Help! My Ethics Conflict…

October 12, 2026 / Jack Marshall / 65 Comments

I would write “The Ethicist,” but I’m a better ethicist than he is, so I’m asking you.

I have a friend, a neighbor, who has been very kind and caring since my wife died in 2024. She’s about 20 years younger than I am, divorced, and desperately lonely. She’s also brilliant, politically obsessed, and furious at the world. Spuds likes her two dogs, and we all go to the nearby dog park together whenever our schedules mesh. She checks on me when she hasn’t heard from me for a while (which is annoying but still considerate). She sends me food; she invited me to have Christmas dinner with her and her then-boyfriend last year.

She is also as Trump Deranged as anyone I know, which is saying a lot. Her progressive mania is extreme: on Facebook and other social media she goes from one stream of furious posts on the latest leftist cause to another. Currently she is determined to have the seven men accused of sexual assault in the Cornell mess tried, convicted, and if possible, castrated.

My friend, like so many people I know infected with woke hysteria and Trump Hate, confidently rants to me about her obsessions because she assumes that nobody she likes and views as intelligent could possibly have any opinions different from hers. I’ve written about this phenomenon before. I just let her do it, because she needs to talk, and eventually I get her to move on to another subject, make her laugh, or try to get a word in edgewise that has nothing to do with politics.

For me, this is a pure Julie Principle situation: she’s a good and generous person, she’s intelligent, she needs a friend, she’s a great Scrabble player, and as long as she doesn’t try to run my life (which she is always on the verge of attempting), I’ll accept her quirks and obsessions and concentrate on what’s admirable about her, which is a lot.

However, she excises anyone from her life who doesn’t conform to her political beliefs. She is estranged from her family and both of her children. She recently told me that she made a list and that I am one of just 17 people she feels comfortable talking to. Somehow, she has concluded that I have the same political beliefs she does, which means, among other things, that she has never googled me or done any research online. I have a rather large cyber-footprint, including Ethics Alarms, of course. I know, with near certainty, that she would be crushed if she learned about my positions on many of the issues she feels passionate about, including the Cornell 7. When a dinner date recently told her he had voted for Donald Trump, she got up and walked out of the restaurant.

I feel like I am deceiving my freind, and yet I also don’t believe political views are relevant to personal relationships unless they are the basis of those relationships. I have many more than 17 friends, and the idea of ending a relationship because someone doesn’t agree with me about, well, anything is alien to my being.

Heck, I even have friends who are Yankee fans.

Is the most ethical course to continue to allow her to think I meet her self-harming extreme standards she demands of friends, or to be transparent, let her know more about me and guarantee that she will be angry, disillusioned, and cancel me as she has so many others?

This is a true ethics conflict, with valid ethical justifications on both sides of the question. Kindness or honesty? Inflicting pain in the cause of transparency for its own sake? My friend is incapable of embracing the Julie Principle.

Now what?

July 4th Ethics: How Far Gone Do People Have To Be To Think This Is A Rational Way To Celebrate America’s Founding, And What Would Make Them Become That Way?

July 2, 2026July 2, 2026 / Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

That is really and truly the official schedule for the Fourth of July celebration in San Diego County.

Nothing more needs to be said except perhaps,

No, John Brown Is NOT a Role Model For “Social Justice Reformers,” and Anyone Who Says So —Like Hakeem Jeffries’s Brother—Is Both Unethical and Dangerous

May 27, 2026May 27, 2026 / Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

I co-wrote a book about Clarence Darrow (you can buy it here: it’s cheap), and one of the points I made in the Introduction was that the U.S.’s most famous trial lawyer also believed in terrorism. Well, Darrow had his quirks, and he frequently argued that one of his murderer clients should be acquitted because the murder was justified (it worked, too!). He was ethically and morally wrong about Brown, as I asserted here in a post that republished a shortened version of Darrow’s famous eulogy for the anti-slavery vigilante. It was written long after Brown’s death, of course; Darrow used to deliver the speech on anniversaries of Brown’s birthday on May 8. The most famous section of Darrow’s passionate speech:

“The radical of today is the conservative of tomorrow, and other martyrs take up the work through other nights, and the dumb and stupid world plants its weary feet upon the slippery sand, soaked by their blood, and the world moves on.”

Darrow was an early progressive when the movement began, on the extreme end. In his “ends justifies the means” glorification of violence as a means of social change, we can see the seeds of where modern progressives have gone off the metaphorical rails and become a genuine threat to the rule of law and democracy. In Darrow’s time (he was active from 1890 to 1932) there were few progressives who would go as far as Darrow, though the anarchists did. They were the terrorists of the day, but Darrow defended labor leaders who also believed that murdering the exploitive capitalist here and there as well as their political enablers was the right thing to do.

Thus Darrow defended “Big Bill” Haywood (February 4, 1869 – May 18, 1928), an American labor organizer, a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. “Big Bill” was indicted for engineering the booby-trap murder of Frank Steunenberg, a former governor of Idaho. Darrow got “Big Bill” off (Just look at this guy! You just know he did it.)…

….but by arguing that even if he was guilty, its shouldn’t matter because he was on the right side. Fortunately, Darrow’s arguments in favor of just murder were confined to the courtroom and his John Brown eulogy once a year.

This week, Hasan Kwame Jeffries , an Ohio State University history professor and the brother of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, declared in a social media post that “John Brown understood that the only way to free Americans from the scourge of white supremacy was to get rid of white supremacists by any means necessary. He was right then. He is right now.” Gee, do you think Prof. Jeffries is at odds with his brother in this appeal to violence? I doubt it.

Prof. Turley has called out the Democratic House minority leader for encouraging violence on the Left, and lionizing John Brown is literally a justification of violence. If Republicans and the news media don’t confront Democrats and the party’s leaders with Prof. Jeffries’s words, they are being negligent and irresponsible.

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I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!…That Mayor Mamdani’s Wife Is A Flaming Anti-Semite!

March 19, 2026March 19, 2026 / Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I have a very good friend, an actor, a lawyer, a Jew and a “useful idiot” for progressives, who recently wrote a passionate and articulate Facebook post about however one felt about Israel, there was no excuse, justification or salvation for people who hated Jews. And I recalled that he had been among my misguided and ethically-crippled Facebook friends who actually celebrated the election of Communist Zohran Mamdani, as had others of my friends as well as Democratic Party Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and this august crew (from Mamdani’s website):

But it’s even worse. With the exception of the disgraced ex-Governor of New York who was running against Mamdani, not a single national Democratic leader would say publicly, “What???? Are you all out of your minds? This guy hates Jews! What has our party become?”

What indeed.

Of course there was plenty of evidence that the Mayor-to-be’s wife was a Jew Hater, but the Axis media went to its usual great lengths to bury that fact like a cat buries its turds in a cat box. Today the Washington Free Beacon did the public a favor with a metaphorical bucket full of ice water to the faces of all of Mamdani’s enablers, deniers and useful idiots. The post is headlined, “Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Celebrated Palestinian Terrorists, Including Plane Hijacker, In Social Media Posts From Early Adulthood…Rama Duwaji also boosted a post that said Tel Aviv ‘Shouldn’t exist in the first place.’” There’s no paywall: read it. Send it to your Trump Deranged friends, and all your blind Facebook friends who thought this Marxian demagogue was so charming and passionate.

Better yet, shake the Free Beacon story in front of their smug, stupid faces like a Jack Russell Terrier shakes a rat—you know I love that image—or even better YET, do this..

Now, they will huminahumina that just because someone marries the love of his life who happens to want Jews wiped from the face of the earth doesn’t mean Mayor Mamdani feels the same way. Right. Heck, we don’t know that Eva Braun was bad, do we? Riiiight. Mayor Mamdani just used St. Paddy’s Day to compare the Irish Republican Army to Palestinians, who want Jews wiped from the face of the earth. This isn’t hard.

As for the Mamdani-chering Jews, like my friend, a smart and compassionate man, who celebrated Mamdani because he opposes Donald Trump, there are no excuses. They should be ashamed of themselves. He should be ashamed of himself. I am ashamed of him. People should turn their backs on these ethically corrupted fools like the jurors in “Twelve Angry Men” turn their backs on Juror 10 (Ed Begley) when he erupts into his final bigoted rant..

The irony? I cast that pro-Mamdani actor-friend in one of my productions of “Twelve Angry Men.”

“A representative for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment,” notes the Free Beacon. Of course not. What would he say?

On That Fake “Ron Howard” Facebook Post….

September 18, 2025September 18, 2025 / Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“Appeal to Authority” is one of the hoariest logical fallacies of all as well as one of the most common; it is a favorite of those who cannot make their own cases for their fervently held beliefs. So it is not surprising that a supposed post by nice guy—he was Opie, after all!—and mostly apolitical Hollywood director Ron Howard has resurfaced on social media as desperate progressives try to avoid the consequences of the Charley Kirk murder that was the inevitable result of the fearmongering and demonizing their party flooded the culture with for years.

The Ron Howard manifesto of what liberals believe and why was circulating earlier this year and even Snopes, a reliable Axis ally, pronounced it fake. Never mind, though. What a brilliant ideology the Left has that its adherents can’t even be honest about who is making arguments in its support!

If you read “Ron’s” screed, you will conclude as I have that the director needs to track down the forger and sue him for defamation, or perhaps force the miscreant to watch Howard’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and Jim Carey’s unrestrained mugging for days on end. The recitation of beliefs is so full of “Imagine”-esque fantasy and logical inconsistencies that a relatively alert 8th grader should be able to poke the thing with enough holes to fill Prince Albert’s Hall.

Here’s a challenge to Ethics Alarms readers: debunk this virtue-signaling orgy my Facebook friends are so fond of, and I’ll publish your vivisections in one grand post to express my gratitude for saving me the trouble. I’ll get you started: Only idiots make statements that they conclude with “PERIOD.”

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s “Ron”…

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One More Reason Trump Won…The Barking Girl at the Classroom Window

November 21, 2024November 21, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

[No, I am not making up what follows…]

Yesterday I was chatting with a woman whose two Golden Doodles are fond of romping with Spuds. She told me about her recent experience at a private school where her daughter attends, but soon will attend no more, as you will shortly understand.

This school is famously progressive, and among other things indulges “furry” delusions among its students. Don’t you know about “furries??

Oh, listen my children and you shall hear of this crazy fad the woke hold dear…

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Thanks, BlueSky!

November 20, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

The self-proclaimed progressive onclave social media platform designed to isolate the Good people from unclean thoughts and their Nazi neighbors is proving to be a magnificent social experiment testing the proposition that the Mutated Left of the 21st Century can’t tolerate dissent or any ideas that don’t make them feel warm and cuddly.

As first noted here by commenter Michael R., “Apparently, all the liberals who left X went to BlueSky and immediately started reporting everyone else for not being ‘woke’ enough for their tastes. Their ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ reports have gone from 350,000 in all to 2023 to over 40,000/day since the election. Of course, some moderation requests probably can’t even get in because they are busy.” Yes, the experiment is working out just fine. These people, as they and their Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates demonstrated, don’t get that freedom of speech thingy. The funny part is that it was in great part the bubble progressives live in that led their party to its2024 disaster, and their solution is …..to construct a stronger bubble.

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I See That Ann Althouse Has Recognized the Increasingly Totalitarian Orientation of Progressives These Days….

June 25, 2024June 26, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 97 Comments

The betting is that te retired Madison, Wis. law professor and longtime bloggress will still vote for Biden and the Democrats—like Bill Maher, Ann talks a good neutrality game, but always seems to come home again—but still, her observations are frequently spot-on.

This morning she notes that “the top-rated comment — by a lot — at “A.I. Is Getting Better Fast. Can You Tell What’s Real Now?” is..

“Passing AI images off as real ones for the sake of commercial or political gain should be prosecuted as fraud.The severity of the penalties should match the level of risk that disseminating these images poses to our society; i.e., they should be extreme.”

Ann adds, “How terribly punitive and repressive, and yet, isn’t it what you’ve come to expect from the segment of America that reads the New York Times?Notice the aggression mixed with passivity. The comment-writer doesn’t want to face the challenge of becoming more perceptive and skeptical dealing with the onslaught of A.I. images. They want the government to do the dirty work and do it good and hard.”

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Do Progressives Realize What They Are Becoming?

February 28, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

It’s a serious question. Several episodes lately have reminded me of the ubiquitous saying about how we all risk becoming the thing we most hated in our youth, or that we inevitably turn into the person we hate most, etc. There are too many versions of the quotation to list.

I started my mind wandering down these dark corridors while researching a post I may never write about Harvard’s gobsmacking alumni magazine this month, as various writers and revered minds tried (and failed) to make sense out of the university’s recent travails without, somehow, saying anything critical about the woman at the center of them, deposed Harvard president Claudine Gay. After all, she is still on the faculty (and black, and a woman, and a DEI warrior), so being overtly negative about her conduct—as in making her accept responsibility—apparently would be too transparent to countenance.

In an essay reprinted from the “Chronicle of Higher Education,” Derek Bok (who became president of Harvard while I was a student there) wrote about the school’s cultural challenges, and, I noticed, never mentioned the term “progressive” once in his article, only the term “liberal.” And I thought, “Wow. Talk about being out of touch.” Does Bok really think today’s militant, intolerant, censoring, bullying, doctrinaire progressives would qualify as liberals in his era? Sure, they embrace many of the same agenda items, being anti-war, pro-drug use, wanting abortion on demand and other Sixties obsessions. But they are anything but liberal in the classic sense.

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