Although the employees have been dutifully fired, and although there is no evidence that it is ACORN’s actual policy to offer advice on how to evade taxes, set up brothels, and smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, most of us are a bit upset — including me. When I first heard of the scandal — especially the bit about smuggling underage girls into the US for the purposes of prostituting them — I was angry and appalled. What kind of organization offers pimps advice on the best way to do that?
Of course, ACORN, the organization, has in place neither a policy nor guidelines to offer pimps advice on importing underage girls, or offer advice on other illegal matters. It turns out, the folks who were doing it, were doing it on their own.
But given that ACORN does not tell it’s employees to offer advice on how to evade taxes, set up brothels, and smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, why should ACORN be punished?
The answer, of course, is simple: ACORN should be punished for the same reason we punish large corporations whose employees get caught doing bad things, even when those companies disavow the (profitable) actions, and fire the (caught) employees.
Wait — you mean we don’t do that? You mean, we still let companies that bilk the taxpayers for zillions, who engage in dubious or outright illegal acts, who find themselves targeted by journalistic exposes (not to mention Inspector General reports or actual court case settlements), to win further government contacts (often no-bid) or get further government grants / bail-outs or serve meals (or mercenaries) to our folks on foreign soil? Really?
Huh … that’s kinda screwy.
(Note: as an employee of a company that does a lot of work as a federal contractor, we have drummed into us contsantly the need to be “beyond reproach,” have to sign off on stringent business conduct policy reviews annually, and are constantly warned that screwing up on said business conduct can bring the wrath of the feds down on us and lead to both future contracts not being obtained and current contracts getting yanked. So I know that sometimes the system does work. A casual review of the newspaper, however, demonstrates that a lot of companies have employees who malfease a lot more egregiously than ACORN did in the current contretemps, without losing their contracts or their support from their political allies and contribution recipients in Congress — from which I can only conclude that it is sheer politics, not to mention the strong whiffs of class and race, behind passing the current anti-ACORN legislation, basically cutting off money to a company for alleged — as in “no finding in court” — misbehavior on the part of some of its employees. ‘Nuff said.)
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No really
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It’s an organisation’s fault if they don’t tell their employees not to break the law?
Were they not adults? If you can show Acorn turned a blind eye, or gave a nod and a wink, that’s one thing, but I can’t find anything that says they did .
My guess is Fox, having failed to show any meaningful vote irregularity (well on the left anyway) in 08, wanted revenge.
Given the illegal actions by the administration of the US in the last few years, I look forward to Fox campaigning for a return to rule under the Crown.