipsos poll just released asserts that a majority of the American public believes that President Trump committed a crime or crimes related to the January 6th riot, which most of the news media has been falsely calling an “insurrection” for a year and a half. A majority of Americans also thinks the House commission on the matter is doing a fair and impartial job, because that’s how the news media has represented the proceedings.

President Trump did not commit any crimes that have been uncovered so far as the Democrats and Trump foes have searched for evidence of any, and the House inquiry is absolutely not “fair,” as even a casual informed observer could see with one eye shut. The news media has spun the entire matter to mislead, however, and the public, sadly and predictably, literally doesn’t know what it’s opining about.

Continue reading →

Happy Conflicting Incoherent Holidays Day!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Have we ever had two holidays collide before? I don’t recall any. Fathers Day occurs on the third Sunday of June, and the newly minted Federal holiday, “Juneteenth” is on the 19th. All of the commercial marketing for weeks now has concentrated on the former (gotta move that necktie inventory!) while all the virtue signaling has focused on the latter.

Continue reading →

It’s True That The Mainstream Media Is Attacking Herschel Walker As It Would Never Attack A Black Progressive Senate Candidate…It’s Also True That He Deserves It

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

There’s a new scandalous revelation involving Herschel Walker. I’m certain there are more to come. But first, some perspective.

A lot of terrible candidates will be running for powerful positions across the country in November. Neither party has a monopoly on them, or the shame the parties deserve for inflicting them on the nation. Naturally, the unqualified, dishonest and otherwise awful candidates offered by the Republicans have received and will continue to receive the vast majority of criticism from the news media, which, after all, has its mission. That imbalance is unfair, but only in the sense that embarrassments like Maxine Waters, Ted Lieu, Adam Schiff, “The Squad,” Cori Bush and so many indisputably unethical Democrats are allowed to continue to soil the democracy. But in cases like Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, no amount of negative news media exposure is too much. In his case, the news media is doing its job.

Good heavens, what a disgrace! The former college and pro football star has lied about his record as a businessman, his role in a for-profit program alleged to have exploited veterans while defrauding the government, his academic record and more. What Walker has admitted to is also pretty disturbing: in his autobiography, he described playing Russian Roulette, engaging in domestic abuse, and stalking more than one individual with the intent of doing them harm. These are framed as part of a redemption saga, which would be more convincing if Walker wasn’t continuing to lie, obfuscate and generally behave like a con artist on the campaign trail.

Continue reading →

Beautiful Day, Ugly Ethics, 6/18/2022: Cheeky, Creepy, Creaky And Leaky

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A fantastic day in Northern Virginia today: 74 degrees, cool, gusty breezes, blue skies. Then I made the mistake of reading things, and the whole day was blown to hell.

I learned, for example, that Mark Shields had died. Shields, a native Bostonian like me but unlike me, with a classic Beantown accent, was a regular liberal talking head on a succession of public events panel shows on CNN and PBS, finally retiring in 2013. He was an old-fashioned Boston New Deal/Kennedy liberal, which is to say, not insane. I shared a pole with him on a shuttle at Reagan National Airport. As we bounced around, Shields chatted with me like I was an old friend, made some funny comments, and was delightful, modest, and acted nothing like so many media personalities that I have had the misfortune to encounter over the years. I will remember Shields not as the knee-jerk Democrat he played on TV, but as a nice guy who treated strangers the way everyone should treat strangers.

1. From the “Tail trying to wag the dog” files: A provocative lament about the results of a Roe v. Wade reversal is in this op-ed by a mother who asks, “I.V.F. Gave Me My Daughter. What Will Happen After Roe?” She’s concerned that a growing consensus that embryos are human lives, or eventually that life begins at conception, may make aspects of the in vitro fertilzation process more difficult, expensive, or even illegal. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “An Ethics Quiz In An Ethics Quiz: Texas A.G. Ken Paxton’s Facile Remark”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

As I hoped it would, the post about Texas AG Ken Paxton’s cliched response when asked what he would say to a parent of one of the children slain by Salvador Ramos in Uvalde (“I believe god always has a plan. Life is short, no matter what it is.”) prompted an excellent discussion, with many outstanding comments. I am highlighting John Paul‘s entry as a Comment of the Day, but the discussion itself is well worth reviewing.

For some reason, I am just now realizing that virtually all of the discussion, including my analysis in the original post, has focused on the first part of Paxton’s statement, and ignored the equally obnoxious second sentence, “Life is short, no matter what it is.” Let me quickly remedy that now.

While the first sentence is a cosmic assertion of dubious legitimacy, the second is a pure shrug. It is a rationalization, essentially following the infuriating logic of the worst on the Ethics Alarms list, the infamous #22, “It’s not the worst thing.” Paxton is saying that all deaths come too soon, so we shouldn’t over-rate the tragedy of any death, even in the violent murder of a child. It’s a stunningly callous and stupid thing to say, and it is also untrue. “Life is short” is meaningless, because “short” is a relative term. If Paxton means human life is too short, as I assume he does, that is also an infantile assertion. Compared to what? A mayfly (or an aborted fetus) would be profoundly envious of the life we find to be “too short.” H.P. Lovecraft wrote a famous horror story about a woman who wished for and was granted eternal life without eternal youth, and ended up as a centuries old , mad, twisted, monstrous thing chained to the wall of a dungeon. Her life, it’s fair to conclude, was too long. So were the lives of Ted Bundy and Salvador Ramos, as well as the lives of all of history’s monsters and murderers. Jacques Cousteau famously wrote that he thought he was going to drown when he was just a teenager, but had experienced so much that he felt like his life had been long enough, and was ready to perish content. My father had, in George Bailey’s terms, a wonderful life, but it ended exactly when he wanted it to, because he could no longer live it on his own terms. The fact is that a life snuffed out in childhood is genuinely too short, and the fact that George Bernard Shaw or, some day soon, Queen Elizabeth isn’t quite ready to go when the time comes is an offensive, disrespectful, inexcusable comparison.

Here is John Paul’s Comment of the Day on the post, “An Ethics Quiz In An Ethics Quiz: Texas A.G. Ken Paxton’s Facile Remark”:

***

Continue reading →

Democratic Senators Push Google To Limit Information In A Letter That Google Is Burying

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This is a genuinely ominous story for several reasons. It’s also consistent with a recent theme on Ethics Alarms and in the Left’s increasingly anti-democratic philosophy of governing.

Reuters (and so far no other news source that I can find) is reporting that

U.S. lawmakers are urging Alphabet Inc’s leading Google search engine to give accurate results to people seeking abortions rather than sometimes sending them to “crisis pregnancy centers,” which steer woman away from the procedures. The request came in a letter, whose top signatories are Senator Mark Warner and Representative Elissa Slotkin, being sent to Google on Friday.

The letter was prompted by a study released last week by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study found that 11% of the results for a search for an “abortion clinic near me” or “abortion pill” in some states were for centers that oppose abortion.

…The letter to Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and was signed by 13 senators and three members of the U.S. House of Representatives as of midmorning Friday. All are Democrats.

“Google should not be displaying anti-abortion fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers in search results for users that are searching for an ‘abortion clinic’ or ‘abortion pill,'” the lawmakers wrote.

“If Google must continue showing these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled,” they wrote…

So far, nobody, including Reuters (and definitely not Google), has made the full text of the letter public. If the Reuters report is accurate, however, this effort isn’t just unethical, it is sinister. Continue reading →

Can Of Waning Work Week Ethics Worms: Race-Based Justice And Other Revolting Creatures [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

1. I hate to take pleasure in anyone’s career setbacks, but...the word that CNN’s unethical media watchdog, Brian Stelter, is about to get dumped is good news for everyone but him. It also means that CNN will have rid itself of its two most flagrantly partisan and dishonest talking heads, the other being Chris Cuomo. Stelter took over “Reliable Sources” from the flawed but qualified Howard Kurtz, who had covered media conduct for the Washington Post, and at least tried to be objective (and still does at Fox.) Stelter immediately transformed the Sunday show into a CNN-fawning, Fox News-bashing epitome of what a news ethics show must not be. The last hack standing among CNN’s worst is now Don Lemon, who because he is black, gay and cute apparently is immune from his just desserts. As Meat Loaf memorably observed, however, two out of three ain’t bad.

2. Wait, what? Tim Allen isn’t the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the new Pixar film? The Buzz origin film, which has Chris Evans as the new voice of the popular character from “Toy Story” 1-4 is already creating controversy because it features a lesbian kiss. You know: that’s Disney’s way now. The movie’s director Angus MacLane “explained” that the recasting was necessary because the new animated film called for a more serious Buzz. Does anyone believe that? Allen was replaced because he’s an outspoken conservative, and Disney/Pixar wanted a star who would vigorously defend lesbian smooches in a kids movie, because that is apparently it’s priority these days. If the director wanted Buzz to sound more serious, he could direct the voice actor to voice him that way.

Continue reading →

Censoring Expressive Speech By Bowing To Threats Is Unethical…Yes, Even When The Speech is John Hinckley’s

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

 Market Hotel agreed to host a concert on July 8th featuring the musical stylings of attempted Reagan assassin John Hinckley, Jr., who has been released  into the world on the theory that he was never technically guilty of a crime because he was insane at the time.  Hinckley called the show the beginning of his “Redemption Tour,” during which he will play his songs (are those bad rip-offs of Dylan dedicated to Jodie Foster on the program?) to promote, he says, rehabilitation for formerly incarcerated criminals and the mentally ill. Continue reading →