Are we just consumers? Or are we citizens?

What's a human being's life worth to you? A million dollars? Two millions dollars? Can you put a price on life?

Some people have tried. The attorney general selected Kenneth Feinberg to run the federal fund set up to compensate the families of those killed or physically injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- a task that definitely requires determining the value of a human life in dollars. But is your iPhone worth someone's life?

Apple seems to think so. Or maybe it was Steve Jobs. In the last year, four of the company's workers in China have been killed due to preventable and foreseeable causes. That's not including the ones who committed suicide.

To me, no phone or computer or iPod is worth someone's life -- no matter how cool it is. Just imagine that that Chinese worker was your mom or your sister or your uncle. You'd send that iPhone back if that were the case.

Apple has an obligation to its customers, and it's much bigger than just selling them really cool but really overpriced electronic devices. It has an obligation to its customers' values. Those horrible factory conditions would never fly here in the good ole U.S. of A. We wouldn't stand for it. So why does Apple think it's okay to do that on the other side of the Pacific Ocean?

Apple's obligation right now seems to be to pad its pocketbook at whatever cost. But it should think twice and think hard about how the company can remedy that image. Because until then, I'm not buying a thing from Apple, and you shouldn't either. Let's show them that we're not consumers -- we're citizens. We're citizens of a free, democratic country in which people can live and work and pursue their own ideas of happiness without repercussions or unnecessary suffering.

At least, that's what I thought it was.