trolling

Belated Unethical Tweet Of The Month

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

That nasty and completely inexcusable tweet from the White House popped up on several websites last week. I hadn’t seen it before or the 2016 post by Clinton that inspired it. Because of the way it was deceptively posted, I assumed Hillary had finally sunk to the bottom of her well of self-pity. The White House post went up on July 1, which is apparently Social Media Day. I didn’t know that either, and what a stupid designation THAT is. Every day is social media day, unfortunately.

But back to the White House’s trolling: how petty, mean and cruel. I can’t imagine anything more frustrating and devastating to an American than winning the popular vote in a Presidential election and losing the election anyway. It’s a fluke when it occurs (that doesn’t mean that the Electoral College isn’t a net benefit to our democracy, because it is), and only Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Al Gore and Hillary have suffered that fate. Jackson and Cleveland became Presidents anyway, so only three candidates saw their future places in U.S. history go from defining to footnote because of an anomaly, and of those three, Hillary Clinton was the only one who had good reason to believe she couldn’t lose.

I don’t like Hillary Clinton and we are all lucky that she lost, but mocking someone for suffering a devastating misfortune is unethical no matter who is the target. The tweet basically says, “Nyah, nyah, nyah!”

Presidents of the United States shouldn’t say Nyah, nyah, nyah!” They are supposed to be better than that.

“No Kings” Is Moronic, But I Might Be On Board With “No 13-Year-Olds”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Ugh.

President Trump posted an AI-generated video last week that showed him chasing, tackling and befriending a Siberian tiger, obviously inspired by the horrible incident at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, England where a mentally disturbed young man, William Chapman, entered a tiger enclosure and was mauled to death. Trump posted the fake video, which was accompanied by The Tokens classic, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

That might be excusable for a junior high school student today, but since a man died in the tragedy it should be obvious to anyone at least as mature as Ralph Malph that the video is in terrible taste, and would be even for a sanitation worker. This is the President of the United States posting such junk, however. I don’t care if it’s “trolling,” or if it’s ‘just a joke,” no American can feel secure and confident about the leader of their nation when he acts like that.

What’s wrong with him? Whatever it is, it’s been wrong with him for a long time, and he’s clearly not going to get over it. The same instinct that served Trump well when he did his McDonald’s bit during the campaign undermines his authority, trust and support when he slips down several notches to this, having fun with a the death of a troubled man. I’ve been trying to imagine any previous POTUS who, given the technology, would behave similarly in his most rash and irresponsible moments. There isn’t one. Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and even Calvin Coolidge were known to play practical jokes on friends and staffers. Silent Cal was fond of pressing his desk buzzer to summon Secret Service agents and then hiding under his desk. But none of them would think posting the tiger video was wise, or anything but harmful to both the office and Trump’s policy agenda.

I’ll take this opportunity to comment on the “No Kings” protests yesterday. Several friends posted photos of themselves, family members and others embarrassing themselves, apparently unaware that anyone, like me for example, would conclude that their participating in this foolishness reflects terribly on them all. It does seem that the majority of these protesters are seniors, and I suspect that many of the geezers participate out of boredom. They meet other wokified, Trump Deranged Democrats, and maybe hook up for a canasta date or an early dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s.

I sure hope that’s the reason, because I care about some of the people participating in these rallies, and I have to fight myself tooth and nail to avoid losing respect for them completely.

The “Who Cares?” Anti-Trump Judicial Ruling Of Them All

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Even Trump doesn’t care, raising the question of why it’s such a big deal to the Trump Deranged. From the Washington Post:

“A federal judge issued a ruling this week temporarily blocking key parts of President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, throwing the institution’s future into a state of uncertainty…He installed himself as the Kennedy Center’s board chair and brought in loyalists as trustees who voted last year to add his name to the building. Programming priorities shifted, acts have withdrawn or dropped out, ticket sales plummeted and more than 100 employees resigned or were laid off.

“In March, the board agreed to Trump’s plan to close the center for a two-year renovation. But U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper on Friday granted in part a request from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), temporarily blocking steps toward the closure. He also ordered Kennedy Center officials to remove Trump’s name from the center’s building and branding.

“…Cooper has ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the building’s white exterior wall, a little more than five months after it was installed when the board, stacked by Trump with those loyal to him, voted to rename the institution “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” They have two weeks to remove it and scrap references to it from the website.

“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name,” Cooper wrote in his opinion, “and only Congress can change it.”

That’s nice. I’m sure all of my friends and colleagues in the arts community will be happy now. Actually no, I know they won’t. My Trump Deranged friends and colleagues have made it quite clear that they won’t be happy until Donald J. Trump is dead and hanging like a pinata on a tree somewhere, and can be pelted with rotten fruit by people screaming like banshees. Ann Althouse this morning raised a fascinating conspiracy theory regrading “What’s going on here?” Her take: “I’m going to assume he didn’t want to fix this place, and the best — or most entertaining — way to avoid blame for letting it rot was to bait a judge into preventing him from saving it.”

Actually, he did more than that. When the President put his name on the building, it naturally caused the infants in the arts community to cut off their metaphorical noses to spite their faces. After duly noting how silly the re-naming of the building was in this post, I wrote in this one:

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Answering My Own Ethics Quiz: “Is This Troll By The White House Ethical?”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Damn right it is.

In fact, it’s brilliant, well-deserved, and spot-on. The purpose of trolling Trump-style is to make your opponents, detractors and adversaries start screaming and kicking things. Normally I would say that 1) causing people pain, psychic or otherwise, for no other reason than to do it, is unethical and that 2) for a President of the United States to engage in such conduct is petty, an abuse of position and and beneath him. But the fools, knaves, assholes and clods that make up the Trump Deranged just nearly got the President killed again. This particular trolling post, mocking the “No Kings” idiocy that has polluted the very concept of public demonstrations and protest as free speech, is a wonderful way to respond to those responsible.

To wit..

1 The President comparing himself to the UK’s King Charles brightly illustrates how silly the protest was to begin with. None of the kings extant in the world today, with Charles being the most prominent example, have any real power except for prestige and cultural respect.

2. If Americans and the mews media allowed Trump the formal respect and deference that the English royals receive, our politics, culture and society would be far healthier.

3. The Founders’ concept of our Executive was, in fact, that he have the status of a king but with his powers limited and controlled by two equally powerful government institutions. This is why both John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were shocked when our first President eschewed any of the trappings of royalty.

4. The difference between the conduct of the UK’s King and our President, especially this one, is striking. King Charles, like his mother, rarely allows reporters to shout questions at him, or addresses hostile audiences like Trump was about to do before the shooting started, or will take part in a contentious interview with a journalist as Trump has done many times, most recently with Norah O’Donnell. Framing them both as “kings” neatly points out the distinction. Our king is more accessible, a commoner (one might wish a bit less common) and self-effacing.

5. Real kings, and many of Charles’ predecessors, would execute or imprison critics, especially those as hateful and vicious as those who have taken part in the “No Kings” rallies. President Trump just teases them. That’s the epitome of a beneficent monarch.

6. Ann Althouse this morning chides the White House for, she says, sacrificing integrity (“consistency”) for trolling. Baloney. Trump trolling his undemocratic foes, who do not believe in allowing an elected President to govern, is one constant in his two terms. The post says, in effect, “Nyah, Nyah, Nyah. Nyah! I’m POTUS and you’re not. Bite me!”

Yes, childish, but Trump’s targets are children—worse, really, because children have an excuse for acting immaturely and adults do not. In the context of what he has put up with, it is a restrained, clever, and well-deserved rebuke.

My Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is the White House’s “TWO KINGS’ gag ethical?

Answer: It’s better than ethical. It’s perfect.

Calling “A Friend”! Tell Us Again How The New York Times Is Non-Partisan, Fair, and Trustworthy…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Yeah, I’m trolling. So sue me.

A mob of Minnesota pro-open borders, anti-Rule of Law, insurrection-minded, Jacob Frey toadies and crazies invade a church service and harass parishioners on the pretense that the minister supports immigration enforcement, and the framing of the event by the nation’s alleged “newspaper of record” is to call the trespass and mass assault a “protest” and to focus on I.C.E. tactics when the issue is anti-I.C.E. tactics. The immigration control agency was not involved in this criminal act in any way, yet it is in the headline.

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!

For readers new to Ethics Alarms, “A Friend” is an unfriendly, denial-soaked ex-commenter here who banned himself from the comments, an act that is addressed specifically in the blog Comment Policies. Unlike even the most disrespectful and defiant bannees of the past, who typically issue a one or two finals shots and then sink into the obscurity they so richly deserve, this jerk has adamantly refused to comply with the site’s owner and moderator, me. Thus for years he has repeatedly blog-bombed posts with comments that I have to delete while also sending me emails that also go directly to spam, because he is somehow convinced that he’s smarter than everyone else. You know,

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Ethics Quiz: Trump’s Banners

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

This isn’t the quiz question, but are we entering Julie Principle territory here? Should I keep flagging this very Trumpian conduct as ethically dubious, or just resign myself to “fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Trump’s gonna troll ’cause he likes to, that’s why”?

Those banners are currently hanging at the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C. Naturally, my Trump-Deranged Facebook friends (and certainly the rest of that zombie herd that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting), is triggered. “This is SHOCKING,” writes one of the TDS inflicted (whose posts I have noted before). “Authoritarian craziness is now on full display. What happened to DOGE? We now have Soviet style banners. POTUS is a very ill man.” A reply asserts, “Unfortunately, the ‘uneducated’ would never see this.”

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President Trump’s Third Term Fantasy

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

We’re back in Julie Principle territory again, unfortunately: “Fish gotta swim, bird’s gotta fly, Trump’s gong to keep saying crazy stuff to make progressives cry…” This is a particularly annoying example. Just as the position of Ethics Alarms is that trusted professionals do not have the luxury of pulling April Fool’s Day hoaxes on the public, it is also unethical for Presidents of the United States to deliberately raise phony issues for public consumption.

The President began raising the possibility of a third term almost from the moment he was elected to his second. It is, of course, impossible. The Constitution forbids it quite unambiguously thanks to the 22nd Amendment, the eventual Congressional reaction to Franklin Roosevelt shattering the unwritten rule, set by our first President, that two elected terms is enough. Over the weekend, Trump said he was “not joking” about there being “methods” to circumvent the two-term limit. No, there really aren’t and never mind that: Trump is 78 years old, not exactly in peak physical condition, and would be 86 at the end of a third term. The real question is whether he can complete this one.

Trump was even sparking speculation about a fantasy race between him and Barack Obama in 2028 for an unconstitutional third term, and a depressing number of morons on social media are taking it seriously. Yes, Dana, that’s your cue…

Here’s what’s happening. I was pondering Trump’s nonsense, and concluded that there are three things going on here, only one of which is substantive:

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Ethics Cleansing, 1/27/2021: I’m Afraid This Edition Exceeds The Limit For Disturbing Stories…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Horrible text message

As a prelude, I don’t know why some commenters are arguing that the 1876 William Belknap impeachment trial is a valid precedent for trying a private citizen no longer in office on a charge that has no other purpose but to remove that individual from his or her federal office. It’s just a bad argument, which is why Belknap has only been raised by desperate anti-Trump zealots. As I pointed out in the comments, an unconstitutional act doesn’t change the Constitution. There have been many, many unconstitutional actions by our government that were allowed to occur in the past (President Jackson’s defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court to forec the Trail of Tears is an especially egregious one.\); they still can’t be cited as proof that the actions were Constitutional, or precedent for violating the Constitution again. Balknap, who had resigned as Grant’s Secretary of War just as he was about to be impeached by the House, submitted to the Senate’s unconstitutional trial. I have always assumed this was because he was certain that he would be acquitted, so he could later claim innocence. (He was incredibly guilty.) Since he was acquitted, there was no occasion to challenge the trial, the issue being moot.

The entire system was in chaos in 1876; if the Belknap trial is binding precedent that a private citizen can be tried by the Senate to remove him from office when he isn’t in that office, why not make the same claim about the unconstitutional deal between Republicans and Democrats to install the loser of the 1876 Presidential election (Hayes) in the White House in exchange for removing federal troops from the former Confederate states?

1. An example of ethical trolling, I think:

Ironic Tweet

Miller is getting all sorts of outraged responses from critics online who seem to have missed the critical fact that he was just quoting Maxine Waters’ call for harassment of Trump administration officials. Normally I regard deliberate posting of positions one doesn’t believe as unethical unless the poster makes the sarcasm or irony obvious. This one is obvious, unless the reader wasn’t paying attention to how irresponsible and vicious Democrats were in the past four years, and if the such a reader was that ignorant, he shouldn’t be involved in the discussion at all.

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Yes, It’s Bizarro World—But The Mainstream Media Anti-Trump Bias Is Still Ridiculous

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

The President’s master-trolling display before Thanksgiving plunged us squarely into Bizarro World Ethics territory. I cannot imagine any previous President of the United States pulling a public stunt even close to as juvenile and silly as tweeting the photo above out to his followers and, inevitably, the world. I can’t imagine another President even considering it. The leader of the free world, the dignified occupant of the White House, the leader and role model of millions just doesn’t do something like that. He just…just..doesn’t, that’s all!

Yet there it was , just before 11:00 am on November 27. And like so many other seemingly vulgar and impetuous acts and statements that President Trump has authored, the deranged foes of the President managed to make it look like a brilliant stratagem. First the Washington Post—surely there must be some perceptive people working there, wouldn’t you think?—sent out this hurrumphing tweet:

Oh, it’s doctored! Good sleuthing, Post! Quick, add this to your recent list of Trump mendacities: he tried to make the public think that he’s built like Rocky under those blue suits, the liar!

And “unclear why”!!! Unclear why? How bone-headedly biased does someone have to be to not understand why Trump would tweet out a photo of himself as “Rocky” (in “Rocky 3”, to be accurate)? Has anyone on the Post staff seen “Rocky,” or is so stuffed with culturally ignorant naifs whose idea of an ancient inspirational movie is the ten-year-old “The Blind Side” that “Rocky” (1976) and its descendants are buried in their “Irrelevant films my grandparents watched” files? Continue reading →

“It’s OK To Be White” Strikes Again, And Drives People Crazy Again! GOOD!

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

The first Ethics Alarms post about the trolling masterpiece “It’s OK to be white” was in 2017. The message, apparently launched by those puckish trouble-makers at 4Chan,  first appeared on stickers appearing on the Harvard campus, sparking an idiotic response from an African American dean. I concluded, in part, that the sticker campaign was brilliant “no matter who came up with it or what the motive was,”;  that anyone who was troubled by the message is part of the problem the stickers are responding to, and  that the stickers would have  been harmless if they were treated as harmless, and they should have been.

The Ethics Alarms’ self-appointed Voice of the Woke at the time took umbrage, saying, “The stickers are stupid. No one disputes that it’s OK to be white….The correct response from average citizens to this display of faux persecution should be mockery and ridicule, not outrage.” Realizing a hanging curve over the middle of the plate when I say one, I replied in part, ,

“You know, it’s easy to deal with any problem if you make up your own facts. Nobody says its not OK to be white? This list took me less than 10 minutes:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/texas-am-wont-fire-professor-who-called-for-killing-white-people/article/2622810
http://www.theroot.com/college-campus-shut-down-after-professors-letthemfucki-1796334903
http://www.theroot.com/for-black-people-who-have-to-deal-with-white-people-thi-1797835711
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/ta-nehisi-coates-whiteness-power.html?smid=fb-share&referer=http://m.facebook.com
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/38149/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lady-gaga-the-problems-with-non-racist-white_us_59960aeee4b033e0fbdec279
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/toxic-whiteness-healing-white-people-internalised-racism-woman-sandra-kim-new-york-a7595216.html

Then there’s the Ethics Alarms anti-white racism tag…https://ethicsalarms.com/tag/anti-white-racism/ All resulting in THIS:
http://www.npr.org/2017/10/24/559604836/majority-of-white-americans-think-theyre-discriminated-against

As I may have mentioned, I was explicitly told that the only reason I was not hired as an Assistant US Attorney in DC …a life and career-altering result for me…was that I was white. Now, I think it is reasonable to assume that if I was not hired because I was white, there was something “not OK” with my being white. I’m not unhappy or bitter about this, but it happened.

The problem with being an ideologue… is that it requires distorting reality.

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