Saturday Ethics Warm-Up, 2/13/21: Snap Out Of It!

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Commenters are being far too pessimistic here of late, and so are the rational people I know. Complaining is fine; so is worrying. But action is mandatory. Defeatism, despair, submission—these are not only self-destructive, but un-American. The nation got in its current mess (as it has gotten into others) by inattention and complacency; it is time, once again, to consider first principles, and act. As is usually the case, the bad guys are not nearly as bright as they think they are, as well as being cocky, careless, and corrupt. The public is naive, ignorant, driven by emotion and reckless, but it has come through for the nation throughout our history, and can, and will, again. There were a lot of positive developments in the past five days. Getting the word out is difficult, because our journalists are journalists no longer but tools of aspiring censors and dictators, but there are ways. The United States has always been lucky, sometimes amazingly so, and often when the odds against it have been daunting.

Don’t bet against it.

Meanwhile, make sure we get rid of the marked deck, the crooked dealers and the loaded dice.

1. This day in 1945: U.S. terrorism. On February 13, 1945, the Allies firebombed the German city of Dresden, killing roughly 25,000 people and destroying one of the cultural gems of Europe despite its having no military or strategic value at all. Germany were certain to surrender, it was only a matter of time. Yet more than 3,400 tons of explosives were dropped on the city by 800 American and British aircraft, with the resulting firestorm setting the city on fire for days, creating a horrific landscape of charred corpses, many of them children. Many believe that Dresden was bombed in retaliation for Hitler’s bombing of Coventry, the lovely British city that also had little military value. It doesn’t matter: the unquestionable truth is that Dresden’s destruction was pure terrorism, an act of pure cruelty designed to destroy German morale and create widespread fear. Although the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima is usually the focus on anti-war critics and those who accuse the U.S. of war crimes, the alternative to that bombing was and still is widely believed to have been an Allied invasion of Japan that would have involved huge military losses.There was no justification for the Dresden bombing. It was, as an infamous Civil War battle was once described, “Not war, but murder.”

2. “First they came for Hercules, and I said nothing…” Kevin Sorbo, the actor who played Hercules in the TV series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” for many years, announced yesterday that Facebook had deleted his account along with its half-million followers. He says he has received no explanation from Facebook (just as Ethics Alarms has never received an explanation from Facebook for blocking links to my blog for two years just as it was beginning to see significant growth in traffic and followers). Sorbo, you will be surprised to learn I’m sure, is an outspoken conservative and Christian.

If I posted this on Facebook—I don’t bother any more—I know the response: the rationalizers would condescendingly explain that Facebook, as a private company, has the right to block anyone they choose from using its platform. Yes, asshole, I know that. I also know, and unless you are a complete idiot as well as a fan of progressive domination, that because social media has become a primary means of communication and political advocacy in this country, censoring one side of any issue is an attack on both democracy and freedom of speech, and thus unethical and dangerous. I don’t care if it’s legal (and if you and people like you hadn’t voted for the censors, it might not have been for much longer). It’s unethical. You can’t process that because you believe that the ends justify the means.

3. Despicable and totalitarian screed of the week: Washington Post hack Dana Milbank. The headline says it all: “If Republican senators acquit Trump, they will own the violence that follows” needless to say, Milbank isn’t a lawyer, and apparently hasn’t even watched many TV lawyer shows. An argument like that would mean an instant mistrial in any court in the nation. If is an inflammatory, irresponsible, idiotic argument that appeals to bigger idiots. It represents an endorsement of the unconstitutional concept of pre-crime. the fact that the Washington Post employs a writer capable of making such an argument without “hiding his head under a bag,” as Justice Scalia liked to say tells you all you need to know about how untrustworthy the Post has become, and why it is now the tool of those who oppose individual liberty.

If there is violence, it will be because Milbank and journalists like him have enabled the foes of democracy. Donald Trump will have nothing to do with it.

4. Relating to the previous EA post...Professor Turley argues here that the Democrats were “tanking” the impeachment trial—losing intentionally. If someone can explain why the usually astute professor thinks “tanking” in politics makes sense (in professional sports it can result in better draft picks), please do. he makes a strong case that the case for impeachment is incredibly weak (“In the last impeachment, I criticized the House leadership for impeaching Trump on the thinnest record in the shortest time in history. It then outdid itself by impeaching him a second time with no record and no hearing.”)but fails to explain how the Democrats can possibly benefit from fiasco. He concludes,

“That is why, with the start of the trial, there is growing suspicion of a tanked trial. The House will present a case long on emotions and short on evidence. Trump will then be acquitted and Democrats will look to picking up new talent in the 2022 draft.”

Huh? Turley is often described as a “progressive” professor by the conservative news media when he criticizes Democrats. I’d call him a fair and objective professor who is capable of rising above his own preferences and bias. This is one of the few pieces by Turley that suggests a Democrat Party bias. He’s desperately trying to rationalize utter incompetence and stupidity fueled by irrational hate. “They just can’t be this stupid,” he’s arguing. “They must be losing on purpose.”

With due respect for Professor Turley, that’s almost as ridiculous as Rep. Greene’s “The wildfires were caused by Jewish lasers from outer space” conspiracy theory. Occam’s Razor applies. The Democrats are running an incompetent impeachment because they are incompetent.

Regarding The Trump Defense “Fight” Montage

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

As readers here know, I have not watched a second of the “impeachment” (it is no longer an impeachment) “trial” (it does not comport with the Constitution’s prescription for a Senate trial of a President because I have an unruly sock drawer. There was never a chance that President Trump would be convicted of the manufactured charges rammed through the House when he was in office, and the effort to convict a private citizen or construct a Bill of Attainder to prevent a private citizen from running for office are unconstitutional. If either or both were successful, which is impossible, they would be over-turned by a conservative Supreme Court whose Chief Justice has already signaled his contempt for the partisan exercise by refusing to participate in it. (I hear Roberts’ sock drawer is immaculate).

I’ve read many articles over the last week speculating on what the Democrats are trying to accomplish. Here’s one from yesterday. It’s been pretty clear to me, though incredibly and damningly not the Trump Deranged, that what they are accomplishing is embarrassing and disgracing themselves, their party and the nation; weakening the Constitution and ensuring similar behavior from Republicans in retaliation; exacerbating dangerous division and cynicism among the public, and generally continuing their despicable series of plots over the last four years to reverse the results of the 20i6 election no matter what harm it does to our institutions.

Bias, as the Ethics Alarms motto goes, makes you stupid, and the impeachment charade/fiasco/debacle/ farce/shit-show—you pick your favorite—and hate, as Richard Nixon realized too late, will destroy you. The “trial” is an abject lesson in both truths.

I didn’t watch the any of the trial, but I could not resist watching the video above, not that any of it was a surprise or should have been to any Americans who were paying attention, as in, for example, actually reading the text of Trump’s speech to the protesters. There was no “incitement” in his words, and no one could have been convicted on such evidence, as many objective authorities have pointed out, and many biased professionals have denied, to their eternal shame. Inciting a riot is a crime of intent, and outside of some amateur mind-reading, no intent has been proven or could be. The “case” against Trump—there is no case—has been based on the the “resistance”;s news media allies ludicrously re-casting a riot, a minor one compared to those we have seen over the last decade, almost entirely from the Democratic base with official approval, as an “insurrection,” which it was not. This has been repeated daily since January 6, as if repetition makes it so. It wasn’t even an attempted insurrection, because even the dimmest bulb among the small minority of angry Trump supporters who actually stormed the Capitol could have thought for a millisecond that a couple hundred fools, dummies and clowns had a prayer of overcoming the government or even slowing it down.

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Wasn’t It Obvious That The Lincoln Project Was An Unethical Scam?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Lincoln Project

If not, why not? It sure was obvious to me. Even more than the rest of the Never-Trumpers, the Lincoln Project had the stench of insincerity and ethics rot all over it. Why would alleged Republicans and conservatives set out to defeat their party’s incumbent President and hand over power to the most radical and irresponsible incarnation of the Democratic Party since the Confederacy? The most visible member of the cabal for those who are not political junkies (founders Mike Madrid, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen above are the ultimate D.C. insiders, aka “swamp creatures”) was Kellyanne Conway’s lawyer hubby George, who used the news media’s hatred of President Trump to get publicity for his relentless attacks on his wife’s boss, embarrassing her and putting her family life in conflict with her responsibilities to the President. Who does that? Answer: a self-serving, untrustworthy creep like George Conway, that’s who.

Organizations led by unethical people behave unethically and eventually self-destruct; the Lincoln Project was a lesson in signature significance waiting to be taught. Now it is falling apart in chunks, as ploys by arrogant and awful people always do, even if they thrive for a while because, as P.T Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” The suckers in this case were Trump Deranged progressives, who were so thrilled to have alleged conservatives linking arms with them to bring down an elected President with lies and abuses of power that they never asked the crucial ethics inquiry question “What’s going on here?“

Glenn Greenwald, in a no-holds-barred excoriation of the group, answers that question with a tasty mix of disgust and brio:

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethical Quote Of The Month: Bret Stephens’ Critical Column About New York Times Cowardice And Hypocrisy That The Times Tried To Censor”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

what-is-strict-liability

Comment of the Day auteur Glenn Logan (one of many at EA) has helpful thoughts about the intertwined issue of speech control/ racial epithets/ intent and political correctness. I’m behind on COTDs again, but jumped Glenn’s ahead in line because the blog has been active on related topics today.

Here is Glenn Logan’s Comment of the Day on Bret Stephens’ discarded op-ed and the post, “Ethical Quote Of The Month: Bret Stephens’ Critical Column About New York Times Cowardice And Hypocrisy That The Times Tried To Censor’:

This is an excellent inquiry into the current state of political culture. The left has discovered one of the things it has historically eschewed — the concept of strict liability, and the power it brings them to redefine the English language in America, and by extension, the political environment. For years, liberals have found crimes which didn’t consider intent offensive, and for good reason. Alas, it seems that is no longer the case.

At the risk of being pedantic, strict liability — for those who may not be aware — is a type of crime or regulatory violation where intent does not matter. The quintessential strict liability crime example is statutory rape, where violation of the statute requires no general or specific intent. Regardless of whether the violator knew, had reason to know, or intended to have sexual relations with a minor person, the fact he/she/xe/them did is all that matters.The word “nigger” has now become, in the world of the Left, a strict liability offense when uttered in any form and for any reason. More and more, this is also becoming true of descriptive constructions like “n-word, ” “n*****,” “n—–,” or “n_____.”

The recent incident with the Times shows just how successful this effort has become, and is sure to become a model for other words considered to be offensive at some fundamental level. There is no reason to believe the proponents of this new morality will be circumspect in this expansion, either.Using the power of the mob, the Left has found that they can circumvent the First Amendment by ginning up social outrage and placing pressure on companies to do what the law cannot — punish speech.

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“Intent” Ethics: The “Grape Soda” Caper

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Grape Soda

Little noticed when it was reported a month ago, but of special interest now that the New York Times is on record that the use of a racist slur is to be regarded as a racist act regardless of the intent of the speaker, is the decision by The New York Racing commission to ban a prominent trainer from competition for giving a horse a name that isn’t racist but apparently intending it to be a racist slur. Yes, it’s a reverse Donald McNeil! What do you say, Bret Stephens?

As Alice said in Wonderland, “Curiouser and curiouser!” The banned trainer is Eric Guillot, whose horses have earned more than $13 million in purses and have won 259 races. “Racism is completely unacceptable in all forms,” David O’Rourke, the association’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “NYRA rejects Eric Guillot’s toxic words and divisive behavior in the strongest terms. Our racing community is diverse, and we stand for inclusion.” What were the “toxic words”?

“Grape soda.”

Yes, grape soda. I confess, I’ve used the words “grape soda.” I like grape soda; always have. But Guillot, see, named a horse “Grape Soda” after tweeting on New Year’s Day that he was giving a 3-year-old colt a “unique name in honor of a TVG analyst.” The tweet had a Black fist emoji. Apparently “grape soda,” in addition to meaning, you know, grape soda, has been used somewhere I’ve never been as a racial epithet. So bad an epithet is it that the New York Times wouldn’t dare print it in its headline: “NYRA Bars Horse Trainer For Using Racist Name.” I couldn’t find out what the “racist name” was until six paragraphs into the article. The Times didn’t even call it the “GS-word,” though it says it “can” be a racist term, presumably based on context and intent. But now, as a Times columnist discussed in a banned op-ed, the Times says intent and context doesn’t matter. If that’s true, then “Grape Soda” must be presumed to have the same meaning in the case of the horse as it is presumed to mean anywhere else, like when I say to my wife, “Hey, while you’re at 7-11, pick me up a grape soda please!” But that does not seem to be the case in this story, and the Times itself doesn’t challenge the logic that “Grape Soda” as a name for a horse is racist simply because it was dedicated to the only black horse-racing analyst. They think. Or someone thinks.

Confused? Me too, and I have some questions:

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Friday Open Forum: “What Became Of Life?”

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Since this is Jimmy Durante birthday week, and I’m fighting against ethics despair myself, I thought it would be a good time to play Jimmy’s most depressing song ever. I’ve always liked it, and nobody else ever sang it, as far as I can determine.

“What became of life?” Well, if it’s anything permanent and bad, it is only because people of good will and strong values gave up out of discouragement, frustration and defeatism.

Please stick to ethics: it shouldn’t be difficult. There is a lot going on, and lot at stake.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 2/12/21: Happy Birthday, Abe!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Lincoln film

Abraham Lincoln, born on this date in 1809, has had a bad year. The Republic he struggled…and died…to save has seen its core values under attack, and for the first time since he was alive, there is reason to fear its existence as a beacon of individual liberty for the world. Statues that honored his brilliant tenure as leader of the nation when it was challenged by a multiple crises have been torn down or removed by mobs and fools. Last week, The New Yorker ran an interview with San Francisco school board President Gabriela López, the former teacher behind the recent decision by the body to remove the names of Founders and Presidents, including our two greatest, George and Abe, from schools because they had not completely absorbed 2ist century understanding of racial equality in the 18th and 19th Centuries respectively. Lincoln is “not someone I see as a hero,” this head-explodingly stupid and ignorant woman said. Meanwhile, the NeverTrump political organization that bears Lincoln’s name is in the midst of a scandal that raises questions about the group’s own values and trustworthiness. When I was a child, Lincoln’s birthday was a holiday, but government bureaucrats decided that two holidays honoring the birthdays of the Presidents most responsible for the nation’s character and existence was too much, so Abe’s day was folded in to George’s, while both of their names were stripped away. Thus, rather than honoring Lincoln today, we honor Millard Fillmore on February 22. The “This Day in History” page I see most mornings has Abe’s birth listed 12th, after the death of…Sal Mineo. #1 is the founding of the NAACP, which deliberately chose Lincoln’s birthday for the landmark. The average student in the United States, including college students, can’t tell you much of anything about Lincoln’s life or character. The ignorance, ingratitude and lack of perspective is staggering.

1. “Nothing to see here! Move along!” The Georgia State Election Board voted unanimously this week to investigate U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock for his role, as board chairman of a voter registration organization founded by Stacey Abrams, in permitting the group to submit some 1,268 voter applications that did not comply with the law. Warnock’s election last month tilted control of the U.S. Senate to the Democrats.

2. Nauseating grovel of the week: Rachael Kirkconnell is a contestant on “The Bachelor,” competing for the heart of Matt James, the first black “Bachelor” in the fatuous reality show’s history, which would make them the first mixed race couple on that show. Which is weird, since according to TV, about 80% of American couples are mixed race. Anyway, the social media mob went looking for something, anything, they could find to cancel Racheal, and the best they could come up with is that she attended an Old South-themed fraternity party three years ago—you know, big Scarlet O’Hara dresses, beaus in tails. The Horror. Racheal’s “Manchurian Candidate”-style apology:

At one point, I didn’t recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn’t excuse them. My age or when it happened doesn’t excuse anything,” she said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “There are not acceptable or okay in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist. I am sorry to the communities and individuals that my actions harmed and offended…

Then the 24-year-old said she was ashamed”of her lack of education. Like saying “I am sorry to,” perhaps? She also encouraged others to use this as a “teachable moment” to prevent someone else from making the same mistake. You know, teachable: like intimidating and punishing anyone who doesn’t bow down to critical race theory and white guilt. “Racial progress and unity are impossible without (white) accountability, and I deserve to be held accountable for my actions,” she said

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Ethical Quote Of The Month: Bret Stephens’ Critical Column About New York Times Cowardice And Hypocrisy That The Times Tried To Censor

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Stephens

Ethics Alarms is temporarily parting with its usual practice by publishing Times columnist Bret Stephens’ suppressed column in full. Normally, I regard doing this as unethical: the publication that pays for an essay deserves to have the benefit of the links and the views. But this was published not by Stephen’s employer, whom he serves as house conservative with varying effectiveness, but by a competitor, the New York Post, to which the piece was leaked. As a leaked document, it is fair for Ethics Alarms to publish, and as an important piece of evidence further proving the corruption of American journalism, I believe that Stephens’ spiked op-ed needs to be widely read. I doubt that the mainstream media can be trusted to give it the circulation it needs.

Stephens wrote his column in response to this incident, where his paper fired a respected journalist after its investigation of his reportedly using the word “nigger” in a discussion with students indicated that none of his remarks had been, I wrote, “sexist or racist, but that he had used words employed by sexists or racists to talk about sexism or racism, rather than using the approved poopy/ pee-pee/woo-woo baby talk codes (n-word, b-word, c-word) demanded by language censors.” “Initially, the Times’ editor, Dean Baquet, tried to be fair and to uphold what the Times is supposed to respect—the Bill of Rights,” I continued,”but eventually capitulated to his woke and anti-free speech staff, as he has before.”

Stephens told colleagues the column was killed by Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger. The piece the Times didn’t want the public to see circulated among Times staffers and others until someone sent it to the New York Post.

I will say at the outset that Stephens should quit, just as Glenn Greenwald quit his own organization when it blocked publication of his piece about the Hunter Biden story embargo .I don’t know if there are enough journalists of integrity and honesty who are concerned about the ruinous abdication of their profession from its crucial obligations to democracy to prevent the death spiral into totalitarianism. But the few there are need to step up.

Here is Bret Stephens’ column:

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Enforced Ideological Conformity: The Unethical Firing Of Gina Carano

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Gina

Gina Carano, the actress who plays Cara Dune on Disney+’s “The Mandalorian,” was fired by Lucasfilm. I saw the note yesterday, and the company’s explanation which was that Carano’s

“…social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

From this I presumed that the actress had posted something that was racist or otherwise bigoted and hateful—constitutional speech, but not a public opinion that an organization dependent on widespread public favor is obligated to tolerate from its employees. Then today, I saw what she wrote, which was,

“Because history is edited, most people today don’t realize that to get to the point where Nazi soldiers could easily round up thousands of Jews, the government first made their own neighbors hate them simply for being Jews. How is that any different than hating someone for their political views?”

She did not denigrate anyone based on their cultural and religious identities. LucasFilm’s statement is a lie, and indeed is very close to defamation. Carano should sue. Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal, who plays the Mandalorian in the same series, tweeted out this idiocy in 2018:

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A Line That Will Echo Through The Annals Of Legal Ethics And Technological Incompetence: “I’m Not A Cat”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Lawyer cat

I apologize for missing this wonderful story from last week.

In a civil forfeiture case hearing held via Zoom in Texas’ 394th Judicial District Court, Rod Ponton, a county attorney in Presidio County, Texas, couldn’t figure out how to turn off a filter he had somehow turned on. That filter made him appear to be a talking kitten.

“Mr. Ponton, I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings,” Judge Roy Ferguson, presiding over the case, says with admirable restraint. “Augggh,” says. Ponton. “Can you hear me, Judge? I don’t know how to remove it. I’ve got my assistant here and she’s trying to.”

Then he adds, “I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live” and “I’m not a cat.” “I can see that, ”Judge Ferguson replies.

Here’s the video:

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