Category Archives: Ethics

Update #II: Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul

Elections 2008, Ethics, Homosexuality, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, Journalism, Ron Paul

“You know Rep. Paul has scored a major moral coup when among those chastising him for his stand on illegal immigration is the author of a semi-pornographic tract, complete with a request for funds for the legal defense of an illegal alien. Yes, the prudish, proper Paul is being scolded by a “gentleman” who thinks nothing of exploiting his editorial position on a prominent forum to raise money for a Moroccan, homosexual, burlesque queen, whose résumé includes “exploits in the gay underground of the Arabic world.” …
As a man of the classical liberal, unquestionably American, Old Right, Rep. Paul is perfectly congruous in his defense of a sovereign America bounded by borders. It is his anarchist critics who belong to a different tradition—and who don’t make a lick of sense to sane Americans. …
… Positions that appeal to most normal Americans appall the libertarian foil-hat fringe.”
All that and more in my latest WorldNetDaily column, “Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul.”

Update # I: In reply to Barbara’s comments hereunder about the “hero” of the following “semi-pornographic tract,” linked in my column: Is this individual a worthy recipient of refugee status in the US? That’s the question. There are many foreign-born homosexuals and lesbians who do not enter the sex industry or the adult entertainment industry, but are productive individuals of high moral character. I would suggest they are better candidates for immigration than the subject of this disgusting tract, written by the shameless individual who has called Ron Paul’s illegal immigration ad “disgraceful.”
Note that the author of this “semi-pornographic tract” likens the suffering of the homosexual lad to the Resurrection. How obscene and tasteless.

Update # II (Jan. 15): On the Use of An Editorial Position to Solicit Funds For Unsavory Friends:

What would life be without the need to clarify what was crystal clear in the column, “Embrace Your Immigration Ad, Dr. Paul”?!
Was it not clear that it was not homosexuality per se that I was denouncing, but rather, 1) the quivering pornographic tone of a piece written, not for a gay porn magazine, but for a political, ostensibly respectable (but not really), website? 2) The dishonest depiction of a rather sluttish individual as a victim deserving of refugee status.

As I explained in Update # I:

There are many foreign homosexuals and lesbians (members of my family included), who live under precarious circumstances, yet have not entered the sex industry or the adult entertainment industry, but remain productive individuals of high moral character. I would suggest they are better candidates for immigration to the US than the subject of this disgusting tract.

And lastly, but easily the most unethical, the writer of the “semi-pornographic tract” exploited his editorial position—and by so doing flouted journalistic standards and ethics—to solicit funds from his readers for this individual, evidently a personal friend.
That’s deplorable.

I must conclude that my critics failed to diagnose all this as misconduct because they are themselves, very plainly, unethical.

Imagine Israelis Seeking Redress from Palestinians

Conflict, Ethics, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A Palestinian child was injured in an Israeli missile attack launched against a Jihadi in Gaza, that place where all is sweetness and light. The child is paralyzed, and Israel, rightly, has sponsored her care, until now. The Israeli Ministry of Defense wants the child to return to the Palestinian territory. I don’t believe it will come to that. The liberal courts will side with the child. Already a plethora of Israeli human rights organizations is working on her behalf.

Imagine, will you, the reverse situation. An Israeli survivor of a Palestinian suicide bomber wants the PA to treat life-long disfigurement and pain caused by shards of shrapnel, ball bearings and nails embedded in flesh and bone for life. Can you imagine Messrs. Abbas and Hamas of the PA assuming such moral responsibility? Not to mention that, other than cutting-edge killers, there is no state-of-the-art anything in the PA, much less medicine.

Desperately Seeking Bollywood’s Brangelina

Christianity, Ethics, Hollywood, Morality, Religion, The West

What happens when the pale, patriarchal, penis people, in the words of the inimitable art critic Robert Hughes, are finally dethroned?

Who will fix stuff? Who will man Doctors without Borders? Who will do the world’s charity work? Who do you think does it now? Arabs? Africans? Indians? As much as I despise Brangelina, where is Bollywood’s equivalent of these naïve, giving do-gooders?
I’m afraid those maligned pallid patriarchs and their likeminded women do the world’s good works.

The largest charities by revenue in the US (which means the world) are Mayo Clinic, Salvation Army, YMCAs, United Way, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, American National Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Goodwill Industries International, and The Arc of the United States. By whom were they founded?

Mayo was founded by William Worrall Mayo (hint: he’s not an African). The Salvation Army by William Booth (another Englishman). Ditto the YMCA (George Williams). Two ministers and a rabbi midwived the United Way. Drs. George Crile, Frank Bunts, and William Lower founded the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 1921, and Clara Barton the Red Cross (you don’t need to see their mugs to guess their origins). And so it goes for the rest.

Malkin Or Sailer?

Ethics, IMMIGRATION, Intelligence, Journalism, Media

My mouth dropped open in amazement: Malkin, on Fox News, mustered more than bare-bones, “enforce-immigration-law” mantra for her argument. When asked as to the purpose of immigration law, she unusually referred to the injunction in the Preamble to the Constitution to “promote the general Welfare.”

I was impressed, but also baffled. Malkin is a straightforward reporter, who very rarely is capable of jumping a level of abstraction, beyond the facts, to come up with an original angle. How did she suddenly galvanize a principle to bolster her case? What was going on? (Then I went back to eating, so I forgot the whole episode…drool.)

Today, as I was catching up on Steve Sailer’s latest, I found a possible explanation for Malkin’s buoyed brain. In attempting to answer the question of “What is it that immigration policy is supposed to achieve?”, Sailer quotes from the Preamble:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

He then adds this:

“In other words, American policy should be for the benefit of Americans and our descendents, not for the advantage of, say, the five billion potential immigrants who live in countries with average per capita GDPs lower than Mexico.”

Speaking of third-rate pundits who borrow from their betters without crediting, a line first used in this column, recently “found” its way into a new book by this pseudo-libertarian. The line is: “The National Education Association is the al-Qaida of education.” I wonder where he got it.

Update: In response to the legitimately wry comments hereunder by our reader, let me clarify: This space is generally not given over to speculation. When you have an uncreative, unoriginal, yet immensely popular “pundit,” come up with formulations and ideas a creative, original thinker came up with; when the time line indicates the good guy said it before the gimp did; when the parties are well-acquainted (in one case, the one party used to advertise reading this column, often commented on it, and in more honest moments even acknowledge using it); when there is a power differential between the parties, in other words, when the good guy is nowhere near as influential and as known as the gimp—well, then, it is not unreasonable to wonder out loud about the mysterious, osmotic diffusion at play, enunciated in this post.