The electorate defines our morality through government. Companies should play no part in this definition outside of the rights of their employees as private citizens.
You should also be very careful when imposing your own personal views on people living in an entirely different country. Our (western) moral superiority is something we have justified to ourselves many times and it has rarely worked out in our favor.
It's not Google's job to go to every government in the world and tell them how they should run their country.
The west, particularly the US made a policy decision years ago that engaging with China commercially would yield benefits to China, the US, and the world. Arguably that was correct, although the predictions that making money would create a democratic society proved to be inaccurate.
If you wear men's undershirts, you're objectively abetting an authoritarian regime that allows companies in Bangladesh to systematically abuse textile workers. Is that ok?
At the end of the day, the Chinese have nukes and will do whatever they want to do. Why should Google suffer, when nothing is preventing Chinese services from launching in the US and competing with their properties?
1. I reject any notion that Google is somehow "suffering" if they don't go into China.
2. You're making it seem like Google is entitled to all the business it wants. That's not true in the least.
2. You're making it seem like Google is entitled to all the business it wants. That's not true in the least.
So, if we as a society decide that American companies shall not aid and abet human rights violations elsewhere in the world, then that's what they do. Or else they can dissolve and go incorporate in China or wherever.
So, if we as a society decide that American companies shall not aid and abet human rights violations elsewhere in the world, then that's what they do.
Imo, however, restricting globalism just makes markets less efficient. Thus hurts everyone, regardless of the moral questions in any specific circumstance.
My goal here isn't just to be annoying and nitpicky. It's to try to make it clear that there are a million different questions interacting here.
One is a regulation with restricted scope and consequences in a system that otherwise has human rights and individual freedom as core values. (Which doesn't make the regulation itself any good)
The other is a system with control of individual knowledge at its root and then developing regulations to further that goal as needed.
So, actually, yes, I have thought about it and no, I don't think you can.
By itself, no.
If you're making it specifically for the government that has stated that it intends to use it in that manner, or if, based on their past actions, a reasonable person with the same amount of knowledge as you would deduce that it will be used that way, then yes.
> What if the camera company itself is in France, but it's _suppliers_ are in the US?
Same thing. If suppliers didn't know, they're not responsible (but once we told them, they know, and from there on they'll be judged accordingly). If they did know, or reasonably believed, then they're complicit.
> My goal here isn't just to be annoying and nitpicky. It's to try to make it clear that there are a million different questions interacting here.
There is, but this isn't really any different from law in general. Governing the behavior of people is always going to be nitpicky; that's why we have centuries of experience with law and its application. Most of these issues have been tackled there, and while they're not resolved to perfection, they are resolved.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/asia/gallery/afghan-women-pas...
You're either misinformed on the French legislation or, less charitably, willfully misrepresenting it. The legislation [1] passed by the French government was a ban on face coverings in public spaces. It included covering the face with balaclavas, full face helmets, masks and yes, full face veils such as the niqāb.
All the other stuff has zero relation to why it was created in the first place.
It would be like banning cross-shaped necklaces, and trying to pretend that this isn't targeting Christianity, because it technically targets all cross shaped necklaces and not just religious ones.
To be fair, maybe the article is that way because it was written by non-Frenchmen with non-French sensibilities. I understand that French attitudes about religion and assimilation are different from American ones, and that I'm missing all sorts of other context besides. My "oh deary me how troubling" reaction probably isn't worth very much, and in any case my broader point is that I'm not advocating jumping to conclusions or boycotting France or whatever else.
But at the same time, if you want to call it "misinformed" to worry about the law's effect on religious minorities, that comes across as pretty one-sided in its own right.
Governments routinely regulate exports as matter of policy. Lockheed would very much like to sell Taiwan (or really anyone and everyone) F-35s, but as a matter of government policy, it’s not allowed to, as it runs counter to the policies of the American government. This maybe censorship in a broad sense, but it certainly doesn’t make it prima facie wrong.
put differently:
what do you call an accountant who sings up to perpetuate the status quo of a criminal enterprise by updating their books?
guilty.
but they were "just extending the services of accounting to a new organization while maintaining the status quo of criminality".
The difference is that the accountant is necessary for the criminal enterprise. Google isn't necessary for a censorship state, since China more than capable of handling that on their own. A closer analogy is that Google is the line cook of the restaurant the mafia hangs out in.
The people who don't find authoritarianism morally wrong are generally elites who enjoy privilege on account of their being ranking members of that authoritarian regime.
Can you provide any examples of a 21st century authoritarian regimes where this hasn't been true? Mugabe? Bouteflika? Quaddafi? Assad? I don't think so.
Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support. They get things done. Mussolini made the trains run on time.
A cult of personality is how an authoritarian leader defends themselves from being overthrown by other members of their regime. They ensure that they are associated with all the good that their government does, while deflecting blame for the bad towards scapegoats.
Worrying about fairness or the rule of law is a luxury. A lot of people just see a weak and ineffectual government replaced with one that actually does something for them and they don't care how it was achieved.
I wish you were right. It would be much easier to defend against authoritarians if they were unpopular.
>"Strongmen often enjoy broad popular support."
"Strongman" is not even a real political term its a media term invented in the US media and first applied to General Noriega of Panama. The term doesn't even necessarily apply to official the head of state as was the case with Noriega.
>"Mussolini made the trains run on time."
No this is not actually true. See:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/loco-motive/
And my question was regarding authoritarian regimes of the 21st century. The rise of Mussolini was very much tied the consequences of World War 1 on Italy.
Yes. That's why I mentioned him. He is a legitimately popular politician with a strong authoritarian streak.
If I wanted to give you other examples of authoritarians, I would have suggested Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They've all had their ups and downs in popularity, but mostly based on economic conditions.
China would have been the most relevant example to use, but it's more difficult to prove popularity without elections. Still, both official approval ratings[1] and anecdotal discussions[2] suggest that the government is particularly popular among those in rural areas who have seen rapid modernization.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/china/2015/04/11/the-critical-mass... [2]: https://www.quora.com/In-general-how-popular-are-the-Communi...
If you are looking for examples of people who aren't part of an authoritarian regime but still think it's not a fundamentally immoral system, just take myself. If you are looking for authoritarian regimes that satisfy some quality, I can't tell what quality you're referring to.
But I agree, government forcing a company to do something isn’t particularly in line with Republican ideas and it’s hypocritical in the context of limited government.
It's easiest to see how useless the "slippery slope" concept is when noticing that it can be applied to absolute everything:
"if I start by feeding my own kids, I will soon have every needy kid at my door, asking for food"
"If we start to expect politicians not to be murders, a parking ticket will soon be disqualifying"
etc. etc.
Specifically here: government makes decisions based on morality all the time. I'd argue every single decision by the executive, legislative, and judicial branch is based on morality. It's obvious for the criminal justice system. For everything else, like deciding between different uses of tax money (aircraft carrier or social housing), making decisions requires some sort of function to optimize, and that function can ultimately only rest on morality.