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

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

#321
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. * Stealing something back * Stealing Hitler's secret plans * Stealing a portion of everybody's property/income, but providing vital protection, infrastructure and social services in return. * Stealing the heart of a girl from a guy who abuses her. * Stealing land from the commons to efficiently put it to work * Stealing land at market valu…

I respectfully disagree. Property rights have a moral component independent of their economic value, similar to privacy rights. Say someone says "let me search your car, what have you got to hide?" What argument can you use against it? The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim. In reality, you should be able to just say "it's private" and not feel compelled to provide furth…

I respectfully agree. Property rights do have a moral component as well as a pragmatic component.

> The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim.

I agree. We've also been manipulated to behave as if we believed property rights automatically trump other morals.

My point isn't that we should ignore the morality of these issues. My point is the morality of these issues can't be talked about in isolation because moral values aren't orthogonal to each other. Morality also shouldn't be discussed without taking pragmatic realities into account. You have to balance the two. Not everything is cut and dry.

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

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nothing man made is ever black and white. There is no universal physical law of morality. We can describe two different acts with the same word: > A guy stole a sandwich from a super market because he was starving > A guy stole a Ferrari because he always wanted to drive a Ferrari These two things are not the same. The temporality of property rights is especially interesting. I hope you do realise that at some point…

> When a human first laid claim on a stretch of land, you could argue that this in itself constituted theft, at this very moment this person deprived every other human being from accessing or cultivating this land. What moral right did this person have to claim this land?

In many countries, including Switzerland, there are of course specific laws that recognizes that property rights does not extend to full monopoly rights on land use.

I'm from Norway, and the Nordic countries in particular have very extensive exemptions to private property rights that recognises that there are certain rights to land use, as a limited and fundamental resource, that are held in common irrespective of property rights.

Sweden has this baked into the constitution. Norway until the late 50's I think did not have a law mentioning this right as it was considered so fundamental that it was long considered unnecessary to codify and courts would apply the principles anyway (this may not sound unusual from a common law perspective, but Norwegian law is a codified system of the Scandinavian model that evolved from Germanic law with Napoleonic influences, not at all a common law system) - the way you don't specifically cover the right to freely breathe the air.

In Norway (and it's much the same in Sweden and Finland), this e.g. means that outside of urban settlements you don't need to ask permission to walk through a privately owned forest, or across a field, for example (though you may not walk across cultivated fields other than when frozen). Even if fenced in. Nor is the land owner entitled to stop you or erect barriers to prevent you access (that does not mean barriers are illegal if they have reasonable purposes, such as e.g. keep wild animals out, but there'd be expected to be gates etc. allowing access). You can pick berries or mushrooms etc. for your own consumption but not hunt without permission. You can camp. There are limits, but they are in line with what you would expect of considerate campers. It is also generally considered rude to e.g. camp right outside someone's garden without introducing yourself and asking, even if on land you may technically have right to camp on. There is a general zone of 100m along the shoreline that it is not normally permtted to build on, even if part of your property (though exemptions are granted, with the caveat that it is still not permitted to prevent access or usage of the immediate shoreline no matter how close you've been permitted to build).

This is considered so ingrained in our culture that it is (or at least was when I was a kid) taught repeatedly in primary school.

Fencing off or otherwise trying to restrict access to "utmark" ("outlying land"), even if it is your own property, is not just legally restricted but considered reprehensible and morally indefensible to the point where it regularly causes major outrage if someone is trying to push the limits (or e.g. if particularly extensive exemptions are given to build near the shore).

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

#325

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 am a very compassionate, empathetic (to a fault) person, but I just don't see the justification for the theft.

I find it impossible to reconcile the two parts of this sentence. To me, there is nothing compassionate about even prosecuting a case like this.

I understand that people don't want to be stolen from. Of course not. Nobody wants that. We all want better alternatives.

But the world isn't perfect.

To me saying there is "never a reason to steal" is equivalent to saying you value property over someones life.

To me, that is cold and callous.

No, that does not mean I think it would be good for hordes of starving people to descent on shops. But if the alternative if starvation, then society has a problem. And theft is the smaller part of that problem.

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

#326
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 would agree Quite the opposite, I'd say. Italy is a catholic country, and it is, I think, common opinion that the very forgiving Italian attitude is due to it. Protestantism and Calvinism in particular are much more strict in considering everybody responsible for their actions. Catholics can always go the the nearest priest, confess their sins and be immediately absolved from them. They don't hav…

>Catholics can always go the the nearest priest, confess their sins and be immediately absolved from them. They don't have to deal with their conscience.

While the first sentence is true, the second captures neither the spirit nor the fine print of the ritual. I would agree with the general statement on differing temperaments, though would phrase it differently: there is a built-in accommodation and acknowledgement that human weakness can result in failure to be the best you can be, but to nevertheless continue to strive towards that goal, even after failing.

EDIT: In theory... I willingly acknowledge it doesn't always look like this in practice.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discursive ad hominem, yawn. Discuss the implications of theft being okay if you are hungry, not the background of the person who suggested they disagree with that notion.

> Discursive ad hominem, yawn. What kind of environment do you partake in discourse in that this kind of condescending contribution is acceptable? It sounds like you're taking your cues from the Comic Guy from The Simpsons. "Tu quoque? yawn ".

It was a direct response to the "yawn, yawn, yawn" in the parent. If someone is going to behave like a asshole, they don't deserve much better as a response IMO. Life is too short.

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

#328
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And these choices were insufficient to save him > If you think that is what I said, you did not understand what I wrote. I cannot think otherwise because you seem to say that stealing is still the only means of survival. I offered what this person could do instead of stealing. Stealing is still not the only solution.

> I cannot think otherwise because you seem to say that stealing is still the only means of survival. I offered what this person could do instead of stealing. Stealing is still not the only solution. My point, which you still do not seem to understand, is that someone who is starving is not in a frame of mind where you can expect them to be able to calmly and logically go through the available options, weigh them, fi…

> To me the above ranks with the (admittedly apocryphal) "let them eat cake". Technically, yes, he "could" have done many things

No, hell no. Its not let them eat cake. Its there were other ways to save yourself and not cause pain to others.

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

#329
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot think otherwise because you seem to say that stealing is still the only means of survival. I offered what this person could do instead of stealing. Stealing is still not the only solution. My point, which you still do not seem to understand, is that someone who is starving is not in a frame of mind where you can expect them to be able to calmly and logically go through the available options, weigh them, fi…

> To me the above ranks with the (admittedly apocryphal) "let them eat cake". Technically, yes, he "could" have done many things No, hell no. Its not let them eat cake. Its there were other ways to save yourself and not cause pain to others.

So "let them eat cake."

In other words: You still don't understand what I wrote above, and you're still talking from privilege.

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

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh I absolutely agree. Indeed, I often make a point of arguing against libertarians who try to take property rights as a moral prior, and I'm highly amused that so many people are now making the same argument against me... But if we're going to limit property rights, we should do so systematically by redistribution, not by allowing ad hoc violations. Predictability is the most important economic benefit of the rule o…

OK, just curious what your view was, I don't disagree.
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