apologies

Afternoon Ethics Inflammation, 6/4/2020: Censorship, Groveling, And Ice Cream

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Searching for ethical outrages not related to the George Floyd Freakout,

…..and not having much luck.

1. What does it tell us that so many employees of the New York Times oppose freedom of speech? It’s a rhetorical question. Prominent employees of the New York Times protested because they disagreed with this op-ed by a U.S. Senator:

Opinion writer Roxanne Gay’s argument was typical:

“As a NYT writer I absolutely stand in opposition to that Tom Cotton ‘editorial.’ “We are well served by robust and ideologically diverse public discourse that includes radical, liberal, and conservative voices. This is not that. His piece was inflammatory and endorsing military occupation as if the constitution doesn’t exist.”

Oddly, when Times Op-Ed  writer Bret Stephens called for the abolishment of the Second Amendment, nobody on the Times made the “as if the Constitution doesn’t exist” argument. Moreover, the argument against Cotton in this case is legally dubious to say the least. Whether the Insurrection Act should be used to restore order in riot-torn cities is a separate issue. There is precedent indicating that it can be so used, and even if there was not, Sen. Cotton’s opinion is quite a bit less objectively outrageous than various leftist screeds the Times happily bombards its readers with routinely.

Professor Turley’s reaction: “There is a growing orthodoxy in journalism that is now openly calling for the censorship of opposing views.  It is particularly problematic when opinion writers seek the removal of editors for allowing such opposing positions to be published.” Uh, yes, professor, “problematic.” It is a whole lot more serious than that.  Un-lablable pundit Andrew Sullivan was more assertive, as Turley should have been, tweeting,

The Op-Ed was designed so it offers an opposite view to the Editorial board. Liberals believe that ideas should be open to debate. This should be utterly uncontroversial in a liberal paper….It’s important to understand that what the mob is now doing to the NYT is what they did to Evergreen University. They hate liberal institutions and they want them dismantled from within. These people are not liberal and they are a disgrace to journalism….What’s happening at the NYT is an attempted coup.

Isn’t this inevitable, however? When a news media source regularly manipulates its news and reporting for ideological ends, why wouldn’t its employees eventually lobby for the next step, which is active censorship of views the organization deems “inappropriate”?

2. Note to Drew Brees: If you don’t have the guts to stand up to social media mobs, keep your mouth shut and your social media accounts occupied with football trivia.

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees had opposed the NFL kneelers, now back in the news because if they had been permitted to keep grandstanding at NFL games, nobody would have knelt on George Floyd’s neck. Or something—I’m sure there’s a connection in there somewhere—by telling Yahoo Finance in an interview, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country….Is everything right with our country right now? No, it’s not,” Brees said, “We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together. We can all do better. And that we are all part of the solution.”

But then the twitter mob descended, so the big, strong, straight-talking quarterback groveled on Instagram like a little glasses-wearing bot being stomped by a bully, writing on Instagram (accompanied by a nauseatingly pandering graphic of a white hand and a black one grasping each other):

I would like to apologize to my friends, teammates, the City of New Orleans, the black community, NFL community and anyone I hurt with my comments yesterday. In speaking with some of you, it breaks my heart to know the pain I have caused.

In an attempt to talk about respect, unity, and solidarity centered around the American flag and the national anthem, I made comments that were insensitive and completely missed the mark on the issues we are facing right now as a country. They lacked awareness and any type of compassion or empathy. Instead, those words have become divisive and hurtful and have misled people into believing that somehow I am an enemy. This could not be further from the truth, and is not an accurate reflection of my heart or my character.

This is where I stand:

I stand with the black community in the fight against systemic racial injustice and police brutality and support the creation of real policy change that will make a difference.

I condemn the years of oppression that have taken place throughout our black communities and still exists today.

I acknowledge that we as Americans, including myself, have not done enough to fight for that equality or to truly understand the struggles and plight of the black community.

I recognize that I am part of the solution and can be a leader for the black community in this movement.

I will never know what it’s like to be a black man or raise black children in America but I will work every day to put myself in those shoes and fight for what is right.

I have ALWAYS been an ally, never an enemy.

I am sick about the way my comments were perceived yesterday, but I take full responsibility and accountability. I recognize that I should do less talking and more listening…and when the black community is talking about their pain, we all need to listen.

For that, I am very sorry and I ask your forgiveness.

We know what happened here. Brees’ employers and agent todl him he was jeopardizing his income and market public relations, so he was forced to beg for forgiveness. What are the odds that he wrote that apology himself?

But it’s sure reassuring to know that he stands “with the black community in the fight against systemic racial injustice and police brutality and support[s] the creation of real policy change that will make a difference.” I’m sure he knows what that is, and can answer the 13th question.

3. And while we’re on the topic of the 13th question, here’s what socialist Vermont ice-cream makers Ben and Jerry think is an answer. I’ll break in here and there when I can’t stand it…

All of us at Ben & Jerry’s are outraged about the murder of another Black person by Minneapolis police officers last week and the continued violent response by police against protestors.

Like the good Leftists they are, Ben and Jerry begin with falsity to frame their argument. It is not a murder until due process of law had determined it to be a murder. “Another” is rhetorical dishonesty. Police action against rioters, arsonists and looters is not “violent response.” It is mandatory law enforcement.

We have to speak out. We have to stand together with the victims of murder, marginalization, and repression because of their skin color, and with those who seek justice through protests across our country. We have to say his name: George Floyd.George Floyd was a son, a brother, a father, and a friend. The police officer who put his knee on George Floyd’s neck and the police officers who stood by and watched didn’t just murder George Floyd, they stole him. They stole him from his family and his friends, his church and his community, and from his own future. The murder of George Floyd was the result of inhumane police brutality that is perpetuated by a culture of white supremacy. What happened to George Floyd was not the result of a bad apple; it was the predictable consequence of a racist and prejudiced system and culture that has treated Black bodies as the enemy from the beginning.

This is racist, inflammatory, vicious rhetoric calculated to provoke fear, violence and hate.

What happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis is the fruit borne of toxic seeds planted on the shores of our country in Jamestown in 1619, when the first enslaved men and women arrived on this continent. Floyd is the latest in a long list of names that stretches back to that time and that shore. Some of those names we know — Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, Jr. — most we don’t.

Normally I would bail on any article that conflated Emmit Til, who was lynched 75 years ago, and  Martin Luther King, who was assassinated, with Ahmaud Abbery, whose death did not involve police, with Eric Garner, who died in an example of sloppy police work while resisting arrest, with Trayvon Martin, who was killed by a Hispanic man in self -defense and whose death also had nothing to do with police, with Michael Brown. An argument that starts off with such deliberate misrepresentation cannot be respected.

The officers who murdered George Floyd, who stole him from those who loved him, must be brought to justice.

They are arrested and charged, and will stand trial. Or do Ben and Jerry want Emmett Till-style “justice”?

At the same time, we must embark on the more complicated work of delivering justice for all the victims of state sponsored violence and racism. Four years ago, we publicly stated our support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Today, we want to be even more clear about the urgent need to take concrete steps to dismantle white supremacy in all its forms. To do that, we are calling for four things: First, we call upon President Trump, elected officials, and political parties to commit our nation to a formal process of healing and reconciliation. Instead of calling for the use of aggressive tactics on protestors, the President must take the first step by disavowing white supremacists and nationalist groups that overtly support him, and by not using his Twitter feed to promote and normalize their ideas and agendas. The world is watching America’s response.

Translation: Unilaterally submit to our ideological position. Right. Again, this is an unserious argument that is entirely political.

Second, we call upon the Congress to pass H.R. 40, legislation that would create a commission to study the effects of slavery and discrimination from 1619 to the present and recommend appropriate remedies. We cannot move forward together as a nation until we begin to grapple with the sins of our past. Slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation were systems of legalized and monetized white supremacy for which generations of Black and Brown people paid an immeasurable price. That cost must be acknowledged and the privilege that accrued to some at the expense of others must be reckoned with and redressed.

Translation: Reparations! Who didn’t see that coming? Reparations, of course, would do more to exacerbate racial tensions than almost anything I can think of, and again, the idea isn’t serious, because it is politically impossible, and should be. It is a “solution” to justify endless criticism for not adopting it.

Third, we support Floyd’s family’s call to create a national task force that would draft bipartisan legislation aimed at ending racial violence and increasing police accountability. We can’t continue to fund a criminal justice system that perpetuates mass incarceration while at the same time threatens the lives of a whole segment of the population.

Translation: Authentic Frontier Gibberish. It’s meaningless.

And finally, we call on the Department of Justice to reinvigorate its Civil Rights Division as a staunch defender of the rights of Black and Brown people. The DOJ must also reinstate policies rolled back under the Trump Administration, such as consent decrees to curb police abuses.

Police shootings and police involved deaths have declined during the Trump Administration, though the Obama Administration had a completely racialized Justice Department and Civil Rights Division. This is Trump bashing disguises as police advice.

Unless and until white America is willing to collectively acknowledge its privilege, take responsibility for its past and the impact it has on the present, and commit to creating a future steeped in justice, the list of names that George Floyd has been added to will never end. We have to use this moment to accelerate our nation’s long journey towards justice and a more perfect union.

It’s virtue-signaling and dog-whistling without substance.  Like ice cream, it may taste good to many, but there’s little of substance to savor later. The 13th question isn’t even nicked in this screed.

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/6/2020: Question, Questions…

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Good morning?

1. Is this is a Catch 22 or what? In order to start using Adobe Acrobat in the Creative Cloud “suite,” you must agree to Adobe’ s new Terms of Use. However, a user can’t  read the Terms of Use until after he or she agrees to the Terms of Use.  Among the provisions in those terms is this…

14.1 Process. If you have any concern or dispute, you agree to first try to resolve the dispute informally by contacting us. If a dispute is not resolved within 30 days of receipt by us, any resulting legal actions must be resolved through final and binding arbitration, including any question of whether arbitration is required, except that you may assert claims in small claims court if your claims qualify. Claims related to the Terms, Services, or Software are permanently barred if not brought within one year of the event resulting in the claim.

That’s right: you have to agree not to sue  them.

Rob  Beschizza posted a video online showing him futilely  clicking the “Terms of Use” link only to be prevented from reading them because he hadn’t agreed to the Terms of Use.  As he points out, almost nobody—yes, not even lawyers—reads these fine print, intentionally verbose and obscure conditions before they agree to  terms of use, but that’s the users’  fault. Being forced to agree to terms before it is possible to read them is another kettle of fish. That’s con-man stuff. That makes it an invalid contract.

Of course, a company that tries this stunt assumes that when it produces a lawyer-signed statement reminding  dissatisfied customers of the terms they signed, that will be sufficient to discourage any further action.

2. In a mass shooting any excuse for this? Watch this video of an arrest by Canadian police in Lethbridge, Alberta:

A  young woman  dressed as an Empire Storm Trooper and carrying a plastic “blaster” on May the Fourth (…”be with you!”) to promote her employer’s cafe was surrounded by four officers, guns drawn, then tackled—bloodying her nose—cuffed and arrested. Lethbridge Police Inspector Jason Walper said  his department received  two 911 calls regarding  someone brandishing a weapon.

Apparently there really are people, at least in Canada, who have never seen “Star Wars.” But what are the odds that none of the four police were aware that this was a costume? Surely the rational approach to the silly situation would be to ask the woman to  take off her helmet and explain what she was doing before they attacked her. If the girl had been black, and this had occurred in the U.S., the NAACP would be demanding an investigation.

Canadians are trying to mitigate the stupidity here by noting that everyone is traumatized by the nation’s  mass shooting last month that left 22 dead. And, I suppose, a Storm Trooper outfit could have been a diabolical hit man’s clever disguise. I suppose.

Only 22? Heck, in the U.S., that’s chicken feed! Continue reading →

The Banjo/Damien Patton Affair: Can You Ever Escape A Disgraceful Past? Should You Be Able To?

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Damien Patton is the the 47-year-old co-founder and CEO of the rising data gathering startup Banjo. The combination of the company’s success and its founders’ inspiring life story has made him the subject of many tech media and business publication profiles, for it is the kind of gutter to boardroom story on individual bootstrapping America has always celebrated.  He has described an abusive childhood that caused him to run away from home at age 15. He joined the U.S. Navy, then worked as a NASCAR mechanic before learning the craft of crime-scene investigation.  He  learned to code, and then became a co-founder of Banjo as he raised  nearly $223 million in venture capital for the Utah-based company.

However, Americans don’t like their rags-to-riches stories to begin too deep in the gutter. The tech news outlet OneZero uncovered transcripts of courtroom testimony, sworn statements, and more than 1,000 pages of federal records revealing that before he turned to coding, Patton was a member of the Dixie Knights, a Ku Klux Klan group active in the Nashville area in the late 1980s and early 1990s,  and not a passive one. He was was involved in shooting up a synagogue, for example. Understandably, this detail was something Patton did not highlight in his inspirational speeches before aspiring entrepreneurs.

The question is, now what? What does this mean today? What should it mean? Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Easter Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 4/12/2020: Missing The Easter Bunny”

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

In today’s Warm-Up, I expressed my problems with Mark Tapscott’s blog post, titled “He Is Risen! Eight Reasons To Believe.”

To summarize the thrust of my criticism as I reiterated it in my replies to his comment and others, Mark argues persuasively that the authors of the Gospels were, at least in this case, trying to tell the story as they heard it, and were not trying to embellish or distort it in the telling to make it more credible in its time. Good. That does not mean, however, that the story they heard is in fact true. The post was also aimed in part at debunking conspiracy theories about the Resurrection being a hoax. Taking Mark’s argument as that, and that alone, it is also persuasive. However, proving something was not intentionally false does not prove it is true.

I will do this however: at the end of my discussion, I said that I regarded Mark’s argument as a tautology, where a controversial document is cited to prove the accuracy of the document itself, and that I regarded that device as intellectually dishonest. Mark’s response persuades me that my  assessment was unduly harsh and unfair, and I both retract and apologize to him for it.

Moreover, the fact that he chose to respond in person so quickly reaffirms my original favorable assessment of his professionalism and character.

Here is Mark Tapscott’s Comment of the Day on Item #4 in the post, “Easter Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 4/12/2020: Missing The Easter Bunny”:

First, thank you for your kind words regarding my secular writing. I hope that my work in that area continues to merit your approbation. We are, as I believe Confucius is reputed to have said, “cursed to live in interesting times.”

Unfortunately, my reaction is not nearly so positive regarding your critique of my post on eight reasons to believe Jesus was literally resurrected from the dead three days after His crucifixion, just as He said He would be.

“Intellectually dishonest” and tautological? With all due respect, your readers deserve more candor than that from you. You accuse me of these two errors because: “All of his reasons are based on New Testament text. If one believes that the New Testament text is true and accurate, then you don’t need any more reasons. His is a self-ratifying argument.”

If my post was simply arguing for the credibility and historical accuracy of the New Testament, your statement might well more accurately represent what I wrote. I did indeed assume the accuracy of the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, but the eight reasons I offered concerned characteristics of the scriptural accounts and events that point a reasonable reader to their credibility. Continue reading →

On The Recent Steele Dossier Revelations: An Open Letter To An Un-Named Former Ethics Alarms Commenter, Written In Disappointment And Disgust

/ Jack Marshall / 100 Comments

Dear You Know Who You Are,

As you remember, well over a year ago you staged a grandstanding, insulting exit from participation on this blog, declaring that I had “drunk the Kool-Aid.”  Your false claim was provoked because I had successfully navigated through  lies, calculated disinformation and lawbreaking—engineered by those within and without the U.S. government—to conclude that a coordinated effort had been and was underway to overthrow the elected President of the United States. At this point, the fact that your accusation was based on your own blindness and bias is not subject to rational denial or debate.

I knew that at the time, of course. I also felt, and feel, that for you to behave that way, in public, here, was a personal as well as a professional betrayal. We had, I thought, a cordial and mutually respectful relationship. We had exchanged details about the high and low points of our lives face to face.  We are in the same field and profession. I trusted you.

I have provided you some slack in my ultimate judgment on your character because I know that, as we say here often, bias makes us stupid, even the best of us. I have seen this particular bias make many people, even some smarter than you, as difficult as it may be for you to conceive of that, both stupid and  destructive, apparently without a glimmer of self-realization. I recognize that it the phenomenon is, at this point, indistinguishable from an illness, one triggered by emotion and group-think. Thus I am, up to a point, sympathetic, just as I am regarding so many of my Facebook friends who figuratively make asses of themselves every single day  because they are addicted to “likes” and peer approval. Some of them are even lawyers, but you know…lawyers. That is a professional group, along with historians, politicians, historians, scholars, psychiatrist, educators and, of course, journalists, that has broken its duty of trust with the public as it joined a dangerous and unconscionable effort to break our democracy. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Now THIS Is A Level 8 Apology!”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

In this concise but rich Comment of the Day, Isaac takes on the challenge of re-writing the wildly inadequate and unconvincing apology offered by the Catholic priest who was pressured to recant his negative comments about Islam in a Sunday service.

The apology offered three days later by the chastened priest, Fr.Nick VanDenBroeke:

My homily on immigration contained words that were hurtful to Muslims. I’m sorry for this. I realize now that my comments were not fully reflective of the Catholic Church’s teaching on Islam.

 

Here is Isaac’s alternative, his Comment of the Day on the post, “Now THIS Is A Level 8 Apology!”… Continue reading →

Urgent Notice Of Correction: Chuck Schumer’s Apparently Non-Existent “Unethical Quote Of The Century,” And My Abject Apology Because Bias Made Me Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 55 Comments

Last evening, I posted an Unethical Quote allegedly made by Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer that “Donald Trump’s impeachment acquittal will be meaningless because we never accepted the results of the 2016 election in the first place. Anyone who accepts an acquittal is a danger to our democracy.” I originally titled it the Unethical Quote of the Day, and later, as I read it again while responding to the predictable shocked comments, I upgraded the comment to Unethical Quote of the Century, a designation I was prepared to defend.

This morning, momentarily awake and planning to go back to sleep, I decided to check the Ethics Alarms comments, and saw this, from frequent commenter Here’s Johnny.

Re: Unethical quote:
I would think that, for the unethical quote of the century, I would be able to find a few references to it in the news media. My best Google search efforts have turned up reports from Ethics Alarms and The Sacramento Brie. The Brie does not appear to be a legitimate news site, and their reference to this quote appears to show a Fox News screen grab. Searching at Fox News did not turn up the quote. The quote does not appear in the Senate Democrats text of Schumer’s comments at the press conference where he supposedly made the comment.
So, what is going on here? Is there evidence that Schumer actually said what is in the quote? I could not find it.

This was disturbing. The post had no link, which is unusual, and I couldn’t tracj down where I got it from, though I believe the pointer came from a Trump Deranged friend on Facebook who quoted it approvingly. I’ve checked my browser history to no avail. After reading HJ’s comment, I listened to every YouTube clip I could find from Schumer yesterday. He made a number of disingenuous and hyperbolic statements about a trial with no witnesses not being a trial (The Clinton impeachment had no witnesses, and Democrats seemed to be happy with that), but nothing as outrageous as the alleged quote I posted.

Like Johnny, I cannot believe that if Schumer said something that irresponsible, it wouldn’t have been widely reported. Thus I am suspending the post pending verification, and as of this moment, assume that it was false. I also deleted the tweet that the blog generates for every post. I will continue to  look for the quote and the source, and to identify exactly how this happened.

To some extent I know the latter: the news media and other Democrats have been foaming at the mouth for days, and many of the quotes are no less head-exploding than Schumer’s, except that they were not made by the leader of the party in the Senate. Assuming that there was no such Schumer quote, I was bitten by fake news that triggered confirmation bias. I have written for years that the Democrats/”resistance”/ mainstream media alliance have denied the legitimacy of President Trump’s election, and that conclusion is objectively unavoidable. Though I was stunned to see Schumer say so out loud, it was not as if what the quote indicated was out of line with reality. The second part, about “the danger to democracy,” echoed many of the irresponsible statements made by Rep. Schiff and others during the House impeachment managers’ presentation, and similar rhetoric by pundits and other Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), for example, tweeted yesterday,

“The Senate’s abdication of responsibility to the rule of law represents a much deeper threat to our democracy, our institutions, and our republic. The GOP knows that its agenda is incompatible with democracy, so their larger project is to dismantle it.”

That statement is as inflammatory and absurd as the alleged Schumer tweet, but not as shocking because OAC is, after all, an idiot. Schumer, however, is not.

I cannot apologize sufficiently for this. My attention has been even more divided than usual this past week—that’s not an excuse, but a partial explanation—and I’ve been bouncing around two computers and two many news sources to count, and, apparently, keep proper track of. I should never post a story or commentary with out verified links to the source, and, frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t this time.

Facebook is unreliable; I know that. There were plenty of aspects of the quote that should have set off my own ethics alarms, but I let my emotions take over: the quote really infuriated me, because as I suggested by noting the Schumer was “playing with fire,” that kind of rhetoric—and there has been a lot of it— rips at the connective tissue that holds this republic together. However, publishing unverified inflammatory rhetoric is just as wrong as saying such things.

Readers here have to be able to trust me; an ethics blog without trust is like a—oh, you can make up your own metaphor, I’m too upset to be clever—and this time I failed their, your, trust by not following my own procedures, and apparently being fooled  because I didn’t heed my most important rule, to avoid bias making me stupid. I apologize to everyone reading this, everyone who passed along what appears to be Ethics Alarms fake news, and everyone who might have been misled by the fact that the invalid quote was passed along. I apologize to the commenters whose reactions are vanishing with the essay: I’m so sorry. I wasted your time. I also apologize to Senator Schumer.

I am going to have to do better, and I will.

I could say that I hope I can find that the quote was accurate after all, but I don’t. I am relieved that it appears to have been fabricated. I felt, when I read it, and foolishly believed it, that this was a tipping point, and a dangerous one.

Now, before I go back to bed and dream of self-flagellation,  I am going to add the portion of the banned post that I know was accurate, because it had value. Indeed, another reason I accepted the quote impulsively, I think, is that it gave me a pwoerful lead-in to content I had already written. That will teach me.

I hope.

Here’s the remaining section of the now zapped post, and one more time, I am so sorry: Continue reading →

Now THIS Is A Level 8 Apology!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

I’d consider a new head-shot, Father.

On the Ethics Alarms Apology Scale, a Level 8 apology, among the worst, is described as “A forced apology for a rightful or legitimate act, in capitulation to bullying, fear, threats, desperation or other coercion.”

Lonsdale, Minnesota priest Nick VanDenBroeke provided one of the finest—well, that’s not the right word since such apologies are insincere and indications of hypocrisy and cowardice, but you know what I mean—examples of such apologies after he was excoriated for saying in a sermon on immigration,

Both as Americans and Christians we do not need to pretend that everyone who seeks entry into America should be treated the same. I believe it’s essential to consider the religion and world view of immigrants or refugees more specifically we should not allow large numbers of Muslims asylum or immigration into our country. Islam is the greatest threat in the world both to Christianity and to America – of course there are peaceful Muslims, absolutely, but the religion as a religion and as an ideology and world view it is contrary to Christ and America.

I am not saying we hate Muslims, I am absolutely not saying that, they are people created out of love by God just as each one of us is. But while we certainly don’t hate them as people we must oppose their religion and world view.  And if we want to protect our great country, not only as a Christian nation but also as the land of the free then we must oppose the immigration of Muslims, that’s an example of keeping bad ideas out of the country that we have the right to do as a sovereign nation.

I’m not a hater for saying this I’m not saying something anti-Christian because the religion is anti-Christian. I’m simply a realist to acknowledge that fact, they are the greatest threat to Christianity and America and we need to recognize that fact and our laws of immigration need to reflect that.

Continue reading →

Don Lemon’s Apology Proves He’s A Liar And A Coward As Well As Biased And Unprofessional. Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

CNN? Hello?

CNN’s Don Lemon’s joking and guffawing with his panel about the rubes and yokels who support the President has been an immediate source of criticism, and not only from conservatives. The RNC also quickly made a TV ad out of it,and if I were in charge, we would see it all year. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

For anyone who has  been paying attention, and definitely who’s been reading Ethics Alarms, this is all poison frosting on the cancer cake. It has been undeniable for years that Lemon is a foolish, juvenile, arrogant, unprofessional progressive hack who has become more reckless over time, convinced as he is that he would have to sexually assault Anderson Cooper on the air before CNN would even consider firing a black, gay favorite of the woke and Trump Deranged. Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Warm-Up, 1/26/2020: A Legal Ethics Lesson From Ted Cruz, A Ridiculous Apology From Dallas Keuchel, Res Ipsa Loquitur From George Stephanopoulos, And The AUC’s Character Con

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I need a little blood-stirring today, and my father’s favorite hymn always does the trick…

You know, character is my business, and my record is visible, public extensive and undeniable regarding the position that leaders, and especially U.S. Presidents, should have exemplary character—not just average character, but outstanding. It is exceedingly dangerous to our culture in the short and long term to have a leader whose ethical values are obviously lacking. I say obviously, because leadership is substantially symbolic as well as substantive: a President who has a seriously flawed character does minimal harm if he 1) knows how the govern and lead and 2) is skilled at playing a leader of exemplary character, despite sociopathic tendencies, or worse.

However, as importunate as character is, the evident lack of it is not justification for impeachment or removing a President between elections. The false, opposite claim is essentially the basis of the entire three year coup attempt by the Axis of Unethical Conduct (Democrats, the “resistance” and the news media). That is why so much of the “case for impeachment” are really ad hominem attacks on the President’s presumed motives, personality and alleged beliefs, none of which are remotely relevant to impeachment. It is the duty of educated experts not driven by bias, as well as the news media (which is now incapable of doing it’s job, which is informing rather than confusing the public) to explain that impeaching a President for having an objectionable character (according to his critics) is an incompetent, illegal and destructive act. Yet this—he’s a liar, he’s a racist, he’s an idiot, he’s a sexist, he’s corrupt, etc., etc, and so on-–is the guarantee default retort when anyone correctly points out to the Trump-Deranged that the Democrats and the resistance have no evidence of impeachable offenses at all. This is also why the polling shows so many people want the impeachment to succeed; not because they have a clue about the limitations on the the act of impeachment, but because they interpret the question as, “Don’t you wish we had a President who wasn’t such an asshole?”

Maureen Dowd, the Times whatsit columnists who is half political commentator and half-Joan Rivers, thoroughly disgraced herself yesterday by writing,

“You don’t realize how important character is in the highest office in the land until you don’t have it,” Schiff said. But the more impressive the Democrats’ case is, the more depressing the reality becomes. They want to convince themselves that character matters. But many Americans knew they were voting for a thug. They wanted a thug who would bust up Washington, and they got one.

The Democrats are relying on facts, but the Republicans are relying on Fox.

No, Maureen (are you a dolt or a brazen liar?), the Democrats are relying on facts that have nothing to do with impeachment. Character matters (although during the entire two terms of Bill Clinton  the Democrats argued it didn’t), but it doesn’t matter in an impeachment trial. Acts matter in an impeachment trial. The Constitution matters. Precedent matters. Our institutions matter.

It is the mark of how incompetent and irresponsible the President’s critics are than the impeachment debate is being argued at this base level of civic and ethics ignorance.

1. Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias… Continue reading →