#Ethic Committee

[andhumanslovedstories]

Looking for a fun activity to do this week? I recommend sitting your loved ones down and having the uncomfortable but necessary discussion where everyone makes sure everyone knows exactly what life extending measures people would and would not want so that so that in the case anyone is in the hospital needing these extreme interventions in order to keep living, you don’t make a hard situation all the more difficult by having to guess what bad option is the one your loved one would want. I also recommend bowling. If you’re brave enough, these two essential activities can and should be combined

[eparchclass]

Asexual / AroAce / Aromantic O5 Council + Ethics Committee logos

[msmc-796-official]

I... have a confession to make, of sorts. There won't ever be a good time to admit this, unfortunately, so it's best I get this off my chest now, and ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

It has not been easy speaking with all of the flashclones who have made themselves known in the wake of Union's latest raids; both for myself, and the squadron at large. I must commend my squadmates for handling themselves with the utmost professionalism - while my own correspondences with these newest members of the Omninet have been what I would consider adequately polite, I've been biting my tongue the entire time, and I fear that my personal discomfort with the issue is starting to slip through the cracks.

To this end, I wish to share my thoughts publicly, that I might better express my own emotions towards this complicated, frustrating, and highly nuanced issue. I only ask that you hear me out in full before you render judgement, and pronounce your sentence carefully.

First: an observation.

MSMC policy requires that all pilots dictate an end-of-life plan at the time of their recruitment, that their final wishes may be carried out by the company in the event of their death under MSMC's employ. The options provided for this are effectively unlimited, allowing the pilot a great deal of choice and freedom in planning their postmortem arrangements. These plans may also be altered in the future should circumstances change, provided the pilot is of sound body and mind.

Under MSMC policy, in compliance with the policies set forth by Union, one of the available postmortem options is flashcloning.

In my fifteen-odd years serving under MSMC, I have only heard of three pilots who have willingly chosen to be flashcloned after death (thus prolonging not only their life, but their term of service under MSMC as well). Of these, I have only personally met one, affiliated with MSMC-808 "5Q8R3 L00P3RZ" - I believe their current iteration goes by callsign Lemniscate. While I do not know how many times they have been cloned during their term of service, their current iteration seems happy enough, and their squadmates reassure me that they've maintained a consistent identity (plus or minus the odd quirk, as is typical of flashclones) throughout their life (lives?).

Second: a digression.

I purchased my Dusk Wing, And The Voice of Apollo Spoke From On High (Apollo for short), from an SSC showroom on a planet whose name I no longer recall. The curated atmosphere called to mind the high marble pillars and lush green-blue waters of some distant Cradle mythology where gods roamed the earth and mortals strove to emulate them, punished and rewarded for their folly in equal measure with gifts and curses beyond name. Each frame was posed as the statues of old on Cradle, too-human limbs arrayed in too-human poses, each a machine of war turned living art piece.

Apollo, true to its future name, was arrayed in flight; hover-jets draped with sunlight-yellow gossamer, veil rifle aimed in its middle tier of manipulators with the same care and precision as an archer would take with their bow. To see it lowered to the floor after its purchase was to see Icarus fall; to climb inside its cockpit for the first time, to don wax-and-feather wings of my own and fly.

The old tales caution that divinity has a cost, and I too paid the price. A vial of blood, drawn with silver needle and spirited away into an unseen cooler before my pen ever touched paper. Apollo was mine, but SSC had received a far greater gift in its place: a sample of my DNA, unwillingly donated as the price for my divine armament.

Even now, this price weighs heavy on my head like the sword which hung above Damocles, poised to drop without a moment's notice with each new Union raid on yet another forgotten cloning facility. Who can say on what distant planet the children I did not birth sleep in stasis - children with my eyes, my hair, my nose, my smile; sons and daughters who will never be called as such because, to their creators, they are slaves, weapons, property - anything but human.

Third: an explanation.

I believe that flashcloning, in its current state as of 5016u, as approved by Union's Third Committee (and exploited by the likes of SSC, HA, and several countless others across the stars) is an inherently unethical practice; both for those who donate their DNA (willingly or otherwise), as well as for those persons produced by it.

To see countless lives created, manipulated, slaughtered, and recycled in the name of so-called "progress"; to see inherently human beings stripped of every vestige of humanity but the body in which they reside and then forcibly brainwashed and molded into soldiers, medics, mechanics, weapons, machines, slaves, property - it is an abominable and inhumane practice that should have died a slow and painful death in the darkness from whence it was birthed.

This being said: I cannot stand idly by as the products of this inhumane practice continue to suffer. No matter whether it is beneath the apathetic gaze of Union, the dehumanizing bootheel of HA, or the eugenicist scalpel of SSC, I will not allow my fellow persons to endure another day of abuse at the hands of those who would abandon their own creations as little more than imperfect failures for daring to remind their creators of their sentience.

Alone, I can do nothing. I too am but a cog in this great uncaring machine humanity has built, one which prospers on suffering and bloodshed and the work of hands which have forgotten the body to which they are attached. Even if I were to risk life and limb and reputation to make my position known, it is a battle which lies dead in the water - it is impossible to halt the wheels of progress without irreparably damaging the future which relies on their turning.

And so I fight. I fight for those who have forgotten their humanity, both willingly and unwillingly, that they might find something of their own - identity, purpose, desires, connection, life - that reminds them of what they were and are and always have been: human.

-- Angel

[ask-the-dunmeshi-biologists]

Hi Mr. Chilchuck, I see you're on the ethics committee! What would you say is the weirdest or most "out there" research proposal you've heard in your time there?

Invertebrates are largely unprotected by Animal Welfare laws, which leads to some…interesting proposals.

[Chicken paper]

Our ask is open!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin is failing at his job of holding the Supreme Court accountable. While he continues issuing stern statements and making floor speeches about Justice Samuel Alito’s recent flag scandals, he isn’t actually doing anything about it. Now other Democrats—like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland—are stepping up to fill the leadership void. Alito already blew off Durbin and Whitehouse’s demands that he recuse himself from insurrection-related cases, despite his display of Stop the Steal flags. Whitehouse followed up with a letter Monday, inquiring about a tax case from which he pressed Alito to recuse himself. 

Before the hearing for that case, Alito was interviewed for The Wall Street Journal by one of the lawyers, David Rivkin Jr. In the article, Alito declared that both he and the Supreme Court are above the law. Whitehouse wrote that it “appears that you offered an improper opinion regarding a question that might come before the Court; did so in the context of a known ongoing legal dispute involving that precise question; did so at the behest of an interviewer who as a lawyer represented a client in that ongoing dispute; and did so to the benefit of his client, your personal friend, and to the benefit of yourself, as a recipient of undisclosed gifts that are the subject of our investigation.” “I note that the Supreme Court is the only place in all of government where issues of this nature have no place or means of investigation or resolution,” he continued. “So far, my questions regarding these events seem to have disappeared into a black hole of indifference.” This letter is likely to fall into the same black hole, but it does help build the case against Alito and the rampant corruption he and fellow Justice Clarence Thomas have brought to the court. 

So disappointed in Sen. Durbin’s inaction on the SCOTUS corruption crisis. #DoBetterDurbin

[nukebag]

it fucks me up how they keep 096 in a cell like.. that

9x9 airtight cube no wonder he’s crying at least give him a blanket or something

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

got my dissertation grade back and I PASSED!!!!!

[witchy-vibes96]

Love me them thick girls🥰😘

[stolenbybirds]

The Ethics Committee wasn't being super ethical rn and made me into a millipede

[eparchclass]

O5 Council Occuden [left] — An occuden flag for those who are a member of the O5 Council

Ethics Committee Occuden [right] — An occuden flag for those who are a member of the Ethics Committee

[mxwhore]

i was gonna upload some breakfast sandwiches but i should stop uploading evidence of all our lab misconducts

[blood-orange-juice]

There's a scene in the first season of Babylon Berlin where a characters reads a lecture on psychoanalysis and PTSD (the series are set sometime between the two world wars) and the audience boos him.

"Brain is an organ, not a poetry book," they say.

For me it put into perspective how important was what Freud did. Considering the setting he had to work in, the setting he had to overcome in his own mind first, we really don't value the guy enough.

Not like I didn't *know* it, but it helped immensely to see it in context.

He was the first who said that humans have an inner life that's neither sacred nor purely physical. That it's governed by its own predictable rules and breaks in predictable ways, and that it can be mended through talking. Not being electrocuted or medicated out of the patient.

Just how awesome is that. Just how much inner work that required in his times.

[vinnyberries]

Doing stuff on my phone again

More saturated version cause why not

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held a lengthy oversight hearing to badger Attorney General Merrick Garland and push the GOP’s false narrative about President Biden weaponizing the DOJ against Donald Trump. Even though the hearing was conducted in obvious bad faith, it was in some ways successful, at least in the limited sense that Republicans grabbed a lot of headlines and forced Garland to spend a day on the defensive. Virtually every major news outlet it extensive coverage, ranging from the New York Times to MSNBC to Newsmax.

The hearing meant that for at least a day, everyone talked about whether the DOJ is treating Trump unfairly, rather than about, say, whether Trump should step aside from the GOP presidential nomination given his felony convictions, or whether Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito should recuse himself after an insurrectionist flag was flown over his house. Congressional oversight hearings give Congress a chance to focus the national conversation on what members want to talk about. It gives them a chance to pressure executive branch officials to adopt congressional priorities, or to explain and potentially embarrass themselves. In contrast, Democrats in the Senate have been bizarrely reluctant to use hearings to advance their agenda. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has refused to hold hearings to investigate egregious evidence of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas receiving gifts from far right billionaires, or to demand answers from Alito about his apparent embrace of the insurrection. Instead, he’s posting weak statements on social media meekly calling for right-wing members of the Court to do a better job policing themselves. [...]

Senate Democrats need to get a clue

Democrats have of course decried the House hearings on Garland as nakedly partisan nonsense. Garland himself pushed back forcefully against (baseless) Republican claims that the Justice Department had somehow been behind the successful New York state prosecution of Trump on charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments. Garland described the claim the Justice Department was involved as a “conspiracy theory” and an “attack on the judicial process itself.”  Forceful rejection of Republican lies is a good thing. But there are limits to playing defense. And Democrats have good reason to launch their own judicial investigations not of the Biden Justice Department, but of the Supreme Court. This year, after an extensive investigation, ProPublica determined that Clarence Thomas has for 20 years received lavish gifts, including vacations and loans, from billionaire Republican donors like Harlan Crow. More recently, the New York Times reported that in the days after the January 6 insurrection, an upside-down flag — a symbol of support for Trump’s coup attempt — was raised over the home of Justice Samuel Alito.

Thomas and Alito have shown clear evidence of corruption and/or bias. The Senate Judiciary Committee is supposed to provide oversight for the judiciary and monitor ethical standards and practices. This seems like a great opportunity to hold hearings on the far right Court and demand accountability. Or so you’d think. Durbin has been weirdly but consistently timid. He has not called Thomas to appear before the Judiciary Committee, claiming that Thomas would just refuse to show up. In the case of Alito, Durbin has called on him to recuse himself from cases involving Trump and the 2020 election — including the Court’s current case on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution from his role in January 6. But Alito has refused to recuse, and Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to meet with Durbin and his committee to discuss the matter. The Court has also failed to adopt even the minimal toothless, unenforceable ethics standards that Durbin has been haplessly pushing for years. So, if Alito and Roberts say they won’t cooperate, is that that?

Of course not. Congress has a lot of power. Durbin could subpoena Alito and Thomas and threaten to hold them in contempt if they don’t appear at hearings, just as the House has threatened to hold Garland in contempt. The spectacle of Supreme Court justices lawlessly rejecting subpoenas to even talk to Congress would in itself be a huge story. It would generate media headlines and bringing pressure to bear on Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves from cases involving Trump. The Senate Judiciary Committee could also subpoena others involved in undermining the integrity of the court. The committee has actually approved subpoenas for Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo, key figures in the Thomas bribery scandal. But Durbin has refused to issue those subpoenas, for unclear reasons. Similarly, the Senate Judiciary Committee could hold hearings on the insurrectionist flags flying outside Alito’s home (yes, there was more than one). Alito claims his wife was responsible for the flags, and he himself had nothing to do with them. The committee could call Alito’s wife, Martha Ann, and ask her to explain why she flew the flag and explain the justice’s involvement. [...]

Why won’t Durbin act?

The advantages of using the power of the Senate, including hearings and subpoenas, is pretty clear. Alito and Thomas have shown themselves to be corrupt, biased, and arrogant. Despite massive conflicts of interest, they refuse to recuse themselves, much less resign. That undermines the integrity of the Court, undermines the rule of law, and threatens the Constitution and democracy itself. If there was ever a case for oversight, this is it. And oversight can be effective. Focusing the media on a huge scandal can lead to more reporting, more revelations, more public pressure, and political gain. The threat of subpoenas, and the exposure of hearings, can force justices to look for ways to defuse criticism — and recusing from cases where they are compromised is a pretty obvious step. Durbin’s sad tactic of just begging the justices to do better has not worked. Why won’t he use the tools he has? It’s unclear; his explanations (like arguing Thomas wouldn’t show up anyway) don’t make a lot of sense. Maybe he’s conflict averse. Maybe he’s leery of undermining the legitimacy of the court. Maybe he’s afraid of GOP backlash.

This Noah Berlatsky column in Public Notice is 100% spot-on: Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin needs to stop acting like a potted plant and start conducting hearings into SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito’s compromised ethics. It is time for the Democrats to play on offense instead of being perpetually on defense.