the Tit for Tat Excuse

Ethics Dunce: Chaya Raichik

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Chaya Raichik, the industrious conservative gadfly who infuriates the Left by posting the most ridiculous and self-indicting TikTok videos by unhinged progressives, definitely has a nasty side. Exposing public figures, celebrities, local officials, scholars, professors, teachers, corporate execs, prominent athletes, “influencers,” Hollywood stars and would-be activists is an admirable (and useful) pursuit—after all, they post the stuff that makes them look ridiculous or sinister and know that what they say gets noticed. Such statements also often demonstrate why they should not continue in their chosen professions. Siccing the social media mob on a typical working American who posts something dumb on Facebook is very different. It is cruel.

Recently Raichik’s Libs of TikTok account has expanded its target range to private Facebook posts that included ugly comments on the near assassination of Donald Trump. (I could point her to some by my Trump-Deranged friends.) “To bad they weren’t a better shooter!!!!!” was the witty if ungrammatical retort Darcy Waldron Pinckney posted on Facebook to her modest number of FB friends. She worked at Home Depot, but not after the influential anti-woke warrior launched her (also misspelled) “quip” into cyberspace hyperdrive. A week ago, Raichik posted a screenshot of Pinckney’s comment with her photo (above) and wrote, “Hi @HomeDepot! Are you aware that you employ people who call for political violence and the ass*ss*nat*on of Presidents? Any comment?”

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Oh-Oh. Another Ethically Obtuse Question for “The Ethicist”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it sure seems to me that the questions being asked of the New York Times “The Ethicist” column (or the ones he’s choosing to answer) are increasingly obtuse. This suggests a dangerous trend. Are most Americans really that ethically incompetent? Or are the increasingly frequent (it seems to me) instances of blatantly unethical conduct modeled by our elected leaders and shrugged off by our news media causing galloping ethics rot?

The latest query for “The Ethicist” was, in my estimation, steeped in grade school-level ethics ignorance. A female designer who used to work for a sexually harassing boss when she was just getting started eventually told the bastard off and was fired in retaliation. Now she asks,

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Tit For Tat Ethics: The Anti-Biden-Pro-Trump Flags

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Anti-Biden flags

Two stories about vulgar flags hanging on houses were so similar, I thought they were a single episode. In fact, they occurred in different states. It didn’t help that in both stories, the politically correct, silly and near-useless news media refused to actually reveal the facts because they might be “offensive.”

In Charlotte, North Carolina, a flag with “graphic language” directed at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hangs in front of a home down the street from Mallard Creek Elementary School. Teachers and neighbors are upset at “the profane language and blatant disrespect for the President and Vice-President,” and complained that this was was “a terrible example” to set for kids. The house is on a street on the route for all the buses to get to the school.

What exactly is “the graphic language”? We’re supposed to guess: that’s today’s woke journalism, as in “lousy journalism.” Some comments from neighbors are also revealing. A neighbor told the local Fox affiliate, “If she’s concerned about that, then she needs to be getting on these rap songs and everything else.”

Yeah, that’s a classic deflection, in the style of a nice round, ten rationalizations, like 2.Whataboutism, or “They’re Just as Bad,”8, The Trivial Trap (“No harm no foul!”), 8A. The Dead Horse-Beater’s Dodge, or “This can’t make things any worse,” 16., The Consistency Obsession, 22, “There are worse things,” 26, “The Favorite Child” Excuse,” 33. The Management Shrug: “Don’t sweat the small stuff!,” 44. “It’s Not The First Time, ” 50A. Narcissist Ethics , or “I don’t care,” and #58. The Golden Rule Mutation, or “I’m all right with it!” The response doesn’t address the issue at hand, it just shrugs it away.

Too bad they don’t teach basic ethics in the U.S.

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A Sensible Reaction To The Election (And Ethical, Up To A Point)

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Stop the steal2

Powerline, the conservative blog, has been catching flack from conservatives over two posts that were regarded as “limp noodle” reactions to a stolen election. But the acceptance of reality is always ethical. Excerpts from the two posts, by Scott Johnson and Steven Hayward:

The Trump litigation has proven a bust. Indeed, most recently, in the Wisconsin federal district decision held over the weekend, the Trump legal team entered into an agreed statement of facts and declined to call a single witness. Called to put their cards on the table, the Trump team all but folded. The court’s decision rejecting President Trump’s claims is posted online here. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on it here. Sidney Powell and Lin Wood in particular have prompted me to recall Eric Hoffer’s observation: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Hoffer’s observation has been echoing in my mind over the past few weeks.

Anyone who uses that Hoffer quote, a favorite here, is jake with me.

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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 →

Monday Morning Summary Of What Would Have Been In The Sunday Ethics Warm-Up That I Was Supposed To Post But….Aw, Forget It. Here’s Some Ethics Stuff…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

Good morning.

Boy, am I glad THAT week is over.

1. Moral luck saves the 2019 baseball post-season…for now. MLB missed a major disaster when an umpire missed a clear strike three (he ruled a foul) on Yankee slugger Gary Sanchez in a tied and crucial game between the Houston Astros and New York.  It was the 11th inning, meaning a tie-breaking run would mean a likely Yankee victory.  THAT would have meant that the Astros would have lost the first two games of a seven game series at home, a hole that very few teams in baseball history have been able to overcome.

Sanchez  struck out on the next pitch, and a Carlos Correia home run in the bottom of the inning sent the Astros to Yankee Staudium in a series tied 1-1. The botch was moot, and will soon be forgotten. But if he Sanchez hit a home run or otherwise led the Yankees to a decisive score, the ALCS might have been completely turned by a blown call captured on video for all to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4YpElHG2c

And there would be no excuse: the rules allow no appeal on that kind of play, but there has to be.

Yes, it was “moral luck” again. The fact that the worst didn’t happen doesn’t change the seriousness of the fact that only luck saved the day and prevented a blot on the integrity of the whole 2019 post-season. Maybe it would have been better if the bad call had altered the game, the series, and the World Series. Maybe then baseball would stop waiting for the high-profile disaster caught on video that will force it to have ball and strikes called by technology. It took an umpire’s obvious blown safe call in what should have been the last out of a perfect game to make baseball go to replays, and anyone who watches many games knows how many times a reversal changes game outcomes. Continue reading →

The Incredibly Stupid But Nonetheless Revealing Nancy Pelosi Video Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Seldom does a news story I deem too predictable and silly to warrant posting about suddenly explode into a full-fledged ethics train wreck, but this time, it did. President Trump apparently couldn’t resist the irony of Speaker Pelosi calling for “an intervention” for him in one of her typical rambling, halting, disturbing performances, and tweeted “PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE” along with a video.

This was, of course, both juvenile, petty and typical conduct by the President. At this point, I don’t see how anyone can get upset about it, be surprised by it, or pretend to be outraged by it. Doing so is one more marker of Trump Derangement: yes, we KNOW you hate the man and can’t stand his manner, manners, and mannerisms. These were a matter of record years before he was elected. Anyone who voted for him knew the was part of the package. What possibly is accomplished by railing about it now?

“The man’s an asshole! No, really, look, he really, really is an asshole! Don’t you see? HE’S REALLY AN ASSHOLE!!!!” We see, for God’s sake. We’ve always seen. Shut up! [See: The Julie Principle.]

Now, if Donald Trump were 14, or not President of the United States and obligated to be a role model and epitome of dignity and rectitude, one could sympathize with this latest example of tit-for-tat payback. Pelosi accused him of a “cover-up” because he has chosen not to cooperate with Democrats looking for things—something, anything— to impeach him with. This is the three year old “we know you must have done something horrible because you are horrible,” guilty until proven innocent smear that the “resistance” has used from the moment Trump was elected to try to undermine his Presidency in an  undemocratic, slow-motion coup unlike anything the nation has endured before. Then she made her “intervention” comment. Of course the President resents it and is furious, and he has never denied that his personal ethics code demands that he strike back when he is attacked. No, it isn’t ethical, admirable or Presidential. But it’s him.

The Speaker was also crossing lines of decorum that shouldn’t be crossed, but that horse not only left the Democratic barn long ago, it has traveled cross-country, mated repeatedly, and has nasty, mean-spirited, hateful colts galloping all over the place. One of Trump’s gifts is making his enemies behave worse than he does, and the Democrats and the “resistance” have taken the bait and asked for more, the fools. All they had to do was to take the high road, speak respectfully but sadly about the President’s transgressions, stick to the facts, and refrain from name-calling and ad hominem attacks. Like the man on the ledge heeding “Jump!” chants, they chose to follow the worst of their supporters’ demands instead, proving, of course, that they were no better than the President, and, I would argue, worse. Continue reading →

Seeking An Ethics Verdict On Rafi Eitan [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

“In principle, when there is a war on terror you conduct it without principles. You simply fight it.”

So said Rafi Eitan, the legendary Israeli spymaster and Mossad operative in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in 2010. Is that the credo of a hero or a villain?  When he died last week at the age of 92, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Mr. Eitan “among the heroes of the intelligence services of the State of Israel.” Is “hero of intelligence services” an oxymoron? Eitan’s credo certainly justifies murder, torture and extra-legal activities; indeed, it justifies almost anything. That’s not ethics, it’s the opposite: the ends justify the means, tit for tat, vengeance, and  scorched earth warfare without the inconvenience of a formal declaration of war. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert eulogized Eitan as “a smart, cunning and sharp person, who remained capable until his last day”, and praised him as one of “the most intelligent, competent, responsible and creative ministers in the government.” Boy, he sounds like a great guy, if you forget about all the killing.

Eitan, his various obituaries tell us, counted among his more spectacular exploits in support of his nation such operations as  the surgical strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, the systematic assassinations of the Palestinians responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, and the theft of at least 100 pounds of  enriched uranium from a nuclear fuel plant in the Pittsburgh area to assist Israel in its atomic bomb program. Eitan was the handler of Jonathan Pollard, the traitorous American Navy intelligence analyst who turned  over thousands of classified documents to Israel as its spy, and architect of  the operation that has been most celebrated in the various articles in the wake of his death, the capturing of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in 1960. Continue reading →

Yes, The House’s Investigation Of The President’s Business Dealing Is “Presidential Harassment,” And We Will Pay Dearly For It

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I will expand on this soon, but for now, let us agree that Rep. Schiff’s intended investigation of President Trump’s business activities before he was Presient, while legal, is unethical, and will do great damage to the structure of our democracy.

Let us also stipulate that it was the Republicans who opened this Pandora’s box with the Whitewater investigation into the Clintons’ always fascinating financial machinations. The Democrats have now taken that tactic to new depths, with the thinly veiled—is it veiled at all?—purpose of preventing an elected President whose existence they deplore from doing the job he was elected to do. If I never admire Donald Trump for anything else, I will admire him for fighting this destructive and unconscionable attempt by the Democrats to undo the will of the people., and doing so with all the tools at his command, as well as some that aren’t really his to command.

There are few, if any, high ranking politicians in either party who could withstand the kind of scrutiny being focused on Trump. That is, of course, the whole idea. If this continues, whether the fishing expedition uncovers anything or not, a precedent of tit-for-tat and cyclical vengeance will be established, with every President subjected to the same obstruction and constant attack, resulting in the position of President being permanently crippled and sullied. Maybe that is what the Democrats want; maybe destroying Trump’s Presidency is worth destroying them all to them—as part of a general tantrum, vengeance for spoiling Hillary’s coronation, or perhaps as a first step in establishing the progressive totalitarian regime many Democrats yearn for.

Whatever their motive, they should be clear that their methodology will not stop with President Trump, and will be aimed at te next Democratic President as well. I believe that Republican leaders should state this explicitly, not as a warning, but as a statement of fact.

Ethics Quiz (And Poll): The President’s Letter

/ Jack Marshall / 56 Comments

I woke up from a nap to discover the latest sally from the President in the Border wall/Shutdown fight:

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is this fighting fair?

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