socialism

Ethics Villain Revealed: Barack Obama [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

For once, the New York Times is reporting one of those over-heard conversations from an anonymous source who is violating trust to reveal it that harms the reputation and image of a progressive hero, though maybe the Times staff is so far gone that it doesn’t realize the import of the leak.

Former President Barack Obama, the Times revealed, phoned New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani today, November 1. The architect of the foundering progressive take-over of American government and culture spoke with the front-runner for “roughly 30-minutes.” According to the leakers, who spoke “on condition of anonymity” to describe the private conversation, Obama said that he “was invested in Mr. Mamdani’s success” beyond the upcoming election. The two (Muslims?) “talked about the challenges of staffing a new administration and building an apparatus capable of delivering on Mr. Mamdani’s agenda of affordability in the city.”

On the call, Obama reportedly spoke admiringly about Mamdani’s campaign. “Your campaign has been impressive to watch,” he told the charismatic communist, according to the sources.

During the campaign (and before it) Mamdani has made it Waterford crystal clear that he supports Hamas and does not believe that Israel has a right to exist. As a watermark of the anti-Semite, he has repeatedly described Israel’s legitimate armed response to the Gazan terror attack of October 7, 2023, as “genocide.” Those not in favor of obliterating Israel might well have regarded these themes in Mamdami campaign for mayor serious missteps. Obama, if the account is to be believed, seems to think being anti-Israel is just hunky-dory, but as we’ve seen, that’s where his party and its most fervent members have been tending for years.

Obama offered to be a “sounding board”—as in coach, mentor, advisor— when Mamdani wins the election, with the two agreeing to meet in person at some point in Washington, D.C.. Mamdani reportedly thanked the former president for the encouragement and told him that he had drawn inspiration for his own recent speech on Islamophobia from Mr. Obama’s speech on race during his first presidential run.

That Mamdani speech was the one in which he implied that voting against him was a sign of bigotry. Yeah, there’s no reason in the world for New Yorkers to be wary of Islam. What did Muslims ever…oh. Right.

A spokeswoman for Obama refused to verify the report, but a spokeswoman for Mamdani said, “Zohran Mamdani appreciated President Obama’s words of support and their conversation on the importance of bringing a new kind of politics to our city.”

You know. Communist politics.

My guess is that Obama is quite ticked off, because this leak almost certainly came from the Mamdani camp, which has seen its candidate’s support dwindle in recent days, though probably not enough.

Continue reading →

Pop Ethics Quiz! What Is The Ethical Response To An Adult Who Posts This Fatuous Meme…

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

…other than “You are an ignorant moron!”?

Introducing “Curmie’s Conjectures,” A Recurring Ethics Alarms Column

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

[ Curmie should be familiar to comment readers here as one of EA’s erudite and witty participants in our daily debates. He has a real name, of course, which he is at liberty to reveal when the mood strikes him. Curmie is an experienced blogger; his own site, Curmudgeon Central, has been referenced and linked-to frequently here over the years. The consistent quality and ethical analysis that he always brings to his commentary, as well as the fact that Curmie has a more liberal orientation than many feel your host displays, made his addition to the Ethics Alarms team (see, two is a team!) both logical and wise.  The fact the we share a deep involvement with theater and the performing arts had nothing to do with it. Well, maybe a little.

Curmie has no set schedule for his contributions, and has complete editorial discretion unless he begins babbling incoherently and shows signs of a stroke. And now I’ll get out of the way and leave you in Curmie’s capable hands.-JM ]

Strange Bedfellows: Socialism and Free Expression

by Curmie

Reading Jack’s piece on the Gallup poll that suggested an increase the percentage of Americans who self-identify as conservative, my first thought was, “so where do I fit in this model?” 

There are so many variables: I’m quite liberal on some issues, staunchly conservative on others.  I took a couple of those online quizzes: according to Pew, I’m “Ambivalent Right” (whatever that means); according to politicalpesonality.org, I’m a “Justice Warrior” (erm… no); ISideWith has me as a Green (not really, although I’ve been accused of worse).

Moreover, such things are always relative: there’s no doubt that I’m well to the left of most people in my Congressional district and of most readers of Jack’s blog, but I’m a fair distance to the right of many of my colleagues in academic theatre.  Moreover, times change.  My once-radical position on gay rights, for example, is now rather mainstream: my belief system had remained virtually unchanged, but it’s now no longer “very liberal,” and may even be “moderate.”

Most importantly, distinguishing between left and right isn’t always the appropriate axis.  Sometimes it’s the continuum from authoritarian to libertarian that really matters.  Political Compass places me solidly to the left of center, but even further into libertarianism.  And it is on these issues—of non-interference by powerful forces, be they governmental, corporate, or otherwise—where Jack’s readership is most likely to agree with me (vice versa). 

In other words, my longtime assertion that, to quote the title of a piece I wrote a few months ago, ““The Left and Right Both Hate Free Expression—They Just Do It Differently” ought not to surprise us overmuch.  What might is a casual observation I made while doing a little research for my second of my two posts on the Roger Waters controversy.

Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 11/3/2020: Anything Important Happening Today?

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

dewey headline

Today in election history, Harry Truman celebrated pulling off one of the greatest upsets in American history, defeating Republican Thomas Dewey and turning the two-time Presidential loser’s name into an eternal punchline, thanks to the Chicago Tribune’s over-eager headline based on early returns the night before. With Truman’s popularity at historic lows and all of the experts declaring the President defeated before that race began,  Dewey campaigned at a leisurely pace, though not exactly a Joe Biden pace. Truman, in contrast, campaigned furiously as the underdog.  Truman defeated Dewey by 114 electoral votes, creating the all-time template for surprise Presidential victories, and embedding the photograph above in American lore.

Even this couldn’t displace it…

Newsweek cover

1. Althouse gets defensive about “abstaining.” One of the bloggers most quoted at Ethics Alarms became triggered by a critical comment about her abstaining from voting and defended herself today, though not too well. Althouse addressed the commenter, named Slothrop, as well as the general attack on 2020 non-voters like her by Instapundit firebrand Sarah Hoyt. Ann countered in part,

[T]his method of using insults to push people to vote is ugly. Are they doing it because they think it’s effective? I don’t yield to bullies. …Slothrop appeals to my vanity as he insists that I be a good person — not cowardly and neglectful of duty. Hoyt denounces vanity and insists that I not get involved in any sense of my personal goodness… she portrays the abstainer as snooty — with her nose in the air, acting like she’s “too good for this.”

Slothrop is distinctly wrong when he says voting is a duty. No. It is not. Like speaking, like religion, like getting married, like having sexual relations, voting is a right, and a right entails the power to decline to exercise it. It is horrible to be forced to speak, forced to take on a religion, forced to get married, forced to have sex — these are loathsome impositions. 

Hoyt is wrong — in my case at least — to attribute a refusal to vote for Trump to taking offense at his personal style — his manners, his crassness. I happen to enjoy his personal style…

Trump has his style and I have mine. If it makes you want to stomp your foot, go ahead. You can keep “stomping your foot about” how cruelly neutral I am. You’re free. You’ve got your right and I’ve got mine. 

Verdict: Lame. Voting is a duty of citizenship, as long as the citizen is informed, as Althouse certainly is. Yes, there is a right not to do your duty, unless a law makes it mandatory. I’m shocked, or perhaps enlightened, that Althouse would excuse her refusal to make a tough choice to “style.” Let’s see, how many rationalizations on the list does that rattle, along with the rest of her self-defense? I’ve got at least eleven:

Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “KABOOM! At What Point Do Parents Blow The Whistle On Flagrant Ideological Indoctrination In Our Schools?”

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

This superb Comment of the Day by Steve-O-in NJ, on the post, “KABOOM! At What Point Do Parents Blow The Whistle On Flagrant Ideological Indoctrination In Our Schools?,” needs no introduction.

It just needs to be read.

A USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon, mainstay of the last 12 years of the Cold War, launches to fly a patrol. In those years it could have been anywhere from Italy to Spain to Turkey, while throughout Europe squadrons of the same under allied flags kept watch. A USAF F-15 Eagle, older still (they entered service in 1976) takes to the air. In the Cold War they kept watch further north, in Germany, in England, and even at Keflavik in Iceland. Every day they drilled, every day they patrolled, every day they were ready to go into battle on command, to stop the tyrannical scourge of Soviet communism or die trying.

We’d made a deal we wished we hadn’t had to with them, because the alternative was the genocidal tyranny of Nazism. We’d either looked the other way on, or not asked and not been told about, or accepted their lies about the worst things they’d done then like the Katyn Forest Massacre. However, we’d also seen them try to starve and freeze West Berlin out, and we’d seen them roll right over Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 when they dared to try to move toward greater freedom. We would be damned if we were going to let them bring that tyranny to the Rhine or past it. We’d heard from those who escaped what the conditions were like on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and we wanted no part of them.

We wanted no part of a system where there was one political party and only one. We wanted no part of a system where those who deviated from the party line either died or disappeared suddenly. We wanted no part of a system where faith was officially disapproved of and suppressed. We wanted no part of a system where the individual was just a cog in the government machine and had no hope of doing better. The system they offered was simply antithetical to what the Founding Fathers set up for this country, and we weren’t letting them bring it here. We’d fight to prevent it, and we’d die fighting rather than surrender to it. That’s why there were these patrols, that’s why the 41 for freedom were at sea at all times, but no one knew exactly where, and that’s why the 2nd Armored Division was always ready to go and the 82nd and 101st had battalions ready to fly out on minimal notice.

Now one of our political parties is likely to nominate a man who not only went behind the Iron Curtain, but did it willingly, for a honeymoon, when most of us head to someplace with a lot of sun and sand, or a lot of palazzos and palaces if the beach isn’t our thing. Not only did he go there, but he praised what he found there, in the place where those who dared speak out vanished and a refrigerator was a luxury item, saying it was a better system than we had here. Not only did he go there and praise what he found, but he did it while Ronald Reagan was finally arm-wrestling the Soviets to their final defeat, which would lead to their dissolution 3 years later. Not only all this, but he wants to bring that failed system here, on speed, and his followers say damned be anyone who stands in his way, because cities will burn otherwise.

I don’t know what’s more ironic (though not in an amusing way), that this system no longer exists in the nation where it originated (which also doesn’t exist anymore), or that the party that’s about to nominate this man is the same party that produced Thomas Jefferson, architect of the American brand of freedom, Andrew Jackson, who decisively stopped the first attempts to tear this nation apart, FDR, whom many still count as third in the great trinity of US presidents with Washington and Lincoln, and Harry Truman, who was the first president to stand up against this system that his party now wants to bring here. Continue reading →

KABOOM! At What Point Do Parents Blow The Whistle On Flagrant Ideological Indoctrination In Our Schools?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Kaboom.

Just what I need on a Sunday morning: a head explosion.

Some background while I gather my thoughts and brains…last night, among the various freakouts and huzzahs after Bernie Sanders lapped the field in the Nevada Caucus, was this observation, from conservative pundit Paula Bolyard:

“It’s breathtaking to contemplate that a socialist—again, I remind you that Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party—could be a legitimate contender for the presidency. It seems unthinkable that millions of people who lived through the Cold War, and remember the fear and loathing of all things Soviet, will march to the polls in lockstep in November to pull the lever for Sanders, and yet here we are. Thousands upon thousands of Baby Boomers, who should know better, have already voted for the aging bolshie in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

Make no mistake: the Democratic Party is in thrall to socialism, if not communism. Those in the younger demographic, in particular, are increasingly demanding free everything—and the younger you go, the more stuff they’re demanding….They’ve been mal-educated in our public schools and universities and believe they are on the right side of history by supporting socialism.”

It’s hard to think about, but these kids aren’t going to stop until they get socialism—good and hard…Only then, when the quality of life they’ve become accustomed to as privileged Americans has become a distant memory, will they see the light.”

Bingo. Among the many groups accountable for a fantasist like Bernie being a factor in the 2020 Presidential race are multiple generations of lazy parents who paid little attention to what their children were being taught in elementary school s and high schools, and the textbooks they were reading. The anti-American Leftists bred in the campus uprisings of the Vietnam era took over faculties up and down the educational system, leading to curriculum (and worse, editorial comments) that opposed core American values rather than explicating them. The process continues, and could not continue without widespread parental apathy.

Now on to what exploded my head. During a history lesson in an advanced placement class at Loch Raven High School, a powerpoint presentation included a slide that featured a photo of President Trump above a swastika and hammer-and-sickle.

Continue reading →

More Evidence That Arthur Herzog’s Novel “IQ 83” Is Coming True—Beside The Fact That Bernie Sanders Is Leading The Race For The Democratic Nomination, That Is

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

It’s not exactly “Is We Getting Dummer?” the New York Times headline in the prescient science fiction novel, “IQ 83,” by Science fiction author Arthur Herzog in which a man-made virus begins reducing the intelligence of Americans to idiot levels, but its close enough to cause concern. The NBC News headline is “Cities weigh free public transit amid rising costs.” Wait. what? Public transit is getting too hard to pay for, so the solution being considered is to make it free?

I assumed that this was just another example of incompetent headline writing, but no: if anything, the headline makes more sense than the rest of the article, in which we learn that:

  • Michelle Wu, a Democratic City Council member in Boston,  says that because  use of the  crumbling public transportation infrastructure of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is dropping and rush-hour traffic is increasing,  and the solution is to let everyone ride buses and subways for free.

The article doesn’t say Wu is a Democrat, and I didn’t bother to check. Trust me: she’s a Democrat.

  • Desperately in need of money for repairs,  local transit shouldn’t raise fates, but eliminate them, Wu and other progressives argue, because public transportation “is a human right, like health care and education.”

In “IQ 83,” Patient Zero is the brilliant scientist who goofed while trying to invent a cure for mental retardation. In the real ife case of Wu and others, Patient Zero is obviously Bernie Sanders.

  • We are told, that “some experts warn that free rides wouldn’t solve the issues besetting many public transit systems, including crumbling infrastructure, infrequent and unreliable service, and routes that take workers nowhere near their jobs.”

Really? “Some” experts warn that? Boy, what spoil-sports. Debbie Downers, I’d call them. Continue reading →

Late Sunday Ethics Dump, 2/9/2020: Firings, Voting, A Holiday Swap, And Chris Matthews Breaks Ranks

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I can’t believe I’m writing this at 8:30 pm.

(Who knows when I will finish it..)

No, I’m not watching the Oscars, because one political remark—we have been warned that Obama and Clinton speechwriter are ghostwriting winners’ acceptance speeches—might send me into the streets with a machete. Grace is still in a lot of pain and depressed in the aftermath of her fall  17 days, two hours and six minutes ago (the bouquet from the Ethics Alarms Commentariat is still beautiful); believe it or not, the Christmas tree is still not completely undecorated because I’ve been doing it, alone, in five minute increments, and really am in mortal fear that a drooling hoard of the Walking Trump Deranged will burst through the windows any minute now based on the crazy things I’m reading on social media. I believe that I have never lived through a period when so many smart people were expressing such astoundingly stupid assertions.

But the delayed Mookie Betts trade with the Dodgers finally got straightened out, so there’s that…

1.  On the topic of stupid positions adopted by smart people. Naturally, Trump Derangement is the culprit. All these people caterwauling about the President firing Lt. Col. Vinderman, his twin brother, and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland in the aftermath of the impeachment trial have forgotten whatever they once knew about management, common sense, and accountability.

“This shows this President’s respect for TRUTH!” wrote one temporarily–I hope–lobotomized friend. Wow. This isn’t especially complicated. Once a President no longer trusts a subordinate, he not only is justified in firing him or her, he has to, or he is incompetent and naive. It doesn’t matter if the distrust is justified, either. If the subordinate or appointee has shifty eyes, or seems evasive in his answers, that’s enough. No President in our history has been so routinely betrayed and undermined by leakers, partisan moles and Deep State vigilantes. Continue reading →

Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 8/26/2019: Bad Business And Bad Businesses

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Whoa! A morning surprise!

As I commented on yesterday’s warm-up, traffic on Ethics Alarms was discouraging slow all weekend, which, as some of you know, makes me re-evaluate my priorities and ponder throwing myself into the shredder. Then, I discover, at some point last night the Mitch McConnell post was linked someplace that has a much bigger audience than I have, and just like that, the blog got more visitors in a couple of hours as the weekend weekended than it had in the previous two days. As is usually the case, it is impossible to find out where the referrals are coming from (except I know they aren’t from Facebook!), virtually none of the new visitors are commenting, and the temporary avalanche spawns few new followers, if any. I never know when this is going to happen, and it almost never occurs with the essays I am most proud of or consider especially important.

1. Of course they booed. They’re NFL football fans. This means they have the ethics of army ants. Andrew Luck, the star quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts, stunned the sport with his unexpected decision to retire from the NFL, even though he is only 29 and completed a stellar campaign in 2018. The reason: he doesn’t want to end up crippled or a vegetable from the abuse his body and brain have absorbed and will continue to the longer he stays on the field. not having them anymore after the way fans in Indianapolis treated him after the  on Saturday.

As Luck began to make his way off the field following the 27-17 loss in the Colts’ preseason game against the Bears, fans at Lucas Oil Stadium started to boo their former quarterback because the news of Luck’s retirement broke during the fourth quarter of the game. Of course they booed. Anyone who watches the NFL and supports an NFL team by purchasing tickets, merchandise, or inflating league ratings by watching the games on TV has signaled that they are perfectly happy to encourage young men to ruin their bodies and minds for their selfish entertainment, safe in their seats or on their living room sofas.

2. More on the Left’s undemocratic effort to stifle free speech and opposition to its agenda…Tucker Carlson—I am not a fan, you will recall—returned to his Fox News show after a vacation that seemed more like a retreat from fire to find that the Media Matters-led sponsor boycott  of his show had taken more chunks out of his sponsor base.  Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Washington Post’s Hit Piece On Bernie Sanders

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Today the Washington Post presented “Inside Bernie Sanders’s 1988 10-day ‘honeymoon’ in the Soviet Union,” an oddly timed hit piece—yes, I think that’s fair—showing a deluded, middle-aged ,anti-American  politician gawking with approval at the marvels of Communism while slamming his own country and ignoring the obvious signs that the worker’s paradise is crumbling around him. Here’s a sample:

The just-married socialist mayor from Vermont was on what he called “a very strange honeymoon,” an official 10-day visit to the communist country, and he was enthralled with the hospitality and the lessons that could be brought home. “Let’s take the strengths of both systems,” he said upon completing the trip. “Let’s learn from each other.”…As he stood on Soviet soil, Sanders, then 46 years old, criticized the cost of housing and health care in the United States, while lauding the lower prices — but not the quality — of that available in the Soviet Union. Then, at a banquet attended by about 100 people, Sanders blasted the way the United States had intervened in other countries, stunning one of those who had accompanied him.

“I got really upset and walked out,” said David F. Kelley, who had helped arrange the trip and was the only Republican in Sanders’s entourage. “When you are a critic of your country, you can say anything you want on home soil. At that point, the Cold War wasn’t over, the arms race wasn’t over, and I just wasn’t comfortable with it.”

…Sanders had visited Nicaragua in 1985 and hailed the revolution led by Daniel Ortega, which President Ronald Reagan opposed. “I was impressed,” Sanders said then of Ortega, while allowing that “I will be attacked by every editorial writer for being a dumb dope.” At the same time, Sanders voiced admiration for the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro, whom Reagan and many others in both parties routinely denounced.

Sanders, in turn, said Americans dismissed socialist and communist regimes because they didn’t understand the poverty faced by many in Third World countries. “The American people, many of us, are intellectually lazy,” Sanders said in a 1985 interview with a Burlington television station.

Do read the whole thing. Then explain to me how any party that has substantial numbers of supporters enthralled by someone like this can be trusted…well, to take care of a cat over a weekend. Bernie wasn’t 17 when he acted and spoke this way; it was  31 years ago, but there are no signs that he has changed. He was young leftist fool then, and is an old one now. Yet he is currently second only to clueless old Joe Biden in polls of Democratic Presidential candidates, and worse, his demonstrably bad ideas are the ones most of the rest of the field are advocating to appeal to the young programmed  leftists the colleges are vomiting into the voter pools.

Some related observations: Continue reading →