• Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      20 days ago

      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.

    • Windex007@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      I feel like these stories provide second-hand catharsis, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a positive light.

        • AlexLost@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          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

          • Soup@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            Hell, there’s at least one story of a black teenager being shot because he rang someone’s doorbell to ask for help.

        • stray@pawb.social
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          20 days ago

          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.

        • hobovision@mander.xyz
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          20 days ago

          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.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      I interpreted it as a negative, like “Americans are violent,” heh.

      Is it?

      I sympathize with the complex though.

      • mocheeze@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        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).

        • xkbx@startrek.website
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          20 days ago

          I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.

          • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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            20 days ago

            There’s nothing perceived about someone snatching my wallet. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

            • Windex007@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              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.

              • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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                19 days ago

                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?

                • Windex007@lemmy.world
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                  19 days ago

                  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?

                  • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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                    19 days ago

                    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

            • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              20 days ago

              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.

              • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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                20 days ago

                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.

              • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days ago

                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.

                • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  19 days ago

                  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.

                  • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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                    19 days ago

                    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.

              • cole@lemdro.id
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                20 days ago

                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.

                • 5in1k@lemmy.zip
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                  20 days ago

                  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.

                  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                    19 days ago

                    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.

                • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  20 days ago

                  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.

                  • cole@lemdro.id
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                    20 days ago

                    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

                  • stray@pawb.social
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                    19 days ago

                    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.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        20 days ago

        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.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      19 days ago

      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.