On Nov 3, 2009, at 10:25 AM, Constance Warner wrote:
And just because something doesn't kill you outright doesn't mean
that it is essentially harmless. Walmart is justly famous for
killing off small town business districts and wiping out local small-
business entrepreneurs. And their policy of demanding the lowest
possible price from their suppliers is a big factor in exporting
jobs from the U.S. to China.
Exactly right. This brings us back to the concept of the "banality of
evil." Just like we are told when a plane crashes, an evil outcome is
the product of a chain of events and multiple small acts of evil must
be committed before the final evil event occurs. If someone breaks the
chain the evil is stopped. So those who participate in that chain of
events can not be excused. They have committed evil.
For example, Apple put Panic Software in a very bad place when Apple
released iTunes in competition with Panic's flagship product, Audion.
Panic tells the whole story on their website. Apple really had to do
iTunes. Apple knew what it would do to the folks at Panic. Steve Jobs
personally met with the folks at Panic and did his best to help them.
I think this is a great example of how a responsible company acts and
tries its best to not do evil. This is very different from how Walmart
routinely crushes local businesses, suppliers (read what the did to
Rubbermaid), and its employees (vs Costco's policies).
On Nov 3, 2009, at 9:17 AM, phartz...@gmail.com wrote:
Absolutely, according to Virginia Foxx, Republican Congresswoman
from North Carolina, who said on the House floor just the other day,
“I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that [health
care] bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any
country.”
Good example. Virginia Foxx is willing to kill a lot of people in
order to make a lot of money for some other people. Just because she
is not rampaging through her community slitting the throats of babies,
the sick, and old people with her own hands would not make her any
less responsible for these deaths.
On Nov 3, 2009, at 11:18 AM, mike wrote:
I think the Rev's point was that while Walmart practices are bad and
uncool,
they don't rise to the level of evil. The word itself is overused to
describe everyrthing not liked. Boy, Pol Pot was evil.
By your standards I don't know that Pol Pot would have been considered
evil. He merely gave the orders. Other people followed them so the
evil is on those other people, not on Pol Pot.
*************************************************************************
** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy **
** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ **
*************************************************************************
