Thursday, January 22, 2009

A Fine Line Between Execution & Promotion

Because of the fact that it seems you can’t buy anything anymore that isn’t “Made in China”, and because the life expectancy of most of those same products seems to be a couple of weeks at best, I normally don’t have a lot of good things to say about China. But I will say this: when the Chinese dispense punishment, they don’t mess around.

I heard this morning that two Chinese men who have been found guilty in the melamine tainted milk fiasco that killed six children have been sentenced to death. If history is any precedent, these two men will probably be dead within the next day or two, as the Chinese don’t seem to subscribe to the necessity of putting condemned prisoners on a “death row” for 10 or 15 years.

I have no idea whether these two men are actually guilty or not, and it can be debated all day long whether or not execution is the correct punishment even if they are, but that’s not the point. The point is, if you are caught doing something wrong in China, you are punished for it. Quickly and severely.

It seems to me, though, that the only thing these two men really did wrong was commit their crime in China and not the United States. If they had done it here, not only would they not have been sentenced to death, they probably would been promoted to be in charge of the FDA and USDA respectively.

All they would have to do is issue an “apology” somewhat like this one: “We are sorry that our past transgressions are now an issue. They were careless mistakes. They were avoidable mistakes. But they were unintentional. We should have been more careful."

Oh, okay. Since you put it that way!

Of course I’m not really serious. Who in their right mind would think that people who have obviously & admittedly broken the law regarding food safety should be put in charge of the very organizations that govern the same?

For that matter, who in their right mind would think that someone who has obviously & admittedly broken the law by not paying his taxes for years – whether through incompetence or criminal intent – should be placed in charge of the United States Treasury?

Apparently, we would: Geithner apologizes for not paying taxes

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yes, I'm pretty well disgusted with it myself.