When Denmark criminalised kindness
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When Denmark criminalised kindness
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#2Amazing and well written piece that gives a unique perspective on the situation: someone actually trying to help purely out of basic human decency and others based on a vitriolic political agendas stepping all over those actions.
History really does rythme.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#3Kindness is not strictly speaking always supposed to be legal -- it can be considered kind to aid someone in escaping from prison but it's not legal and I think most would agree that it's wrong/immoral/unethical.
Her defence against the legal trouble is that she did not know about the legal requirement; this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law and have time upon time be struck down in Danish courts.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#4Amazing and well written piece that gives a unique perspective on the situation: someone actually trying to help purely out of basic human decency and others based on a vitriolic political agendas stepping all over those actions. History really does rythme.
Maybe there are other reasons that people didn't want a refugee shelter popping up next door to them, like crime and overcrowding. If she wants to help she can follow the law and do it without forcing everyone in her neighborhood to participate in a refugee transportation and housing operation.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#5Kindness is not strictly speaking always supposed to be legal -- it can be considered kind to aid someone in escaping from prison but it's not legal and I think most would agree that it's wrong/immoral/unethical. Her defence against the legal trouble is that she did not know about the legal requirement; this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law and have time upon time be struck down in Danish courts.
In the US, we have the defense of "entrapment by estoppel," wherein a government official actively misleads one into thinking an illegal act is legal. That's really closer to what happened in the article than simple ignorance. The author asked police multiple times if what he was doing was illegal.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#6Kindness is not strictly speaking always supposed to be legal -- it can be considered kind to aid someone in escaping from prison but it's not legal and I think most would agree that it's wrong/immoral/unethical. Her defence against the legal trouble is that she did not know about the legal requirement; this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law and have time upon time be struck down in Danish courts.
> this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law
This is particularly troublesome since some laws are obscure or hidden (you have to know where to look or you just can't have the content of the law - by another law), and also since some (all?) laws are written in a complicated language to be pretty hard to understand.
Imagine laws written in, say, C, in a world without computers - I wonder how law would be practiced there.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#7Amazing and well written piece that gives a unique perspective on the situation: someone actually trying to help purely out of basic human decency and others based on a vitriolic political agendas stepping all over those actions. History really does rythme.
Maybe there are other reasons that people didn't want a refugee shelter popping up next door to them, like crime and overcrowding. If she wants to help she can follow the law and do it without forcing everyone in her neighborhood to participate in a refugee transportation and housing operation.
Forcing?
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#8Amazing and well written piece that gives a unique perspective on the situation: someone actually trying to help purely out of basic human decency and others based on a vitriolic political agendas stepping all over those actions. History really does rythme.
Maybe there are other reasons that people didn't want a refugee shelter popping up next door to them, like crime and overcrowding. If she wants to help she can follow the law and do it without forcing everyone in her neighborhood to participate in a refugee transportation and housing operation.
She gave five or six people a ride, served them coffee, and then sent them on their way. Hardly a refugee shelter!
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#9Kindness is not strictly speaking always supposed to be legal -- it can be considered kind to aid someone in escaping from prison but it's not legal and I think most would agree that it's wrong/immoral/unethical. Her defence against the legal trouble is that she did not know about the legal requirement; this is not a valid defence in the eyes of the law and have time upon time be struck down in Danish courts.
It is odd to me that the criminality of aiding someone in the interior of a country (I.e. not crossing the border) would hinge on whether they were there legally. As the author mentions, that would seem to put an undue burden on her to determine whether someone's immigration papers are in order. I guess that doesn't stop it from being illegal, but it makes it nearly impossible to determine if one is in compliance.
Re: When Denmark criminalised kindness
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe there are other reasons that people didn't want a refugee shelter popping up next door to them, like crime and overcrowding. If she wants to help she can follow the law and do it without forcing everyone in her neighborhood to participate in a refugee transportation and housing operation.
She gave five or six people a ride, served them coffee, and then sent them on their way. Hardly a refugee shelter!
Why are you not allowed to feed the animals in national parks? It would be kind after all. People play on others' kindness and abuse it when it's not kept in check. This is nipping the problem in the bud.