Massachusestts

A Sanctuary State By Any Other Name…Will Still Smell Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Democrats truly are addicted to “It isn’t what it is,” or Yoo’s Rationalization. It is this characteristic that has led them so deep into George Orwell territory and why the 21st Century mutation of the party is so untrustworthy. “War is Peace,” and an open border was a secure border, according to Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security. “Slavery is Freedom,” and President Biden was sharp as a tack even as he descended into gibberish on national TV. And, as we all know, “Ignorance is Strength,” and Kamala Harris was the most qualified Presidential candidate ever, ran a perfect campaign, and only lost because Americans are sexists and racists.

Maura Healy, the Democratic governor of my original home state (which has always been a little bit nuts) really opted in to Yoo’s Rationalization big time this week. She submitted a radical pro-illegal immigration bill to designate schools, hospitals, churches, and courthouses as official “ICE-free zones,” which would have the effect of sharply (and I believe illegally) limiting where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can operate in the Bay State.

Healy’s bill would require ICE agents to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the most common public spaces off-limits to routine federal enforcement. I.C.E. agents would have to obtain a judicial warrant before making civil immigration arrests in so-called “sensitive locations,” effectively placing some of the many public spaces off-limits to routine federal law enforcement. The bill would direct state agencies not to allow I.C.E. to use state-owned property for enforcement operations and restrict cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. And the proposed legislation does not distinguish between non-violent illegal immigration cases and criminal offenders: apparently in the Bay State, any illegal immigrant is a Good Illegal Immigrant.

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Helpful Ethics Alarms Tip For Girls’ and Women’s Athletes and Sports Team: Refuse to Compete Against Biological Males BEFORE Someone Gets Hurt

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The KIPP Academy girls high school basketball team includes a (“transitioning”…or not, reports are unclear) a male player who “identifies” as female, which is all that the increasing wokeness-crippled Bay State requires. Section 43.3.1 of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association handbook states that “a student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity.”

And what, you may ask, is “bona fide gender identity”? The player in question is six-feet tall, appears to have facial hair more consistent with a teenage male, and is much stronger than the average drum majorette. The Daily Item reported that “KIPP officials refused to confirm the player’s gender identification,” but if she (he?) is playing on the girls team, presumably he (she?) identifies as female. Now, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association also says a student like that one can’t be included on a roster “solely for the purpose of gaining an unfair advantage.” The key word there is “solely,” a weasel word all lawyers are familiar with. It literally means that having a boy who will seem like a superstar in a girl’s sport on a team supposedly for females will be acceptable no matter how unfair it is and no matter how much of an advantage it gives that team if there is any other reason for letting him (her?) change locker rooms. Maybe the newly minted female needs a boost in confidence!

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 9/22/2020: Death, Ethics, And Rationalizations

/ Jack Marshall / 65 Comments

I just learned that my sweet, kind cousin Kathy has died as the result of several recently discovered brain tumors. I hadn’t seen her for decades, so in my mind she’s still 35, vibrant  and beautiful. I have to come to terms with the fact that we had no relationship at this point, but her loss still stings. She lived alone after her marriage with a real creep fell apart; never had children. Like all of the Coulourises (my mother’s side), family was so important to her. I could have picked up the phone.

1. I suppose today’s anniversary of Lincoln signing the  Emancipation Proclamationin 1862 has to be noted, but it was a strategic act, not an especially ethical one. After all, it exempted slaves in the border states, which allowed slavery  but had not joined the Confederacy. After the Union’s sort-of  victory at the Battle of Antietam earlier in the month,  Lincoln announced that enslaved people in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be free. Then, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”  Note that it freed no slaves that he had the power to free, but the maneuver successfully made the Civil War about human rights. Anti-slavery nations like Great Britain and France, which the Confederacy desperately wanted as allies,  couldn’t back the Confederacy after Lincoln made the war explicitly a statement against slavery.

2. Does Mitt Romney have any core principles at all?  If he does, I don’t know what they are. It has always been clear—I hope— that he is a pure pragmatist, doing whatever he thinks will work at any given time. Non-ideologues often make effective leaders: FDR was one. Lincoln too. Romney would hate this, but Donald Trump is like Romney in that regard. (So are Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.). Over in the Facebook hive, the Deranged are gnashing their teeth over Romney’s announcement that he’ll vote for a qualified nominee for SCOTUS. I guess they thought that he would be like John McCain, and be governed by spite. Sure, Romney voted for impeachment because it was meaningless except to give the President a poke in the eye. He is still a Senator from Utah, however. he’s not going to torpedo an effort to solidify a conservative majority on SCOTUS.

If he were a Senator representing Massachusetts, it would be a different tale.

3. Black Lives Matter quietly deleted the “what we believe” page on its website. You know, that was where the group said its mission is to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” to “dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work ‘double shifts’ so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work,” as well as “foster a queer-affirming network” by “freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual.” Maybe they were afraid all of those corporations, sports teams and politicians proclaiming their support might finally decide to read about what they were endorsing. Continue reading →