Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Friday Ethics Fire Sale, 7/22/2022: We Didn’t Start The Fire!

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Tip: Showtime’s “Billions” is streaming. It’s an excellent ethics series, with a plot-driven clash between legal ethics, business ethics, marital ethics and workplace ethics.

And Paul Giamatti (“John Adams”) remains the best actor related to a (late, much missed) Commissioner of Baseball ever.

1. AOC set up her reflex defenders to look foolish (not that they don’t deserve to) First, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) denied that her arrest outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday was “performative art,” and claimed, risibly, that she was not pretending to be handcuffed for the cameras. However, about 30 minutes before the arrests of pro-abortion protesters outside the Supreme Court including 17 Democratic House members, a staffer for AOC’s fellow “Squad “member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) let a metaphorical cat out of the bag. Jeremy Slevin tweeted, adding that the stunt would be live-streamed,:

“Members of Congress, including @IlhanMN will be participating in a civil disobedience at the Supreme Court, potentially including arrests, shortly. 1 PM ET/12 PM CT,”

After her indignant denials, Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram, “This was an activist-led civil disobedience, where activists & organizers from [the far-left Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund ] + others asked members of Congress to submit themselves for arrest in front of the Supreme Court.”

In other words, it was indeed “performative art.” Moreover, it is unethical for members of Congress to allow themselves to be recruited as advocacy props for other organizations. That’s not their job. It is particularly not their job because the Supreme Court is not constructed to conform its legal determinations to public protests or the desires of elected officials…nor should it or can it,

On a technical note ( which Ann Althouse, being the way she is, focused upon mightily), civil disobedience is when a protester violates the law they are protesting, and accepts the penalties for doing so. AOC and the rest were not arrested for performing illegal abortions, but for blocking traffic.

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Good “Misinformation” vs. Bad “Misinformation”

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

AOC tweet deaths

I was hit between the eyes by another example of this hypocrisy this morning, when I read the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Times. A reader named Roger Hirschberg—yes, own it Roger, you shameless propagandist—authored a letter that the Times headlined “Facebook Misinformation.” In the first paragraph, Roger decries Facebook policies that “enable and protect misinformation.” In the very next sentence, he condemns Facebook management for allowing such misinformation “in pursuit of profits,” and cites Facebook’s entries related to “the January 6 insurrection.”

Isn’t that amusing? Roger puffs himself up like a bullfrog in indignation over a communications company pandering to the mob while cashing in, and then gives the Times a chance to do the same, allowing his false characterization of the Capitol riot as an “insurrection,” because that’s the current Big Lie being weaponized by the Left.

Now, I wouldn’t want the Times to censor Roger’s deliberate misinformation—the FBI, if one considers it trustworthy, has definitively debunked that description, as did Merrick Garland in last weeks hearings—because we benefit from revelations with signature significance: if you call the riot an “insurrection,” you’re a lie-spreading jerk or a lazy fool who believes whatever your favorite party tells you. I would expect an ethical publication that respects its readers to acknowledge Roger’s hypocrisy if it chooses to publish his letter, however. If it doesn’t, then the Times is deliberately advancing misinformation….but then it’s the good kind. You know: the kind that can be used to smear Donald Trump and Republicans. Thanks, Roger!

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Tuesday Afternoon Ethics Tunes, 6/8/21: The Mean Fundraiser, And More

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Quite a while ago—I’m afraid to check—I asked readers to submit nominees for popular songs with an ethics theme or lesson. Lorne Greene’s one hit recording ( his vocal version of the “Bonanza” song did not fly off the shelves) was “Ringo,” a pretty blatant rip-off of Jimmy Dean’s “Big John,” was one of the first on the list. I received quite a few suggested songs but events overtook me, and I never finished the project. It is in a growing list of promised future content that I have yet to deliver, including missing parts to multi-part posts. I apologize to readers for all of them, but I also intend to make good on all of them, though the ethics songs compilation is understandably low priority. I was happy to finally finish the Ethics Guide to “Miracle on 34th Street” after it languished for a year. The top priorities on the catch-up list right now are Part II of Three Ethics Metaphors: The Rise, The Presidency And The Fall Of Donald J. Trump—that will be on the “Animal House” parade plot metaphor for Trump’s election—and, of course, the long-delayed Part III of The Pandemic Creates A Classic And Difficult Ethics Conflict, But The Resolution Is Clear.

Back to Lorne: I met him once, on a Santa Monica beach. He was in swimming trunks, and with his family, extremely friendly, tanned and wearing his hairpiece, which was fantastic. Like several other stars I have met in person, Greene was so strikingly attractive that he would make anyone turn their heads on a street even if you had no idea who he was. Unlike most of the others, he appeared to be a genuinely nice guy.

1. Proud to be off Twitter, Reason #569: After Twitter received notice of its noncompliance with India’s information technology laws, demanding that the company remove content critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic and about farmers’ protests, including tweets by journalists, activists and politicians, Twitter pulled itself up to its full metaphorical height, puffed itself up like blowfish, and protested in part, “We are concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.”

Twitter actually said that it cares about freedom of expression! Then, last week, after Nigeria blocked Twitter, it had the gall to tweet…

Twitter Nigeria

This, from the platform that censored the Hunter Biden laptop story and banned President Trump. The Hanlon’s Razor question of whether these are bad people or just stupid people now becomes irrelevant. It’s unethical to operate a powerful communications platform when you are so stupid.

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Saturday Ethics Warm-Up, 8/1/2020: I See Bad People And Penis-Talkers

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

1. This may not be the most trustworthy advocate for the President’s favorite Wuhan virus medicine…President  Trump’s supporters among the punditry and conservative bloggers briefly celebrated the endorsement of  hydroxychloroquine, despite recent studies questioning its effectiveness and safety, by Dr. Stella Immanuel. Support for her was redoubled after her posts were taken down by both Facebook and Twitter as “misinformation.” That’s censorship, of course, and arguably partisan.  Immanuel has an opinion. However, her response to the censoring of her posts does not enhance her credibility. She tweeted,

2.  I see…he shouldn’t be honored because he was white, right? I have reached the point where I have to conclude that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez just isn’t very bright, and those who support her passionate—but stupid!—pronouncements have a similar basic competence problem. Take this example: AOC complained in a video,

Even when we select figures to tell the stories of colonized places, it is the colonizers and settlers whose stories are told — and virtually no one else. Check out Hawaii’s statue. It’s not Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii, the only Queen Regnant of Hawaii, who is immortalized and whose story is told. It is Father Damien. This isn’t to litigate each and every individual statue, but to point out the patterns that have emerged among the totality of them in who we are taught to deify in our nation’s Capitol: virtually all men, all white, and mostly both. This is what patriarchy and white supremacist culture looks like! It’s not radical or crazy to understand the influence white supremacist culture has historically had in our overall culture & how it impacts the present day.

I’ll have to do a full post on the entire “white supremacy” canard, which is basically linguistic game-playing. Culture, everywhere, is primarily determined by the majority.  In a majority white population, white people, their habits, preferences, interests and values, have the strongest effect on the culture. Because there are more of the majority than other groups, they also will tend to have the greatest visibility and participation in that area’s history. Framing this rather obvious and universal situation as something sinister is silly as an argument, and evidence of impaired critical thinking skills if one is persuaded by it. Continue reading →

Saturday Ethics Warm-Up, 7/25/2020: The Congressional Playpen And Other Embarrassments

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Good Morning!

Bulgaria has a holiday called “July Morning” that celebrates freedom, friendship, and love of life.

Maybe I’ll move to Bulgaria…

1. I cannot believe this doesn’t alienate more people than it pleases. I watched the Red Sox-Orioles game last night to open the Strangest Baseball Season Ever in Boston, and would have enjoyed it completely ( the Sox won 13-2) had I not had to constantly avert my eyes from the Red Sox management’s ostentatious virtue signaling, if you can call it that, since pandering to Black Lives Matter is far from virtuous.

Not only was the special BLM MLB logo at the back of the pitcher’s mound (BLM MLB is a palindrome!), but the full Black Lives Matter name was emblazoned on a banner, about 250 feet long, across the empty bleachers.

I’d love to know how many Red Sox executives, or if any of them, actually know what the “movement” the team is pimping for intends. My guess is that the decision to promote BLM was a cynical go along to get along decision that had nothing to do with substance, but rather was made in fear and expediency.

2. On the Fox News harassment accuser. The sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Tucker Carlson by Cathy Areu now appears to have fatal flaws. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: CNN’s Jake Tapper

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Observing the slow but steady deterioration of Jake Tapper, whom I once cited as an example of an ethical, objective and trustworthy journalist—it seems so long ago—has been excruciating to watch. He signaled yesterday that his transformation into just another AUC hack (That’s the Axis of Unethical Conduct: Democrats, the “resistance,” and the progressive mainstream media) is complete.

Tapper was  interviewing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on his “State of the Union.” She blathered, as she is prone to do,

“We’re hearing every step from this administration- first, we were hearing it was a hoax, then we were hearing that everything is fine, then we were hearing that the fundamentals of the economy was OK – until the crash comes.”

Jake, from CNN, not State Farm (that’s him on the left above; yes, he used to be white) just let all of that go.

Well, as has been shown again and again to be of no avail as far as the Big Lie-masters are concerned, the President did NOT say the virus was a hoax. (he also never said that “everything is fine,” but never mind). I most recently explained this two days ago, here, and I’m sick of repeating it, frankly.

When he was properly criticized for allowing a false “resistance” narrative to go out over CNN’s imprimatur (whatever that’s worth these days) without uttering a peep of protest, Tapper issued this damning excuse via Twitter: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 3/12/2020: Walking Through A Storm Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

I don’t care what you say, it’s a good morning.

1. Coronavirus ethics report. Today, ethics Alarms officially dubs the epidemic and ethics train wreck.

  • Good one! Rudy Gobert, the 27-year-old centerfor the Utah Jazz, intentionally touched every surface, microphone and recorders during a session with reporters after the NBA had banned access to player in team locker rooms. He was making a pointed joke about the league’s alarmism over Covid-19. Three days later, he was diagnosed with the illness, and in response, the NBA suspended its season.
  • ARRGHH! It’s what everyone thought it was!!!! The stock market crashed after the World Health Organization called the pandemic, which everyone including me had been calling a pandemic for weeks, a pandemic yesterday. I don’t understand that reaction at all.
  • Adam Kucharski, a mathematician who specializes in measuring how diseases spread, told the New York Times that “on best available data, when we adjust for unreported cases and the various delays involved, we’re probably looking at a fatality risk of probably between maybe 0.5 and 2 percent for people with symptoms.” Obviously when you add people without symptoms who are infested, the fatality risk is lower. This means that President Trump’s “hunch” that the fatality rate was probably much lower than the 3% being widely quoted, for which he was attacked as a an idiot and a liar,  was probably correct.
  • A hint regarding what kind of values we’re teaching college students: Students at the University of Dayton in Ohio became furious that the school was closing because of COVID-19, so they rioted. An estimated 1,000 students at the University erupted into screaming and violence after they were told to leave campus over the Wuhan virus outbreak. At least one person was injured by a thrown bottle.
  • Remember televangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker? Tammy’s copious TV weeping  and dripping mascara? The scandal over hush money paid to a mousey church secretary, Jessica Hahn, for Jim Bakker allegedly raping her,  leading to his resignation from the ministry? How the scandal turned Hahn into a professional bimbo, with a Playboy spread and a brief career hosting soft porn videos? Tammy and Jim divorced, and Jim ended up in prison for fraud…Ringing any bells? Now he’s back selling God on TV again, and last month started selling “Silver Solution” as a cure for Covid-19. Silver Solution “has been proven by the government that it has the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on, including SARS and HIV,” his guest told Bakker’s viewers.  Four 4-ounce bottles could be yours, a message on the screen said, for just $80.Selling a fake “treatment” for the COVID-19 disease violates state and federal law. On Tuesday, the state of Missouri filed a lawsuit against Bakker and his production company to stop them from advertising or selling Silver Solution and related products as treatments for the coronavirus.
  • Oh yeah,  this helps a lot… Arthur Caplan, a professsor of bioethics at NYU, told the New York Times that without “social interventions to incentivize and support isolation, we are doomed.” Irresponsible fear-mongering. Even with the worst case scenarios, this isn’t the Spanish Flu, the Black Plague or ebola. We aren’t “doomed.”

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Comment Of The Day: “Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

An old, old, lament: “Laws are for the little people…”

I am constantly impressed at the perceptive and eloquent comments that issue from such a large number of Ethics Alarms readers. It cushions the blow of the traffic fall-off here that came shortly after the 2016 election, as the rapid Trump-Haters and resistance acolytes fled to secure echo chambers. (Facebook banning EA didn’t help.) I’d like both, sure, but I’ll take quality over quantity every time.

Aaron Pascal is long-time participant on Ethics Alarms, and he has issued many provocative comments, usually with a refreshing edge. This, in reaction to the most recent of AOC’s annoying and ethics-dead tweets, is one of his best.

Here is Aaron Pascal’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)”….

“Jail the poor to free the rich” smacks of a combination of two extreme positions on two separate valid social dilemmas interacting.

First, there is the moderately unsettling (to me) privately funded and operated prison system. It’s been suggested that inmates are the product that is sold to bring in money. If people stopped being put in prison, then the corporations running the prison would lose money. Ergo, they get the politicians (especially the nasty, racist Republicans) to criminalize more activity, and push for longer sentences for smaller and smaller offenses. Especially if the crimes you tighten up on end up imprisoning a disproportionate number of racial minorities. Not a viewpoint completely without merit, but if you assume it’s the norm it certainly encourages a topsy turvy view of criminal activity vs the justice system. It also requires picturing the police, the justice system, the prison system, and the government as really bad, selfish people. Which is only a problem for leftists once you get to the government, which once you assign the blame to those horrible Republicans, the cognitive dissonance goes away. Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Ugh.

Call it demagoguery, grandstanding, ignorance, rabble-rousing or whatever you choose, an elected representative of the government tweeting such nonsense to those foolish enough to follow her is irresponsible in the extreme.

Hundreds of protesters hit the streets Friday and Saturday in Brooklyn to protest  police brutality by the NYPD and its crackdown on subway fare evaders. Naturally the demonstrators chanted “No justice, no peace,” the current content free, no thought required  slogan of choice by those who couldn’t articulate what they consider justice if they had a teleprompter. Continue reading →

‘Thank God It’s Friday’ Ethics Dump, 10/4/2019: SCOTUS, Impeachment And Cannibalism…

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Hi!

Usually, October might be my favorite month…New England foliage, the best of baseball, my sister’s birthday, the Monster Mash…

1. I hate this stuff. A woman  confronted Rep. Ocasio-Cortez during a town hall in Corona, Queens this week and ranted that  the Green New Deal wasn’t enough to save the world. She declared instead that “we must eat the babies” to stop climate change. “We got to start eating babies! We don’t have enough time! … We have to get rid of the babies! … We need to eat the babies!,” she exclaimed. Then she took off her coat to reveal a T-shirt bearing the phrase: “Save the planet, eat the children.”

The Representative  calmly responded that we have “more than a few months” to solve the climate crisis (“though we do need to hit net-zero in a few years”) and that “we all need to understand that there are a lot of solutions that we have.” Naturally, Tucker Carlson criticized her for not emphatically rejecting the woman’s cannibalism proposal.

The woman was a plant, and the disruption was a hoax. A right-wing PAC started by the late Lyndon LaRouche confessed, saying, “It was us. Malthusianism isn’t new, Jonathan Swift knew that. Sometimes, only satire works.”

Works at what? Interfering with legitimate civic discourse?

2. No, the latest SCOTUS abortion cases don’t pose a threat to abortion rights. The hysteria you may be hearing is more anti-Kavanaugh hype. The cases involve Louisiana’s law requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.  The Supreme Court granted certiorari to June Medical Services v. Gee, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Gee v. June Medical Services the U.S. after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Louisiana law was permissible. However, in 2016 the Supreme Court struck down a nearly identical Texas law by a vote of 5-3. The theory in Louisiana is that the law there will not have the same restrictive impact as in Texas.

Even if the Fifth Circuit’s ruling stands, the cases are only tangentially related to Roe v. Wade. Continue reading →