Tag Archives: ethics

So Much for a Free Press

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The editors of The Wall Street Journal call it simply a milestone in the march of identity politics and cancel culture. It’s much worse than that. It marks the beginning of the end of a free press in our nation.

The long-time editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer…was pushed out over a headline, Buildings Matter, Too. … Staff members deemed the headline an offense to Black Lives Matter.

And

At the New York Times, editorial page editor James Bennet resigned Sunday after a staff uproar over an op-ed by a US Senator [and his deputy, James Dao, reassigned]. … A staff revolt deemed the piece fascist, unconstitutional, and too offensive for adults to read and decide for themselves.

There is only one correct viewpoint, and that’s all that’s fit to publish. There are not two sides to every issue; some have only one, and that one is the only one that’s fit to allow into the public square.

Irredeemable, Deplorable

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That’s not the Progressive-Democrat Hillary Clinton. This time it’s the Progressive-Democratic Party’s Presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that. There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there who are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are.

Ten to fifteen per cent of us Americans just aren’t very good. Between thirty-three million and fifty million of us Americans are just beneath contempt.

Biden’s contempt for Americans generally is an expansion of his contempt for, his outright bigotry toward, black Americans, which he exposed when he said to a black interviewer,

I tell you if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black[.]

This is the second Party campaign in a row where the Progressive-Democrats demonstrate such utter contempt for Americans.

This is the Party that wants to rule over the United States.

What kind of government can we expect from a ruling organization that so hates the subjects over whom it would rule?

Pettiness

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The headline says it all:

The Revenge of Jim Mattis

The op-ed then continued.

In his statement to the Atlantic, Mr Mattis denounced in particular Mr Trump’s threat this week to order the military to restore order amid riots in US cities. He said this threatens the Constitution, which is overwrought given that George HW Bush and other Presidents have done this. Mr Mattis also undersold the significant harm that riots have done in many cities (see nearby).

This is a misreading of history that, from a man who has styled himself a student of it, can only be taken as cynical. Mattis is ignoring the use of the military to restore order amid riots by Presidents Eisenhower and Bush the Elder, entirely constitutional uses.

And

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.

Mattis ignores even recent history, about which he’s mischaracterized the divisiveness extant. He carefully ignores the utter contempt with which Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the man she hoped to replace, Barack Obama, held millions of Americans: bitter Bible- and gun-clinging denizens of flyover country, irredeemable and deplorable. He carefully ignores the NLMSM’s so-unifying practice of calling Tea Partiers “tea baggers,” then- (as now) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D, CA) calling them astro-turfers. He carefully ignores current Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential nominee Joe Biden’s contempt for black Americans: if they’re confused about whether to vote for Biden, they’re not black. (Biden since has extended that Progressive-Democratic contempt to 10-15 per cent of Americans being just not very good people, but that post-dates Mattis’ diatribe.)

Mattis also carefully ignores Trump’s work toward unification—prison reform; jobs for blacks, Hispanics, women; funding for Historically Black Colleges; on and on.

These are breathtaking…failures…by that historian.

And this letter from an erstwhile Presidential lawyer:

Jim:
I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset. You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation—earned with the blood and guts of young Marines. You did what you said you would—engage in this discourse. Marines keep their word.
The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the 1900 curfew. Jim, this is the new nihilism. See Dan Henninger in WSJ today. Marines support the police in harms way.
Did you forget that President Bush used active duty Marines to quell the riots in LA? President Trump has countless cities and some snowflake governors and mayors wetting themselves in the use force to protect innocent lives and property. The AG of Massachusetts thinks burning property is good protest.
Three more policemen were stabbed and shot in NYC last night.
Think about it. Should he be upset about the obvious failure of leadership? Where are you Jim?
Marines go to the fight.
No one divided this country more than Obama. He abandoned our black brothers and sisters. He gave guns to the cartels. He apologized for our precious sacrifice and generosity overseas.
President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in the three years than anyone in the last fifty. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. He got them funded. Ask them about the prison reform which ended the draconian sentences imposed on young black men by the laws enacted by Biden and his hacks. You need to bone up on your homework and stop listening to Uncle Leon.
I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy this President, his office, and his lawful free election. Nancy has no tolerance for dissent in the ranks—including those with stars.
You said nothing of the ugly, hate filled, disgraceful comments of Pelosi, Schumer, Perez and other Democrat hacks defaming the President and his office. You said nothing of the unlawful sanctuary cities and the unlawful release of hoodlums. You said nothing of the resistance movement to paralyze our courts and our government operations. You said nothing of the obstruction and subversion of our immigration laws. You said nothing of MS-13 killers and the drug cartels who own huge sections of our major cities. Jim, do you think that hateful rhetoric and those corrupt actions were inspiring and unifying? Do you think the DI’s at Parr’s Island would find such behavior as unifying?
Maybe, your problem, is a lot deeper. Perhaps you ought to explain how and why you (and John Allen), as CG Central Command, did not engage and take out Iranian Major General Soleimani who roamed the Middle East and wreaked havoc and death of American boys with his infamous IEDs?
Why did it take President Trump to have the instinct and balls to take him out (of course over the objection the geniuses in the Pentagon)?
Looks like the Persian mullahs were a one horse sleigh and Trump nailed the horse….forever. It has been quiet ever since. Perhaps, your anger is borne of embarrassment for your own failure as the leader of Central command. Did you applaud when the President recognized the central problem in the middle east? Did you applaud the President when he wanted to save American lives by bringing them home in one piece?
John M Dowd

The Wall Street Journal says in the first link above,

Mr Mattis, the former four-star Marine General, is a man of accomplishment and dedication to country.

In his book, Call Sign Chaos, however, Mattis wrote:

I don’t write about sitting presidents.

General Mattis was, indeed, a man of accomplishment. It seems, though, that Mister Mattis’ word is less accomplished. As is his level of rationality.

Who’s Insulting Whom?

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As most of you are aware, the government men of Hong Kong, on instruction from their masters in the People’s Republic of China government, has imposed on the people of Hong Kong a law criminalizing “disrespect” for the PRC national anthem.

Holden Chow, Vice-Chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, a staunchly pro-PRC member of Hong Kong’s “legislature,” strongly supports this law.

This is simply about protecting the dignity of the national anthem and deterring people from insulting it[.]

Far from it. A national anthem symbolizes its nation. A government that is so terrified of dissent that it outlaws that dissent, that makes speaking against an anthem that symbolizes that fear a crime, isn’t the one being insulted, and such an anthem has no dignity.

Making such dissent criminal is the insult, and this government has gravely insulted both the good people of Hong Kong and the good people of the PRC.

Sharp Contrast between Floyd Protests and Tea Party Protests

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In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder,

Protests and looting occurring nightly across America are being followed by a different phenomenon the following mornings: volunteers swooping in to clean up the garbage, debris and graffiti that is often left behind.
In communities from California to Florida to Rhode Island, people are showing up with brooms, shovels and paint to help damaged businesses and neighborhoods. Like the protests, the efforts are sometimes spontaneous and sometimes highly organized.

One group of cleaner-uppers, Shannon D’Souza and five friends, drove in a caravan of three cars re the clean-up.

It’s our way of protesting, said Ms D’Souza, a 35-year-old dancer, as she painted over graffiti left on a gate in front of a market near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.
“They support us, so we have to support them,” she said of the neighborhood businesses.

And

A Kroger spokeswoman said many nearby residents came out to assist in cleanup efforts, which helped the store reopen quickly.
In Minneapolis, ad hoc cleanup crews have shown up almost every morning after looting, vandalism, and even fires have occurred amid largely peaceful protests.

And

Some of the cleanup efforts were organized even before the damage was done. In Long Beach, south of LA, looters were still rampaging through the downtown district—causing millions of dollars in damages to an estimated 80 businesses, according to local estimates—on Sunday night when Sal Flores-Trimble created a cleanup event for the next morning on Facebook.

All of this is highly commendable—it’s good that the clean-up efforts occurred without requiring cities to do so exclusively—but something is lacking.

There’s no indication that any of today’s protesters ever joined those next day clean up efforts. Of course, the rioters and the looters create most of the mess and would interfere with any prompt cleanup efforts. But where are they those following mornings when “America cleans up?”

It’s true that the looters and rioters were absent from the Tea Party protests of the prior decade. But it’s also true that the Tea Party protesters cleaned up after themselves; there was no need of “community effort” later on.