Google and clean hands

Reproduced comment that was inspired by a post at dean.

Google complies 100% with American laws. If Congressmen are pissed that Google is doing business with the Chinese and obeying Chinese lays, they should just tell Google that they can hire private mercenary armies, invade countries, take it over, and impose American ethics on all business arrangements.

But we don't live in that world, do we. The standards American businessmen have to deal with, which countries they can deal with, and the limits by which their business deals are constrained is determined by the government of the United States. And the people who determine the government of the United States is the people of the US.

Saying this or that doesn't entitle Google to X and Y, is missing the point that it ain't in their power to do anything. They ain't the government. They ain't got a military. They don't have plenipotentiary powers to negotiate with foreign governments. People think just because big business has money, that their power rivals the government of China and the US? Who's kidding who here?

Go pressure your government to sanction China if you don't want Google to do anything for the Chinamen, good or bad. But guess what, the Chinese don't get a vote, but you do, and you're wasting it complaining about what you are going to do or not do to Google.

Google does not operate in North Korea. Was no evil done because of Google's refusal to work there?

The point Google made in the Congressional hearings is quite simple. American law requires businesses to deal with international law, and not bypass it, and it also requires American businesses to adhere to local laws whether they be American or foreign. This is why France can sell nukes to Saddam and weapons to Saddam and Germany can build Iraq/Iran's bunkers, and there ain't no problem at all. This is also why the Oil for Food corruption consisted of the majority of companies in Europe and russia, and not companies originating in the US.

When American law says that you can't do business with Iraq, American businesses obey or be destroyed. When Clinton said "free trade with China", that's what businesses do. It is Chinese law that anyone doing business there has to abide by state laws and regulations, it just so happens that those laws are made by the Communist party and not by Constitutional means.

People should think long and hard before even suggesting that corporations have plenipotentiary powers to violate the laws and customs of local sovereign nations that they are doing business in, so long as it does not violate American law. Ever hear of a mercantile empire people?

Telling google not to do business in China is a dead end solution. Yahoo would just take up the slack. Oh, get rid of Yahoo too? Then what, do you think some local Chinese competitor to Google won't jump at the chance to censor things more than Google has done? Do you want a Chinese company operating under Chinese rules to be the local main search engine or do you prefer an American competitor in the market?

The Chinese have a simple solution. Any American oil, resources, and companies that can be bought by Chinese companies, is a benefit to Chinese national security. Americans seem to think that isolationism is the best way to help the locals. That ain't new. Neither does it work.

You know who isolationism, getting rid of American influences in China, really helps? It helps the people who'd rather have clean hands than to do anything really helpful. It helps the people who don't want to hear about censorship and imprisonment, they are happy and content so long as it is a Chinese internal affair and Americans aren't nosing in where they don't belong.

Google is at least attempting to bring the real world to the Chinese, who have had daily propaganda fed to them for decades. The argument that American companies are held to a higher standard cause they are American, is a selfish desire on the part of people to have clean hands. They don't want to get their hands dirty doing the really bad stuff, after all they are held to higher standards.

Abu Ghraib, GitMo, Haditha, Fallujah mosque killing, this ain't just about Google and China.