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Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

bbc.com

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Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#201

Post by Fuxy »

ino wrote: post #190
stronglikedan wrote: post #133

I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The potential for abuse due to hunger being subjective notwithstanding, there are social programs in place to accommodate the needy. Do they not have these programs in Italy? I am a very compassionate, empathetic (to a fault) person, but I just don't see the justification for th…

When you're starving and alone, you're not the same person. You can feel the civility, bon-ton and good education vanishing, you don't even think about it. People will give you food if they see you in this state. If you can't get it any other way, you will steal.

Survival and civility are not compatible. Until you have been forced to the brink of dying from starvation you will not understand.

It's quite simple when you think about it would you rather die in the streets from lack of food or go into a supermarket and take some to live another day hell even if you get caught you go to prison where you get fed.

There's no point in punishing these people the punishment is actually better then their current situation and any fines etc that you give them they will never be able to pay anyway all that does it prevent them from improving their situation since whenever they will start recovering a bit the debt collectors will show up to knock them down.

Besides being a cruel and unusual punishment for someone trying to better their lives it's not good for the economy either.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#202

Post by lorenzhs »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #187
lorenzhs wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you're going to be pedantic, at least get it right - it's "Les Misérables"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

Thanks, I didn't know the name for this phenomenon.

As a side note, grammatically "le miserable" is more wrong than "la miserable", as the latter is the right gender but lacking pluralization, while the former gets both wrong :)

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#203

Post by estefan »

jemfinch wrote: post #200
stronglikedan wrote: post #133

I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The potential for abuse due to hunger being subjective notwithstanding, there are social programs in place to accommodate the needy. Do they not have these programs in Italy? I am a very compassionate, empathetic (to a fault) person, but I just don't see the justification for th…

> I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The Catholic Church would agree: stealing is intrinsically evil, and thus wrong always and everywhere. The way they handle situations like this is by defining "stealing when starving" as "not stealing at all, but reappropriating things according to God's design for them." They…

> The Catholic Church...

are in no position to lecture anyone on morals. Read "The God Delusion" if this isn't abundantly apparent to you from studying history and/or reading the news.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#204

Post by J-dawg »

jemfinch wrote: post #200
stronglikedan wrote: post #133

I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The potential for abuse due to hunger being subjective notwithstanding, there are social programs in place to accommodate the needy. Do they not have these programs in Italy? I am a very compassionate, empathetic (to a fault) person, but I just don't see the justification for th…

> I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The Catholic Church would agree: stealing is intrinsically evil, and thus wrong always and everywhere. The way they handle situations like this is by defining "stealing when starving" as "not stealing at all, but reappropriating things according to God's design for them." They…

I'm not generally a fan of the Catholic Church, but this sounds wonderfully sensible.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#205

Post by avar »

aninhumer wrote: post #149
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, when you think of it, maybe it's better to legalize stealing than establishing a government agency in charge of equitable redistribution. I would imagine stealing would work more efficiently and more fairly. (You see a problem and you say: Hey, let's establish a government agency to solve that problem. Now you have two problems.)

Am I missing some sarcasm here? Legalising stealing is basically abolishing property rights.

You wouldn't need to abolish property rights. Another way to look at it is that you'd essentially transfer the cost of social programs to people through insurance instead of through taxation.

Additionally you'd create a pressure in society to increase wealth equality / charity and opportunities for the needy / poor, since nobody likes to be stolen from all the time.

Right now the poor are an abstract problem for many, especially the rich, if you ran the risk of being stolen from directly maybe you'd have a stake in increasing wealth equality. Or maybe you'd just hire private security.

It might actually be a better system, or it might not, who knows?

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#206

Post by xyzzy4 »

notsotrue wrote: post #27
sp332 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being poor shouldn't mean you can't get basic life-sustaining things like food, shelter, clothing. That's why being poor is not an excuse for stealing but being hungry is.

Agreed, I'm all for basic income, and social safety nets. But stealing them, isn't the right answer either. The burden should be on the state to provide those necessities, not the local business owners.

So when you are poor and starving to death, you shouldn't steal because you believe in some sort of governmental idealism?

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#207

Post by [deleted] »

stronglikedan wrote: post #133

I'm apparently in the minority, but, after reading the article, I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. The potential for abuse due to hunger being subjective notwithstanding, there are social programs in place to accommodate the needy. Do they not have these programs in Italy? I am a very compassionate, empathetic (to a fault) person, but I just don't see the justification for th…

[deleted]

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#208

Post by gnaritas »

aninhumer wrote: post #149
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, when you think of it, maybe it's better to legalize stealing than establishing a government agency in charge of equitable redistribution. I would imagine stealing would work more efficiently and more fairly. (You see a problem and you say: Hey, let's establish a government agency to solve that problem. Now you have two problems.)

Am I missing some sarcasm here? Legalising stealing is basically abolishing property rights.

And just out of curiosity, how far exactly do you think property rights should go? Is your right to own something more important than another persons right to life? Property rights are a social construct granted to you by society at large, they don't have to be and are not absolute.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#209

Post by KingMob »

sethhochberg wrote: post #155
rootlocus wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beggars ask for help in the streets, but I personally can't help each and every one of them. You may be sympathetic, but how is the homeless man supposed to find you when he needs your help?

In theory that is the whole point of taxpayer funded support programs... we can't all be there, but we do all pay taxes for the specific purpose of having a better society (including things like food banks, soup kitchens, etc for people in need).

And in America, the amount of those taxes set aside for feeding the hungry is below the required amount to cover everyone.

Re: Italian court rules food theft 'not a crime' if hungry

#210

Post by vidarh »

protomyth wrote: post #189
nowprovision wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you've been pretty privileged in grand scheme of things, university, regular jobs, maybe the lowest point has been backpacking etc... Parent have at least one car, yawn yawn yawn.. No one is stealing from you, they are stealing from a supermarket. Privileged people always seem to think in black and white, theft is theft never an excuse blah blah, quite often making the cliche mistake of associating morality wit…

I've not been privileged all my life. I have a dislike for fish because of some of things and situations we were in. It is never, ever ok to steal. Stealing from a supermarket is stealing from a person or people. Just because you cannot name who is affected doesn't mean it isn't people. It is black and white. The morality and legality are in alignment in this regard. This whole "shades of grey" leads to the blackness…

> It is black and white

That you believe this makes it absolutely impossible for me to think you're not in a privileged position.

> The whole point of government social programs is to provide for survival. There are organizations that provide and places to go.

Great when you know where to go, and they work as they should. They are not perfect. And people are not perfect. Especially not when starving.

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