I have no sympathy for this man. If he were to rob me of even a penny I would concentrate all the hate I have for the world on him and destroy him. I really did it once.
It is vindictive and childish to assume that the merest slight deserves extreme retribution and a total dehumanization of the perpetrator. Do you also slice off people's thumbs for nudging you in lines? Are you one of those kids who, if someone was late returning a videogame you lent them, called in the mob to shatter their kneecaps? I somehow doubt that.
This is either a very large run on sentence, or I'm an idiot. Probably both.
It's not the former, so I guess by your own admission it's the latter?
The thing about crime and poverty is that people at
all economic strata tend to operate in their own self-interests (and, to some degree, the interests of their family and immediate social group, usually all within that same stratum). The reason why this doesn't result in middle/upper class people being criminals as much is because the system works
for them more, and they have more (or at least different) opportunity to use or abuse it. Rich people can be selfish, destructive pricks without ever even having to break the law, for instance. Where a poor and destitute person might turn to street drugs to self-medicate, a middle-class housewife is off somewhere getting free samples of antidepressants from her physician via medical insurance. There are a lot of seriously bitter middle and upper class people who complain about the poor committing crimes or abusing the system, yet those same people will often do
the same thing when it suits them, whether it's fudging their tax returns a bit, smoking weed, driving drunk, or any other stupid thing people do. Poor people commit crimes because they're more desperate, live in a condition where working within the system doesn't always work out so well, and have a greater proportion of opportunities that are criminal to begin with. People don't turn to heroin or armed robbery for shits and giggles, they do it because something, somewhere, went horribly wrong. And if something went wrong,
what went wrong? It sure as hell isn't genetics, and you sure as hell can't blame people for their own upbringing or socioeconomic environment.
Basic point is, people do what they need to do. Often, they also do what's in their self-interest even when it's
not necessary. I know some of us probably like to think we're "better" than how we see your average petty criminal, but I feel that most of us ("us" being people who aren't in poverty) are law-abiding not through some sense of altruistic social goodness and justice, but rather because we are in a station such that we have no particular need or even incentive to commit those kinds of crimes. I don't live in a social environment where I'm expected to carry a gun or have a gang allegiance in order to live, nor has that environment taught me that the world won't give me a chance of any upward mobility, nor is upward mobility from my socioeconomic state at birth even an
issue for me, since I live comfortably. I can get medical treatment when necessary, I can get psychiatric drugs of damn near any description any time I want (go America!), and I don't have to worry about violence, gangs, poverty, or what I'm going to do for necessities.
It's easy to judge others, but considering how people of all socioeconomic strata behave, there's nothing all that transcendent about not being poor.
I'm not sure that I would qualify as a Narcissist, and I really do have a campaign bro. A campaign against crime.
If you have a campaign against crime, then eliminate the causes of crime. Proactive solutions are the only solutions. Obviously we still have to punish people, but that's reactive and even
more obviously doesn't actually take care of the problem.
Author
Topic: American man robbed a bank for $1 so he could go to jail and get health care (Read 32551 times)