hypocrisy

Martin Luther King Was A Depraved Sexual Predator. Now What, Statue-Topplers? [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

I’m glad—thrilled may be a better word—that we now have strong evidence that Martin Luther King was not merely an unfaithful husband and compulsive dog (we already knew that, and so did J. Edgar Hoover), but that he was far, far worse. Of course, this doesn’t change in any way my assessment of King’s important contributions to civil rights, human rights, the culture and the nation. I just love to see people who have adopted an impossible and unethical standard for other important historical figures in order to preen, grandstand and mold history to their liking and purpose, to be hoisted—HARD–by their own petard.

King biographer David Garrow  unearthed previously classified FBI documents showing that King was a bad guy in private by any measure, even using a Donald Trump or a Bill Clinton standard.

For those whose view of candidate Trump was permanently lowered by his being caught on video crudely boosting about “grabbing women by the pussy,” William Sullivan, assistant director of the FBI, wrote in a 1964 memo among many recently released that King joked to his friends that “he had started the ‘International Association for the Advancement of Pussy-Eaters’.” There is  an incident recorded by FBI agents and held in a vault under court seal at the US National Archives showing that King  “looked on, laughed and offered advice” while a friend who was also a Baptist minister raped a woman described as one of his “parishioners”.

Believe it or not, that story gets worse. The FBI reported that King joined Logan Kearse, the pastor of Baltimore’s Cornerstone Baptist church, who had arrived in Washington with what the FBI summary describes as “several women ‘parishioners’ of his church” in an orgy in Kearse’s hotel room at the Willard Hotel. The FBI, having neen tipped off about the visit and that King would be involved, bugged the room.

The civil rights icon and his reverend friend  “discussed which women among the parishioners would be suitable for natural and unnatural sex acts.” One of the women protested, so Kearse  raped her as King watched. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On Barack Obama’s $596,000 Speaking Fee

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

A report from El Tiempo, a Colombian news outlet, states that former President Barack Obama will recieve “2 mil millones de pesos” for delivering a speech engaging in an  on-stage discussion about leadership strategies at the EXMA Conference in Bogota. Obama’s fee is the equivalent of $594,000 in U.S. dollars

The Colombian news website Publicmetro.co, further reports that conference attendees who want to attend the event and take a photo with Obama will pay 11 million Colombian pesos, or about $3,267.

Ethics Observations: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/29/2019: “It Depends On What The Meaning Of _____ Is” Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

And as May sinks slowly into the west, we wave farewell…

(All in all, it’s been a discouraging month on the ethics front, and I will not be sorry to see it go.)

1. I just unfriended someone for political reasons, which I never have done before. Not because of what the guy’s stated beliefs are, because I emphatically and unalterably hold that ethical adults should be able to resist cognitive dissonance and maintain good relationships with those whom they believe are obviously, tragically, dangerous wrong about anything from baseball to abortion, but because he demands one-way dialogues.

He wrote me requesting that I not challenge his posts or the assertions of his seal-like followers, yet routinely comments on my page, and his many dubious positions pop up on my feed routinely. Essentially he wants me to be complicit in his enabling the largely Leftist bubble that Facebook has evolved into, and to allow people to cheer on illogical and biased posts without having to defend their barely-thought out screeds.

To hell with that.

2.  What a surprise! From Jezebel:

“…Biden still seems unable to keep his hands to himself.Indeed, at an American Federation of Teachers town hall in Houston on Tuesday night (where he unrolled a pretty decent education plan, to be fair) Biden pulled out another Classic Biden Move, per Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez .“In a somewhat odd moment at tonight’s AFT town hall, Biden tells a 10-year-old girl, ‘I’ll bet you’re as bright as you are good-looking,’” she tweeted. “He takes her over to the assembled reporters, then stands behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders while he’s talking.”

To anyone who believed that Biden had instantly reformed from a career- and life-long addiction to touching, hugging, sniffing, and otherwise behaving disrespectfully, presumptuously and assaultively to women and, ick, young girls, a) I told you so, and b) you’re too gullible to go through life without a keeper.

Is the feminist-dominated Democratic Party really going to let this creep represent it in the 2020 elections? I find that impossible to believe, polls notwithstanding, but maybe I’m giving Democrats credit for integrity that they long ago proved the party no longer values or possesses. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Insensitive Exam Question”

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

 

I am hopping slickwilly’s answer to the ethics quiz about “Above the Law” editor and social justice warrior taking offense at a Georgetown Law Center prof’s exam question over several other languishing but equally deserving Comment of the Day. The main reason is that it’s witty and mordantly funny, and it made me laugh out loud.

Yes, it qualifies as a rant, and I know there’s a line of long-standing in the Comment policies that says “political rants are not welcome.” However, as readers here know, every rule has exceptions, and several apply to slickwilly’s work. To begin with, any literary form, if executed well, is worthy of respect. Second, Ethics Alarms bestows special privileges on regular commenters here, who add so much to the content and quality of the blog. Finally, I have to concede that sometimes only a rant will do.

The astounding hypocrisy, dishonesty and Orwellian tactics of the “resistance” appear to be immune from rational, traditional analysis. When, for example, Mr Trump’s enraged and hateful foes accuse him of being a fascist while they encourage their supporters to physically intimidate anyone who supports the President, or say that Trump endangers democracy as they attempt to undermine public trust in the President and the nation’s institutions, dispassionate arguments fail to have much impact—it is, as I have said at various times, like arguing with lunatics or toddlers. Rants can provide special clarity by crystallizing the frustration and anger created by trying to engage ethically with a shamelessly unethical adversary. I don’t want rants to become the currency of the realm here, but this one is timely and skillful.

Here is slickwilly’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The Insensitive Exam Question”:

“Was the professor’s exam question unethical, as in irresponsible and uncaring?”

Hell, no!

Color me surprised that a progressive hack found something to be offended by.

What, President Trump not taken to Twitter lately? Was this a slow news day in Mystal’s neck of the woods? Weren’t there pygmies in Africa with acne to write about? No pictures of swimming polar bears denoting some perceived deficiency with their habitat, undoubtedly caused by evil man?

‘Snowflake’ is an apt term for what academia and progressives are indoctrinating students into becoming.

If you cannot stand up to the adversity of life, cannot even hear a point of view not dictated by your progressive masters;

If you cannot stand to be reminded that the thing you are outraged about TODAY was the thing you endorsed YESTERDAY;

If the mere presence of a designated ‘deplorable’ on campus sends you fleeing to a room with coloring books and puppies;

If the term ‘safe’ implies a space and not a condition of a runner in Baseball;

If you believe in violence against those who disagree with progressive cant, yet self defense by those attacked is not a natural and correct response;

If you believe that everyone should pay ‘their fair share’ yet complain when YOU have to pony up;

If you believe that Roe-v-Wade is written in stone, yet Heller-v-District of Columbia should be reversed upon a whim; Continue reading →

Rueful Observations On The Latest Development In Virginia Governor Northam’s Blackface Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Well, let’s see: my college has embarrassed me, my law school’s professors continue to make me wish I had earned a law degree by drawing “Skippy” from the cover of a matchbook, black students were apparently insulted in my home city’s famous art museum, my baseball team allowed itself to be split by “the resistance,” and my adopted state of Virginia has the most ridiculous governor since Rod Blagojevich was making Illinois residents consider moving to Tierra del Fuego.

To refresh your memory regarding  the Ralph Northam Ethics Trainwreck, since it’s been stashed in the news media memory hole for a while: the same week  that he appeared to casually explain how post-birth abortion works while showing all the passion of someone describing how to replace a carburetor, Northam’s med school yearbook surfaced showing the governor-to-be either dressed as a Klansman or wearing blackface, unless you subscribe to the theory that the photo of two men in such get-ups was just randomly planted on Northam’s page.

In a dizzying sequence, the Governor 1) apologized for the photo and wearing blackface in it, apparently admitting that it was him 2) said that he didn’t think either figure was him, and he could “tell by looking at it” 3) admitted that he did once wear blackface to look like Michael Jackson in a talent show 4) said that he had to have someone explain to him recently that blackface was considered offensive.

The short version: he’s a babbling, untrustworthy idiot. Continue reading →

This Is Sexual Harassment, And Until Hollywood, The Media, And the Public Realize It, The Harvey Weinsteins (And Joe Bidens) Will Roam The Workplace Like The Buffalo Once Roamed The Plains

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Frasier now and then. Psst! Brendan! You can’t ambush actresses with kisses any more! At least not unless you’re running for President as a Democrat…it’s complicated. Give me a call.

This drives me crazy. I’m preparing a sexual harassment training seminar for an association, and this story just went into the introduction.

A nice cheery puff piece is up at E!On-line. about reminiscences by actress Leslie Mann (make that feminist, woke, #Me too-supporting actress Leslie Mann)   about the time she shot a movie with actor and one-time stud-muffin Brendan Frasier. A sample:

“Every morning before work we were in the hair and makeup trailer getting ready. And he would come in and kiss me on the lips,” she tells host Busy Philippswith an ear-to-ear grin. “Just like, ‘Good morning!’ And kiss. You know, like he’s European or something.”

Leslie got used to those morning smooches—earlier in the clip, the actor cheekily notes that since her character was supposed to fall for Brendan’s onscreen, she just went ahead and “fell in love with him in real life”—so it was pretty jarring for her when the kisses stopped suddenly one day.

Frasier didn’t ask permission for these spontaneous kisses, which #MeToo emphatically calls sexual assault in principle, just not when they like the assaulter. It is sexual assault, just like this is… Continue reading →

The Integrity Void That Is Joe Biden…and His Progressive Supporters

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Since announcing his candidacy for the Presidency, Joe Biden has obliterated whatever small respect I had for him—it was small indeed—and established himself as the official expediency candidate of the Democratic Party.

There was a time in 2016 when I had resolved that if Biden threw his hat in the ring, I would hold my nose and vote for him. He was less offensive to my ethical values and priorities than Donald Trump— few would not be—and less cynical, manipulative and untrustworthy than Hillary Clinton (see interjected comment above.)

If he had been the Democratic nominee, would I have still concluded, as I did late in the campaign, that the Democratic Party was as unsupportable as an institution as Trump was as an individual, being so corrupt that it was increasingly willing to abandon core American rights and principles in its pursuit of power? I wonder. As it has turned out, I was more right than I knew. Now Joe is proving it, and leading Democrats to prove it as well.

Astoundingly, he is the runaway leader in all polls of the contenders for the nomination, though not all are really “contenders.” In part this is the predictable consequence of being Vice President for 8 years: the order of the top  candidates tracks almost exactly with the national awareness of who the candidates are, with the exception of Elizabeth Warren, and thank God for that. Most Americans still aren’t paying close attention to Presidential politics, meaning that they can’t pronounce Buttigieg, don’t know that he’s gay, couldn’t pick Amy  Klobuchar out of a line-up, and get Cory Booker confused with Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Another reason Biden may be ahead is that he’s the only recognizable candidate who  doesn’t sound like he’s running for President of Venezuela, although he has also made it crystal clear that if sounding like a socialist is what it tales to get the nomination, he’ll sound like a socialist.

In other words, Biden displays the exact opposite of what is arguably Donald Trump’s best trait. The President is consistent in presenting himself as who is is, and takes positions that many disagree with, perhaps violently. In contrast, if Joe Biden has any integrity at all at this point in his career, please point me to it.  More disturbingly, no progressive who supports Biden can plausibly regards integrity as an important ethical virtue (It may be the most important ethical virtue, especially for leaders.)

Listen to this classic late stage Trump Derangement rant that Joe was confronted with by a woman  at a campaign stop: Continue reading →

The ABA Shuts Down Comments On The Articles In The ABA Journal

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

Now that’s ironic. Like so many other publications and websites that prefer one-way communications of ideas, the official publication of the American Bar Association has announced that it will no longer allow readers to comment on its content. Yes, a profession that is all about rights and advocacy finds advocacy in response to legal opinion and analysis too inconvenient to deal with, and its readers free expression of ideas too burdensome to countenance.

The ABA Journal’s announcement was filled with disingenuous statements and half truths as bullet-pointed reasons for the move:

  • “The tone of the comments has become rancorous and uncivil, with substantive commentary being drowned out by partisanship and namecalling that violate the ABA Code of Conduct.”

Wait: how does “partisanship and namecalling” in the comment section of a website “violate the ABA Code of Conduct?”

What an embarrassing claim: the ABA doesn’t understand its own Model Rules! The word “partisanship” doesn’t appear anywhere in the rules, and the argument is hilarious anyway, since the ABA itself, an allegedly non-partisan non-profit, is extremely partisan, as a brief perusal of the various public positions it has taken on matters that really should be none of their business would make obvious. (Guess which party! Come on, guess!) Extreme namecalling under certain  circumstances during the practice of law may occasionally involve a sanctionable ethics breach for lawyers, but not for non-lawyers, retired lawyers and many other readers. The larger problem is this: the ABA Rules are just guidelines. They don’t officially apply to anybody, not even to ABA members. You can’t literally “violate” them, like they are rules or laws.

  • “Our existing commenting system is vulnerable to trolls.”

Then fix your system, but only after defining “trolls.” It is often a lawyer’s job to make trouble, stir the pot, and create productive friction.

  • “Moderating the comments has become an unsustainable burden on our staff.”

I guess the ABA Journal is incapable of running a website, then. Moderating comments, which as far as I can determine involves fewer comments per article than the typical Ethics Alarms post, cannot possibly be that difficult or time-consuming. It’s a staff-member, and not a highly paid one. This sounds like cover for a financial decision.

  • “We have fielded a number of complaints from members about individual comments and the tone of the comments as a whole.””

Oh! Complaints! Well, we all know how much lawyers hate complaints! (Who wrote this?)

  • “With our large social media presence, there are a number of platforms for readers to engage with and discuss our journalism.”

“Now, you  folks can’t eat here, but there are some real nice places down the road a piece…”

I would write a searing comment about this, but the ABA Journal won’t allow it…

Facebook And Instagram Leap Down The Slippery Slope To Thought-Policing

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Facebook has banned right-wing activists Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, Joseph Watson, white supremacist Paul Nehlen,  Jones’s company, Infowars, and  Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

And yes, it is unethical. And frightening. The irony is that Facebook says that the ideas promoted by these mostly fringe figures are “dangerous.” Nothing any of them say or write are anywhere nearly as dangerous as promoting censorship based on content and political viewpoint.

It doesn’t matter that all of the political and opinion figures Facebook banned from its two social media platforms are assholes, bigots and hate-mongers—I can’t say for sure that all of them are, since I only bump into any of them when I take a wrong turn on the Information Superhighway, as Al Gore liked to call it. I can say for sure that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan meets that description, just as I can say for sure the media spin that he is “right wing” is ridiculous. If he’s so far right, why have so many members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including the only-recently resigned co-chair of the Democratic National Committee, met with him, posed with him, and generally given him legitimacy?  Barack Obama posed with him too, though that photo was stored in the media memory hole until he was safely elected President.

Oh, I get it: only conservatives spread hate, ergo Farrakhan must be a right winger.  I suspect that the real reason Farrakhan was on the initial list of banned users was so Facebook could claim, when challenged, that it wasn’t just banning  advocates for the far right.

Progressives and their allies need to get their stories straight.

Let me get back to the first sentence: for a major source of communication in our society to permanently censor anyone based purely on the ideas and opinions they advocate is unethical, and is a serious threat to freedom of expression in the United States. Continue reading →

Afternoon Ethics Warm-Up, 4/25/19: Hypocrisy Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Having a delightful afternoon I hope?

1. “Ethics Bob” is back! After what I gather have been extensive world travels with his wife, Ethics Bob  reanimated his blog this week, and I am hoping that Bob, who kindly credited me with inspiring him to write his ethics book, and who teaches ethics himself, will begin commenting again on Ethics Alarms. He is that rarity around here, a committed liberal who plays fair in debates. Unfortunately, Bob’s return post is wrong—and I distinctly remember a lunch with Bob in which he insisted that Bill Clinton shouldn’t have been impeached—but that’s OK.  He’s ethical, thoughtful, and open-minded. Check in with him, and hope along with me that he starts checking in here.

2. How much hypocrisy can Democratic voters stand? In Virginia, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax has been hit with multiple allegations of rape and sexual assault. Despite the lip  service the national party has given to “believe all women,” and its position during the Kavanaugh hearings that accusations alone were enough to disqualify a judge for the Supreme Court,  Virginia  Democrats refused to join Republican efforts to sanction or remove Fairfax, who is black and the #2 official ins a state where #1 has admitted to wearing blackface. In order to show that they don’t approve of Fairfax (while not having the integrity to make him hew to the standards they have been advocating for years) the Democratic Party of Virginia rejected his $2,500 donation for the party’s Blue Commonwealth Gala in June.

“We were not comfortable accepting the Lieutenant Governor’s PAC’s contribution and we let his team know that when they reached out,” party spokesman Jake Rubenstein told the  The Washington Post .

“The Lt. Governor’s We Rise Together PAC was planning to have a group of African-American pastors and other supporters sit at his table,” Fairfax spokeswoman Lauren Burke told the Post. “He is innocent and has passed two polygraphs and repeatedly called for an investigation. DPVA has assumed he is guilty of a violent criminal act with no investigation or even a conversation to ascertain his version of events.”

But if the party believes Fairfax is guilty of violent crimes and #MeToo outrages, why is he still in office? Continue reading →