Daunte Wright Dining Car Specials On The George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

1. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!“ Naturally, the New York Times has a ticket…The Timed headline in its print edition: “Minnesota Police Kill Another Man As Tensions Build.” Oh, did the jury rule that the Minnesota police officers killed George Floyd already? They didn’t? Then what the hell is the New York Times saying “Another” for?

The news media decided that Derek Chauvin is a murderer and has been repeating that assertion as fact for almost a year now.

2. Wait, the Chaivin jury hasn’t been sequestered? Chauvin’s lawyer, Eric Nelson, had argued yesterday that the jurors should be ordered to avoid all media and spend the rest of the trial sequestered, because he feared that rioting in the nearby community where the Wright shooting took place might limit their ability to be fair jurors. The unrest will be at “forefront of the jury’s mind-set,” Nelson argued. He also asked for new interviews with the jurors to determine whether this recent event had already biased them. The judge, Peter Cahill, denied both requests. “This is a totally different case,” the judge held, since the current riots aren’t about a jury verdict but a shooting.

Wow This pretty much convinces me that this is a kangaroo court, and that the judge is trying to do his best to see Chauvin convicted.

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up As If We Need One These Days, 4/13/21

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

There was recent news about Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”…did you miss it? A tiny inscription in the corner of the original (the artist made several more) reads, “Can only have been painted by a madman.” For decades, expert have been arguing over who wrote it. The definitive answer came last month: it was the artist himself, who had been upset when a critic at an exhibition suggested that he was mentally ill. My wife and I saw a special traveling exhibition on Munch’s work in London several years ago. He kept painting the same disturbing images over and over again, not just “The Scream,” but others, like a woman with wild red hair that snakes out to strangle a man. We concluded then that he was nuts.

1. CNN has provided yet another example of miserable, biases, incompetent journalism. This one begins,

Poll of the week: A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that 55% of Republicans falsely believe Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was the result of illegal voting or rigging. Additionally, 60% of Republicans incorrectly agree that the election was stolen from Republican Donald Trump. These polls are the latest to indicate that Republicans mistakenly think that the 2020 election wasn’t legitimate, when it clearly was.

Who says it “clearly was”? How is that a fact? If it’s a fact, prove it. This is CNN injecting opinion into news reporting, and stating as fact what is the reporter’s opinion. Nor did those who replied that the 2020 election totals were the result of illegal voting or election rigging state that election “wasn’t legitimate.” They weren’t given that option. I, for example, think the election could be fairly called “rigged,” but it was still legitimate. Nor can CNN say that 60% of Republicans “incorrectly agree” that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. First, it is nearly impossible to prove a negative; this is CNN’s assumption. There are polls that claim to show that the fair reporting of Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails alone would have flipped the election. Second, “stolen,” like “rigged” is not defined. I think it is unlikely that the election totals were manipulated sufficiently to change the result in key states. I am certain that the news media and the other anti-Trump forces unethically set out to undermine the President’s chances at re-election with a four year battering of Big Lies, anonymous leaks, fake news, slanted news, biased news reporting and non-reporting of facts favorable to Trump or unfavorable to Biden. They cheated, and claiming now that those who feel the cheating made a difference are mistaken is like claiming that a runner unfairly tripped at the opening gun would have lost anyway.

2. On the related topic of absentee ballots…RealClearInvestigations nicely shows the New York Times’ hypocrisy on the matter of absentee ballots:

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Comment Of The Day: “Comment Of The Day: ‘Monday Ethics Final, 3/8/2021: A Bad Day In The Revolution'(Item #5)”

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Some might think I’m making this gem by Mrs. Q a Comment of the Day for an ulterior motive. She’s a undisputed star commenter, and she’s been MIA for a more than a month now. This was her most recent comment, but I’m not honoring it as an enticement, though I desperately want to see her unique perception and wit back on Ethics Alarms. This was supposed to be a Comment of the Day a month ago, but stuff happened: it’s my fault.

Commenters come and go, then come back sometimes. I always take it personally, which is foolish, but that’s me. When ever I go back and review essays from a few years back, I am struck and depressed by the voices we have lost. Whither wyogranny? Shelly Stow? Steven Mark Pilling? Extradimensional Cephalopod? There are so many.

I also worry about those who disappear, and often send emails to inquire after their health and welfare. Sometimes the responses are reassuring. Sometimes I get no response. Sometimes I forget to send the note. Most bloggers don’t do this, and I’m not sure it’s rational for me to do it.

Here is Mrs. Q’s Comment of the Day on the post, Monday Ethics Final, 3/8/2021: A Bad Day In The Revolution'(Item #5):

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‘Unethical And Unethical-ler,’ As The Daunte Wright Ethics Train Wreck Speeds “The Great Stupid”Across The Land

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments

As if it needed any help…

The police-involved death of 20-year-old black man Daunte Wright, which on its apparent facts (“Oopsie!”) did not indicate either racism or police brutality, quickly demonstrated that this was yet another car on the George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck, itself but an extension of the Ferguson Ethics Train Wreck, which emerged from the Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck. All have converged to intensify The Great Stupid, as many parties have learned nothing from the previous fiascos, and too many have learned the wrong things.

Recent unethical developments:

1. Naturally, there was a second night of riots. This is stupid and unethical by definition. So are media accounts like this one, picked at random, from The Boston Globe, about the previous night’s disturbances: “Officials announced curfews, schools suspended in-person classes, professional sports teams canceled games and businesses boarded up after a first night that included peaceful protests – but also clashes between police and demonstrators, as well as looting of local businesses.”

It included peaceful protests, you see, but then there was the rioting and the violence and the looting. This isn’t journalism, it’s spin. It is like writing, “the mob contained reasonable, concerned citizens, but also those who burned down businesses and attacked police.” It sets out to minimize negative reader perceptions—out of what motive? Sympathy? Bias? Incompetence? Malice?

Added: Dr. Emilio Lizardo adds this on the topic of the news media trying to establish the “peaceful protest” narrative.

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Annals Of “The Great Stupid”: Pro Baseball Postpones a Game Because A Black Man Is Shot By A Police Officer

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Today I arranged my day so I could watch the Boston Red Sox (who are on a roll) play the Minnesota Twins in a day game at the Twins’ park. Minutes before the game, it was called off, though the sun was shining and a crowd was on-hand. Why? Well, Daunte Wright, 20, was killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota., about 10 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

This has, or should have, nothing whatsoever to do with baseball, or any other activity in the Twin Cities or anywhere else. It is a local law enforcement event, and as of now, it is impossible to determine what happened with certainty. Never mind, though: Black Lives Matter has decreed that every death of a black man or woman in a confrontation with police is by definition an undeniable example of race-motivated homicide, and the proper response is to riot.

First and foremost, the proper response is never to riot. Protesting and demonstrating are seldom the proper responses either. Second, rioting, demonstrating, protesting, and making accusations about an event before it has been made clear what in fact occurred, is irresponsible, dangerous and indefensible always, with no exceptions.

The female police officer shot Wright yesterday afternoon after pulling his car over for a traffic violation and discovering that he had a warrant out for his arrest. The police tried to detain Wright; he briefly struggled with police, and then he stepped back into his car, apparently trying to flee.

Of course he did. In the vast majority of these police-involved deaths with black Americans involved, the eventual victim resists the lawful orders of police. George Floyd did it. Mike Brown did it. In such cases, I bristle when I am told, as I heard one activist say today, that the community should “honor” the victim by not rioting. Those who get shot or killed as a direct result of resisting arrest should not be “honored,” because that is not honorable conduct. It is anti-social conduct that ruins some lives and ends others.

Body-camera video released by the police department shows the officer shouting, “Taser!” before firing her gun. She is then heard on the video saying, “Holy shit. I just shot him.”

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Wherein Having Ethics Alarms Ringing 24-7 Again Proves To Be Inconvenient…

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

I took Spuds out for a walk in the light rain, and was relieved when he relieved himself with his usual impressive fecal discharge early on. I dutifully collected it in a blue New York Times bag—using the delivery bags for this purposes amuses me, as the final content of the bag is less noxious than its original product. Spuds even did his doo-dooty near a trash receptacle. “Now that’s over with!” I thought. Then I took my sweet dog on walk down one of the boutique streets in the neighborhood: lovely houses, elaborate gardens, perfect lawns. And Spuds walked quickly onto one of the latter, and duplicated his earlier performance. Topped it, in fact.

He almost never does this, but I almost always carry a second New York Times bag in case he’s feeling prolific. This time I hadn’t.

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Comments Of The Day Day Extended! Comment Of The Day: “Afternoon Ethics Delights“

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Michael R’s Comment of the Day really doesn’t refer to anything in the post itself. It was sparked by Commenter Other Bill’s statement objecting to Ethics’ Alarms use of the term “The Great Stupid” to describe the current cultural chaos, “What’s going on is a slow motion, Marxist-inspired, relentless revolution.” I like “The Great Stupid,” which is not to say that the rise of Marxism wasn’t the Greatest Stupid of Them All.

I know I’m repeating this story, but it’s relevant. In my lucky two-hour private session with futurist Herman Kahn (above) then widely regarded as the smartest man alive, we discussed the craziness of the Sixties. He opined that throughout human history, various civilizations periodically forgot what they had learned over generations, represented by traditions, values, and practices that were taken for granted but not thought about any more. “This always leads to extended periods of mass stupidity and resulting human and societal disasters, after which society is reminded why they had the rules, traditions and values for so long. Sometimes, but not always, the damage can be repaired,” he said. Herman’s example of damage that could not be repaired was the sexual revolution, particularly the end of society’s disapproval of having babies out of marriage. Another, my personal “favorite,” is the reversal of society’s formal disapproval of recreational drug use.

Right now, an epic number of really bad ideas are being accepted by people who should know better, and not all of the idiocy can be explained by Marxism. Defunding the police? Marxists need police to keep the unenlightened in line—that’s just stupidity. Allowing a single incident in Minnesota to trigger widespread riots, property destruction and death based on false information and emotion? Stupidity. A lot of the bad ideas slithering around now are best explained by the lack of critical thinking skills in the public at large, due, not to Marxist education, but to incompetent education.

Here is Michael R’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Afternoon Ethics Delights, 4/6/2021”:

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“The Trojan Horse Presidency”!

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

Perfect!

I had been musing about a post on how Joe Biden’s Presidency was the most dishonest in U.S. history, and then Brad Polumbo of the Washington Examiner coined the description, “Trojan Horse Presidency.” I’m angry at myself for not beating him him to it, but I am grateful for the metaphor.

It would be more useful, of course, if more than a fraction of the public were culturally literate. I wonder how many Americans know what the Trojan Horse was? They don’t teach Greek mythology in public schools; an amazing number of fans of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” are amused by the huge wooden rabbit King Arthur’s troop uses to invade a castle without knowing what it satirized. This is the tragedy of declining cultural literacy: it makes concepts harder to visualize and explain.

The tale of the Trojan Horse isn’t in the “Illiad” of Homer, which relates the tale of the Trojan War. It was the invention of Virgil, the Roman poet, in his rip-off of Homer’s “Odyssey,” “The Aeneid.” After a decade of attacking the walled city of Troy without success, the Greeks decided to try an off-the-wall scheme offered by “Wily Odysseus,” as Homer called him, one of the Greek generals. His loopy idea was to build a huge wooden horse and leave it outside the Trojan gates at night. The Trojans, see, being morons, would think the thing was a sacred gift from the gods, and move it inside their walls. Then, once they were all asleep, the Greek soldiers hidden in the hollow horse would come out and slaughter the city! Hey! It’s so crazy, it just might work!

It did work, but why used to confound me. Virgil wrote that three times while dragging the thing into the city, the Trojans stopped pulling, and heard the clatter of armor coming from inside the wooden horse. “Nah, it’s nothing! Keep pulling!” There was also the incident where Troy’s high priest, Laocoon, declared that the Trojan Horse was evil and hurled a spear at its side. Then two sea serpents arrived on the scene and ate him and his two sons. (The big snakes were the agents of sea god Poseidon, who was rooting for the Greeks.)

Palumbo writes,

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This Is Signature Significance For A Lot Of Things, And I’m Not Sure I Want To Think About It…

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

I guess I have to. It’s my job.

Let’s consider this head-exploding moment from today on CNN by asking a few questions:

  • Is there any way a competent news organization doesn’t realize how ridiculous this “scoop” is?
  • Is a news host—here, Brian Stelter, running neck and neck with his colleagues Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo for the title of  “Most Embarrassing Excuse for a  Journalists in the Cvilized World—— who actually thinks this is a point worth making anything other than deranged and unfit for his job?
  • Has there ever been an instance when anyone under any circumstances had an ethical or professional obligation to take a selfie, much less share it? (Full disclosure: I have never taken a selfie, and I never will.)
  • Is there anyone who isn’t clinically ill that would find the Fox News “stars'” decision not to post selfies of themselves getting the Wuhan virus shots newsworthy in any way?
  • Could a news organization possibly have a lower opinion of the American public than to think it cares what selfies anyone on earth doesn’t take and share?

This network hasn’t just jumped the shark. It has set a new record for bias, stupidity, and journalistic lunacy.

Maryland Strips Police Officers Of Substantive Due Process Rights: Oh, THIS Will Work Out Well, Yessiree!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

I know this is the second appearance today of James Donald’s anguished coda at the end of “The Bridge Over The River Kwai,” but he arrives when it is appropriate.

Maryland’s Democrat-controlled legislature moved yesterday to pass a “police reform package “that includes the repeal of the state’s Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBOR), overriding Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto to do it.

The state’s police Bill of Rights covered due process for officers accused of misconduct. You can read it here. I have. I would call it a not especially radical or permissive document, and its provisions simple codify basic due process rights. I view this move by the legislature as primarily symbolic, a virtue-signaling gesture of support for the individuals who break laws and against those who enforce them.

Yes, this is sure to work out well.

The action of the Maryland House of Delegates is more of the George Floyd freakout, still marching to the dishonest tune of Black Lives Matter, as the news media provides ample fertilizer. Here’s Politico, for example: “The move, a win for police reform advocates, comes amid a national reckoning with policing after the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer last year.”

Morons. First, Floyd did not die “at the hands” of a police officer by any measure. Second, whether the police officer caused his death is a matter being determined in a court of law, a right even police officers have. Third, it is foolish, irresponsible, incompetent emotion-driven policy-making to allow any single event, especially one in a different state, to drive substantive policy changes of any kind.

In his veto statement, Governor Hogan wrote,

“These bills would undermine the goal that I believe we share of building transparent, accountable, and effective law enforcement institutions and instead further erode police morale, community relationships, and public confidence.They will result in great damage to police recruitment and retention, posing significant risks to public safety throughout our state.”

Why would anyone in his or her right mind want to serve as a police officer in Maryland? I guess the state wants police officers who are not in their right minds. Oh, yes, this is really going to work out well.

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