Category Archives: morality

“Ethical Dilemma”

Posted on by
Reply

Walmart is getting blowback from the citizens and government personnel of the People’s Republic of China in response to the company’s apparent decision to stop selling products—in accordance with US law—sourced from or with components sourced from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC, where the men of the PRC government are practicing genocide and using the so-far survivors for slave labor.

In her Wall Street Journal article on the matter and the blowback other US companies also are getting for following US law, Liza Lin had this remark, which illustrates the far-too-wide misunderstanding of the situation that too many journalists have.

The northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, home to millions of mostly Muslim minorities, has become a geopolitical flashpoint and an ethical dilemma for US multinationals doing business in China.

There’s no ethical dilemma here. US companies, multinational or other, have no ethical business—no moral ability—to do business within a nation that practices genocide or to do business with businesses that are domiciled in nations that practice genocide.

Full stop.

Walmart, and those other companies, would do well to withdraw altogether from the PRC, not just from the Region. Aside from the moral aspect, there are plenty of markets around the world other than those in genocidal countries.

Disingenuosity in Advertising

Posted on by
Reply

Advertisers think they need to be careful this winter. Maybe they do.

Advertisers are treading carefully when it comes to peddling their products and services during February’s Beijing Winter Olympics….

And

Some brands are considering not including any references to the host city in their Olympic marketing efforts, according to advertising and marketing executives. Others plan to run non-Olympic-themed ads during the Games.

Never mind the disingenuousness of advertising on a network during that network’s Winter Olympics coverage, but carefully not mentioning the host city’s name. The who and the where remain obvious. And the who and the where remain the seat of a government that practices genocide and threatens invasion and conquering of other nations.

Nor is it all that hard. There’s no fine line to walk, there’s no need to tread carefully.

The advertisers don’t need to advertise at all on any network during that network’s coverage of this season’s Winter Olympics; let the networks carry the games ad-free. Advertisers can advertise elsewhere during the hours of games coverage to their hearts’ content, just stay true to their putative intent of remaining games-free during with those ads.

And this:

Brands are “concerned how their actions could be interpreted by the Chinese government,” and history has shown that China could take action against them if they speak out[.]

Advertisers don’t need to be cowardly, either. As soon as advertisers surrender themselves to threats of PRC government action, they become prisoners of that government. Advertisers that are American companies should act like Americans, not supplicants of the PRC’s government men.

Let the rest of us ignore the games. We’ll be watching who supports the People’s Republic of China and its atrocities.

Cowardice

Posted on by
Reply

This time, by Intel’s Chairman Omar Ishrak and CEO Pat Gelsinger. This management team, a short time ago, sent out a letter to Intel suppliers asking them to avoid sourcing from the [People’s Republic of China’s] region of Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has conducted a campaign of forcible assimilation against religious minorities.

Intel called on its business partners to steer clear of the remote northwestern region of China, noting that “multiple governments have imposed restrictions on products sourced from the Xinjiang region. Therefore, Intel is required to ensure our supply chain does not use any labor or source goods or services from the Xinjiang region.”

After a hue and cry on PRC social media, though, Ishrak and Gelsinger cringed and ducked under their separate desks, and had the company issue a carefully unsigned corporate statement expressing “Intel’s” regret over having offended the PRC.

…its letter was written only to comply with US law and didn’t represent Intel’s stance on Xinjiang.

Please don’t hurt us, please. We didn’t mean it. And this plea:

We deeply apologize for the confusion caused to our respected Chinese customers, partners, and the public[.]

There’s this, too, illustrating the artificial nature of the conundrum:

Multinational companies have been caught in the middle as Western governments have pressured companies to disentangle their supply chains from Xinjiang.

No, they’re not caught in any middle. They just need to find the moral courage to shift their supply sources and their markets out of the PRC. They have the economic wherewithal, even if the transition processes will be near-term expensive. An earlier First Lady identified the position to take: “Just say no.” Even that infamous shoe-maker, Nike, has the right words, if not the integrity to honor them: “Just do it.”

Never mind that it’s PRC President Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party cronies who should be apologizing for their ongoing atrocities against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

This is disgusting cowardice, and it should be unacceptable for American company managers to put lucre from the PRC above morality.

Assess or Not?

Posted on by
Reply

Jason Riley had some thoughts in his Wall Street Journal op-ed concerning Harvard’s decision to not bother with any serious assessment of prospective students before choosing which to admit and which to…not. The subheadline on his piece summed up his column:

How do you help young people move forward without honestly assessing where they stand?

I had some thoughts in answer of that question, too, and they’re rather more pithy than Riley’s.

“You” don’t, but that’s not the point of the Left’s identity politics, most explicitly seen in academia. This is just the utter contempt Leftist identity politics purveyors have for blacks and Hispanics, considering them intrinsically inferior and so, paraphrasing Woodrow Wilson’s infamous words, they should be grateful for the protections of no assessments. It’s also the raw jealousy the Leftist identity politics purveyors have for Americans with Asian heritage, viewing them as intrinsically superior to the rest of us.

It’s a completely disgusting and dishonest display, and in a moral world, it would get institutions that employed such as these cut off from Federal and State funding, and alums with any sense of propriety and self respect would stop donating to them.

“Coy,” Is It?

Posted on by
Reply

The Biden-Harris administration, in its argument for the government’s appeal in the 8th Circuit of a trial court’s rulings in Religious Sisters of Mercy v Azar and Catholic Benefits Association v Azar, steadfastly refused to say whether, in fact, these entities would be subject to government suit were those entities, in fact, to refuse to provide and cover so-called “gender transition” procedures. The case and the government’s “enforcement” vagaries center on

how the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpret Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination by gender identity, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in relation to RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act].

Just the News mildly referred to that as the government being coy.

The government’s attorney, Assistant US Attorney Ashley Chung, then went so far as to tacitly threaten the judges:

She warned the judges not to “open the floodgates to premature litigation” based on “uncertainty” over how agencies might respond to new legal interpretations or court rulings.

This is a cynical argument by Chung. The judges won’t be opening floodgates for “premature” litigation. HHS and EEOC already have opened those floodgates with their carefully thought out decision to be “uncertain” in their “interpretation” of Obamacare, Title VII, and associated regulations and to be vague on their enforcement procedures for those.