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"Business is business"
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
A farmer who builds gallows and has sold them to African countries with poor human rights' records has been condemned by Amnesty International.
David Lucas, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, said he had been selling execution equipment to countries including Zimbabwe for about 10 years.
Amnesty said the export of gallows, which will be made illegal by an EC regulation in July, was "appalling".
But Mr Lucas said the trade was not sick and "business is business".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/4754515.stm
Oh the wonders of capitalism
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Because human rights abuses – and er the death penalty have only occurred where capitalism is existent... :rolleyes: What an utterly pointless sentence.
Can’t really condone what this guy is doing but it’s a bit far-fetched of Amnesty International to claim that Britain is somehow affecting the existence of the death penalty by one of its citizens selling gallows. Mugabe’s regime isn’t going to have any problem executing those it doesn’t like if Mr. Lucas is barred from selling his gallows.
It’s immoral admittedly, any decent human being wouldn’t do it – given the nature of Mugabe’s regime it’s evident that innocent people will be on the receiving end. No decent person could live with that. But it’s hardly equivalent to pulling the trigger on the innocent bloke, tbh you could say what the farmer is doing isn’t any worse than say giving Mugabe medical treatment or something. Let Mr. Lucas have it on his conscience, it’s not for the government to outlaw his actions.
Oui.
If someone will buy it, someone will make it.
The freemarket is a wonderful thing. Anyway... I am off to get that MiG-25 this Iraqi chap is flogging me... brb.
Way to miss the point brainiac. :rolleyes:
Care for a round or two sometime?
Sure, no problem!
I am just stocking up on Missiles at the minute, and rounds for the gun. It's always the extras they get you on. :mad:
I figured it was time to ditch the ol' 17 for something a bit faster.
I have no idea...
We sure are!
And let me guess, UK is proud of it too?
Who are we to discriminate who's buying? As long as they don't attack US with it (Although, we did sell the Iraqis alot of stuff, and Iran too. LEt's hope Bush doesn't make us go to war with them!)
Heheh. It sucks. Stupid Freemarket. But whilst we are using freemarket... let's at least play by its rules.
This farmer case is unusual, and he deserves as much stick as multinational corporations that sell weapons to Saudi, Thailand or China.
Anyone who pays taxes,I suspect, knows with just a few minutes of thinking that the proceeds will be used to extract (violently if needed) yet more taxes and propagate violence in all directions, including paying for your own gallows.
BUT
as Basil Fawlty would say, "Don`t mention the war".
I guess it`s a lot easier to moralise about others (be it "farmers","arms dealers" etc) than to look at oneself.
And an ostrich with it`s head in the sand won`t see itself.
Selling weapons to China – and lifting the arms embargo, something France is desperate to do is completely wrong. For a start China doesn’t just pose a danger to its own people – as Taiwanese and Tibetan people would affirm. And, yes I think Israel is wrong too for flogging weapons to China.
Sure, we can stop this farmer selling his gallows to make us feel good and feel like we’re doing something to help oppressed Zimbabweans – but whether he sells them or not makes no difference. I don’t think it’s right what he’s doing but I don’t really care since his actions aren’t having any impact whatsoever.
Why does it have anything to with capitalism?
If the gallows had been produced by a workers collective or by a state run enterprise and then sold or exchanged abroard what would be the difference?
Just because someone exhibits dubious morals it isn't capitalisms fault.
Or were you being ironic?
There are an equal number of immoral people in any system.
You might say that capitalism is driven by immoral principles but it is ridiculous to claim the inverse.........
If so you could certainly argue that under a capitalist system all other considerations can and most often are put aside.
I don't think you would find similar examples of unethical conduct being justified by the phrase "business is business" if we didn't live in a capitalist system.
So Soviet businesses never did anything unethical?
What you are saying is that this person would have a different set of morals if he lived in a different economic system.
That to me is ridiculous........
And the fundamental principle of capitalism is to make as much money as possible by any means necessary... because, as the farmer himself put it "business is business".
You won't find such philosophy in other systems. That doesn't mean the other systems are faultless or better, but it cannot be denied IMO that capitalism has many ugly aspects, one of them being putting profit before moral principles.