BleepingComputer.com: Stealing

The Gay Marriages thread was threatening to drift into the moral question of stealing and it seemed such a hot topic, I stole it.

A person's integrity can be defined by the ability to succumb or not succumb to a variety of temptations.

Including stealing.

I've met someone who steals compulsively. I've met a lot of people who justify stealing. I've listened to arguments of people who feel some forms of stealing are acceptable, that stealing can be defined by magnitude. I've been stolen from. I've listened to the tale of someone defending his property when he caught someone trying to steal his bike. My grandfather, at the age of ninety something was tied to a chair and said he just sat there and watched his TV wheeled out in front of him. A girl dropped a coin and another put her foot over it so the one who dropped it couldn't find it. Pickpocketing, robbery, breaking and entering, corruption, bribery, exploitation.

What constitutes stealing? Where is your threshhold of tolerance? How do you define stealing for yourself?

Zllio

I see stealing as a last resort, if I'm in such a bad situation of life or death, such as hunger or medicine I could see justify stealing. As far as stealing for wants (things you CAN live without), I'm against it. Stealing should be a last resort and only used when you absolutely need it. I wouldn't mind stealing food from a grocery store if I haven't had a thing to eat in 3 days and I have absolutely no money left at all. But as far as stealing an flat screen TV, a computer, or a sofa, gaming console, I'm against. Those are things you can live without.

Some of us just shoot thieves dead.

There are other alternatives when one is in trouble or has problems.

What defines stealing? Taking something, anything, that does not belong to you. Depending on what one steals, long term prison sentences are involved.

If you didn't purchase the item, or trade for it, or have been given the item legally, then it doesn't belong to you.

I don't believe in jail. Why should I or others continue to support such people for years?

Take a walk out on the ICE?

//Edit:

As a retired military I've taken others lives and indirectly been responsible for such also.
Nothing I'm proud of.

As a civilian I've had to do the same also to defend my family, friends or myself.
I don't yield to criminals.

I also don't sit on Juries either because of the above!

I detest People who steal,anything.There is absolutely no excuse for it.Stealing cannot be justified.If your down, and out, and Hungry,there are Charities to help.Ask someone nicely, if your hungry, and mostly, they will oblige.
In Business, I told new Employees,don't think about Stealing anything from me.Ask,and the chances are, I will give it to you.Steal, and you will be lucky to get out of here, in one piece. It is and was, how I feel about theft.No difference $1 or
$5000 it's still theft.

This is an interesting Topic.

I once had an Employee come to me and asked if he could get a Job for his Mate, to help out in my Demolition Yard. I said, Fine, as long as you take responsibility for him! He was in a position of Trust with me at the time. His Mate duely started and worked well. Just after that we had a Surge of Work that nesessateted that the Employee and his Mate was to be left in the Yard together, all Documentated by Diaries, at the time, even I had no access to the particular Phone.

I received a Phone Bill showing calls to a 1900 Number, (Bit like Porn, but more trying to find a Date) for over $300, on top of my normal Bill. Which I duely checked out.

That was Theft!

Both were Sacked after the Employee refused to ask his Mate to pay for the Calls, saying he knew nothing about it.

I lost $300 but they both lost their Jobs!

It was not the Money, just the Principle involved! They were just Lucky that I was a good Boss!

If you want to Steal, that is fine, just expect that you will get caught, and unlike these two, maybe end up in Prison.

You want to Steal, don't expect to have many Good Friends!

I know it is quite funny coming from a Country that still considers Ned Kelly as a Hero, just like Jessie James, in America?

Koan? We just don't Shoot people here? Best we can do is snap their neck? We don't need Guns? Kooks here made that option uninvaulible to use through this?

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/palies1.htm

I do not believe in stealing but I do not allways think its black and white.Take a supermarket throwing away useable foodstuffs and someone down on there luck helping themselves to the binned items.Technicaly its steeling but if it is only going to be thrown out what harm has the person whom is down on his or her luck doing.Or someone with alzimers not paying for something at a store.Again technicaly its stealing but the person with memory problems does not know if he or she is stealing.Like most things in life there are grey areas.

[quote]What constitutes stealing? Where is your threshhold of tolerance? How do you define stealing for yourself?[/quote]

I don't think their is a freshhold of tolerance, stealing is stealing no if's, but's or maybe's. Even Robin Hood was a thief
but not everyone has as noble intentions. If its not your's then dont take it, unless it's given to you

Well said 'syler'!

[quote name='yano' post='1107161' date='Jan 25 2009, 12:35 PM']I see stealing as a last resort, if I'm in such a bad situation of life or death, such as hunger or medicine I could see justify stealing. As far as stealing for wants (things you CAN live without), I'm against it. Stealing should be a last resort and only used when you absolutely need it. I wouldn't mind stealing food from a grocery store if I haven't had a thing to eat in 3 days and I have absolutely no money left at all. But as far as stealing an flat screen TV, a computer, or a sofa, gaming console, I'm against. Those are things you can live without.[/quote]

well either way youre taking money from someone else. if you dont have money, join the army. theyll feed you

If theft is a definate no no without exeption.It could be said that America was stolen from its native inhabitants the Indians.Australia was stolen from the native Aboriginee and New Zealand from the native Maori.Also do you fill in your tax return with absolute truth without any embelishments.

I started this topic and then had to do stuff and came back, surpised to see it went on without me ...

Thanks very much!

I tend in the direction of cod head and syler. I've been stolen from in situations that left me in an emotional black hole. I've been stolen from in situations where I kind of scratched my head and felt peeved. I've been in situations where some possession I didn't care about disappeared from my personal realm and it was something I didn't like and I felt relieved - I wondered if I could invite them back to steal some more. I've seen an old woman crying as the police accompanied her out of a store and felt sorry for her at my own lack of want. I'm inundated with things, and a few of them are things I'd like to keep and the rest are a burden of well-meant gifts, assorted memories too fun to part with, my first computer ... how could I part with that?

Stealing can cause feelings of personal trespassing. It threatens basic social agreements and structures, which are the only thing which people who are weak have in place to protect them. It's hard to know if it is more painful when it is directed in the form of a personal vendetta or if it is impersonal - someone you will never see again in your life and probably didn't see while they were stealing from you.

But cod head's right. What about the highest level of losses. Stealing of your rights. Stealing your thoughts and ideas. Stealing your girl. There are no laws against it, so it can't just be about breaking the law. It's something more. It's taking from another person what matters to his or her existence and development.

Zllio