Thieves who are petty discuss petty theft

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

phantom power (22,194 posts)

Walmart pressing felony charges against employee who ate ‘multiple’ Oreo cookies

More folders for our "Neo-Dickensonian Evil files"

blah-blah-blah

MotherPetrie (1,113 posts)

1. Les Misérables...

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

22. Stealing cookies doesn't exactly make her Jean Valjean

Last edited Thu Feb 21, 2013, 12:42 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

Sure, felony theft is tremendous overkill, but what would you expect an employer to do if an employee is caught shoplifting? Send her a food basket?

Tsiyu (15,437 posts)

28. considering WartMart ripped her off first

with the SUCK wages - in effect stealing her labor with substandard wages - and no one will go after THEM, they should let it go.
 
Cookie stealing is now a felony in the US, but destroying the economy as Wall Street Bankers did is perfectly AOK. Is this a great country or what?

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

32. horse poopoo

There is no justification for stealing.

Tsiyu (15,437 posts)

34. Horse shit - we're grownups here, darling

Hunger and poverty are far better excuses than pure greed.

But PURE GREED gets a pass, I realize. God forbid a poor person step out of line. Only the rich ****ing CEO who makes $16,000+ an hour gets excused for ripping off the workers by stealing wages from their meager existence.
 
America sucks, just like WartMall.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

41. Oh sure, Oreos, the food of life

What if she stole lobster tails? Would your opinion change?

Ed Suspicious (989 posts)

86. A few oreo cookies will sustain a person alot longer than a head of lettuce considering there is far

more glucose (food of life) contained in an oreo, and this is far more useful as fuel for our bodies than cellulose which would be the main ingredient in lettuce. I doesn't surprise me at all that a hungry person would go for the sweets. It's what we're built to do.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

100. So if I am broke and hungry I can go to the bakery and suck the jelly out of all the jelly donuts

in your version of society?

antigone382 (3,227 posts)

138. If the bakery systematically destroyed your local economy...

...and then, as one of the only employers in town, paid you wages so low that *the company itself* encouraged you to apply for government benefits to survive, and let's not forget, denied you promotion opportunities *because you were a woman* (for which there is a mountain of evidence, that would have resulted in a massive lawsuit against Wal-Mart had the Supreme Court decided there were just too many--that's right, too many--plaintiffs for such a suit to go on)...then I think that from a moral standpoint you could eat all the jelly you wanted.
 
Theft of food is a classic weapon of the weak, in line with the theories of anthropologist and political scientist James C. Scott. Where theft of labor is legitimized and formalized in an economic system, as Wal-Mart's racket most certainly is, such individual acts of subversion are ethically legitimate.

DainBramaged (37,014 posts)

39. <sigh>

So go start a multi-national corporation.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

42. Disparate wages now justify theft?

Under what moral code?

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)

67. The moral code that says if you work hard and do your job well

you deserve a decent living. Having a whole underclass of people in which that isn't happening is a much greater crime than stealing a few Oreos. You don't even realize that your attitude and belief system is contributing to the whole, hey, the system can **** me over but I'm not even allowed to do anything to hit it back thing that's been going on in America for far too long. It's bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, if we were to go and loot Wal Mart stores in mass, we'd be well within our rights to do so. That's called revolution, and I'm all in favor of it.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

97. What you are advocating is a system of vigilantism and chaos

In a civilized society people cannot be permitted to steal from one another based on their perception of what is fair or unfair. But Jeezus, looting?

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)

164. I'm not necessarily advocating it

Last edited Thu Feb 21, 2013, 05:34 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)

I'm just saying morally, I think we'd be within our rights to do it. The wealthy are destroying this planet and screwing us all over. Why are we not allowed to rebel? Because you say so? Not good enough. Sorry.

He's not advocating it, he just thinks it is the morally right thing to do.

Proof that liberals have no morality by virtue of the fact they can't even define the word.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

50. But was it Walmart who insisted on the felony charge?

I bet not. Other posts here say that in Indiana all thefts are felonies until later downgraded. So in all likelihood, imo, Walmart simply reported the theft to police who then decided what charge it should be.

Bake (21,075 posts)

53. A., Walmart didn't have to make this a police matter.

B., Indiana SUCKS.

If it weren't for Illinois truck drivers and Ohio hookers, there'd be no Hoosiers.
 
Bake

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

94. They chose to send a message to other employees that I agree with

The message is not to steal or you will be prosecuted, no exceptions. If you realised just how much shoplifting is done by store employees you would see why they do it. $37 BILLION was stolen by employees in 2010. I bet they were all "starving" (sarcasm).
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/shoplifting-economy_n_885555.html

Bake (21,075 posts)

96. Then you belong in pre-revolution France.

Not here on DU.

Bake

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

98. I would wager that every person ever caught stealing food said they were hungry

and, except in rare cases, their stories are complete bullshit.

If you see the mugshot the perp is NOT starving but she looks like she could use some drying-out time.

antigone382 (3,227 posts)

142. But our system DEPENDS on taking others' property.

The law and order civilization you seem to put your faith in is entirely dependent on extracting resources--including labor--from the relatively less powerful, with as little regard for the consequences as possible. While you might condemn theft that goes in the other direction, the fact is that at this point "legitimate" means of systems change are not working--in fact they are in a sense unconscionable because the world is being destroyed as we peacefully lobby, rally, and maybe once in a while get ourselves arrested in some innocuous form of civil disobedience.
 
Look at what is happening with the Keystone Pipeline. Its construction and use will almost certainly have horrifying consequences for the planet; yet the likelihood is that it will be approved--in fact that part which does not require State Department approval is already half constructed. This is our lives and the lives of billions of other people we are talking about, but the best we can do is throw a little party on the National Mall while the President is far away playing golf. At some point you must ask yourself the question: if the laws we have are not stopping, but instead actually contributing to our exploitation and the destruction of the planet, what allegiance do we owe them?
 
Now, you might say that this bears little relation to the stealing of a pack of cookies for one's own consumption, and to an extent that might be true. At the same time, I can honestly say that I think the most moral thing we might be able to do with regard to Wal-Mart is to get ourselves employed there for the deliberate purpose of stealing back that which they have stolen from us and the rest of the planet. At this point our very survival depends on destroying the profitability of business models such as Wal-Mart's by any means available to us. Whether that was the intention of this individual woman I don't know; but in a context where it is arguably necessary for the survival of the planet and the restoration of global economic and ecological justice, I cannot condemn her actions. I wish more would take the risk.

Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)

72. I once prosecuted a guy who shoplifted a flounder he hid in his undershorts

He made the same excuse - he was hungry and had no money. He stole the fish from the Grand Union (now out of business). So should I have looked up what kind of wages Grand Union was paying and whether they paid their fair share of corporate taxes or whether their CEO was overpaid before prosecuting him?

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)

166. Oh, so you're a prosecutor?

Well guess what? **** you.

And yeah, you should have looked up what kind of wages he was being paid. All you did in that prosecution was aid in the exploitation of the masses and feed the prison industrial complex. So, screw you for that. You are most certainly not a friend of the working man or the poor.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022408166

[Ogre]

Response to Jersey Devil (Reply #22)

Thu Feb 21, 2013, 12:50 PM

 Tsiyu (15,437 posts)

28. considering WartMart ripped her off first with the SUCK wages - in effect stealing her labor with substandard wages - and no one will go after THEM, they should let it go.
 
Cookie stealing is now a felony in the US, but destroying the economy as Wall Street Bankers did is perfectly AOK. Is this a great country or what?

WTF

[Tucker]

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)

166. Oh, so you're a prosecutor?

Well guess what? **** you.

And yeah, you should have looked up what kind of wages he was being paid. All you did in that prosecution was aid in the exploitation of the masses and feed the prison industrial complex. So, screw you for that. You are most certainly not a friend of the working man or the poor.

I can vision a propaganda speech, using those words, being said during the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Skul]

phantom power (22,194 posts)

Walmart pressing felony charges against employee who ate ‘multiple’ Oreo cookies

More folders for our "Neo-Dickensonian Evil files"

blah-blah-blah

DUmpmonkeys muff it again. That would be "petty" theft.
I believe you must steal a bit more before a felony would be considered.
Not sure, however.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I can vision a propaganda speech, using those words, being said during the Bolshevik Revolution.

It's definitely a load of Bolshevik.

It also seems the perp has an established history of this behavior. It's not a one-off event.

I'm guessing that's why she's still a common laborer at her age.

DUmpmonkeys muff it again. That would be "petty" theft.
I believe you must steal a bit more before a felony would be considered.
Not sure, however.

See post #50

[Tucker]

DUmpmonkeys muff it again. That would be "petty" theft.
I believe you must steal a bit more before a felony would be considered.
Not sure, however.

I read some of the DUmp replies and some thing that this is not her first charge. A habitual conviction for theft would bring a felony charge.

[Skul]

It's definitely a load of Bolshevik.

It also seems the perp has an established history of this behavior. It's not a one-off event.

I'm guessing that's why she's still a common laborer at her age.

See post #50

Here it is.

Response to Bake (Reply #46)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 01:25 PM
Jersey Devil (7,371 posts)
50. But was it Walmart who insisted on the felony charge?

I bet not. Other posts here say that in Indiana all thefts are felonies until later downgraded. So in all likelihood, imo, Walmart simply reported the theft to police who then decided what charge it should be. 

My goof. Forgot it's the police that set the charge, and could be downgraded.
Appreciate the reminder.

[Carl]

Downtown Hound...come try to steal my stuff and you will get lead poisoning.

[Celtic Rose]

Seriously?  They are arguing that this thief stole oreos out of hunger because they weren't paid enough?  

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Seriously?  They are arguing that this thief store oreos out of hunger because they weren't paid enough?   

They know it's bolshevik but that doesn't matter. They hate Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart has successfully resisted unionization.

For that sin and that sin alone Wal-Mart must be destroyed.

Even when there were reports of Wal-Mart getting supplies into Katrina-ravaged areas ahead of Bush's FEMA there was no respite.

The issue isn't the issue; the revolution is the issue.

[USA4ME]

The primitives talk about stolen wages and stolen labor and the prison complex and all these other topic where corporations and "the man" is keeping them down, and yet not a single one of them will point the finger at Dear Leader.  Now they either don't believe he's part of the problem (in their little world) and they're stupid, or they know he's part of the problem and they're too scared to say it for fear of being booted from the island.  Either way it's a comfort to me to know the primitives are as spineless as they come and, if confronted face-to-face, with cower in fear.

.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Nice to see the habitual shoplifters self-identify, at least.

 

[Maxiest]

In 2011, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation gave $958.9 million in cash and in-kind contributions around the world. This includes $872.7 million in cash and in-kind gifts in the United States and $86.2 million in cash and in-kind gifts in international markets.

That is in one year.  Can't imagine how many billions it's been over the last ten.

Not to mention the billions upon billions they have paid in taxes, you DUmmies should like them, they keep your little welfare state running.

[Karin]

The thread is 1) enormous, and 2) very enlightening.   I will not trust a democrat in the business, or in my home, or on a finance committee somewhere or any place at all.  Don't ever let them handle the money, and never lend one anything, not money, not your tools, nothing.   

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

That is in one year.  Can't imagine how many billions it's been over the last ten.

Not to mention the billions upon billions they have paid in taxes, you DUmmies should like them, they keep your little welfare state running.

$900 million in contributions is more wealth donate by 1 corporation than the combined contributions of 900 million leftists.

[Rebel]

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)
166. Oh, so you're a prosecutor?

Well guess what? **** you.

And yeah, you should have looked up what kind of wages he was being paid. All you did in that prosecution was aid in the exploitation of the masses and feed the prison industrial complex. So, screw you for that. You are most certainly not a friend of the working man or the poor.

That should tell you everything you need to know about the DUmbasses and their view of the rule of law. Couple that with the fact that they want all of us 2nd Amendment proponents dead, and how they'd march us to the camps if they were called upon, and you can start to envision what will, not could, but will happen in the near future. Arm yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.

[Chris_]

Downtown Hound (8,086 posts)
166. Oh, so you're a prosecutor?

Well guess what? **** you.

And yeah, you should have looked up what kind of wages he was being paid. All you did in that prosecution was aid in the exploitation of the masses and feed the prison industrial complex. So, screw you for that. You are most certainly not a friend of the working man or the poor.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKIWjnEPNY[/youtube]