Tag Archives: ethics

Progressive-Democratic Party Self-Importance

Posted on by
Reply

In a Just the News article centered on Kamala Harris’ decision to absent herself the California State Progressive-Democratic Party convention to nominate Party candidates for Governor, Stephen Cloobeck, a candidate and convention attendee, said this—and he was serious:

If she decides to get in this race, shame on her for not showing up for the most important people in the party, which is the people who are here today[.]

I always thought that the most important people in a democracy—whether popular, republican, representative—were the people themselves, the citizens of the polity at hand. Here, that would be the good citizens of the United States who also are citizens of California and who self-identify as Party members.

Oh, wait—here’s the State Party rule on who’s eligible to attend and have a say in candidate selection:

3. Delegates to the Convention shall be the members of the Democratic State Central Committee, or their qualified proxies as specified in the Bylaws, whose appointment/election has been transmitted to the State Party no later than Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 60 days prior to the biennial state convention in May 30 – June 1, 2025.

The people, the citizens of California, Party members not exalted enough to be in the Central Committee, have no say in candidate selection(s); these unwashed are not important. It really is the convention delegates who are the most important people in the party.

Silly me.

Or, more likely, this is Party’s utter contempt for average Americans made explicit, with Party Important Ones applying it to average Californians.

I Can’t Think of a Reason

Posted on by
Reply

Mark Zuckerberg wants to automate ad-creation in his Meta.

That’s not all he wants to do, though. Zuckerberg said this at his recent shareholder meeting (keep in mind that the these meetings generally are Zuckerberg talking to himself since he owns the controlling number of voting shares) [emphasis added].

In the not-too-distant future, we want to get to a world where any business will be able to just tell us what objective they’re trying to achieve, like selling something or getting a new customer, how much they’re willing to pay for each result, and connect their bank account and then we just do the rest for them[.]

Which of those processes—customer convenience or Meta convenience—is the one intended to be jumped on with both feet, and which is the one intended to be slipped past us?

I, for one, have no reason at all to let anyone other than myself or my wife have whenever-they-feel-like-it access to my financials.

Government Funding of Speech

Posted on by
Reply

PBS has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the latter’s moves to defund the service.

The system is centering its beef on two things: free speech and the potential to upend public television.

Last thing first. The risk of upending public television is wholly irrelevant. What’s relevant here is what our Constitution and the statutes cited in their suit say. What our Constitution says about PBS‘ business model or about any public business model is…nothing. There is no Constitutional right to a particular business model, and disruptions to models occur all the time, ranging from competitors to changing consumers to governments’ decisions to donate money or not.

PBS‘ crying about its business model is just cynical fear mongering.

PBS‘ free speech argument might have some force, but that one is centered on President Donald Trump’s (R) commentary regarding how little he likes PBS‘ own commentary and editorial decisions. However, Trump’s comments are irrelevant, also; what is relevant here, too, is what our Constitution and the cited statutes and Trump’s defunding EO say.

What our Constitution says about funding PBS is…nothing. There is no Constitutional obligation for our government to donate any money to it or to any public enterprise. The cited statutes create no such obligation. What Trump’s Executive Order says is this:

Government funding of news media in this environment [today’s, vs mid-last century when Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created] is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.
…
No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.  The CPB’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality:  the CPB may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.”

And this [emphasis added]:

The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS.  Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter.  What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.

In the end, whatever Government, or Trump, say about others’ speech, neither Government in general, nor the Trump administration in particular, are obligated to fund it; the only obligation is to not block it except under a few tightly circumscribed situations: lying under oath, false advertising, making threats or otherwise inciting violence, and the like. This is supported by PBS‘ own words:

After careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations[.]

What better way to safeguard public television’s independence and protect the autonomy of PBS member stations than to stop receiving corrosive government money, a point Trump made in the opening of his EO?

Mischaracterization

Posted on by
Reply

The Vera Institutes of Justice’s Santiago Mueckay has one in his letter in the WSJ‘s Letters section.

[T]he Supreme Court has consistently affirmed that immigrants are entitled to due process under the US Constitution.

This is a cynically offered strawman argument. No one is arguing that immigrants are not entitled to our Constitution’s due process protections.

Illegal aliens, though—the ones targeted by rapid deportation efforts—hold themselves outside our social compact, outside our government’s jurisdiction, by breaking into our country in violation of our laws and then hiding from our government. From that, illegal aliens have no claim to, and no right for, any of the protections of our Constitution.

Mueckay will have to play with his dolly without me.

Another Reason Why

Posted on by
Reply

Here is another reason our nation’s student loan debt has gotten out of hand. The subheadline goes

Millions of Americans suddenly owe billions of dollars in student debt after years of forbearance

The foolishness of the forbearance itself contributed to the enormous risks the massive student loan overhang represents for our economy. There’s nothing sudden, though, about the reappearance of that debt.

The article then does nothing to correct this distortion. Here’s the lede:

Millions of Americans had their student-loan payments put on pause during the pandemic. Now they are back on the hook again.

They never were off the hook; none of those loans were forgiven in any legal way. They’ve always been on the hook. “Millions of Americans” have owed those billions of dollars all along. This sort of distortion is even more heavily contributory to those risks.

Full stop.