this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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[–] Endorkend@kbin.social 69 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Between highschool and starting uni, I did a small stint as a cashier.

I called the cops on two people, one was stealing beer, the other some keychain. Both cheap items, but not necessities.

I saw multiple people steal baby formula and diapers and there wasn't a bone in my body that even thought of calling the cops on them.

The first are stealing to steal.

The later are stealing to survive.

Imho the law should make a clear distinction between the two too.

[–] MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Problem is that you open one item to be allowed to be stolen, you then set the precedent of anything being allowed to be stolen. That’s what welfare and social programs are for.

[–] Endorkend@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The distinction in the law should be different penalties, not allow one of them.

[–] Norgur@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago

That's why crimes do not have a set penalty but a range for the judge to... well judge taking things like that into account.

[–] yyyesss@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

what you did there is called the "slippery slope fallacy"

[–] atkion@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

The slippery slope argument is not always a fallacy. The strength of a slippery slope argument relies on the ability to show that the initial action will actually lead to the predicted outcome. The fallacy comes in when connections are drawn between unrelated concepts - an easy example of this is the argument that legalizing abortion will lead to the legalization of murder. In this case, I think it's pretty likely that making a certain item legal to steal will pave the way for more items to be legal to steal in the future. After all, who decides which items should fall under that law? I'm sure there will be plenty of people with very strong, differing opinions on the topic.

[–] MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Because this tends to happen in law, especially when it sets a precedent for future cases.

[–] Knightfox@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Would you care to provide some additional context? On some levels I agree with you, but I would be interested in hearing the rest of your thoughts on the matter.

[–] dan1101@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah just because stores sell food doesn't mean they should feed people for free. There are a lot of costs involved in getting food onto the shelves such as planting, growing, harvesting, transporting, packaging, and distribution, and the costs of running the store. This especially applies to small mom and pop stores.

Same sort of thing with non-food items, track any particular item and they don't just appear on the store shelves, it takes a lot of people and effort and materials to get them there.

[–] Endorkend@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hence why stores should deliver unsold goods to food/supply banks instead of tossing it.

The cost was already made, the item gets written of for not being sold, still does some good in the end.

[–] MindSkipperBro12@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

There may also be legal issues if the stores products gets someone sick or hurt because the store will probably get caught in the legal crossfire.

[–] Tyfud@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

Agreed. Though judges have some leeway here, there's nothing official that would give them an incentive to treat the cases differently other than their moral compass.