Category Archives: ethics

In Which I Disagree with the Congresswoman

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Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R, SC) has come out in opposition of the move to bar Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

I think we have to be very careful about what we are as a constitutional republic. I am not a fan of Ilhan Omar. She’s an anti-Semite. She’s a bigot. She’s a racist. She’s a socialist. But that doesn’t mean that we cancel people in this country. Republicans don’t stand for cancel culture. And that’s essentially what this is.

And

I think it sets a very dangerous precedent. And you know, there’s so much anti-Semitism in this country. We should be condemning it right and left as we always have, but there’s also the First Amendment right to do that[.]

Mace is correct that we’re a constitutional republic with a First Amendment right for all Americans to speak their piece, whatever that piece might be.

However.

Omar wouldn’t be barred from all House committees, any more than Congressmen Adam Schiff (D, CA) and Eric Swalwell (D, CA) are barred from all House committees. They’re barred only from the House Intelligence Committee; they’re free to serve on other House committees.

Omar would be barred only from the Foreign Affairs Committee and remain free to serve on other House committees. Omar’s rank bigotry makes her presence on Foreign Affairs counterproductive; her presence would give the lie to our nation’s international efforts to counter bigotry.

Our First Amendment free speech rights are limited in certain narrow circumstances. Military members cannot speak counter to military policy while in uniform or in other situations where they can be understood to be speaking for the military or for their branch or for their particular unit. They can be subject to discipline if they do. They can speak as freely as they wish on whatever subject they wish when they’re speaking as private citizens.

When Omar espoused her bigotry, she too often spoke as a Congresswoman, not as a private citizen. It would be entirely correct to bar her from Foreign Affairs; it would be cancel culture only were she barred from all House committees.

“Society’s” Needs

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Linn-Mar Community School Board (the district is on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids, IA) member Rachel Wall thinks she knows more about what “society’s needs” are and what should be taught “society’s” children than those children’s parents do. She posted—and she was deadly serious—on Facebook

The purpose of a public ed is to not teach kids what the parents want. It is to teach them what society needs them to know. The client is not the parent, but the community[.]

That got her enough public pushback, including calls for her resignation, that Wall added a post that she actually insisted was clarifying:

This post has garnered much ire and although I thought the sentiment was clear, it is obvious that’s not the case. Please allow me to clarify. This post doesn’t say that parents don’t matter or that students don’t matter. It doesn’t say that parents shouldn’t be involved or that students shouldn’t be our focus. What it says is that public education is an ecosystem.

Public education is an ecosystem. And she gets to define who the members of her ecosystem are. They plainly do not include the parents. Parents are not, in her exalted view, part of society. Notice, too, that while Wall doesn’t say that parents and students don’t matter, she also doesn’t say that they do matter.

She’ll hear politely what parents say, and then she’ll proceed without further regard. Children are not to be educated, they’re merely tools with which Wall and her cronies intend to mold their version of community. That status as mere tool, of course, makes the children her focus. Who uses a tool without focusing on it?

Please allow me to clarify. Parents are society. Their children are tomorrow’s society. No one is better suited to determine the needs of society today and tomorrow than society’s members: parents today and tomorrow and today’s children grown into tomorrow.

All teachers are qualified to teach is the mechanics of how to operate in society—STEM materials—how we got here—the facts of history—and how we’ll interact with each other—political history and current civics.

Sadly, dangerously, teachers of Wall’s ilk are unqualified even for that, and district managers like Wall are unqualified for anything related to our children.

Tabloid “Journalism”

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The New York Times insults it. On the subject of the current debt ceiling discussion, the NYT tweeted

You get an image because just hours later, the NYT cravenly deleted it, and replaced that tweet with this one:

The New York Times @nytimes · 23h
Raising the U.S. debt ceiling has increasingly been used as a political tool by Republicans, leading to intense showdowns in 2011, 2013 and, now, 2023.

But who’s behind the debt itself? Listen to today’s episode of The Daily.

This is the NYT changing what they claimed in order to be more Leftist-politically correct. Even worse, though, is that the “news” outlet deliberately deleted its original tweet IAW its penchant for trying to rewrite history and pretend it hadn’t done what it had done.

The NYT is exceedingly insulting to the tabloid journalism genre of which it tries so hard to be a member.

Whining Mayor Whines Again

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New York City Mayor Eric “Squeaky” Adams (D) is crying now that his sanctuary city, a status of which he claims to be proud, is nearing its breaking point and there is no more room in New York. All because the city of 8.8 million has had an “influx” of 41,000 illegal aliens over the last nine or so months.

41,000. The Del Rio sector of the US-Mexico border, of which Eagle Pass, TX—population 28 thousand—is the primary border-crossing region, had more than 51,000 illegal aliens entering in December 2022 alone.

Adams needs to stop his cry-baby act; he’s embarrassing New Yorkers, if not himself. If he doesn’t want to handle his trickle of illegal aliens, his first step should be to end the city’s sanctuary status.

Who are these Austrians?

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And why do we waste any more time supporting them, for instance via the OECD and OSCE?

In William Nattrass’ op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal centered on Poland’s functional ascension to European leadership regarding the barbarian Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he cited a couple of remarks by Austria’s Foreign Minister, Alexander Schallenberg.

Mr Schallenberg had claimed Europe’s “security architecture will have to take Russia into account in future”….

Certainly, since, contra Putin, Russia’s existence isn’t at stake. But with a Ukrainian decisive victory, that future would include a less capable-of-threat Russia.

Schallenberg also was upset that Poland had successfully blocked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s attendance at a recent OECD meeting.

Mr Schallenberg said Mr Lavrov’s presence would have provided a rare chance for Western politicians to communicate their criticisms directly to the Kremlin.

This is just breathtakingly stupid. It’s almost like Schallenberg doesn’t understand that Russia and Western nations have exchanged embassies.