I heard an interesting news item on the radio this morning. It seems that some people are calling for a boycott of Caterpillar, because they have found out that Caterpillar bulldozers have been used by the Israeli military to raze buildings suspected of housing terrorists. Of course, the word ‘suspected’ raises concerns. I think that if Israel could demonstrate that these structures were definitely sheltering terrorists, then most people wouldn’t have a problem with it (of course, some people have a problem with anything Israel does, no matter how well-justified that nation’s actions might be). My question, though, is, should we expect Caterpillar to find out what people intend to do with their heavy equipment before selling it? Is that really their responsibility? If Israel wanted to buy bulldozers to build roads, should Caterpillar have a problem with that? If Israel bought such equipment on the premise of building roads, should the company then say, no, we think you’re going to destroy homes, so we won’t sell you what you want. No, after the fact, perhaps it is appropriate to point out to Caterpillar that they may be complicit in behavior that some of its customers do not approve, if it continues to sell to the Israeli government.
I remember a few years back, there was a movie called “Runaway Jury” starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman. The premise of the movie is that Dustin Hoffman is a lawyer representing families of victims of a shooting incident. Basically, somebody who legally shouldn’t have even been able to buy a gun, managed to, and went on a rampage. Now, the gun dealer who broke the law by selling this guy the gun was convicted in criminal court, and put away, but now the families are suing the gun company, because they knew that this dealer was selling an awful lot of guns and they should have suspected that at least some of those sales were less-than-legal, and stopped selling to him. So again, if I think one of my customers might be doing something unsavory with my product, then I should stop selling to him. What if this one dealer simply had a good location near a lot of hunters and gun collectors? Squeezing him out of business with no real evidence of wrongdoing would leave the company open to a lawsuit, wouldn’t it?
To some extent, I feel the same way about the tobacco industry. If the evidence supports the theory that smoking is dangerous (and I believe it does), then shouldn’t we just outlaw tobacco altogether, rather than sue tobacco companies? I realize that it gets a little complicated. Outlawing tobacco might create a whole new industry of cigarette bootlegging. We can’t even keep Cuban cigars out of this country… Also, tobacco is a little different than the other examples, because there is evidence that Big Tobacco has deliberately suppressed evidence of the hazards of smoking.
To be honest, though, the way things are going, I’m a little surprised that no one has yet tried to sue Ford, because they had a loved one die in a car crash; actually, considering the Pinto, maybe that’s a bad example. What I mean, though, is that if your daughter gets hit by a drunk driver and killed, do you sue the manufacturer of the drunk’s car? Should the manufacturer have done a background check to see if the person was a heavy drinker before selling him the car? Don’t we, as individuals, have to take responsibility for our own decisions? If someone does something wrong, then that person should be held accountable. If someone else enabled them to do whatever it was that they did, then, yes, the enabler should share some of the accountability, but, there’s got to be a limit. There’s difference between selling someone a bulldozer who has a legitimate need for such an item to build roads, and selling someone a bulldozer to tear down houses (although, if the buildings really do contain terrorists, maybe not so much—both activities have to do with safeguarding the lives of the citizenry).
I remember a few years back, there was a movie called “Runaway Jury” starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman. The premise of the movie is that Dustin Hoffman is a lawyer representing families of victims of a shooting incident. Basically, somebody who legally shouldn’t have even been able to buy a gun, managed to, and went on a rampage. Now, the gun dealer who broke the law by selling this guy the gun was convicted in criminal court, and put away, but now the families are suing the gun company, because they knew that this dealer was selling an awful lot of guns and they should have suspected that at least some of those sales were less-than-legal, and stopped selling to him. So again, if I think one of my customers might be doing something unsavory with my product, then I should stop selling to him. What if this one dealer simply had a good location near a lot of hunters and gun collectors? Squeezing him out of business with no real evidence of wrongdoing would leave the company open to a lawsuit, wouldn’t it?
To some extent, I feel the same way about the tobacco industry. If the evidence supports the theory that smoking is dangerous (and I believe it does), then shouldn’t we just outlaw tobacco altogether, rather than sue tobacco companies? I realize that it gets a little complicated. Outlawing tobacco might create a whole new industry of cigarette bootlegging. We can’t even keep Cuban cigars out of this country… Also, tobacco is a little different than the other examples, because there is evidence that Big Tobacco has deliberately suppressed evidence of the hazards of smoking.
To be honest, though, the way things are going, I’m a little surprised that no one has yet tried to sue Ford, because they had a loved one die in a car crash; actually, considering the Pinto, maybe that’s a bad example. What I mean, though, is that if your daughter gets hit by a drunk driver and killed, do you sue the manufacturer of the drunk’s car? Should the manufacturer have done a background check to see if the person was a heavy drinker before selling him the car? Don’t we, as individuals, have to take responsibility for our own decisions? If someone does something wrong, then that person should be held accountable. If someone else enabled them to do whatever it was that they did, then, yes, the enabler should share some of the accountability, but, there’s got to be a limit. There’s difference between selling someone a bulldozer who has a legitimate need for such an item to build roads, and selling someone a bulldozer to tear down houses (although, if the buildings really do contain terrorists, maybe not so much—both activities have to do with safeguarding the lives of the citizenry).
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