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When US Americans get painted this way, it feels like a "Humans- Fuck Yeah" story. Like I'm just so used to us having our downsides highlighted that it feels special to be seen for a positive attribute
I think that's a positive. Americans, in the absence of law enforcement, will fight to defend themselves and their property (and vicariously, the property of others).
Stopping thievery, is, unto itself, a just cause.
It's a bit like learning that Russian cargo ships don't get boarded by pirates because they'll just start fucking shooting.
Say what you want about Russians, but that kind of rules.
Russians are the scariest white people.
Finland slaughtered them something like with a ver lopsided ratio in the winter war. The Finns are pretty white.
Yeah, but Finns are pretty nice (if socially awkward) when you don't fuck with them. Wouldn't count on that with Russians.
Russians can be nice too, it's just that mostly, not unlike the Finnish, they don't give a fuck about you in general.
TIL Ukrainians aren't white
/S
Ukrainians aren't as scary as Russians, they don't go invading other countries.
Yeah if I shared a border with Ukraine I wouldn't be the least bit scared of them. If I shared a border with Russia I'd have a nuclear program.
Only if you’re their wives after a few bottles.
Russians are pathetic malnourished drunkards, not scary.
Hey, nothing scarier than a drunk dumbass with little to lose. Same reason crossing the wrong Americans is trouble, too.
I feel like these stories provide second-hand catharsis, but I don't know if it's necessarily a positive light.
Yeah seems like committing a violent crime in response to a petty crime to me.
Humans work off of incentives and risk. If there's essentially no consequences for pickpocketting and the incentive is quite high with expensive phones and cash potential, the balance is way out of proportion. A good chance of getting your shit rocked brings it a bit more in line.
The possibility of getting shot or stabbed is way out of proportion the other way. That's the problem with America. You can't even give someone the bird when they nearly crash into you without fear of getting shot.
I don't agree with characterizing being robbed from as not a big deal, especially when it's as physically intimate as pickpocketing.
Maybe it's no big deal to lose a bit of money if you're rich, but I would be truly fucked to lose my phone or wallet, and more than inconvenienced to lose money or objects which would need to be replaced with money.
But more than that is the sense of violation. What gives someone the right to come into my home or put hands on my body and take my personal things? It's dehumanizing. It feels disgusting to be treated that way. Of course I'm going to defend myself.
Pickpocketing is non violent. It is theft.
Robbery involves the use or threat of violence. It is a violent crime.
The two should not be conflated in either direction. Also pickpocketing does not happen at peoples homes, but in public spaces. This is different from break-ins which are a more serious crime as they violate the private living spaces of people on top of violating their property rights.
I don't think whether an attack is physically violent should play a role in whether someone is allowed to use violence to defend themselves. Plenty of forms of sexual assault are non-violent in the sense that they don't cause bodily harm to the victim, but I still think you should be allowed to resort to violent methods of stopping/preventing them. Things like gropings, upskirt photography, etc are a form of psychological violence in my opinion.
This is different from break-ins which are a more serious crime as they violate the private living spaces of people on top of violating their property rights.
What is the reasoning behind this distinction? Are you suggesting it's okay to defend your home with violence?
To come at this from another angle, do you think theft should be legal? If not, why is it okay for the state to enact violence on perpetrators, but not victims?
Dude, i didnt make any remark on what forms of self defense are appropriate. I merely pointed out that robbery is a violent crime, wheras theft is not.
Subsequently robbery is facing harsher sentences than simple theft and it is important to distinguish the two, or any other forms of crime for that matter. There is a reason why all sorts of crime have been defined specifically and differently from each other.
My reponse would be extremely violent if I were to be pick pocketed that’s for sure. I would not even feel bad at their injuries.
And no one would feel bad when the police in a country with reasonable laws takes you to jail for assaulting someone because of petty theft.
What is this Judge Dredd garbage people from the US often seem so proud of? That stand your ground thinking is only accepted in the violent bubble you guys seem to live in and accept as normal. It's not normal anywhere else. This is why your police can kill unarmed people on video every week with zero consequences, and with no one batting an eye. Even in the most repressive societies, the security forces have the good sense of killing people in secret, not on video every week. This level of violence is not normal, and you as a regular person don't benefit by internalizing it as your personal life philosophy.
Your attempt at the high road is hilariously pathetic and ignorant to the world.
Your attempt to act like a big man who will always win in a fight and not end up dead yourself trying to protect your pittance of property is hilariously pathetic and ignorant to the world.
Yet only one of us will end up dead at the hands of the fascists they allowed to take over the world. Curious.
Lmao, you are a fucking tool.
You weren’t raised by wolves. You wouldn’t get it.
Edit* Found and read the article, it never said the Americans beating up the pickpockets got charged with anything. Shit one had fake elctric wallets to shock the shit out of thieves and only got em confiscated. Seems to me more beat downs would be welcome by the French police of pick pockets. Unless they're on the take.
Pickpocketing is robbery, my guy.
Just because it is done stealthily doesn't mean i wasn't robbed of my goods
I think you’re mixing up the words “theft” and “robbery”. Robbery always specifically indicates violence.
Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim's pocket without them noticing the theft at the time.
Robbery[a] is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault.[2] Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft (such as burglary, shoplifting, pickpocketing, or car theft) by its inherently violent nature (a violent crime); whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two.
Yeah let's get dragged into semantics.
Does violence only happen in physical form? Because the time I was pickpocketed left me paranoid for years. The violence inflicted upon me didn't leave me physically hurting, you're definitely correct there.
It left me emotionally fucked for years.
Precise definitions are important in law. Someone threatening or using physical violence is a more severe crime. Conflating the two is detrimental to everyone.
Bless you trying to be sensible, but most in the US seem to have internalized violence as a virtue. Their feelings being hurt seems to mean someone has to get physically hurt to pay.
So the guy being paranoid because they were pick pocketed above somehow feels like he would avoid the impact if he gets to physically hurt the thief. He can't see how normal people don't really enjoy physically hurting others, and want to avoid it. They're not normal in his eyes, they're 'pussies' smdh.
Jesus I thought assumptions about others was more a thing of Reddit, not here. The user you're talking about simply stated they felt violated heavily by such, not that they'd inflict violence specifically.
My apartment was burglarized over a decade ago and I'm only just now getting over the trauma of it mostly. I had nightmares for years about coming home and my front door being wide open, and everything being gone. I lost sleep waking up repeatedly from these nightmares.
It's easy to point fingers when you haven't been traumatized by an event yourself. Have an ounce of fucking empathy here. Neither that person nor I want to hurt folks at all, and I absolutely wouldn't be able to hurt someone who broke into my place even if I was home besides yelling and trying to scare them off by making a loud racket. But that doesn't mean we weren't violated in some fashion.
Like the other commenter in the thread about his wife elbowing a pickpocket, that's not actually going to hurt or damage anyone but it'll startle the hell out of them to run off. It's not like she beat him or made him bleed, at worst he got a bruise for a couple hours.
Anyway great to know more folks give zero shits about mental health clearly.
Yes stealing my money and property is the same as getting my feelings hurt. Giant pussies, not just normal sized ones.
So they make the internet worse for poor people? I could get through 20k in a second, but someone with just an old laptop would take a few minutes, no?
Couldn't give less of a fuck, if someone steals from me they're gonna face the consequences
Yes, but in America it is acceptable to shoot an unarmed teenager running away for stealing a candy bar, so not exactly preaching to the choir here
Hell, there’s at least one story of a black teenager being shot because he rang someone’s doorbell to ask for help.
I interpreted it as a negative, like "Americans are violent," heh.
Is it?
I sympathize with the complex though.
We have a hyper sense of justice instilled in us from a young age. It's like the basis of our country (or so we're taught).
I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.
I don't disagree. Basically what we're told justice is.
There's nothing perceived about someone snatching my wallet. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I get it, but it has to be obvious how quickly this logic can spiral, though.
If I come around a corner and find you putting the boots to someone begging you to stop, you're getting smoked by the biggest thing I can find. I don't know the context. Violence to stop violence is measured.
Being wronged isn't a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
Being wronged isn't a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
am i supposed to ask the robber nicely to give me my stuff back?
I mean, it's a reasonable place to start at the very least?
We're talking about pickpockets, right?
Someone tried to pickpocket me in Europe on the train. I blocked the door and, despite having no common language, I left them know I was aware they had taken my stuff. I'm pretty sure they understood it was my intention to get it back and that was going to be a hassle for everyone.
They just handed it back and left.
Should I have just started swinging?
They just handed it back and left.
you've just gotten lucky, most of the times they play dumb and act as if they did nothing, and even public shaming won't do anything
Live by the sword, die by the sword, somehow still relevant.
So committing a crime yourself, assault (and/or assault with a deadly weapon), in response to the first crime, pickpocketing, is suddenly totes okay then? I don't get it. Seems like retributive extrajudicial punishment to me. Just because it's a real thing that happened and not just perceived doesn't suddenly absolve you of committing violent crime in return. If you hospitalize the pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp, you've given them far more severe and retributive punishment than just taking their wallet in return.
I mean, who knew, maybe this is why we have laws and shit.
If I beat the shit out of a pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp too bad so sad, they have a permanent reminder of the principle of fuck around find out or FAFO. I was minding my own business right until they decided to make themselves my business.
Legality is stupid and does factor into 99% of my actions so I will disregard it as a decision making factor.
Lmao you're unhinged dude. Get a grip and maybe realize the shit in your wallet isn't more valuable than a human life.
Especially considering its probably all credit and debit cards that you can cancel almost immediately and get any money spent by a thief returned to your accounts. But yeah, someone deserves a lifelong limp because they inconvenienced you. Get the fuck outta here lmao.
You might not support someone like Trump politically but you're no better than those who voted for him. These attitudes are 100% why US society is deeply fucked, the politics are just a symptom of this violent brainrot.
But is more valuable to me, I barely give an iota of a fuck for my own existence why would I give a damn about some shit heel who introduced themselves to me by trying to take my shit. Much like my height life is short and cheap.
Also I could keep only peanut butter in my wallet, doesn't mean a pick pocket wouldn't deserve at minimum a swift kick to the gut for trying to take it. Minding ones business takes literally no energy, making sure others mind theirs takes a bit more, going out of your way to get in other folks business takes a shit tonne more.
And finally the various cultures and nations within the US are broadly based on the principles of minding ones own business. How far that extends varies but it makes sense given how many folks left Europe because other people couldn't mind their own business. Trump and his supporters are all some type of supremacists be them financial, religious, or racial which is what makes them dangerous not the broad violent tendencies that is present across the US. I can assure you if I murdered a handful of their leaders say every NIFB cocksucker society would greatly improve, for context the NIFB or New Independent Fundementalist Baptists are a bunch christonazis.
It's not a crime. You can use force to reclaim stolen property. Legally, it gets 'interesting' when you involve a weapon in your use of force, because some areas allow the threat of deadly force far before it can actually be used and you're probably going to expose yourself to legal avenues if the police don't like you when they show up. But simply kicking someone's ass after they stole from you? Perfectly permissible.
If you want to talk about the morality of it, that's a different conversation.
why are we defending thieves?
Yes it is totes ok. Encouraged even. Fuck a thief.
You realise beating up a pickpocket is itself a stupid game that will get you in jail, right?
If the idea is that I can't defend my own property then I understand why pickpocketing is so rampant elsewhere.
I don't want to kill anybody, but I'm not gonna just hand it over with a smile on my face.
Yeah I feel like I am in crazy town. If you don’t want your ass kicked keep your hands out of my pocket. There will be consequences and they will be lopsided.
I think it's hilarious that Americans think they will always win every fight. Everyone the hero of their own stupid Judge Dredd story right up until they get stabbed and left to die in an alley by the thief.
And I wonder how many of the people promoting this kind of thought say they're against people like Trump, yet this kind of thinking exactly like that of Trump and his ilk.
Grow the fuck up, dude. You can still join the civilized world anytime you want because they believe people can grow and change and should have the opportunity to do so instead of being crippled by some fuckwit who is angry about their wallet.
Yes punching someone a few times and holding them down until the police come is totally what judge dredd is about.
You're still living in a fantasy land where you're able to successfully pull that off every time this happens and not get your own shit rocked. You're also living in a fantasy land where punching someone a few times while they're down on the pavement and cracking their skull into the concrete won't completely alter their lives, far more than you losing your wallet would alter yours.
Get a grip on reality, dude.
You don't have to want to kill anybody, but it's still a crime to violently assault someone. Further, you can still kill someone without trying, say you punch him once and he goes lights out and his head hits the concrete so hard it kills him. Doesn't matter that you didn't want to, you just killed someone.
Now if you used something defensive like pepper spray so you can escape with your wallet? That's a different story. There's a wide gap between protecting your property and assaulting someone.
Spraying someone with pepper spray is a violent assault. It's banned in a number of counties due to the possibility of permanent injury or even death, and the risk to bystanders.
I didn't say I want to assault anybody. But if someone tries to take my wallet, would I push them off and move away swiftly? Yes absolutely.
I guess to me, that seems rather defensive. I don't want to engage any more than I have to to extricate myself from the situation
So like ... where is that righteous violence right now? What's currently happening in the US is way worse than pickpocketing.
These are all the fantasies of people who think they're the winner in every single outcome.
There's a significant percentage of Americans that wouldn't take that as a negative. As in, aren't just violent, but are proud of being violent and consider it to be a positive quality. Not all of us, but a fair few. Hence you get things like some gun people fantasizing about having someone break in to their house so that they have a justification to shoot someone and feel righteous about it.