Posted by Sir Four at 10:58am Mar 10 '13"We don't care about the internal structure of your country (a bit like how you don't seem to care about the nations within the UK, like over the Scotland-Libya thing a few years back)."
But depending on where you're standing in the US, capital punishment may or may not be a legal thing. Just like gay marriage may or may not be a legal thing, and it would not make sense to say the US is a nation where gays cannot marry. They can in some states but not others. Re: Scotland, an international matter like this would never be delegated to a US state. The federal government would have overriding authority on that.
"The fact is that the US is a country which has capital punishment, just like Iran and Saudi Arabia."
People are put to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia for being gay, changing religions or opposing the regime. People are put to death in America for brutally murdering innocent people. So the two are not "just like" one another.
"How much of that is because those other companies are US based and know how to talk to the regulator so that they aren't inspected as carefully, or get told the tiny things they need to do before they get formally written up on it?"
My brother is head of HR for an old, privately-owned American company. He complains about OSHA all the time, saying the regulators have no experience in the business world and are constantly writing them up over minor issues. Talk to any pro-business Republican in the US and they'll have similar stories of what a meddling, do-gooder, anti-business agency OSHA is. So I don't think it's right to suggest OSHA only gives foreign companies a hard time. Plus we're talking about "egregious, willful" violations, not simple violations (of which I'm sure every oil company has many). Also, Citgo, with its two violations, is owned by Petroleos de Venezuela, Chavez's state-owned oil company.
But depending on where you're standing in the US, capital punishment may or may not be a legal thing. Just like gay marriage may or may not be a legal thing, and it would not make sense to say the US is a nation where gays cannot marry. They can in some states but not others. Re: Scotland, an international matter like this would never be delegated to a US state. The federal government would have overriding authority on that.
"The fact is that the US is a country which has capital punishment, just like Iran and Saudi Arabia."
People are put to death in Iran and Saudi Arabia for being gay, changing religions or opposing the regime. People are put to death in America for brutally murdering innocent people. So the two are not "just like" one another.
"How much of that is because those other companies are US based and know how to talk to the regulator so that they aren't inspected as carefully, or get told the tiny things they need to do before they get formally written up on it?"
My brother is head of HR for an old, privately-owned American company. He complains about OSHA all the time, saying the regulators have no experience in the business world and are constantly writing them up over minor issues. Talk to any pro-business Republican in the US and they'll have similar stories of what a meddling, do-gooder, anti-business agency OSHA is. So I don't think it's right to suggest OSHA only gives foreign companies a hard time. Plus we're talking about "egregious, willful" violations, not simple violations (of which I'm sure every oil company has many). Also, Citgo, with its two violations, is owned by Petroleos de Venezuela, Chavez's state-owned oil company.
Re: Oh, and re death penalty - Sir Four