Category Archives: morality

What Are You Going to Do about It?

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“The Vatican” has proclaimed its regret for the decades of abuse in Pennsylvania of 1,000 or more children by hundreds of the Vatican’s priests.

The abuses described in the report are criminal and morally reprehensible. Those acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and their faith.

The Church must learn hard lessons from its past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur[.]

On the other hand, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General has pointed out the skill with which this perfidy was executed.

The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up.  These documents, from the dioceses’ own “Secret Archives,” formed the backbone of this investigation.

Because the men who run the Catholic Church chose not to conduct their own investigation.  It’s a reminder of the atrocity in Boston two decades ago where the Cardinal there, far from nailing his child-abusing priests, simply relocated them to fresh hunting grounds.  It’s a reminder of the abuses inflicted on Argentine children only recently uncovered—officially, that is.

Talk is cheap, men of the Vatican, and rended garments easily replaced.  What are you actually going to do?

There’s Help, and There’s Help

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Recall that Alphabet Inc, through its Google arm, has refused to help the US defend itself by refusing to work with DoD on the application of artificial intelligence to military projects.  After the resignations described at the link, Alphabet pulled its Google arm out of the project altogether, with effect in 2019 when its current contract expires.

On the other hand, Alphabet is enthusiastic about its Google working within the People’s Republic of China.  Mobvoi Inc, headquartered outside Beijing, makes smart watches and smart speakers for sale within—and outside—the surveillance state.

Its engineers build apps using TensorFlow, Google’s free set of development tools for artificial intelligence.

And

Now those allies [like Mobvoi] will likely be crucial as Google embarks on a broader China expansion strategy.

Indeed,

In his three years as Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai has been a frequent visitor to the region, meeting with top Chinese officials and encouraging businesses to use Google’s free open-source tools like TensorFlow….

Alphabet won’t work on AI projects with DoD, but they’re perfectly happy to make much of their AI capability freely available to the PRC.

Hmm….

Chicago Mayhem

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Recall the bloody mayhem going on in Chicago these days while its mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) fiddles.  Over 80 people were killed or injured one recent weekend alone.

Last year, President Donald Trump told Emanuel to get things under control, or else the Feds would.  That was a year-and-a-half ago and so greatly predates the recent weekend.

Trump’s own mistake was in not following through on his implied threat.

Here’s President Hines’ solution, and it’s not too late to implement it; although the bloody cost of sitting on the sidelines is rising.  Since Emanuel has chosen to do nothing but natter on about how terrible things are, Hines would get on to Governor Bruce Rauner and tell him he has one week to get the Illinois State Police deployed in Chicago in place of the city’s police (who are pouting like toddlers over their mistreatment by Emanuel—a justified beef, but no excuse for shirking their duty) and beginning to restore order to the city.  In the same notice to Rauner, Hines would Federalize the Illinois National Guard.  If Rauner said his State police didn’t have the resources, Hines would tell Rauner that if he needs Guard support, Hines would authorize it.

The bottom line is this: if the city and State governments can’t be bothered to bring Chicago under control, the Federal government has to.

I grew up in Illinois.  It’s more than irritating to see a once great State descend into such bloody chaos, especially when it’s occurring because the State and local governments won’t do their jobs.

The Face of the Progressive-Democratic Party?

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) and House of Representatives candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY) are the ideological face of the Progressive-Democratic Party, pushing for socialism to be inflicted on our nation.  We can have the political debate, except for the rest of the face of the Party.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) is openly pushing for violence against Republicans and Conservatives.  And we have Antifa verbally assaulting Conservatives Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk.  While they were not, this time, violent, the Antifa thugs were openly racist in their verbal assault, and they sought to completely shut down political debate concerning the direction our nation should take over the present next election cycle.

Progressive-Democrats’ silence on Antifa (and Waters) not only contributes to their desired goal of “no debate; it’s settled,” it shows that Progressive-Democrats actively condone the tactics being used.

Remember this this fall.

Naked Censorship

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Now Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is being blatant about censoring inconvenient truths.  He and Connecticut’s Chris Murphy are peas in a pod.

Elizabeth Heng is a Republican candidate for Congress from a California district centered on Fresno.  Her parents are emigres from Cambodia who also had escaped the genocide of the ’70s that Pol Pot had tried to inflict.  Heng tried to run a campaign ad that touted that fight, that survival, and her parents’ recovery from that terror.  When she put her ad on Facebook, Zuckerberg and his censorship algorithm-programming IT experts said Nope.

We don’t allow ads that contain shocking, disrespectful, or sensational content, including ads that depict violence or threats of violence[.]

Because an illustration of triumph over murderous adversity, when it comes from a Conservative, is shocking, disrespectful, or sensational.

No.  As Heng tweeted (because Facebook showed itself not reliably available to her, I speculate)

It’s unbelievable that @facebook could have such a blatant disregard for the history that many people, including my own parents, have lived through. I’m sure it is “shocking” for people to hear about this kind of injustice, but this is reality.

Once again, an illustration of the Left’s view of free speech.