[Dean's World] Dean: Corporate Responsibility

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Posted by Dean:
Corporate Responsibility
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1193353255.shtml


   There was a period of about 3-6 months wherein if you typed "Tienanmin
   Square" into GoogleChina, [1]this Dean's World article appeared in the
   top 10 listing. I was very proud of that, because obviously we'd
   managed to sneak under the f**kers' RADAR. Now, as regular Dean's
   World commenter "McKiernan" points out, we're [2]banned in China. No
   great surprise, but I view that as a badge of honor. I hope all Dean's
   World contributors and commenters view it exactly the same way.
   [3]Here is the unadulterated truth about communism, in all its wicked,
   despicable, murderous, torturing glory. This is the true legacy of
   Karl Marx and his warped and utterly wrong philosophy. No matter how
   nice it sounds, no matter how well-intentioned, the truth underlying
   it is wicked almost beyond belief.

   Saying so doesn't make me a "right-winger" or a "bleeding heart." It
   makes me a frickin' human. As Cicero said, the Road to Hell is paved
   with good intention. So what?

   Now my brother Ron Coleman asks an interesting question: [4]should
   people who do business who sell a tool be responsible for what people
   do with the tool?

   I have two answers to that:

   1) No 2) Yes

   Oh, is that contradictory? Well maybe that's the problem with a
   black-and-white world. Not that drawing stark contrasts is always bad,
   but:

   It's not entirely fair for me to pull this question, because as a very
   serious (which I respect deeply) Orthodox Jew, I'm gonna go ahead and
   invoke Godwin's question: were the people selling the insecticide gas
   that was used to liquidate Slavs, Gypsies, the genetically defective,
   the Jews, and so on at all responsible for what their clients did with
   those easily-mixed industrial chemicals?

   I think this is no simple matter. Because we are, after all, fallible
   humans. Each and every one of us (a central Christian teaching, BTW).
   Still, let's put it in stark contrast: a woman comes to you, as an
   attorney, and says, "I really hate my husband, I don't want to divorce
   him because that would be inconvenient on the insurance, so how can I
   poison him and not let anyone know that I did so?"

   Or, just so no one accuses me of being sexist, it could go the other
   way: "How could I get away with beating my bitch wife around, legally,
   and make it look like her fault?"

   Now let me go back to my original point:

   Show me in Torah or Talmud that it's okay for you to sell anything to
   anyone and have no responsibility whatsoever for what the purchaser
   does with it. Do you really think that?

   "Sell me that pretty stainless-steel knife, Ron, so I can use it to
   gut my children, who have profoundly disappointed me." (And by the
   way, I pose that question in a platonic sense, so if any of my
   children read this now or in the future they should know that I love
   them very much and am merely setting up a moral paradigm. I love my
   children so much that nothing like that would ever occur. I'd die
   first.).

   Still I ask the question: You're gonna just say, "hey, it's a $10
   knife bro, the rest is none of my business?"

   You know, it often amazes me how common sense eludes the legal
   profession. It often strikes me: Scenario A, a respectable citizen
   (and let's be sexist and say it's a woman) comes into your gun shop
   and says her crazy ex-boyfriend is threatening to kill her and her
   children. Scenario B: a creepy and insecure guy comes into your gun
   shop and asks what's the cheapest gun that will help you deal out the
   maximum possible damage to human flesh, and mutters something about
   how injust life has been to him.

   So, what? You have no moral responsibility here? None whatsoever?

   You spend your entire life learning to become a craftsman in the art
   of making steel knives. You make incredibly useful, and even
   beautiful, stainless steel knives that are so sharp, you can
   practically just aim it at a leg of lamb and have it come apart.

   Now a psychotic woman shows up and says, "that bastard did me wrong, I
   need one of those so he'll learn to respect me."

   Do you sell it to her?

   I don't think it's an unfair question. But you tell me what you think,
   my brother.

References

   1. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1118127621.shtml
   2. http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/
   3. http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/005905.html
   4. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1193324532.shtml