jokes

I Propose A “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day”—Because His Imprisonment Is A Disgrace To Our Nation

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments

Justin Carter

Ethics Alarms is not an activist blog. That is not its purpose. However, for some reason that mystifies and frightens me, most of the nation appears to be unaware, or not to give a damn, that in this nation, supposedly free and governed by the principles of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, a young teenaged man has been imprisoned and abused because he wrote this in a non-threatening exchange on Facebook:

“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.” lol. jk.”

I wrote about the ridiculous, Kafka-esque series of events that put this innocent kid in prison here. I asked in that post, “what are we going to do about it?” The answer, apparently, is nothing.

The confiscate-the-guns, save-the-children, anything-goes-to-save-one-child hysteria that marinated everyone’s brain since Newtown apparently worked, and just a few observers are even paying attention to Justin’s persecution any more. It’s gotten worse for Justin, you know. He’s still in jail; he has apparently been beaten. He’s on a suicide watch, and for some reason a judge set his bail at $500,000, which defies sanity. The ACLU, which one would think exists to come to the rescue of victims like Justin, has been silent as far as I can tell. Texas Governor Rick Perry hasn’t lifted a finger either. While President Obama clearly intends to stick his nose into every local incident he gives a damn about, he doesn’t appear to feel the imprisonment of a kid for making a black humor joke on Facebook is worthy of his meddling. Outside of the Huffington Post, the National Review and NPR, only the conservative websites have expressed outrage at Justin’s case. None of the major news networks have reported it. Nor has the Washington Post or The New York Times. Indeed, read the comments to some of the web coverage, and you encounter disgusting reactions like this, from HuffPo reader Rita Phel:

“It is unbelievable how many people are defending this young man and making light of what he said. There is NOTHING funny about that comment and there never will be. The victim’s families are still grieving for goodness sake. And just because somebody says they’re just kidding doesn’t mean they actually are. Also, he’s not a kid – he was 18 at the time and that makes him an adult. He knew very well that what he posted was inappropriate or else he would not have quickly followed it with ‘lol’ and ‘jk’. This world is clearly more messed up than I thought if people could boldly defend something so obviously cruel, offensive and insensitive”

That’s right Rita, you Nazi, when someone offends you with an insensitive remark on his own webpage, lock him up.

All you self-righteous civil libertarian cartoonists out there: you thought it was worth insulting an entire world of Muslims because one of your number was bullied by Islamic crazies for drawing Mohammad. Is it worth your time to do anything to protest your own country throwing teens in jail for making sarcastic jokes? Why are you, indeed, why are any of us sitting by and allowing our news media to ignore the fact that in this country, someone is being jailed for nothing more than a lack of political correctness…and is allegedly facing many years in jail? The big protest action undertaken in Justin’s behalf appear to be a Change.org petition. Yeah, that’s powerful.

lol. jk.

He’s “just one” individual? He’s one citizen, and if it can happen to one, it can happen to any of us. (It already happened to another.)

So let me propose some more high profile action that might rouse our media and our elected officials out of their disgraceful apathy. I’m not going to organize it, but the social media will do that, if anyone else cares.

I propose that we make August 1 “Quote Justin Carter On Social Media Day.” Circulate this post, or just spread the word yourself. Everyone with a Facebook, Twitter or other social media account post Justin’s prison-worthy threat….

“Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head. I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them. lol. jk.”

Maybe that will get some attention. That busy-body in Canada can’t have all of us arrested…unless its just me. Come to think of it, I live next to a school. Hmmm. I sure hope I have some company on August first, because in Barack Obama’s America, I’m not sure what I may be arrested for, or who may be watching.

I’m not doing this alone.

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Graphic: New York Daily News

The Persecution Of Justin Carter And The Consequences Of Fear-Mongering: If This Doesn’t Make You Angry, Something’s The Matter With You

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

strike

Here I was, naively thinking that the threatened jailing of a student for resisting a teacher’s efforts to make him remove his T-shirt with the image of a rifle on it was the most shocking proof of how imperiled free thought and expression are in today’s fearful, dim-witted and child abuse-rationalizing America. Then this jaw-dropping story came across my screen, and I realized that the situation is far worse than I imagined or could imagine—and I have a pretty good imagination.

Now the question is, I think, this: what are we going to do about it?

Nineteen-year-old Justin Carter has been in prison since March. You will not believe why, or perhaps, being both paranoid and right,  you will. A Facebook friend and video game pal described him in an exchange as “crazy” and “messed up in the head,” and Carter replied, with sarcasm detectable by anyone who isn’t an SS officer. “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts. lol. jk.” A Canadian busybody read the exchange, and decided to report Justin to the Austin police, who then arrested him–he was 18 at the time—searched his family’s house, and charged him with making a “terroristic threat.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Grade The Misbehaving Celebrities!

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Our subjects:

Oh, Bill...you're such a scream!

Oh, Bill…you’re such a scream!

Bill Maher, bad boy comic, political satirist and host of HBO’s “Real Time”

Maher’s fans

Ron Futrelle, former sportscaster and Las Vegas media personality

Sarah Palin, former governor, VP candidate, Fox commentator and conservative icon

All clashed over a joke made by Maher during a stand-up gig, and your challenge is to decide who gets the lowest ethics grade. Here’s what happened: Futrelle was in the audience for Maher’s show in  Las Vegas. Maher made a joke about Palin’s son, Trig, who has Down Syndrome. According to Futrelle, the joke  upset him, as well as the fact that the audience appeared to enjoy Maher’s using Palin’s innocent and mentally challenged child as a comedy topic, and laughed heartily. Futrelle began heckling Maher, eventually prompting an annoyed audience member to remind him that he was not the attraction, and suggest that he shut his gob. Futrelle persisted, and when confronted by security, left.

Through Futrelle’s blog’s account of his experience, Brietbart and the miracle of social media, Mama Grizzly Palin learned that her young son had been (again) converted into joke-fodder, and tweeted her reaction to Maher:

“Hey bully, on behalf of all kids whom you hatefully mock in order to make yourself feel big, I hope one flattens your lily white wimpy a#*.”

Our grading scale:

A  Exemplary ethical conduct.

B  Ethical and appropriate conduct that could have been better executed.

C  Acceptable conduct according to reasonable social norms

D Unethical conduct

F  Despicable conduct

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is, therefore, to accept this challenge:

Give Maher, Maher’s audience, Futrelle and Palin their ethics grades. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Chelsea Bacon

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

“Comedy is not assuming zero responsibility over your actions. It is not telling others how to respond. It is not demonstrating the utmost hypocritical behavior in making callous, lazy, ignorant statements and then lashing out aggressively against critics. Comedy is not free from criticism. This is not an echo chamber containing only yourself and a couple other people exactly like you. You won’t need to do any of these things if you want to be a good comedian, or a decent human being for that matter.”

—-Chelsea Bacon, concluding her account of the reaction she received from male comedians and commenters when she criticized what she regarded as gratuitous sexist jokes.

You might want to read Chelsea's piece, Seth...

You might want to read Chelsea’s piece, Seth…

Bacon takes a brave and ethical stand on unpopular topics among comics, such as whether all jokes are defensible regardless of content as long as they make someone laugh, whether rape is ever legitimate joke fodder, whether exploiting minority stereotypes is fair game in pursuit of comedy, and whether it is inappropriate to criticize comedy material at all. Along the way, the dirty little not-so-secret of the gender imbalance in the comedy world also comes to light.

It is a bold and thought-provoking piece, which you can read in its entirely here.

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Pointer: Fark

Source: Little Village Mag

From Connecticut State Rep. Ernest Hewett (D): The Most Inappropriate Public Utterance By An Elected Official Ever?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Wow.

Just…wow.

"Hi...I'm a friend of Rep Hewett? He invited me to attend the hearing...could you direct me to his desk, please?"

“Hi…I’m a friend of Rep Hewett.  He invited me to attend the hearing…could you direct me to his desk, please?”

The late Donald Shaefer, former governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore, certainly had his moments of outrageous, and often sexist, candor, and foot-in-mouth disease has certainly marred the legacies of many a politician, but this seems like a scene out of a Will Farrell movie. An unbelievable scene.

On February 21, a 17-year-old female intern at the Connecticut Science Center was testifying before the Connecticut legislature. Among those questioning her about her work was Hewett, the deputy speaker and a former mayor of New London in his fifth term in the House. The intern was discussing the benefits of her work, and told the lawmakers, “I am usually a very shy person, and now I am more outgoing. I was able to teach those children about certain things like snakes that we have and the turtles that we have… ,” she said. “I want to do something toward that, working with children when I get older.”

Hewett responded—and I’m not making this up…

“If you’re bashful I got a snake sitting under my desk here!” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Unethical Quote of the Month, or Just A Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“If you’re thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you.

—– HBO’s alleged comedian and one million dollar Obama contributor Bill Maher, on his current events commentary show, “Real Time.”

Funny!

Oh, I know, I know: it’s a joke. Maher even followed it up by saying, “I’m kidding!”  Maybe you even think it’s funny…there are arguably funny racist, sexist and anti-gay jokes too. This one hits all the keys: suggesting that Romney is anti-black, attempting to intimidate voters, and stereotyping Africa-Americans as violent and dangerous. (And, of course, the comment is divisive, but on that score, Maher is only taking his cue from the Obama campaign, which has reminded everyone that Romney “isn’t one of us.”)

No conservative could make this “joke.” A races-reversed version of the joke would cause an eruption of anger from the Left. Since humor is utilitarian (if it’s funny enough, anything goes), is this joke sufficiently hilarious to justify it? Maher also thinks it’s a joke to call Republican women “twats” and “cunts.” He’s a funny guy.

Here is your Ethics Quiz:

Should Maher’s comment be excused as being within acceptable bounds for a political comic, or is it unethical nonetheless?

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Pointer: Newsbusters

Graphic: Libertarian Punk

More Respect For The President, Please.

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Now if Redd Foxx were President, that would be different…

I thought the lack of respect his political opponents showed to Bill Clinton was shocking, and dangerous. I thought the escalation in this respect deficit Democrats displayed in their treatment of President Bush was worse. And I think the disrespect shown to President Obama by Republicans and partisan media critics is worse yet. In all three cases, the unjustified lack of respect resulted and is resulting in absurd distortions and accusations. A case in point:

The conservative blogosphere is convincing itself that President Obama made….a blowjob joke. Here is the “smoking gun”, from a fundraising event hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, attended by many gays:

“I want to thank my wonderful friend who accepts a little bit of teasing about Michelle beating her in pushups — (laughter) — but I think she claims Michelle didn’t go all the way down. (Laughter.) That’s what I heard. I just want to set the record straight — Michelle outdoes me in pushups as well. (Laughter.) So she shouldn’t feel bad. She’s an extraordinary talent and she’s just a dear, dear friend — Ellen DeGeneres. Give Ellen a big round of applause…”

The usually rational Ann Althouse polls her readers on the question of whether Obama was being intentionally suggestive, and an amazing 42% voted that he was.

Obama was not making a blowjob joke. Presidents do not make blowjob jokes in public, no matter what the audience is. Cultured men with manners and common sense do not make blowjob jokes in public, and President Obama is certainly that. I cannot think of any President who would be so careless as to utter a crude joke of that sort before an audience. LBJ comes the closest…maybe Lincoln? But never. Never. It would be disrespectful of the office, and a major, pointless political gaffe.

People are willing, indeed eager, to believe such things of President Obama because they refuse to accord him the basic respect any occupant of the Oval Office deserves, and needs. They need to get a grip. This isn’t healthy for the nation, and Obama’s critics look like fools when they show such abysmal regard for the country’s elected leader, and dirty-minded fools at that.

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Source: Ann Althouse

Graphic: Biography

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Joke Ethics: The Obama Dog Jokes Dilemma and The Gut Test

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

The question: how should fair and ethical people regard the viral “the President eats dogs” jokes? This depends on the standards we choose to apply—and remember, double standards are banned.

  • Is it a humor standard? Political jokes don’t have to be fair; most of them aren’t. They have to be funny. If they are funny, they don’t have to be especially tasteful, either.
  • Is it a motive standard? If the real motive for the flood of jokes is to undermine the President in an election year by using absurd images to make him look ridiculous, should that be condemned? Continue reading →

Tit For Tat Ethics, Canine Division

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Rugby For President!

There has been entirely too much written about this topic already, but I do have a pedigree here. I wrote disapprovingly about Mitt Romney’s now infamous episode of dog cruelty way back in 2007, concluding…

“For me personally, the incident is enough to convince me that I don’t like the man, and probably never will. And my feelings as I look at the sweet-tempered and loyal Jack Russell terrier now sleeping on my desk, with his small head resting on my forearm, tell me that me that I would write Rugby’s name on a ballot before I would give Mitt Romney my vote for President of the United States. But that’s not an ethical decision, only an emotional one.”

My feelings about Romney strapping the pen containing his Irish Setter on the roof of his car from Boston to Canada haven’t changed much. Now as then, I think his callousness to the animal who loved him is relevant to his fitness to be President but not dispositive of it. Again from 2007: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Apologies For A Sandusky Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

My uneasy relationship with the TSA continues.

Yes, I've sunk so low that I actually seek this out...

Today I was returning home from Atlanta, and its monster of an airport has one the cattle pen systems for going through security–a long, ling, line to all gates that keeps dividing and dividing, ultimately sending you down one of about 20 chutes to be scanned, stripped and yelled at. It is difficult to pick your chute, but in my case, it is crucial: Atlanta doesn’t have the full-body scanning devices in every line, and without it, I get gated, beeped, and sexually molested, thanks to my artificial hip.

It took ducking under a couple of barriers, but I finally got to an x-ray conveyor belt near a scanner, and had removed my laptop (separate bin) belt, jacket and shoes (not allowed in a bin in some cities, allowed in others) and lined them all up with my bag and brief case when an agent (none too politely) told me that they were closing that line, and directed me to another one, two lanes over. I lugged the three bins, bag and brief case over to that line, only to discover that it didn’t have a scanner.

That did it. I erupted at one of the agents, telling her that I did not care to be felt up at 8 in the morning, thanks, and had made a good faith effort to direct myself to a scanner, being foiled by the agent and by the fact that there are no signs warning people like me where a testicle massage is the only option.

“Why aren’t there signs?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There should be,” she said, as she helped me move my stuff to a scanner accessible line. “You should write the TSA and the airport.”

I laughed bitterly. “I’m sure that will do a lot of good. Do you all jsut like feeling up passengers? Is that the reason?”

A woman behind me laughed and said, “It sure seems like it!”

“Well, you know,” I said to her, “I hear Jerry Sandusky is trying to get a job as a screener!”

Her guffaw was interrupted by 7’8″ TSA agent, who said, loudly, “No he’s not, and I’m offended by that statement.”

My response, after a second’s consideration, was this: “I’m sorry I offended you. But I’m not apologizing.”

Your ethics quiz of the day: Should I have apologized? Continue reading →