An interesting question for the “Mick hasn’t done anything wrong – it’s not illegal so the moral aspect doesn’t count” crowd.
How do you all feel about the Starbucks/Google (et al) offshoring thing to avoid tax? I think pretty much to a man, we’d all agree that while grossly immoral, by making use of the relevant bits of law not necessarily in the spirit of fair play, there’s a big similarity to Mick’s original intent – that intent being to try and find something in the terms to use as a get out clause.
Remember, this is someone who’s post and thread starting history suggests (many, many times if you read back – I’ll not do him the disservice of quoting but it’s all there to see) that his first thought when up against it isn’t “what’s the right thing to do here?”, but “how can I get out of this?”.
No doubt someone will roll out the classic STW phrase “whataboutery” – I’d counter that by saying what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. We can’t expect mega corporations to hold themselves to higher ethical (if not legal) standards if we first don’t hold ourselves to those same standards. “Is this a bit of a d*ck move?” is always a good starting point when thinking out loud about what to do, in my experience.
If – and only if – there are flaws in the legality around Ling’s paperwork, then of course, that needs to be looked at in this case.
But what it doesn’t do is undo the OP’s intent right at the very outset, which was to try and wriggle out of something and find a “get out of jail free” – and from a personal perspective, this is the bit I have biggest issue with, someone who’s intent is always to try and get away with not owning the consequences of poor decision making and . Add that to the sense of entitlement to have a vehicle the OP can’t afford (as per industry accepted credit and affordability check facilities) by any means necessary including bending rules, leveraging other people’s finances with scant regard for what happens if the deal goes wrong at any point in the chain, the multiple changes of story, self-admitted lies on this thread, some irregularities to the back story when you use post history for timelining & verification, and all of a sudden, this feels like someone who’s used to playing the game to get what he wants. That’s where I have issue – the lack of ownership. Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens because of you.
If ever there was a fitting time to use the phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right” it’s probably this. Nobody’s covered themselves in glory (I’d even include myself in that as I’m self aware enough to recognise that my own moral compass makes me extremely unforgiving of those who look to blame others for the consequences of their own actions) here, but I’d definitely be interested to see how this plays out in court.
