Category Archives: ethics

Major Uncool

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But part and parcel with Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s overall timidity.

Biden has apologized to American Muslim leaders for questioning the accuracy of the death toll figures from Gaza. What he apologized for questioning was this sort of thing:

According to data from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, more than 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including many women and children, have been killed in the weeks-old war.

We have, though, as Biden at first said, no credible source for the Palestinian death and injury figures, only those terrorist-supplied claims. So why did Biden apologize for questioning the only numbers being bandied about? The reason is in the lede.

Alternatively…

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ActBlue is a Leftist fundraising entity, and now it has begun processing donations to funds to bail black illegal aliens out of jail. But apparently not other illegal aliens, though that’s for another time.

The Black Immigrants Bail Fund is a project of the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs, and donations are processed by ActBlue, per the donation page.
The groups provide “free assistance and relief to black immigrants in pursuit of Liberation and Justice….”

Immigration judges can release illegal out on bail after assessing the potential risks the immigrants may pose to the public and whether they are considered a flight risk.

Or—and better—go ahead and bail the illegal aliens out. Then immediately deport them.

Talking a Good Game

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Javier Milei, the newly elected Argentine President, is, indeed, talking a good game. It’ll be well worth watching to see if he can deliver—and he has many large obstacles in his way, including (this is far from an exhaustive list) opposition to his wish to get rid of the nation’s central bank (and the economic pitfalls associated with it, both near term as Argentina’s economy adjusts, and longer term with currency controls devolved to the provincial banks or to individual banks (some of which may already be too big to control without stern measures aimed at them in particular)), opposition parties bent on restoring/maintaining their own political power, general resistance—both political and popular—to any change of such magnitude, and his own political inexperience and naivete.

With that rambling lede, here’s an excerpt, via RealClear Politics, from an interview that that Milei had with Argentine TV host Alejandro Fantino just before Thanksgiving:

We aren’t above the ones we represent. In financial terms, “The derivative is never worth more than the underlying asset.” The derivative exists because the underlying asset exists. We exist as representatives of the people because the people exist. It is madness, it is delusional, to think that a representative of the people is above the people he represents themselves. It is a delusion in which the political caste exists.

The full hour-and-a-quarter interview, in Spanish, can be seen at the link at the bottom of the linked-to article. That YouTube link also is this.

Who Needs Knowledge?

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Plainly not teachers union teachers, at least according to the union. The New Jersey Progressive-Democratic Party-run State legislature agrees with them, too, which says volumes about the contempt Party has for ordinary Americans.

A major New Jersey education union is pushing Democratic Governor Phil Murphy to sign a bill into law that would eliminate the basic skills test requirement to become a teacher in the state.
The New Jersey Senate and state Assembly passed a bill in June that would allow the State Education Board to issue an alternative certificate to a teacher candidate who meets all eligibility requirements except for the requirement to achieve a minimum basic reading, writing and math skills test score.

The New Jersey Education Association union, via its political arm, the New Jersey Education Association Action Center makes the claim explicit.

[T]he basic skills test was an “unnecessary requirement” and it “created an unnecessary barrier to entering the profession.”

The only qualification a person needs to teach our children is a union membership certificate.

It’s not necessary to be able to cipher in order to teach arithmetic.

It’s not necessary to be literate in order to teach reading or writing.

It’s not fair to require these things.

Eight Ways

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The Biden administration, through Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is pushing Israel, even as that nation is in the early stages of a war for its very survival, to concern itself with what happens afterward, should it win that struggle. Never mind that this is a Party that has never had a coherent strategy for exiting a war, much less any idea of what victory conditions would look like, from Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War and Party’s refusal under Ford to give the south a survivable way off the field, to Barack Obama’s disastrous decisions in quitting Iraq, to Joe Biden’s cut-and-run from Afghanistan.

Blinken’s diktats include no less than Five Nos and Three Musts, to use The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial terminology:

No forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza…. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza.

And

must include the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations at the center of postcrisis governance in Gaza. It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. And it must include…a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.

Whether or not any of those Nos or Musts are good ideas, it is not for this administration to dictate terms to Israel. It’s solely Israel’s responsibility to dictate terms to Hamas.

Instead, Blinken, to paraphrase a French President and philosopher:

…is not really engaged in responsible behavior. His is not well brought-up behavior. He missed eight good opportunities to keep quiet.