this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
966 points (94.2% liked)
Memes
45889 readers
1338 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
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.
The distinction in the law should be different penalties, not allow one of them.
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.
what you did there is called the "slippery slope fallacy"
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.
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.
Because this tends to happen in law, especially when it sets a precedent for future cases.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You probably also thought people were stealing Sudafed because they had colds.
This medication in most stores crap doesn't exist here.
Ah. My point was that those are some of the easiest to resell. Sudafed is used in the creation of meth.
Wow! Easily accessible to be stolen? In my country, we have 2 sudafed formulas -- the meth kind (pseudoephedrine) and a different type (phenylephrine). The meth kind is only available by asking the pharmacist and showing your state-issued identification. The other kind is freely available to steal.
It's that way here now. It wasn't yet when I worked in a grocery store.
Another thing that barely exists here XD
Tell us you don't live in Florida without telling us you don't live in Florida.
Where is "here"? Because there's plenty of meth in my location (I don't do meth, I'm just aware of it).
While there is meth in Europe, there's nowhere near as much of it anywhere in Europe.
Some countries have a rising meth problem, but it's really nothing compared to the plague it is in the US.
What about the Czech Republic?