K=D8HB wrote:
wrote

Is it ethical to import a large percentage of
something - anything -
needed to keep a country's economy and way of
life going? Particularly
when such importation requires dealing with,
and empowering, people
whose values are very different from your own?

My state grows no oranges, and must import them from Florida,
home of the
hanging chad and other values not compatible with "Minnesota
nice". Is it
ethical to drink orange juice in Minnesota?

That depends.

Are Minnesota and Florida different sovereign countries?

Does Minnesota's economy and way of life rely heavily on
imported Florida orange juice to keep going?

I thought of mentioning California as an alternative source
of citrus beverage, but the reply to that is obvious...

Or maybe ethics hasn't a damned thing to do with it.

Ethics has everything to do with it.

I like
citrus products,
and I'll buy from whoever sells them at a price I'm willing
to pay.

So if, say, North Korea was selling citrus products (yes, I know they
don't grow any, but it's the principle of the thing), and the
money was going straight to helping that dictatorship build nuclear
weapons, you'd have no problems dealing with them?

Meanwhile
we grow some damned good corn, wheat, and soybeans here on the prairie.=
We'll
be happy to sell it to whoever meets the going price,
regardless if their
"values are very different" from ours.

So if Osama BL wants some, and can pay the price, you'll sell to him?

---

Back in the late 1930s and very early 1940s, Japan was aggressively
taking over Manchuria and northern China.
(see "rape of Nanking" et al)

The USA was selling all sorts of stuff to Japan at the time -
electronics, oil, steel, aluminum, etc. They paid good prices
and paid in hard currency.

It became clear over time that at least some of those exports
were supplying the Japanese military expansion. So FDR & Co.
moved to cut off those exports - because of what Japan was
doing with them.

Was that an unethical thing to do?

Or should the USA have continued to sell Japan whatever they
wanted, as much as they wanted, regardless of what was done with it?

73 de Jim, N2EY