Who Is Responsible?

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).

Illegal Aliens

Interesting article in BBC news (here). Part of what makes it interesting is that I heard about this from the BBC, and not from any domestic (American) news sources. A forty-year-old mother-of-four was elected to the city council of Adelanto, California in 2004. She resigned after ten weeks in office and applied for US citizenship. She has since entered a guilty plea for illegally voting in the election. She now faces deportation. Now, here we get into several different questions and concerns: First, how in the world did she get elected without first becoming a citizen? Doesn't someone check eligibility prior to the election? Second, she has four kids. What happens to them when their mother is deported? Third, is this why illegal aliens generally keep a low profile? One of the arguments given for granting amnesty is that (other than the obvious entering the country illegally) illegal aliens are statistically less likely to be involved in criminal wrongdoing than US citizens. Fourth, if we are going to get into the habit of deporting illegal aliens, is this where we want to start? Some would say it's as good a place as any, while others would point in a different direction. All right, let's wade through this. It seems odd to me, but, a lot of people can slide through an entire local election without anyone becoming aware that the candidate isn't eligible for the office. National elections are scrutinized much more carefully, but, if she managed to convince officials that she had the right to vote, then they probably didn't even question her citizenship. Second, some people have screamed that our government is working to separate families. They generally stop short of referring to Elian Gonzalez, but try to evoke the emotion conveyed by the photograph of little Elian being separated from Donato Dalrymple in Florida. They don't actually mention Elian by name, because Elian was not related to Dalrymple, and was being deported to be reunited with his father--his closest living relative (Elian's mother died trying to get into the United States with the boy). Does that sound like our government is trying to separate families? Of course, this is our government--it's hard to be sure, one way or the other.
Third, yes, I would imagine that illegal aliens try to keep as low a profile as possible because they wouldn't be here if they had been happy wherever they were before. They don't want to be deported. It seems strange, though, I've mentioned before that I spent some time in the Navy. I've known people that just decided that they didn't want to deal with the Navy anymore, and just took off. They tried to keep low profiles, too. Some of them ended up getting returned to us over a traffic violation. Yet I keep hearing about illegal aliens that have multiple traffic violations, or public intoxication charges, and somehow, the system never seems to catch on that they don't belong here until somebody winds up dead. (Just a side note: I heard on the radio this morning that this new amnesty bill that the Senate passed yesterday would allow illegals who have been here for four years to get a visa to stay. How does an illegal prove that they have been here for four years if they have spent the last four years trying not to leave any vidence that they are here?)
Fourth, to be honest, I would feel more comfortable if they would at least start deporting the ones that can't seem to obey our laws. It certainly doesn't hurt to deport women like this one in California that was elected to her local city council, but, at least she isn't hurting anybody. There's been a lot of talk about there being twelve million (some say twenty million) illegal immigrants in this country. Oh, surely we're not going to try to deport twelve million people! Why not? It seems to me, that if we pull some guy over for speeding, and find out that he's here illegally, he should be on the next boat out (or train or plane or whatever). Let's not bother with a trial, or even a traffic ticket. You're not supposed to be here, we'll get you home. And, maybe, after a couple of million like that, the other ten million will keep a low profile.
A couple of other things to be aware of. IMHO, there are two main things that concern people about undocumented workers. One is that, they may be terrorists. Okay, if you've got an undocumented worker named Ahmed or Tariq, who keeps to himself and doesn't socialize much, then you may have a problem. How many of those twelve million do you think fit the terrorist profile? I'm guessing not many. Still, if Ahmed and Tariq know that it's easy to get into the United States by going to Mexico and hiring a coyote, that could definitely work against us. The other concern is that, a lot of American jobs have either vanished or been moved to other countries. I think a lot of felt like, if it really came down to it, I can get a job sweeping up, or flipping burgers, or something. Now those jobs are drying up, but we're told not to worry about it, because those are just the jobs that "Americans won't do." Even now, jobs that used to be summer jobs or after-school jobs for American teenagers are being taken over by immigrants (some legal, some not). Are these jobs that our teenagers won't do? Maybe. I'm not a teenager.
One other thing: The search for illegal aliens should not become a witch-hunt. If you have a neighbor that you know is an illegal alien, you should report him or her. If you know somebody that you don't like that you think might be an illegal alien, leave it alone. In some cases, it may leave you with a hard decision. My neighbor, José, he's such a nice guy, he helped me when... Okay, I can understand your reluctance to turn him in. I can't force you to, but I can tell you that you should. On the other hand, some people get so fed up with this Latino or that Latino working here and working there. There is a car wash near where I live that has a number of Latinos on their payroll, and every so often, somebody will phone in an anonymous tip that there are undocumented workers at this car wash. The feds come out and check everybody's documentation, and, they have yet to catch anybody doing anything illegal. The owner of the car wash spends a fair amount of money on background checks to be sure anyone he hires is legal before they ever start work (not nearly as much as he would be fined if ever got caught with an undocumented worker on his payroll). The bottom line is, a lot of tax dollars get spent, and law-abiding citizen's get harassed because somebody didn't like the way their car got washed, or didn't like the look of the guy wiping off their fender, something. It shouldn't be like that. Report what you know, if you know anything. Don't waste time and money reporting something if you don't know. You know?