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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

#391
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From memory I think Germany is one of those countries. It's not what some people imagine, though: when you break out of jail you will still be wanted for your original crime, and when caught have to continue your sentence. And while the act of breaking out isn't punishable by itself, theft, property damage, assault etc committed in order to break out is still punishable. The human desire to be free is acknowledged an…

Is the act of avoiding the authorities while being a wanted fugitive not illegal in Germany?

Why would it be, it's not like fugitives will report to the police because of some law.

But the better you avoid authorities the worse the prison you get sent to. High security prisons are typically much less pleasant than low security prisons.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the act of avoiding the authorities while being a wanted fugitive not illegal in Germany?

Why would it be, it's not like fugitives will report to the police because of some law. But the better you avoid authorities the worse the prison you get sent to. High security prisons are typically much less pleasant than low security prisons.

Well, in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with it is quite illegal to avoid authorities while being a wanted fugitive.

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misogyny? Where's the specific hatred of women? If anything, it's (well-placed) misanthropy.

" * Stealing the heart of a girl from a guy who abuses her." If you don't understand why this is a misogynistic statement, I think the best advice I can offer you is to research why it might be considered as such. Ask a feminist you know and trust more than me, as a suggested start.

Ahh yes, "because feminism". Why did I even bother to ask? :-)

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

#394
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 r…

Scotland has similar rights, England not so much, though there is a strong campaign for similar system to Scotland's.

It was such a shock to move to England for me and see parks that closed at night (actually closed, with gates, and padlocks, as opposed to mostly symbolic "closing" of main gates you can just walk around which is the most I'm used to), and fences all over the place. How anyone can feel free in places where your ability to move about are so limited is beyond me...

I still get this deep instinctual feeling that it's wrong when I e.g. walk along the Thames path and encounter gates that gets locked at certain times, or when I come across park squares with fences all around.

I don't think people who have only ever lived in places where they encounter this regularly even understands how liberating it feels not to be locked in like that...

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So who pays the grocer? It's both unlawful, and unethical to place the burden of feeding hungry people on the shoulders of the grocer as a cost of selling food.

> It's both unlawful, and unethical to place the burden of feeding hungry people on the shoulders of the grocer as a cost of selling food. If its the effect of the law and legal system, it is not unlawful for the burden to be placed there, even if the individual takings are unlawful. Whether its unethical or not is debatable; its basically equivalent to the government taxing sales of food and using it to fund feeding…

Yea, no. Grocers in low income areas shoulder the burden, while grocers in high income areas don't. The poor, subsidies the poor. Brilliant.

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

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not, food isn't the only item at the bottom of Maslows pyramid. Food being the only one you can steal. The rest must be acquired through currency.

Stealing a couple morsels of food and stealing thousands of dollars to rent an apartment don't really seem that similar to me.

How so? Depending on where you live, going cold will kill you far far quicker, than going hungry. If the arguments are on need, then the need for shelter here in Canada trumps the need for food, by a long shot.

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

#397
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason why people have a hard time understanding what you're saying is because unless you've experienced _systemic_ difficulty in your life it's very hard to differentiate it from _personal_ difficulty. Put in a less rigorous way, if you've never truly had to fight against a system that seems constructed to see you fail it would be hard to understand how this is different from, and much worse than, diffic…

I would agree with this--it's interesting to me that a culture that generally views itself as rational has such blind spots when it comes to systemic failures. I would expect that working with systems full of unintended behaviors, non-continuous outputs that can result in sudden failures, etc. should make that obvious, but apparently it doesn't. (Personally, I have never experienced systemic difficulty in my life--bu…

I appreciate your desire to assume stupidity before malice but I've come to see the continuation of oppressive systems as intentional :( People profit off of them and so I'm forced to conclude that they're purpetrated intentionally. I'm not trying to say that there's some movie-like evil villain out there cackling to himself but rather that there are many people making money as a direct or related result of the systemic suffering of others and that they turn a blind eye to the sometimes painfully obvious effects of their actions.

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

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" * Stealing the heart of a girl from a guy who abuses her." If you don't understand why this is a misogynistic statement, I think the best advice I can offer you is to research why it might be considered as such. Ask a feminist you know and trust more than me, as a suggested start.

Ahh yes, "because feminism". Why did I even bother to ask? :-)

I have a spare moment, so I will do this. I don't expect you will find the argument compelling.

1. The concept that you can "steal a woman's heart from a man" implies a concept of ownership of the woman's heart by the man. Even metaphorically, this is a very toxic sort of thinking.

2. Implying that you should be able to "take possession" of a woman's affection from a man if you find him less worthy only doubles own on the woman's lack of agency in this scenario. That this language is old and from "a different time" is no defense.

3. Implying that this is in fact a good thing because "he abuses her," is a double whammy because it invokes a very negative cognitive resonance with "Why don't those bitches see I am a nice guy" reddit psychology (made famous by the UCSB incident) but also implies that a woman would need rescuing from what the third party man views as abusive because she's not capable of such an escape herself and needs a man to effect said escape.

We can talk about how co-dependency makes 3's secondary point more debatable if you're an expert in that subject matter, because it's morbidly fascinating.

But yes, ultimately "because feminism." Inasmuch as this sort of talk is at least as "offensive" as implying a man "only thinks with his small head." And while equally offensive, it has far more pernicious effects for women in a society that has so much inertia directed towards removing their autonomy (both of body and mind).

Ultimately, I think the author did this by accident. And that accidental misogyny is what I was commenting on. That's what we mean by "internalized". It's so natural that you can use loaded language and actively perpetuate stereotypes without even realizing you're doing it.

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

#399
post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" * Stealing the heart of a girl from a guy who abuses her." If you don't understand why this is a misogynistic statement, I think the best advice I can offer you is to research why it might be considered as such. Ask a feminist you know and trust more than me, as a suggested start.

I'm sorry, but that's a lousy answer. It's lousy because you don't trust him or other people to give your perspective a fair chance. When you tell me, "I'm happy we can reflect publically" and then clam up and punt when someone else asks you to expand, you not only lose credibility, you're also stealing credibility from the ideas you're defending.

"I roll my eyes and say, 'because feminism'."

I think my degree of investment was entirely appropriate given the new turn of the discourse. But! But but but! As you were kind to me, I have paid it forward as well! I've actually offered an explanation.

Investigation of who I am talking to leads me to believe my first suggestion might still have more impact on their thinking though.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh yes, "because feminism". Why did I even bother to ask? :-)

I have a spare moment, so I will do this. I don't expect you will find the argument compelling. 1. The concept that you can "steal a woman's heart from a man" implies a concept of ownership of the woman's heart by the man. Even metaphorically, this is a very toxic sort of thinking. 2. Implying that you should be able to "take possession" of a woman's affection from a man if you find him less worthy only doubles own o…

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