A Brief Tale of “The King’s Pass”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

This is a personal anecdote that I should relate before it is lost in the fog of memory.

Earlier this month I attended a major law school class reunion despite boycotting the previous one (as I discussed on EA) following Georgetown Law Center’s disgraceful handling of the Ilya Shapiro controversy. I showed up at the big, fancy dress, all-classes gala in D.C.’s impressive National Building Museum, and when I checked in, was sent to a special “problem” desk because my name wasn’t on The List.

There I was told that I had been registered for the evening’s festivities and dinner by “someone”—not me—but that the fee hadn’t been paid. I offered to pay it (I was told it was $225) but they were not equipped to take a credit card. “Why would they have pre-registered you?” I was asked.

Well, I explained, I am something of a celebrity in my class, having founded the school’s musical theater company as a student, and that group is still active and also celebrated a reunion just last month. And I was the law school’s first Director of Capitol Giving. “Ah!” the guy behind the desk said. “So you’re a VIP!” He whispered something to his colleague, who whispered something back, then he said, “You will sit at Table #2!”

“Really?” I replied. “What about the $225?” “Oh, you can take care of that later,” I was told. “You know, I’m an ethicist, and this kind of thing is called “The King’s Pass” on my list of rationalizations,” I said. “It’s when someone isn’t held to the same rules and standards that everyone else is because of his perceived value and importance. It’s very common, but an unethical practice.”

“That’s interesting!” he said, as he handed me my freshly printed badge with my class’s ribbon. And printed in block letters above my name was “The King’s Pass.”

I was never charged for the event.

How could I participate in the “No Kings” demonstrations after that?

Breaking Ethics News: There’s a Major NBA Gambling Scandal! (Gee, What a Surprise…)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

(Of course, the obligatory…)

Here is the latest report, from the New York Times (gift link!).

Right now I don’t care about the details, which are just emerging. The point is that this was 100% inevitable as soon as the professional sports leagues got into metaphorical bed with the online gambling companies. Ethics Alarms has warned about this many times (here, for example). I couldn’t justify using the “I’m smart!” clip from “Godfather 2” (my usual “I told you so!” introduction) this time, though, because even Fredo would have seen this coming…especially in pro basketball.

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“White Lotus” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

[Warning! Lots of spoilers ahead: if you haven’t see all three seasons of HBO’s hit series “The White Lotus” and want to be shocked, surprised, amused or nauseated, you may want to skip this post.]

I just finished watching the third season of HBO’s “The White Lotus” after reviewing the first two. The show is virtually a cult at this point, a black “dramedy” in which each season follows the multiple story lines involving wealthy guests during their stays at a different resort hotel in the fictional international “White Lotus” chain. (Think Four Seasons.) Season One took place at a luxury hotel in Maui; Season Two was in Sicily, and the 2025 season (a fourth is in production) featured a White Lotus in Thailand.

There are scant ethical or admirable people in any of the three seasons, and that assessment spans a lot of characters. Yet the show’s dialogue, plotting and acting style are not pitched at a satirical level so these flaws are amusing; me, I found it depressing. We meet a wide range of people with a wide range of problems and challenges, but I didn’t leave any of the seasons feeling like I had met a single character who was both memorable and likable. Dead ethics alarms and warped values are the rule at the White Lotus hotels. At least there were moral and ethical lessons built into “Fantasy Island.”

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Hypocrisy Watch…

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

And people wonder why Trump beat the Democrats in 2016. Bernie is, to his credit, open and unrepentant about his hypocrisy, but it is kind of amazing that he still gets away with statements like this. He’s multimillionaire communist who rants about income distribution, and not only has a private jet but who mocks the little people who have to wait in lines for commercial air flights, and he fear-mongers about cliamte change while spewing more carbon into the atmosphere than any random 1000 Americans.

He can get away with this because he correctly assesses the IQ (low) and ethics alarms ( busted) of the average progressive.

And then there is Hillary Clinton. Saying, in effect, “Hold my beer!” the sad, bitter and irrelevant almost-first female POTUS (I feel sorry for Hillary, I really do) went for hypocrisy gold with this post on “X”:

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Ethics Meltdown at American Family Field: Who’s The Ethics Miscreant? A Test…

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Shannon Kobylarczyk (above, from the phone video that became her undoing) was attending one of the National League Championship Series games between the Dodgers and the Brewers at American Family Field when her interaction with another fan altered the course of her life.

Ricardo Fosado, an out-of-town visitor from L.A. who favored the Dodgers, engaged in a little friendly needling with Sharon, a passionate Brewers partisan, when the Los Angeles team took the lead. (The Dodgers eventually won the 7-game series, sending them to the World Series, which begins this week.) “Why is everybody quiet?” he asked.

Kobylarczyk was in no mood for gloating. She shouted at Fosado: “Real men drink beer, pussy!” and threatened to call I.C.E. on the apparently Hispanic spectator. She then told the man in front of her that he should sic immigration enforcement on Fosado. Now he was annoyed. “Call ICE! Call ICE. I’m a U.S. citizen, war veteran, baby girl. War veteran, two wars. ICE is not gonna do nothing to me. Good luck!” he said.

Why do we know all this? Because someone in the crowd who should have been watching the game and minding his or her own business was recording the whole confrontation.

Kobylarczyk escalated: she went to stadium security and reported Fosado for disrupting her baseball experience, or something. They ushered him out of the stadium citing “public intoxication.”

The team is the Milwaukee Brewers, mind you.

But wait! There’s more! The asshole who videoed the episode put it on social media, where it went “viral.” This resulted in Kobylarczyk being labeled a racist, so her company, a Milwaukee-based recruitment and staffing outfit called the Manpower Group, fired her ( she was the associate general counsel) and issued a standard virtue-signaling announcement to take credit for standing up for “a culture grounded in respect, integrity, and accountability.” Then Kobylarczyk was forced to quit the board of directors at Make-A-Wish Wisconsin, which also issued a statement condemning her. Naturally the Brewers also had to get into the act, so they released this statement:

“The Brewers expect all persons attending games to be respectful of each other, and we do not condone in any way offensive statements fans make to each other about race, gender, or national origin. Our priority is to ensure that all in attendance have a safe and enjoyable experience at the ballpark.” 

Then the team banned both Fosado and Kobylarczyk from the ballpark forever. Yeesh! Talk about a mini-Ethics Train Wreck!

The candidates for Worst Ethics Dunce is this mess are:

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Pop Quiz: Which Answer From This Pathetic Couple Is Worse?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I just rejoined “X” so I could pick off a post here and there, but I won’t be tricked into paying for a “blue check” again. That telling scene above just came to my attention. I was about to file it for a future “warm-up,” but decided to get it out of the way now.

At one of the stupid “No Kings” rallies Saturday, these two were asked if they supported the deportation of illegal immigrants. The guy, obviously the beta in the relationship, stutters, “Yes,” only to be admonished by his audibly sighing female companion. She then answers the same question with a “no” and explains, “It’s not illegal.”

Oh. Fascinating thought process there! Then the bearded guy, having been persuaded, almost, by her 1) dirty look and 2) her brilliant legal analysis, changes his answer to “I’m not sure.”

Which answer is worse, once we eliminate the ethical answer, which was “yes”? My vote goes to the weenie’s “I’m not sure”— stupid, cowardly, obviously insincere and still enabling law-breaking. That guy and his ilk are the ones who let the Left get away with its habitual “It isn’t what it is” strategy.

I hope the interviewer didn’t end that relationship. Those two deserve each other.

A Curt “Bite Me” To the Ethics Alarms Trolls

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I’ve been getting snarky emails and proposed comments chiding me for frequently misspelling “Charlie,” as in Charlie Kirk, as “Charley.” “Why do you keep doing that?” asks one.

Why? I do it because…

1. I write the blog in my “spare time,” of which I have none, and try to cover as much of the ethics landscape as I can to advance the mission of this blog and my profession as an ethicist…

2. I am often rushed and pressed for time, as this pursuit takes me conservatively 3-4 hours every day for which I am not compensated, at least monetarily….

3. I’ve always made a lot of typos because I can’t type, though I do a better job proofing than I used to…

4. I grew up with an Uncle Charley, who not only spelled his name that way but who also objected to the “-ie” version, so “Charlie” has always looked wrong to me…

5. Names with multiple spellings bedevil me and always have. Don’t get me started on “Stephen/Steven,” “Sara/Sarah” or “Madeline/Madeleine/Madelyn/Madalyn/Madelynn/Madilyn” (if that’s your name and I spell it right, I assure you that it’s an accident).

I want to get these details right, but readers who nit-pick on the irrelevant “gotchas” are not being constructive, and as in the case of the #1 Ethics Alarms troll, often are simply assholes. When they try writing 2000-2500 words a day of original commentary for 15 years while trying to keep a challenging business running with a dead partner, no staff and an often troubled family healthy and happy, I’ll take their critiques of my typing more seriously.

Until then, my response is a vociferous “Bite me.”

Confronting My Biases: Episode 23: Anyone Who Would Post or Sign or “Like” This Social Media “No Kings” Screed

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

This certifiably awful, annoying, hysterical, factually wrong, ignorant, stupid, smug and inarticulate thing turned up on my Facebook feed last night for the first time. Except for the nice, once intelligent friend who posted it, none of the signatories—there are hundreds—were known to me, but I’m sure that will change now.

I had to wrestle with myself longer than usual not to append a sharply worded comment to it: I would have been the first one. As we have established here in the many posts (too many, I suppose) I have written about the tragedy of Trump Derangement, it is futile to argue with these people, as they are beyond enlightening or reason.

But I know, I KNOW, that many wonderful people I respect, admire and care about will blindly sign on to this statement, manifesto, letter, whatever you want to call it, and that some of them would turn on me viciously if I ventured to point out the document’s undeniable flaws. So I want to treat this as I would a giant wart on a friend’s nose, a birthmark, a stutter, an annoying speech pattern or habitual bad breath, but boy, it’s hard.

So behold the monstrosity!

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Addendum: “And the Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Rolls On…”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I started writing this as a comment to the lively thread that has followed last night’s post, but decided to make it a separate post because the discussion raises its own ethical issues.

The Kirk denigration since the Turning Point USA founder’s death resembles that old kids game “telephone.” You would whisper a statement into the ear of the kid next to you who would pass it along down a line of ten or more and finally compare the original message to what the last one in the line heard. Hilarity usually ensued, as the vagaries of oral communication and the reception thereof resulted in “Mikey has a crush on Sue Brandeberry” turning into “Nike is suing someone who smeared crushed berries on its brand.” “Telephone” is a benign interpretation of a lot of the slander and libel against Kirk’s character and legacy; the non-benign interpretation is that people are just lying.

In the thread, a respected commenter here sparked some angry responses by answering my repeated question in the original post [“What did Kirk do or say that could possibly justify these freakouts?”] thusly: “At a guess, it might be his statement that passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake that might have been an issue. Or his highly uncomplimentary statements about Martin Luther King Jr and the approval of his assassination. Freedom of speech and all that.”

I have heard or read several equivalent versions of that answer since Kirk’s death, and they are worth clarifying and discussing.

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And the Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck Rolls On…

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

This surprises me. After all the negative publicity about various teachers, academics and entertainers making “I’m glad he’s dead, he deserved it” comments after the Turning Point USA founder was shot dead and their being cancelled, fired or otherwise shunned in the public square, I thought these vile people had at least the sense to keep their sick sentiments to themselves. But there were many outbreaks of vocal Kirk hate during the dumb No Kings protests over the weekend. Charlie Kirk was a “piece of garbage,” and “evil people” like Charlie Kirk have “no place in my world” one especially vocal demonstrator in D.C. said on video, as lawyer friends of mine I respect joined with her and others like her in n infantile primal scream against the results of an election. In Chicago, an elementary school abruptly took down its website after a teacher erupted in an anti-Kirk rant.

I’m still trying to figure out what it was the Kirk did or said to justify this venom. The anti-Trump hysteria is irrational and un-American, but at least I can understand it because the President goes out of his way to enrage those who are already unbalanced.

And the aftermath of the earlier Kirk hate-fests hasn’t run its course. Judge Ted Berry, a municipal judge for Hamilton County, may be removed from the bench for his social media posts celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk.

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