I’m sorry, I just feel like the weight of the ethics world is on my shoulders, so I’m going to selflessly leave the ethics commentary to you. I have to think of my well-being first, after all. There is no “U” in team. No, that’s not quite right…
Unethical Quote Of The Month: NBC Gymnastics Commentator Nastia Liukin
I’m not going to pull a single quote from former gymnast and current ethics corrupter Liukin’s much-praised and shockingly awful letter slobbering all over Simone Biles. The whole thing is revolting, and as riddled with offensive anti-ethics as Sonny Corleone was riddled with bullets. Here it is—I’m going to letter each line for reference.
Dear Simone,
Thank you.
A. Thank you for showing the depth of who you are beyond an athlete as a leader, role model, mental health warrior, and person.
B. Thank you for epitomizing what the next generation of role models should be.
C. Thank you for creating a safer space for current and future athletes to unequivocally be themselves.
D. Thank you for helping the world realize that prioritizing your physical and mental health is the mark of a true champion.
E. Thank you for illuminating that nobody is defined by the depth of their trophy case, and that you don’t owe anything to anyone but yourself and the pursuit of happiness.
F. Thank you for taking the sport of gymnastics to new heights as the unanimous GOAT. No one will be remembered for any single routine, competition, or medal.
G.You, however, will undeniably be remembered by many for the compassion and bravery shown here in Tokyo.
H.You came here as a gymnast, and you’re leaving as a hero.
xo NL
Wait, I have to gag…ACK!!PTUI!GGGGACK!
I think it’s past, but as I review this astounding exercise in gaslighting and designating as admirable what isn’t, my gorge may rise again, so you have been warned. Well..
Not Cakes, But Advocacy: The Tenth Circuit Rules That Compelled Expression Is Constitutional
I will state up front that I am confident that this decision will get to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that if and when it does, it will be reversed.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Denver ruled 2-1 that website designer Lorie Smith and her company, 303 Creative, violated a Colorado law by refusing to create a website celebrating a same sex union. She was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian nonprofit, who also represented Christian baker Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. There is a material difference, however, between a cake and a website. A cake is not generally thought of as expression, and there is a colorable argument that a bakery is a public accommodation. But Smith, whose company designs wedding websites, argues that forcing her to make one that supports a same-sex marriage violates her religious beliefs. It isn’t frosting and cake shades at issue, it’s words.
A Colorado public accommodation law bars public accommodations from refusing to provide equal access to services because of sexual orientation. The law’s communication clause also says public accommodations cannot publish any communication indicating that full access to services will not be provided because of sexual orientation. The appeals court majority decreed that neither provision violates Smith’s free speech and free exercise rights under the First Amendment, even though it acknowledged that Smith’s websites are pure speech that involve her unique creative talents. But, the Court claims, indulging in an “it isn’t what it is” rationalization, Colorado “has a compelling interest in protecting both the dignity interests of members of marginalized groups and their material interests in accessing the commercial marketplace…We agree with the dissent that a diversity of faiths and religious exercise, including appellants’, ‘enriches’ our society…Yet a faith that enriches society in one way might also damage society in other ways, particularly when that faith would exclude others from unique goods or services.”
This opinion is way, way over the traditional judicially-drawn line between compelling public accommodations to be equally accessible to all and compelling artistic expression. Under this theory, a singer who performs at weddings would have to warble at a same-sex ceremony, even if her faith held that such a ceremony was a sin.
And Yet Another Entry From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files! “There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote”(NYT)
I really didn’t plan this. I certainly didn’t plan on having to shackle my arms to prevent myself from expressing the appropriate sentiments after encountering not one but two examples of how ethical ignorance is apparently reaching a new and dangerous high in the United States of America. But my print version of the New York Times contained an op-ed that really “argued” for the proposition above, and the New York Times, allegedly a responsible newspaper, actually felt that such an uninformed, civically illiterate, stupid opinion was worthy of publication.
We are told that the author, Atossa Abrahamian is a journalist “who has written extensively about citizenship,” evidently without understanding what citizenship is. We also are told, “This essay is part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment.” Bold! You know, like “Let’s have a monetary system based on cheese!” Or “Let’s select members of Congress by having Beer Pong competitions!”
Note that I still haven’t made any substantive statements rebutting this garbage or explaining why it is the intellectual equivalent of toxic waste. I don’t need to; first, I can count on my almost exclusively intelligent, ethical and erudite readers to do it, and moreover,such sentences as this are res ipsa loquitur…they speak for themselves:
“The strongest case for noncitizen voting today is representation: The more voters show up to the polls, the more accurately elections reflect peoples’ desires”
Yes, that’s the strongest case.
You take it from here.
‘
From The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: The “Are You Allowed To Criticize Simone Biles?” Decision Tree…
I have shackled my arms to the wall, and despite a violent desire to join in the fun, I will leave the responses to the offensive “satirical” idiocy above, by some woke “Afro-Latino engineer, writer, and occasional Bruno Mars impersonator” named Carlos Greaves, to you. In the process, consider the degree of indoctrination, ethical confusion, and rationalization poisoning necessary for someone to 1) write this garbage, 2) think it’s worthy of publication except as evidence or societal rot, or 3) read it and think, “By George! What a humorous and perceptive take!”
If you are one of the latter, please post a comment and explain your thinking. Really. I beg of you. I’ll unshackle myself for that.
[Addendum, typed with my nose: If there was any lingering hesitation on my part that I need to add “Walk a mile in his/her shoes” to the Ethics Alarms Rationalization List, this obliterated it.]
Hump Day Ethics Harumphs
1. “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling courts!” Here’s another one of those damn courts requiring the government to follow the law. In the opinion here, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo overturned the San Francisco Unified School District’s decision to remove the 1936 mural by Victor Arnautoff, titled “Life of Washington” from a local high school. (There were slaves pictured. Can’t have that!)
The board was required by law to conduct an environmental and historical review for removing the mural, but just chose to follow the demands of indignant students, despite a process being required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
“The Board and SFUSD failed in their primary duty to follow the requirements of the law,” Massullo wrote in her decision. “California, as a matter of long-standing public policy, places enormous value on its environmental and historical resources and the People are entitled to expect public officials to give more than lip-service to the laws designed to protect those resources.”
This reminded me of the recent irresponsible Times op-ed by Jamelle Bouie, who has a long rap sheet at Ethics Alarms. Bouie thinks the U.S. Supreme Court needs to be minimized and restrained, because of its nasty habit of interfering with democracy and the will of the public by making the government follow the law, like, say, the U.S. Constitution.
2. Wait, isn’t this systemic racism? And ageism? Classism? Ludditeism? QR codes, those bar codes you can have scanned off a cell phone, have emerged as a nearly unavoidable tech fixture thanks to the pandemic hysteria. Restaurants have adopted them, retailers like CVS and Foot Locker have added them to checkout registers, and they are turning up in retail packaging, direct mail, billboards, sporting events and TV advertisements. They also are a threat to privacy and online security. QR codes can store digital information like when, where and how often a scan occurs, and might open an app or a website that then tracks people’s personal information. But that’s an issue for another day.
I was prevented twice from being able to get a ticket to a baseball game because the Washington Nationals, forced by the D.C. government in its Wuhan panic mode, were required to only have non-paper, contact-less tickets. That meant I had to use my cell phone. I choose not to use cell phones when I’m not traveling. Moreover, how can the same people who decry the requirement of a photo ID as racist mandate systems that require smart phones, which are a whole lot more expensive that any ID? How about poor people? Seniors on a fixed budget? Seniors who can’t get the hang of apps and frankly resent having to do so?
Gee, Jason Whitlock, What Do You REALLY Think About Simone Biles’ Quitting On The Olympics?
Yikes.
I felt that the feminist hypocrisy allowing Simone Biles to bail on her team when it depended on her as its star and foundation was enough; for once in 20121, the racial angle wasn’t necessary to get into. Am I convinced that if Mary Lou Retton had similarly withdrawn from the Olympics competition because she felt like she had “the weight of the world” on her shoulders she would have also been given a big group hug, near unanimous sympathy and “the King’s Pass”? Yes, I do.
However, defiant conservative black sports pundit Jason Whitlock has taken a racial approach to the Biles fiasco, and as is usually the case with Whitock, he takes no prisoners. Also as usual, he’s spot on.
Some excerpts:
Wait…ONLY Black People?
That’s a tweet that has been going around social media, as fatuous tweets often do.
My questions in response:
- Why only black people? I try to smile at all people I encounter. Yesterday I waved at a black neighbor I have never met while walking Spuds—but not because he was black. He waved back.
- Solidarity with what? The reason you smile at strangers is to express solidarity with the community, the nation, the human race. If my smile is supposed to mean “I believe you are an oppressed victim of this rotten racist nation and white people like me, and I’m with you, bro!” then to hell with it.
- If you smile only at the blacks in a crowd, what are you saying to everyone else? Isn’t that pandering? Isn’t that insulting and condescending to the black being grinned at?
- What if the response to your smile is a snub? How should you take that? [Relevant: this post.]
Comment Of The Day: “Simone Biles Betrayed Her Team…Stop Making Excuses For Her”
Well, I can write about the great issues of the day here or universal ethics principles, and attract crickets, but when a spoiled superstar female gymnast chokes on the Olympics stage, THAT attracts the most comments in a 24 hour period that Ethics Alarms has seen in months.
Actually, there is more of ethical significance to the Simone Biles Affair than is immediately apparent. The main issue, I think, may be the hypocrisy of feminists and sports journalists who rush to rationalize conduct by a young woman that no male athlete of any note would ever get away with. There are also profound issues of character, duties to one’s team, the ethics of sport and the the narcissism that celebrity creates. There are also some issues that I expect to emerge down the metaphorical road. For example, I haven’t yet encountered anyone arguing that criticism of Biles’ choke is racist, but given the response in Japan to Naoimi Osaka’s shocking loss in tennis, I expect that is coming. I also have written in my head the Ethics Alarms post responding to any post-Olympics product endorsement deals that come Biles’ way.
Yet another issue is raised by the Comment of the Day by JStevens, in what appears to be his inaugural contributions here, as his reaction to the post, “Simone Biles Betrayed Her Team…Stop Making Excuses For Her”…
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Trump To The Patriotic Pro-Vaccine Rescue? Of Course Not. And Try As I Might, I Can’t Blame Him
I have now read many articles, almost all of them from pundits who for five years heaped the most abusive rhetoric on the previous President of the United States that any POTUS has had to endure, that Donald Trump should join President Biden, or Barack Obama, or even George W. Bush for a national, joint appeal to the vaccinated to do the right thing for their nation, swallow their fears, and get their shots. Writes one Trump-detesting letter writer to the Times this morning (well, the odds are high that anyone who writes to the Times is Trump-detesting”) who imagines an Obama-Trump Kumbaya PSA spot where a smiling Trump sits next to Barack and says, “We hardly agree on anything , but we do agree on one thing: You should get the Covid vaccine now!” “It just takes two grown men to do it!” the saddened patriot concludes.
Sure, in a vacuum, this fantasy seems reasonable. In reality, it can never happen, and I find myself gravitating to an unethical position that says that if Democrats like Biden and Obama, or Bush, really want Trump to join with them on anything but especially this, they should have to pay a large, painful and probably unpalatable price.
