In case you’ve been following the story, over at Ace’s, about the dognappers busted for eating a golfer’s pet, Breitbart has the follow up.
Some commenters over at Ace’s got a little excited, one suggesting that roasting and eating a Filippino child might stop this practice (which I thought was kind of . . . intolerant, Dahmer notwithstanding). Personally, I’m a fan of dogs, as pets, but I think that a 5-year sentence might be a little harsh.
Fortunately for Liz, her Teacup Yorkie is too small even to make a decent snack. Except maybe for a hawk.
UPDATE: with our usual perspicacity, we treated this topic earlier here
Stealing a pet to kill and eat it is worthy of five years. Get your own dog, fillipino dog feasters.
see, now that is very culturally insensitive. in an effort to diversify myself even further, I would suggest that we just sit down with the Fillipino Culture and discuss with them why eating dogs is not okay. there is nothing a little dialogue can’t solve… and in the process, we might find that they have good solid reasons for engaging in such things. in which case, we should not only tolerate the practice, but embrace it and offer it up as an alternative world-view. As for 5 years, I am with my bro on this one. You wouldnt get that much time drowning a newborn in a toilet or dropping your offspring off at the lake for an eternal swim. though you can claim the live ones from your taxes.
One does not mess with a man’s dog……
I’m just saying, Sarah, that I think we need to overhaul our justice system to reflect “society’s” estimation of what constitutes what level of offence.
Hmmmph. Wait, see. If any economic or social meltdown reduces humans back to an animalistic state, then we are, still 3rd order consumers.
Filipinos are just more in touch with their hungry past, is all.
Techie – you are right… that would be more a Grecian or Creten practice. But I agree in principle: one should not covet thy neighbor’s dog.
Shoot. I probably should have titled it “Cads Eat Caddy.”
And I’m saying, five years for what they did, is just about right, for the property crime. The selfish cruelty of the act (and I’m talking about cruelty to people who are attached to their animal companion) is unpardonable. There are grocery stores, and there are dogs for sale.
We used to hang horse thieves.
That’s rubbish, SarahW (and I believe we hung horse thieves for the dire consequences to their owners, B Moe, as we did bank robbers).
My point is that emoting is where nannyism comes from. Are we aware that striking an animal with our car is, because of this hypersensitive subjectivity, a legal hit and run in increasing numbers of jurisdictions?
What if I think it should be criminally illegal to the tune of 90 or 180 days to key my car and I convince a bunch of other people to agree?
“Just about right” is a mob’s sentiment. In our jail-happy, well-I-think, madly subjective legal climate, it’s an assault on reason. View a couple jury interviews to see just how ungrounded we’ve become.
Well, I don’t agree. Stealing a pet and killing it to eat it is at least as bad as stealing my silver.
-A felony, punishable with a max five-year sentence and substantial fine.
Filliipino dog eating isn’t actually about “food”. It’s a drinking game – it’s the ultimate macho finger-food for drinking with buddies. It’s a wierd peer-status blood sport. There is no exuse for it, and if it takes a strong penalty to discourage it, and apparently it does, I do not, myself, object.
Look, if someone wants to eat a dog, it’s their own prerogative. But this wasn’t their dog. They stole a dog, with the apparent intent to consume it.
Charge them with CATTLE RUSTLING.
Do you know how many are behind bars in this over-litigated, over-prosecuted country, SarahW? But, surely we cannot have people behaving poorly. I think we need a law, a new one, and like that.
What’s the upper limit to the taxpayer:incarcerated ratio, do we suppose? 5%? 15%? Half?
“My point is that emoting is where nannyism comes from…”
Well, you allow me the right to stomp the living piss out of someone who fucks with me and mine and I will agree with you, JH. But since I can’t it seems I am forced to call the law, or just let people take what they want of mine. If you don’t want to pay for the incarceration of thieves, then bring back work camps and make prisons self-supporting, no problem from me, but letting thieves get away with it is not a viable solution.
Couldn’t they just have bought some instant Poodle ‘N Noodles?
Sorry, I just slapped myself on the hand for being insensitive.
My sentiment exactly, B Moe.
So. How do we unfeminize the place?
;o)
JH, you can’t possibly be arguing that thieves should be kept out of jail, lest we surrender our backf to the boot prints of the nanny state.
Look, these men have been indicted. They have not been sentenced. The max they face is five years and stiff fine. They are likely to be sentenced to less, but if they would face more if they should damn the consequences and decide to sneak off with someone else’s companion dog for salty bar snacks AGAIN.
I don’t know, N.O. Brain. They could try pistachios. Or some b(e)agel- bites
It’s a special category. I don’t think, for example, that sentencing ought to include consideration of the amount paid for the animal, except for purposes of fines. I do think it’s worse than stealing someone’s silver, though, because of the emotional component.
But this brings us back to my assertion that our laws need an overhaul and a recalibration to deal with the inequities that occur from the proliferation of statutes to deal with causes du jour, and the bizarre accretions of judicial activists legislating en banc. That is, we as a society need to take a part in the recalibration of our laws.
I’ve never knowingly eaten dog. However, I’ve had some Mongolian Barbecue in Korea that leads me to qualify my first sentence.
I have to agree with B Moe. The law is a very expensive and inappropriate option for most problems.
If cruelty to dogs causes you anguish, by all means do not search Live Leak for videos on the subject, especially in Korea.
“It’s a special category. I don’t think, for example, that sentencing ought to include consideration of the amount paid for the animal, except for purposes of fines. I do think it’s worse than stealing someone’s silver, though, because of the emotional component.”
That is the tricky part for me. I don’t have goldfish, but if I did and someone ate one, I wouldn’t be too upset. If I found out someone ate one of my dogs or cats, there would be hell to pay. I would probably wind up doing more time than them.
The eating of dogs and cats bothers me, but in the same sense veal or foie gras does: I am not going to partake or support it, but if others want to it is their karma. I am specifically refering to animals I care for and have developed an emotional bond with.
But then we have PETA who love all of the animals. Are they emotionally damaged with every bucket of KFC that gets filled? To hear them tell it, yes. Are we’re certainly not going to lock up every pimple faced bucket filler for the psychic damage suffered by the PETAzoids.
It seems that if there is to be a specific penalty for damages, that matter belongs in a civil court.
My overall point, SarahW, is that in the great search for victimhood conducted by a increasingly feminized population, it’s a natural that animals be next. Further, we’ve lost sight of the fact that punishment isn’t supposed to make society’s moral voyeurs feel better. It’s supposed to deter serious crime.
Given the excesses of domestic, gender, sexual, juvenile, and eventually animal rights at the clear expense of classic, originalist, constitutional, civil rights, we’re looking more Orwellian every day. Add to that central fiscal policy wherein government redistributes wealth to dependents, yeah, this is a statist brew that’s looking quite ominous.
I don’t mean to draw unreasonable connections. But I’m convinced we’re already under more behavior control than I for one could have imagined. With nothing but fundamentalists of one stripe or another leading the Presidential race, the future looks no more encouraging.
Consider that McCain is perhaps the most Libertarian of the top four. Given that he advocates limiting speech, that says something. No matter who wins, the opportunity for enforcing a morality of one clear orientation or another is assured. All because we’re now a nation that argues for policy based on feelings, which leads back to penalty by feelings.
Ah, but in a nation of simple lobbied majorities, why not?
The eating of dogs and cats bothers me, but in the same sense veal or foie gras does: I am not going to partake or support it, but if others want to it is their karma. I am specifically refering to animals I care for and have developed an emotional bond with.
Exactly.
Except for the part about not eating veal or foie gras.
I would agree with that characterization, JH, except that I think its unfair to refer to emotionalism as feminization, in the same way that its unfair for feminists to rake all human virtue to womanliness and assign all vice to manliness . . . and then state that they just want equality.
Saturnino Palting, 58, and Nelson Domingo, 43, both of Kalihi, were indicted by an Oahu grand jury on charges of second-degree theft and first-degree cruelty to animals. Both crimes are class C felonies punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
So, take out the issue that it was a dog – how about that it was someone else’s property? I don’t know the monetary worth, but some dogs are worth several thousands of dollars. Add into ’em the investment of shots, neutering …. etc (or if it was a breeding animal – it’s future worth.)
Obviously, this pair knew what they were doing was wrong – I mean, they can’t buy dogs at the grocery store, and if they started adopting animals at the local shelter, their gig would quickly be discovered. I don’t have much sympathy for ’em.
Carin, nobody has sympathy for these morons. I’m just a little astonished at the vehemence that it provokes, in a world where . . . where . . . *sob* Heath Ledger is dead at 28!!!!
An interesting debate, Dan. These days I’m nearly prepared to see humanity as the former dichotomy of optimistic dominate predator and pessimistic submissive prey over which is now thrown the construct of the highly reengineered societial norms we see around us, those involving marginalizing the former as the latter assumes sophistication and with it, control.
Control is antithesis to freedom. http://www.duoism.org/about/index.htm#philosophy From the link:
There are four static ideals which are deadly toxins we use, quite unintentionally, to kill freedom: ‘purity,’ ‘preservation,’ ‘perfection,’ and ‘infallibility.’ Note that all four ideals describe what humanity is not. Freedom is entirely based upon what humanity is: impure, mutable, imperfect, and certainly fallible. The idealists are killing humanity.
Er, dominant. Sheesh.
“So, take out the issue that it was a dog – how about that it was someone else’s property? I don’t know the monetary worth, but some dogs are worth several thousands of dollars.”
That is the point I have been trying to address, except qualifying the monetary issue. The punishment for a crime is generally based on the value of the items stolen, and in the case of a family pet that is a tricky matter. I am not granting pets human status, and calling it a kidnapping, I am saying if someone steals my pet, they are stealing something of mine that I value a great deal. Whether it is a stray mutt I took in or a pedigreed hunting dog, it’s value may not be readily apparent.
Having read the Mark Levin book (on losing his dog) and having experienced it myself – there is something about losing a pet. Not comparing it to other loses (a family member) – at all. It’s just, the pain seems to just sneak up on you. Certainly, you shouldn’t be so upset, since it was only a pet. But, for some reason, you are.
And, the thought that someone would eat your pet/friend? Shudder. It’s just awful.
There, there, Dan … I’m sure Heath is in a better place. A place where no one makes “I can’t quit you” jokes.
It is awful, Carin. But it doesn’t warrant the kneejerk of an insulated, cowardly society. From the comments at Ace:
It’s that kind of moralizing emoting, virtually invoking God’s name, that’s eventually enacted in the seas of crap legislation available to any PETA-flavored asshole or some other hijack of reason that ruin freedoms.
My feelings are also tempered by growing up in a rural, appalachian environment where you could get your ass shot for stealing from another man’s garden and nobody would think it unreasonable. To kill and eat his coondog would likely get you burned at the stake.
I would say that it is simply the visceral reaction people have to such a story. Commenting on a blog isn’t exactly an intellectual activity. Most people would probably be able to fix such a crime in it’s proper perspective if they were required to do so. Few (normal) people would equate it with a horrible crime against another person.
People talk smack on the intertubes. To borrow from Shakespeare- lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Let me amend that- commenting on a blog doesn’t “Have” to be an intellectual activity. Thus – a visceral reaction sits right next to a well-thought-out one. Each have equal time, so to speak.
Jail time does cost money. I could build a pillory with about $20 in materials, and if it were set up low to the ground, folks could walk their dogs past these guys and have them piss on their heads.
Cruel. Unusual. Perfect.
Why are we even having a debate about this? Stealing someone’s pet, killing it, and barbecuing it is just fucking wrong.
Wrong — especially as we’d have authority unavoidably act upon it in a fit of our ire, Sean M. — is highly debatable. Especially when those actions limit freedom by design.
Your pronouncement does not necessarily constitute my values. It may collectively constitute my legal standard. The question is by what standard to calculate the difference and by what means to enact law.
JH, correct me if I’m wrong, but I detect a strong emotional component to your reaction – as if you are angry about the attachments people have to their pets, as if such attachments should not even exist, let alone carry weight in laws about theft and killing and eating of an owned domestic animal, even if the animal was owned and bred for the purpose of being a human companion.
Perhaps I am wrong about that. But I don’t see anything rising to the level of feminine hyper-emotion about the criminal penalty being discussed. It isn’t any more severe than the penalty for stealing someones family silver. The maximum is one thing, the actual sentence is likely to be less.
But there is room to discourage recidivists or especially egregious cases
And BMoe raises a very good, and rational, point. One purpose of law is to keep people from stomping other people, preventing breaches of the peace. A stiff penalty at law for stealing and eating someone elses loved pet, serves to contain disorder, i.e. violent private retribution. Whether you frown or smile on that kind of attachment, you cannot deny it exists, and that it is a purpose of law to offer justice that keeps order.
I expect each man will get a year or less, with adjustments for good behavior or perhaps a partial suspension of sentence.
Stealing is wrong. Stealing an animal belonging to another person to eat it, is wrong. Stealing it to eat it, when it isn’t even a matter of needing food, just indulging one’s own sense of fun, enjoyment, and peer-status, is worse.
In the case of a domestic farm animal, the value of said creature is likely to raise the crime to the level of felony anyway. In the case of companion animals, the dollar value of the pet could result in lack of appropriate penalty with consideration of the potential of the crime to cause great distress, and breaches of the peace.
Consider yourself corrected, SarahW. I felt I was also clear about creeping nannyism, and I’m reluctant to respond to challenges to my perceived motive.
As to “wrong” I also addressed that: We are incorrect to label eating a dog a moral offense because such an offense is obviously requires a culturally-dependent lensing of behavior. Before that notion also goes off the rails in a rush of anxiety about Western law and order, I’ll ask to kindly spare me the retorts about multiculturalism, inverse or otherwise.
In this case, the “crime” is one against sensibility, or more accurately, sensitivity, not unlike those cartoons of Muhammed were and are. (It’s far, far more just to prevent animals pain and suffering than it is to legally account human feelings in courts of law, for crying out loud.) So, emotional distress? Even when it’s (rarely) ruled to be legitimate tort, it remains highly debatable as a legitimate lever for law and the courts.
So we’re left with the cool, objective, and hopefully constitutional question: By what standard do we criminalize damn near everything that offends us..or her or him or them or those folks over there?
And SarahW, stealing is wrong, which brings into play grand larceny versus shoplifting, and interstate corporate fraud versus Three Card Monty. But the fanciful appeals to five figure show animals and to oceans of emotional distress and God-damn-them are just as “wrong”.
Because it never ends there and surely in this country it’s not ending there now. That’s my point. At this rate, we are all, each of us and quite literally, walking lawbreakers.
I confess I just dont’ “get” you, or what you are so excercised about.
The maximum not a harsh penalty in view of other felony theft cases, period, and there is a rational basis for consideration of the emotional attachment people have to their pets, and their anguish about having them eaten by thieves.
If some claim it’s immoral to chop up someone else;s pet to impress one’s drinking buddies, at least, in America.., I can’t see that as a sign of nanny-statism. It seems like recognition of reality to me.
“But the fanciful appeals to five figure show animals and to oceans of emotional distress and God-damn-them are just as “wrongâ€Â.
According to who? You or the state? Someone has to determine the value of my dog, if that is the criteria for the punishment. How is not giving me a say in the matter symptomatic of creeping nannystatism? It seems just the opposite to me.
Why do I get the feeling that you two are arguing past each other?
I am responding to JHoward’s initial contention that it was rubbish to sentence them to 5 years. Or at least that is the way I read it. Regardless of the morality of eating dogs, stealing a pet should carry a serious penalty.
And that to protect me from creeping nannystatism, it is required that the state determine the value of any property stolen from me.
Suppose I steal your pet chicken and smother it’s butchered carcass in marianara sauce and mozzerella. You love that chicken, and I’ve broken your heart and deprived you of your supply of eggs. What should my penalty be?
Now suppose I snatch one from the local egg farmer and I give his bird the General Tso’s treatment. Is my punishment different?
What if I steal his mutt and go all Vietnamese on it? Now is it different? If so, why? And where do we draw the line?
Criminally, there is no difference unless there is a high dollar value attached. The cruelty charge shouldn’t hold up. The theft is the only crime that’s been committed here. Now, there are damages that can and should be compensated, but not with prison time.
It’s only “reality” if you seriously expect such a transparently subjective standard to universally apply, SarahW. The socialist Congress is reality too.
Should it be?
Further, are you suggesting that the possible tort arising from an emotional reaction to loss should then, somehow, translate into five years criminal time? By what legal “reality” do we rule criminal sentences on what judges or juries impute might have been the internal emotional severity of that loss?
As to the severity of the penalty, that goes to my very point: using the current legal standard (such as it may be while it bends to any and all social whim) as the standard for all subsequent legal rationale is as rationally and technically unfounded as would be using the current political climate as a standard for all subsequent political expectations, and worse, for the reason preceding a debate about it.
As an alternative to that nonsense, I’m implying a question about some frame of legal and/or constitutional reference we might use to ensure we don’t end up criminalizing everything. I do this partly because you exemplify the problem: you call that question being exercised, you question emotions and motives, and you objectify subjective standards without a convincing argument.
Because it’s wrong, I tell you. There ought to be a law.
I’m requesting simple reason, SarahW: How will we define crimes and their penalties when we’re punishing actions based purely on the emotions they elicit or the voyeuristic faux outrage they gin up?
To be sure, I’ve had more pets than I can count. They create in me emotions nearly as intense than those family and friends do. But I’d never condone raising animals to the same virtual legal status as humans. Not in this political climate, anyway. And if we’re not protecting our bogus sense of “animal rights” in our omnivorous society, if we’re not issuing recompense for expensive show animals, and if we’re not preventing pain to animals, what are we doing if we’re not extorting payment for emotions claimed to be felt?
I feel really bad at having had rights denied me. Where do I pick up the check and who can I imprison?
I’m with Pablo on this one. Now, I’m off to eat my neighbor’s Border Collie.
Of course, if dude were to grab himself an ax handle and go all Buford Pusser on the dog munchers, I’d be inclined to go a little blind to that. the law doesn’t solve all problems or create perfect justice. Far from it, in fact.
“Suppose I steal your pet chicken and smother it’s butchered carcass in marianara sauce and mozzerella. You love that chicken, and I’ve broken your heart and deprived you of your supply of eggs. What should my penalty be?
Now suppose I snatch one from the local egg farmer and I give his bird the General Tso’s treatment. Is my punishment different?”
Regardless of what you do with it, the farmer’s chicken has an obvious and intrinsic value, it would be easy to check the market and see what it would cost to replace. The pet chicken does not, it’s value would be determined by the owner, how much would it cost to buy it from him?
“Criminally, there is no difference unless there is a high dollar value attached. The cruelty charge shouldn’t hold up.” The theft is the only crime that’s been committed here. Now, there are damages that can and should be compensated, but not with prison time.”
I agree with the first part about cruelty, but disagree with the appraisal. I feel the same about this as with imminent domain, it is not up to the state to entirely assess value. That dog may not have been purchasable at any price, and that should be a consideration in the penalty phase. I am never going to be persuaded that prison time is unreasonable for a thief.
The Nannystate is based on the mob, even when it’s special interest’s effective mob of the lobby — enter PETA, the NEA, the NOW, et all. That’s a concern.
Prison for a half decade for dog-theft BBQ can, by the same reasoning that fuels such mobs and lobbies, be considered just. It’s WRONG, dammit! Giving us the legal say of such pronouncements produces heavy sentences — hell, juries render those very decisions every minute of every day, thereby granting us our “say”.
But Pablo’s construct very much regards life on earth, and because of the subjectivity of law-by-popular-accord, at some point we really must regard the fact that we’re becoming Prison Nation. Just as you say a sentence is lacking, I say it’s excessive and I say it’s excessive because it likely lacks reason, having replaced it with emotion and subjectivity. I believe the evidence agrees with me.
From where do we derive our lawmaking standard, especially when Pablo’s construct — which hews darn close to this case — illustrates the folly of making penalties subject solely to emotion?
But I’d never condone raising animals to the same virtual legal status as humans.
Well, I’m gonna guess that if you stole, and then ate, a golfer’s child you’d get more time than 5 years in the big house.
I still think dog stealing (and eating!) is a crime. Why do dog-fighters steal dogs to train their animals with? It’s cheaper, of course. Shelters won’t let them have ’em, and you just can’t find a kid with a box-full of puppies they’re trying to get rid of when you want one.
How about this – if you steal my dog, you owe me the cost of the dog, the cost of the shots, the cost of the food .. any and all cash that’s gone into that pet. Even a lowly mutt will quickly wrack up over $1000. Grand Larceny right there. No emotions.
OK, so my chicken is worth $50 million. And my farmer? He loves his chickens, but the one I stole was his very favorite.
Is chicken worth $3 a pound, or is it worth whatever I want it to be worth, depending on my emotional state? And how do we make that determination in the penal code?
Hey, you got to keep the dogshit!
So, Pablo – what you’re getting at is that us pet owners are going to get no justice if someone steals (and EATS!) our beloved pet. It’s better to just hunt them down and beat ’em w/in an inch of their life.
I’m ok with that.
Of course, I get really scary looking dogs that people tend to want to stay away from. Stealing isn’t usually an issue.
“it is not up to the state to entirely assess value.”
Note the qualification. Reason is assumed to be in play, else the whole exercise is pointless.
By the way, penalty based in lost value is more rational, but still runs afoul of the relative criminality of the very act, as in robbing a bank results in similar penalties regardless of whether you pulled a gun before or after Brinks left for the day.
Dan’s right: We’re arguing past each other. I meant to seriously question nannystatism, nothing more. Yes, I am appalled at what we criminalize and what we imprison, but I am far more offended by why we do so and how the courts and the legislatures ostensibly behind them allow it.
It seems to be a lethal combo of liberal hysteria and conservative tough-on-crime-ism. It’s all driven by emotion and fear, the stuff that wrecks systems. We may want to review the link I provided about a philosophy of freedom.
The theme in so much of debate these days is parsing private slights so as to reorganize behavior by unavoidable collective power. I truly fear my society when it considers electing another Clinton. I fear my government, not because I broil Rover, but because doing stuff no more offensive than that may subject any of us to five years ourselves. Give ’em just four short years, any four short years.
“From where do we derive our lawmaking standard, especially when Pablo’s construct  which hews darn close to this case  illustrates the folly of making penalties subject solely to emotion?”
So would you apply this same interpretation to circumstances of imminent domain? What about when people refuse to sell their property for a fair value because of silly emotional attachments? Do you side with the state then also?
Carin, what I’m saying is that you’ll get very little justice in the criminal system. If you want a big hunk of the perpetrator’s ass, to which I’d say you’re morally entitled, you’ll want to take that in a lawsuit, or vicariously through your friends Vinny and Guido.
B Moe, that’s still a civil matter, not criminal punishment.
“By the way, penalty based in lost value is more rational, but still runs afoul of the relative criminality of the very act…”
So what are your thoughts on the penalties for theft? So far, you have done nothing but criticize what is in place, what would you propose?
Of course not, B Moe, because I view my constitutional rights as protecting me from theft, and I consider my home and property…my property, dinosaur that I am.
Your question gets too close to SarahW asking why existing legal standards shouldn’t define existing legal standards. I know it’s meant well, but that in turn gets too close to actus arguing that the Constitution is subject to any consequent interpretation thereof.
Sure it is via the SCOTUS, but at some point reason says we’ve bent the damn thing a little too far because some asshole elected some other assholes up there and suddenly we’re tolerating having our stuff stolen (ED) or our freedom revoked (civil court) or our behavior modified (social norms enacted into law.)
Let’s try and not define standards by prior bad standards.
“B Moe, that’s still a civil matter, not criminal punishment.”
I am talking about the assessment of emotional value, regardless of the setting. If you totally discount this, it takes a lot of the teeth out of the protestations about imminent domain abuses.
So far you guys have argued that jail time is inappropriate, and that penalties based on value are inappropriate, which leads me to the conclusion you don’t believe jail time is an appropriate penalty for any theft. I am asking what you propose then, because this doesn’t strike me as being very reasonable.
What if I steal his mutt and go all Vietnamese on it?
Pablo, you just went on my better half’s shit list. She wanted me to tell you that dog is not on their menus. Koreans, on the other hand. Never trust a BBQ …
Given that it’s a replaceable entity with no legal rights (historically, that is) I’d say stealing a dog is a $250 fine. It’s not like dog-owners don’t have responsibilities to not leave them laying around in public (and in clubhouses) like wallets and it’s not like the great majority of canines are monetarily valuable.
But five stinking years?
Penalties for theft should compensate lost value. They largely do not. Penalties for theft should provide no compensation for emotional loss. They are starting to do so.
By the way, penalty based in lost value is more rational, but still runs afoul of the relative criminality of the very act, as in robbing a bank results in similar penalties regardless of whether you pulled a gun before or after Brinks left for the day.
How so? Is dog stealing just no big deal?
Our litigious society has made it impossible to get any other type of recourse. If someone “wrongs” you, you cannot do anything but turn to the law. Girl gets pawed and nearly raped by kids in a playground, and later big brother goes and beats the shit out of who did it. Guess who gets in trouble? Happened to my husband’s employee. Hauled into jail.
“Penalties for theft should compensate lost value. They largely do not. Penalties for theft should provide no compensation for emotional loss.”
You still haven’t addressed the fact that a pet’s greatest value is emotional.
JHoward – Dog thieves in Detroit will steal them out of your yard. They use them to train their bit bulls.
This is what I mean by bad prior standards defining bad new standards. I’d like to think that ED is just as prohibited as theft.
Now if we want to parse that nine ways to Sunday and come up with all kinds of horror stories about preventing holy sub/urban progress, have at it. I just choose to disagree with the logic that puts the collective ahead of the individual.
They’d steal my wallet out of my yard too, Carin.
German shepherds (full blooded) start at $400 … and quickly go up. This guy working for my dad just bought a shep puppy for $1000. I’ve seen ’em go for $2000 and more. My husband wants a Newfoundland …and they start around $1500. Expensive. AND, they drool.
Pablo, re: chicken stealing…I’m not opposed to chicken stealing being a felony, per se, or even to a maximum penalty of up to five years in jail for stealing chickens. However, there is a rational basis for treating the stealing, killing and eating of animals bred for the sole purpose of providing human companionship vs. eating…people may have pet chicken’s, I’ll grant, but there is a rational basis for treating property crimes involving dogs and cats, who are not bred or kept for eating in this country, differently. Again, the law is there to prevent the stomping. And to protect adquately what people in the country value.
I assert that killing and eating a pet that isn’t yours, is at least as bad as stealing someone’s family silver.
Also, there seems to be some misapprehension that these men have been sentenced to five years in prison. They have only been indicted, and the actual penalty will almost certainly fall short of the maximum.
Let me put it this way, I drive an old piece of shit car worth about $1k, if gave me a choice between someone stealing that car or my cat, I would give up the car because it would be easier to replace. Irrational? Yeah, maybe, but that is not for any one else, especially a fucking thief, to decide. I put what I consider fair above that of any criminal, and don’t really give a damn if you take the side of the thief. If you are truly concerned about the overcrowding in prison, surely you can find more worthy probationers than thieves. I would save my compassion for non-violent drug offenders, for example.
In the sense that I indeed used to address the force to fairly arbitrarily assess criminal consequences to same, none of us should want to.
In other words, who should rightly give a crap?
Especially since the fillipino men knew it was wrong, knew they were stealing, didn’t need food, but just wanted to indulge in the habit from the old country of proving manliness by eating dog snacks while drinking with buddies.
SarahW, can you itemize what other assaults on emotion should result in criminal penalties? We might as well get a list going.
It’s not like dog-owners don’t have responsibilities to not leave them laying around in public (and in clubhouses) like wallets and it’s not like the great majority of canines are monetarily valuable.
And, stealing your wallet (or your car or a bike) out of your yard would still be a criminal act. My yard (most dogs are stolen out of fenced yards) is private property.
How do feel about art theft, JH? Should an old painting’s value be based on the real value of the canvas and paint, or its emotional value? What about a vintage automobile? Practically it is an obsolete pile of scrap metal, should its theft be treated with a slap on the wrist or are we going to recognize its emotional value?
Carin, in #72 you describe the no-fault State. At least as bad as a nannyized State where every assault on humanity requires a day in court because we can neither settle things as we used to nor can we possibly go without settling things.
There is no justice. Life isn’t fair. The law is an ass. Life is hard. Just when did we forget those facts? The answer is that when leftist statism met rightist authoritarianism they got along just fine.
Again, consider the costs of freedom. They are that there is no justice, that life isn’t fair, that the law is an ass, and that life is hard. I understand that last one to be a tenant of Buddhism. And we call ourselves an enlightened Western society.
Replacement value, B Moe. Appraised value. Insured value. Fine art is granted value according to it’s financial worth, not it’s emotional appeal.
Is this really that hard?
“They are that there is no justice, that life isn’t fair, that the law is an ass, and that life is hard”
Tell that to the thieve instead of me and we got no quarrel.
The point about wallets, Carin, is that like dogs, they shouldn’t be left lying around…when their theft is then criminally prosecuted by irresponsible owners taking advantage of bullshit laws.
“Fine art is granted value according to it’s financial worth, not it’s emotional appeal.”
But its financial appeal is purely emotional. Of what other value is a work of art save for its emotional value?
“Is this really that hard?”
Indeed. ;p
“The point about wallets, Carin, is that like dogs, they shouldn’t be left lying around…when their theft is then criminally prosecuted by irresponsible owners taking advantage of bullshit laws.”
Well, I give up then. If you seriously think laws against stealing are bullshit I don’t see what there is to talk about. You are basically arguing against civilization.
B Moe, art may and does have an emotional appeal. But it has no financial appeal. What it has is replacement value or appraised value, and that worth is based on the market exactly like one million dollars is worth one million dollars.
We insure for whatever reason we want, but we insure. We don’t variably criminalize based on emotion.
That’s not what I said, B Moe. I said that if you’re stupid enough to leave stuff lying around, kindly don’t come back claiming five years worth of emotional damage when it’s stolen. I don’t need a lesson on civilization, but perhaps you may…
JD, I plead Google! With much love, of course.
B Moe,
No, it’s financial value it what one can sell it for. It is what the market for such things dictates that it is. I might think that a drwaing made by my daughter is worth millions and it may in fact be priceless to me. But there’s no market for it and its monetary value is pretty much nothing.
Same goes for the vintage auto. Your feelings for it do not impact its value. It is worth what it would sell for, not what you’d be willing to sell it for.
I don’t give a s**t what their culture is — they stole someone’s pet and ate it — and in a civilized society that is 100% inappropriate. They got off easy with a five year sentence. If someone did that to a dog of mine, they’d best be running to get arrested real fast before I caught up with them, otherwise it wouldn’t be pretty.
Is JHoward related to the Howards in the Three Stooges? Just wondering…
Don’t forget that Hillary ditched Sox the cat when she left the White House. Think of the emotional damage she did to that cat. Does anybody want a cold-hearted bitch who isn’t emotionally attached to her pets back in rhe White House? Seriously!
There is only one man who can get our legal system back on track to its original intent and soothe JHoward’s anguish over the feminization of American culture. Join the rEVOLution. LUAP NOR2008!
Okay Dan, now I think we are arguing past one another. I don’t want compensation for emotional damage, whatever the hell that is, I just want the emotional value to be considered when appraising the worth of a pet, since that is the only reason for keeping them.
And I want a fucking thief to go to jail, that is what jails are for.
“Same goes for the vintage auto. Your feelings for it do not impact its value. It is worth what it would sell for, not what you’d be willing to sell it for.”
Understood, but the sole reason for the value is emotionally based, that is the point I am making. The pratical worth is the scrap value, the car is obsolete, but because the seller and the buyer have strong emotional attachments, the car is considered more valuable. All I am asking is the courts consider the emotional value of the owner, even if there may not be a buyer who agrees, when considering the penal aspect of the theft of a pet.
Nolo Contendre, you diatribe against me has caused me immense emotional harm. As the small government, limited powers American I’m sure you are, I hope for your sake you got one whale of an attorney.
Because what you just did was wrong.
B Moe, considering your ability, #97 has to be some of your worst work. Fill jails just because you say they’re for filling? Really?
And to B Moe’s point, Nolo, I just suffered thirty ounces of harm!
B Moe, considering your ability, #97 has to be some of your worst work. Fill jails just because you say they’re for filling? Really?
Can the bullshit, JH. Jails are for punishing criminals and protecting society. Thieves are criminals, theft is a threat to society. If you want to thin the inmate population, do it with something other than violent offenders or thieves. Those are the criminals jails were meant for. There are plenty of places to cut government fat, protecting the private property isn’t one of them.
Not quite. The value is what any number of buyers would pay for it, and such would generally be determined in a court of law by a qualified appraiser. The only people who love your dog a million dollars worth are you and yours. Unless it has characteristics that are generally marketable (purebreed, show dog, trained working dog, etc…) it has no particular monetary value.
Which is why if dude ate my dog, I’d be deciding between suing his ass and breaking his fucking legs. Or both.
Thieves generally don’t do time (or much time) unless they’re repeat offenders. I’m willing to bet we’ll all agree that that the criminal punishment these douchebags receive will be less than the cost they deserve to pay. Which leaves a couple of options for settling the debt…
BTW,
The sole reason for the value is supply and demand.
Jh, your objections are based on some fantastical notion that criminal penalties have no connection to the disorder the crime creates. Indeed, crimes against person and property have always factored in the likely reaction of victims and victim’s families to the loss or criminal assault. Emotion informs rationality, and it is part of any intelligent, rational view of the law. And I don’t know what law school you went to, but while there are separate torts that might apply, there is no divorcement of criminal law from provocation or acts likely to result in breach of the peace.
You did let the veil slip there – you object to acknowlegement in the law of what you view as the improperly exalted relationship between companion animals and their owners. Just like I thought.
Hawaii, by virtue of it’s geographical proximity to dog-eating cultures who visit or move to the islands, has problems with dog-eating that other states in the Union do not. It’s an easy theft to carry out, associated with cultural practices that have nothing to do with necessity, and the law is gives a heavier penalty than used to attach to the crime, in order to stamp it out. It is a rational response to a persistent problem, and not encroachment of any new principle of law to nanny people into doing what’s good for themselves. It’s HANDS OFF other peoples pets, or else…you get charged with penalties akin to stealing that Sheffield tea tray.
Disorder, SarahW? Does driving nine miles over a speed limit cause disorder? It’s an offense. How about driving over the legal limit for alcohol for a third mile but entirely alone on a public roadway in rural Montana? What’s the disorder? It’s a criminal offense.
How many other crimes shall we create, just because they offend us — because we assert they cause disorder so as to only make good on our own collections or the collections of the State? Smoking dope? Flushing the ex’s goldfish down the toilet? Calling the exwife a bitch? Muffler too loud?
I’d ask you what constitutes reasonable instances of imprisonable crime (or crime carrying financial penalty or crime causing loss of property or some degree of one’s usual freedoms) but I already did. You see, each of my examples produces at least one of those actions by the State.
SarahW, as usual, here again you are wrong about motive, interestingly, and I don’t mind if I do use a little flatter verbiage to point that out. You are grasping at motives that apparently you can’t understand in order to refute an argument you understand even less — which tends to explain how you may feel emotion should guide the criminal code: Your emotions “informing the reality” of another’s property and freedoms, indeed. That you think you can cite chapter and verse about how we came to be at this point in the history of lawyers interests me not at all, and not just because it’s principally unfounded.
That one would defend it with such an evasion and by an appeal to emotion, to motive, or to mysticism or to tarot cards or to chicken bones, that is the “slipped veil”.
The point is that we’re increasingly litigious, and that we’re now using emotion and the social mob to gage not only crime but with it, the severity of criminal penalty. This is our well-I-feel and our there-oughta-be-a-law mentality and such thinking crushes freedom.
“In order to stamp it out”. Words any Orwellian would find entirely appropriate. And useful.
Oh, and about the “improperly exalted” relationships between pets and owners (an interesting choice of words for this context, owners.) I’m genuinely offended that you again had the audacity to actually invent my motive, and this time directly against what I’d said! I was clear about that all the way back in #53.
In this your intellectual dishonesty is quite impressive. Just like I thought.
The point about wallets, Carin, is that like dogs, they shouldn’t be left lying around…when their theft is then criminally prosecuted by irresponsible owners taking advantage of bullshit laws.
So, if someone breaks into my backyard and steals my dog (or my car or a bike) … it’s my fault for being an irresponsible owner (or car, dog and or bike.) How about they break into my house? What difference does it make WHERE they steal it from, if it is clearly a crime? My dad’s car was stolen from my driveway. I guess my dad should have brought it inside. How irresponsible of him.
But, if my dog is stolen (from my locked yard) and I try to prosecute someone, it’s a bullshit law exactly why? Because anyone and everyone should have free reign to take my shit? As I said earlier, I can’t go out and exact revenge, so all we have left (as a civilized society) is legal recourse. Or, are you advocating we go back to the eye-for-an-eye days?
And, I’ve moved the dog from the golf course, to the back yard because instances of animal theft (in Detroit) is most likely much more common than dog-eating lawn crews.
Sarah,
Suppose I’m on the streets of New York, and I rob a Wall Street trader of the $500 he has in his pocket. My crime is a mere inconvenience to him. He’ll stop at the next ATM and get himself right. What is my penalty?
Then suppose I’m on the same street, and I rob a little old lady of $500. I’ve just taken every dime she had, as she was just returning from cashing her SS check, and has no other assets or means of support. She’s screwed, and won’t be able to pay her light bill or buy groceries. Now what is my penalty? Is it significantly different under criminal law?
“The point is that we’re increasingly litigious, and that we’re now using emotion and the social mob to gage not only crime but with it, the severity of criminal penalty”
How the fuck else are you going to determine the severity of a penalty, if not by agreement of the “social mob”? Once again, I am tired of your bitching if you don’t have an alternative to offer.
“Is it significantly different under criminal law?”
Should it be? Do you think the judge isn’t going to take these factors into account at sentencing?
Jh, I think you’ve lost your mind.
The argument here is whether Hawaii law is too strict with regard to the stealing and killing and eating of companion animals. It’s quite a reasonable penalty for a recurring, if not rampant, problem local to that state.
You think pets have no value but their monetary value, which is folly on your part, and have flatly stated there should be no penalty but a minor civil fine consistent with a traffic ticket. Your premise is that pets should be treated not only the same as, but less than, inanimate objects which are stolen. I don’t mean to direct your attachments to living creatures, but I think there must be something amiss with a man who can not acknowlege the purpose of the law or its connection to the Hawaiian statutes regarding the theft and consuming of a compansion animal.
You cannot possibly be arguing that the chief pupose of the law is not to keep the peace, and public order. So what are you arguing? Are you trying to say that people are not attached to their pets? That the provocation of stealing and eating a pet can never legitimately consider the breach of the peace that might result from such an action, and be proportionate?
That it cannot legitimately be a stiff penalty to deter a crime that is easy and/or become widespread enough to cause fear and concern among pet owners?
That persons may not petition the government to protect their interests in a living animal bred and kept to provide companionship, necesarrily leading to emotional attachment in most cases of ownership?
The filipino men knew what they were doing, FWIW. They tried to conceal the taking, and lied about it afterward to protect themselves. The dog had tags….your argument about it being “left lying about” as mitigation is hilarious. You know full well If you find a credit card or a wallet with identifying information on it, and convert it to your property and consume it or spend it, you are a thief. That dog had tags and was kept there with prearranged permission of the owner of the golf course. That dog was not free for the taking. What on earth made you argue that it was as good as free lunchmeat for a filipino drinking party?
Suppose I’m a first offender, and in both cases I didn’t draw a weapon or physically harm the victim. And suppose I cut a deal to avoid trial,m and displayed the requisite remorse. What do you think the odds are that I’m going to do more than 90 days, if I even do that, in either case?
Pablo, the overall crime of robbery (taking by force) is the same in both cases. No matter how little the banker values his money, he values his life, and if the money was taken by force you must imaging he was put in fear of bodily harm. It creates social disorder and the penalty is and should be high no matter who the victim is, though if you pick a particularly vulnerable person, it may go worse for you and you may get a harder sentence.
And yes, there is a range of sentencing for pickpocketing, as well, though no one is place in fear. Whom you choose as victim may indeed, in many cases and many crimes, affect your sentencing.
But overall I think it is possible you did not take away what I meant, by what I said.
An element of criminal penalty is retributive, is it not? One reason for that is to orderly provide it, and prevent private citizens from stomping you in retribution, when they and others they wish to protest are not in immediate danger from you.
protect,. not protest
When a Filipino eats a dog, he absorbs the mana.
Mana is good for ED. And the hair.
I think I did, but my point is that the criminal justice system does not have the capacity to make such nuanced decisions effectively, and perhaps it should not. Justice is supposed to be blind, right?
Let’s try another crime. Suppose I’m walking down the street and I see a pretty blonde girl and reach out and grab her titty as she passes. Sexual assault, right? Now suppose I’m black, and she’s terrified of black guys.
Does my sentence get enhanced over that of a white guy? The victim is more disturbed than she would be if I lacked melanin….
I didn’t say it was a bullshit law, Carin (so have you stopped whipping the kids?)
I said bullshit laws enable social dependents (who leave their stuff laying around irresponsibly) in various expressions of infantile whims about after-loss “justice” that consume huge resources in tax-paid court time and result in larger numbers of minor offenses being served behind bars in a lopsided expression of such justice, such as it is.
In this case, a destroyed dog is decreed by a society working through it’s increasingly irresponsible legislature to enable the very consideration of a multi-year lockup for what we all acknowledge is fairly common behavior in some circles. But an utterly horrendous crime in another, because dammit, it hurts.
So what’s the standard if not actual value? Emotion? Apparently.
Likewise the canard about dad’s car. The penalty for that theft has or should have a basis in value, not emotion, especially not in our hallowed no-fault culture. Dad’s pissed as you would be and as I would be, but I’m betting the insurance company doesn’t care, the same insurance company, by the way, that adjusts your rate according to your zip code and whether you garage the thing, thank you very much.
By what passes for logic on this board, there ought to be a law making the private sector (that insurance company) compensate dad for his emotional distress.
Such as a jury decides it, which would be called tort for the willful infliction of emotional distress, and by that same logic, why the heck don’t we enact it for stealing cars anyway? Since we’re also imputing the rightness of criminal law around here by holding it up to other criminal law, how about we take a look at how successful such distress cases actually are? I mean if rulings standards define other rulings standards, ala SarahW?
And down the rabbit hole we go again.
Have you tried growing the pie? GROW THE PIE, PEOPLE!
JHoward, if someone had stolen and eaten my dog, I would simply hunt them down and kill them slowly. But then again, I’m not very nuanced that way.
“By what passes for logic on this board, there ought to be a law making the private sector (that insurance company) compensate dad for his emotional distress.”
Frankly, I am tired of trying to correct your willful misinterpretation of what is being argued here, no one has suggested anything like that.
Five years and a big fine? I bet it will be a while before these guys eat any more hot dogs..
There’s pie?
That changes everything! There’s no dog in it, right?
SarahW, I think you’ve lost your sense. I most assuredly have not lost my mind. Allow me:
And yet another lie about motives on yours! Unlike you, I make a very clear distinction between personal value, which in the case of living beings can be incalculable, that being the bloody point, and legal, criminal value.
Clear enough this time? Then back up and try it again.
And about strawmen, do you still beat your husband?
Your take on my premise, dear, and not much more. Remember, you called them property. Last I checked, the average pooch, bless his vastly-nobler-than-human little heart (and I do not kid) wasn’t human and cost some couple hundred bucks or less.
Nice. I don’t mean to direct your attachments to rhetorical fallacies and your glands, but would there be something amiss with a man who would seek to hold government to a firmer, legally-actionable standard than hysteric emoting about what you think my (or another’s) motive or relative pain just may be? Do you vote with that mind too?
Do animals have souls, SarahW, because I’m betting that you have a view on murder that accords humans something quite special in that department, at least given your propensity to insistently imply slanders by tacitly calling me, in effect, a cold-blooded bastard when it comes to animals when I already told you I’ve had dozens of pets (and was a vegan for some years.) For whom surely society must mete our a justice of some sort, at least if the trajectory of this debate has anything to say about it. I mean, my apparent motives!
That’s precisely what I’ve said, in this thread, that law was for, and NOT for making lookers-on feel all better!
The question you cannot and therefore still will not answer is what constitutes “public order”. And that concerns me a great deal. In 1980 in Colorado I recall I drove with an open beer in my car, an act that would cause my loss of freedom today should I repeat it. The law merely said I could not drive while intoxicated.
Note the personal responsibility angle there? To not cause physical harm to others? If you will today make motive criminally accountable — that eating a prized pet, to Pablo’s insistent and ignored point, should carry no more penalty than destroying any other couple hundred dollars in another’s personal property — then how would you rationally impute motive to a guy driving entirely safely with a half a beer between his legs, no matter how it anguishes MADD.
Me, I believe it’s not a crime until it’s a definite crime. I find crime/loss/pain prevention a simply terrible job for government and you may want to review what law enforcement itself has to say about preventing Bad Stuff in this, our constitutionally free society and legal system. Therefore, I find enforcing a skeletal system of sane laws an entirely just cause for government.
Did you read my comment about my own pets (made with a 13 yr-old female black shorthair in my lap)? If not, why not, especially having been directed to them twice now? Do I not deserve that courtesy?
Huh? That it sucks when somebody destroys your property and that such anxiety shakes entire legislatures so that they must make right by government instrument what you say ails you so? Good luck with that one.
Fear and concern are factors of life, sweetie. As should be mere property value, reasonably calculated.
1. I didn’t leave any pet of mine irresponsibly unattended once it it’s life. 2. Likewise my child. See a trend? 3. You can petition whatever you want, and these days with a tragically high degree of likely success, SarahW. That’s a problem. That you so thoroughly miss that point is too.
Just like shoplifters. Pickpockets. Wallet-in-yard thieves. So?
Not half as hilarious as your constantly conflating the legal and the emotional…and from there, amazingly, to apparently justifying legislation for yet more Orwellian laws, any laws based in intent, motive, emotion, imputed damages.
I said they weren’t thieves? In fact, I said that all they were were thieves.
What on earth made you simultaneously susceptible to fallacy and utterly immune to plain English, repeated again and again and again…?
Five years and a big fine? Sounds like a potential deterrent for aberrent behavior.
Traffic ticket type fine – not so much.
Yet with laser-like precision, JHoward brings to bear all of society’s ills in creating an overly litigious highly emotional judicial system through the example of a dog theft case, a case in which all such elements were not clearly in evidence. Slices like a hammer our man does.
JHoward, you seem to have trouble dealing with people by the way you insult them in presenting you arguments, such as they are? Have you ever been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder?
The dognapping case and related penalties may seem to you a microcosm of what is wrong with American society while others on this blog hold different views. You seem completely incapable of entertaining alternate points of view. How very Paulian.
Well, okay. But it is a dog.
I like dogs. I like Filipino kids more, though.
So we agree that dogs are property, and stealing property is wrong. As near as I can tell, we also agree that the criminal penalty for theft should be based on the value of the property stolen. But in the Mother of All Slippery Slope arguments, somehow recognizing that a family pet may have value beyond the mere monetary is the first step toward granting animals full human rights under the law and the hysterical downfall of Western Civilization. Is that about right, then?
Hahaha, silly B Moe! Dogs should be granted 2/5 of a vote, and cats 1/5.
See? We can work it out.
I didn’t say it was a bullshit law, Carin (so have you stopped whipping the kids?)
You know, JH, they never could pin that on me …
I said bullshit laws enable social dependents (who leave their stuff laying around irresponsibly) in various expressions of infantile whims about after-loss “justice†that consume huge resources in tax-paid court time and result in larger numbers of minor offenses being served behind bars in a lopsided expression of such justice, such as it is.
How is a victim of crime a social dependent? I’m confussed. Actually, what bothers me is when people who steal other people’s shit are left free to steal even more shit. Mr. Dog-stealer (or wallet stealer or car stealer) who takes my neighbor’s stuff is eventually going to work his way over to my shit (left irresponsibly around in my backyard or garage) … and I’d rather he was locked up until he learned not to take stuff. If someone took my dog – I could NEVER be compensated. Money wouldn’t cover it, so I’d prefer he was locked up. Material things, yes, can be replaced, but most people would PREFER to not have criminals stealing their shit. Left irresponsibly around or not.
In this case, a destroyed dog is decreed by a society working through it’s increasingly irresponsible legislature to enable the very consideration of a multi-year lockup for what we all acknowledge is fairly common behavior in some circles. But an utterly horrendous crime in another, because dammit, it hurts.
Well, the guys haven’t been locked up … I think they should do some time (not necessarily 5 years … but a few months certainly wouldn’t hurt.) NOT because it hurts, but because I’d prefer people learn to respect shit that isn’t theirs. To me, that is the issue. Again, a dog (or a prized car, or grandma’s silver cannot be replaced.)
So what’s the standard if not actual value? Emotion? Apparently.
The standard should be; if you take something that isn’t yours you shouldn’t be allowed out among (polite) society.
Likewise the canard about dad’s car. The penalty for that theft has or should have a basis in value, not emotion, especially not in our hallowed no-fault culture. Dad’s pissed as you would be and as I would be, but I’m betting the insurance company doesn’t care, the same insurance company, by the way, that adjusts your rate according to your zip code and whether you garage the thing, thank you very much.
actually, it was a major pain in the ass. When a car is stolen (at least in Detroit) they won’t just buy you a new one. They wait a few months to see if it will turn up. My dad’s car eventually did – they stripped it and then left it a few miles from where it was taken. Despite the fact that my dad had filed a police report that it was stolen, he discovered the car was found when he got an impound bill and a citation for “abandoning” is car on the city streets. But, that is neither here nor there …
By what passes for logic on this board, there ought to be a law making the private sector (that insurance company) compensate dad for his emotional distress.
I don’t think anyone has argued that. Some things that are stolen are not of monetary value. That is why “I” prefer to lock up those who don’t respect private property — since there can be no monetary recompense.
Such as a jury decides it, which would be called tort for the willful infliction of emotional distress, and by that same logic, why the heck don’t we enact it for stealing cars anyway? Since we’re also imputing the rightness of criminal law around here by holding it up to other criminal law, how about we take a look at how successful such distress cases actually are? I mean if rulings standards define other rulings standards, ala SarahW?
Distress in this instance is, of course, silly. But, how about the case where a woman is raped. No harm, no foul right? I mean, was she really hurt? How can it even be a crime?
I can dig it.
Very much in spirit, daleyrocks, of the wo/man who leads with the insufferable, opaque bias of preconception borne of anti-“Paulian” fear, therefore having nothing to offer of substance, and end as s/he always does with innumerable strawmen. A tidy little package, if neither rationally small nor ordered.
Ironically, I’ve seen BPD. I know what it is. I also know quite well what the MMPI is. Did that little nugget somehow add to whatever point you thought you’d made? You seem to have trouble dealing with people…who so much as suggest other than how you expect reality to conform to your opinion. To your mind. You seem completely incapable of entertaining alternate points of view. How very Freudian.
Do you project often?
It looks like the Hawaiian legislature passed a specific law to deal with this situation after extended publicity in 2005. I didn’t find the exact date. Apparently people in Hawaii can raise dogs and cats for their own consumption and can consume strays, but it is illegal to sell strays and it is illegal to steal and consume cats and dogs. It sounds like it got to be a big enough issue for the legislature to address – little poi dogs getting swiped and skewered left and right – but to leave certain cultural practices in place. It certainly doesn’t sound like the decline and fall of Western Civilization argument that JHoward is making on this thread.
JHoward. I have seen BPD as well, which is why I ask, and I project much less than you have in this thread, thank you.
Grrr….3rd attempt to dodge the spam filter…
I think the basic complaint is against emotionalizing crime and punishment. And yes, the slope does get slippery. For instance, we’ll all agree that men abusing women and/or children is a bad thing, right? In fact, we might get downright pissed off about it, and rightfully so. But when we end up with thisand this because of it, we’ve let the legal institutionalism of emotionalism get out of control. Law ought to be blind and see all parties as equals before it, with respect given only to the facts of the matter and not to whatever feelings surround the case, with the exception of torts for damages.
I’m glad we understand each other, Carin. They have yet to pin anarchy on me either, try as they will. I think it’s easier for them.
Not victims. Victims who take advantage of laws aimed at government equalizing the lesser of society’s innumerable ills create an obvious dependency on collective power — the State must adjust how I feel. The law, in these cases being an ass for attempting to impute such an intangible, then attempts to quantify a compensation and ultimately becomes also a master. To suggest we’re not heading down that inevitable path and then asserting that suggesting we are indeed is Paulian hysteria, as a recent poster just did, isn’t worth a serious reply.
Me too. Habitual offenders tend to get stiffer penalties, and I’d agree that they should as they’ve just proved their need for greater incentive to keep it legal.
Yes and no. Our insistence on being a Prison Nation has to be tempered with our sense of personal responsibility — taking care of our own stuff — as well as our understanding that we cannot legislate morality any more than we can emotional damage.
Of course.
And that’s the problem. You’d prefer he be locked up on the taxpaid dime for something you admit cannot, to you, ever be made whole.
Most?
But most people should prefer government not go around listening to whim either.
Do you think the law can cause that to happen? How much law then? And how deeply should it intrude? Goldfish? Name-calling? Dangling taillights? We’re fast getting there.
So theft delivers a life sentence?
How so?
One could similarly argue that murder is en even more victimless crime because you really tend not to care when you’re dead and you shouldn’t penalize based on the feelings of the bereaved.
However the problem with that construct is obvious: Both murder and rape are among the most egregious violations of the order we’re trying to maintain. And neither arguably come within a light year of the disruption to such order that a lost pet will.
In this case the victims simply got another pet. I dare say there’s a reason why animals had never been granted legal status equal to humans, which is a little weird when you consider that murders have walked free in five years…
Sure. Let’s meet on the playground then, shall we?
Given that you haven’t the obvious wherewithal to contribute meaningfully to the conversation, kindly forgive me if your lofty opinion of my psychological state doesn’t impress me any more than your juvenile challenge did.
What impresses me is that you routinely haven’t anything to offer, preferring to paint anything I say as impaired and Paulian. This occurs regardless of just how unimpaired and right-minded what I say may be, to what purports to be your mind if not in the whole, then in part.
The rather spectacular irony of such odds I suspect illuminates just enough of whatever daley thinks he rocks to take, well, psychological note of.
This occurs regardless of just how unimpaired and right-minded what I say may be
JHoward – You are onnce again mistaken. It’s your routinely high opinion of yourself that I am impressed by, plus the obvious pleasure you take in attacking the women on this site. Your imperviousness to logic and reason make it futile to contribute to these threads other than to mock your distorted worldview. There are plenty of laws I don’t like and view society having various reasons for implementing them, not necessarily including infantile whims or emotionalizing crimes, although those are certainly elements of certain laws. You do seem to be teetering on that razor’s edge, call it Paulian or some other form, of libertarian thought about the nature of laws and crime and I’m jusr waiting for you to say you will only obey laws you view as moral. You can do it big guy. You know you want to.
“…because I’d prefer people learn to respect shit that isn’t theirs.”
Because leaving something around, or in sight, or unlocked up, causes brain lesions that cause other-wise good people to suddenly go, “Hey, isn’t that my wallet? That must be my wallet because if it wasn’t my wallet that person wouldn’t have left it sitting out where I could see it and been so stupid as to dead-bolt the front door but leave a window open.” Which is pretty much exactly the same as coming across a wallet that dropped to the curb from someone’s pocket when they got out of their car. “Wow! My wallet!”
This, in case JHoward is confused, is a personal moral failing.
It makes you a BAD person.
This is contrary to libertarian thought, unless it’s the “hey I want to be high a lot” sort of libertarian thought, because libertarian thought requires personal responsibility and NOT making excuses that present your own moral failings as someone else’s fault.
You know what’s yours and what isn’t. The physical location of an item is irrelevant. If it’s not yours, and you take it, it’s stealing and you are a thief and a criminal.
“How many other crimes shall we create, just because they offend us  because we assert they cause disorder so as to only make good on our own collections or the collections of the State? Smoking dope? Flushing the ex’s goldfish down the toilet? Calling the exwife a bitch? Muffler too loud?”
Thanks for the glimpse at your daily planner JHoward. Are you able to fit lunch in there somewhere?
I’d like to reiterate something I said earlier, which is that stealing, killing, and eating someone else’s pet is really, really fucking wrong. I think all sane people can agree on that.
JH, apparently, is not sane, since this was his response to that sentiment (comment #43):
Look, man, you don’t have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want to do. Society has standards, whether you like them or not, and one of those standards, here in this country, is that you don’t steal, butcher, and eat someone’s family pet. If you think this is an unreasonable standard, write your Congressman and ask him to introduce legislation that would declare open season on unattended dogs.
Let’s put it another way, shall we? Looking at some of your arguments on this thread, let’s suppose a hypothetical situation. A situation where someone neglected to keep an eye on their three-year-old son in a public place. Suppose some employees who work in that place, who come from a culture where cannibalism is condoned, see the tot and snatch him up, take him back to their place, and proceed to have a feast. The kid doesn’t really have any monetary value, does he? His value to his family is purely emotional at this point, right? Well, what’s the big deal, then?
Jhoward, you don’t understand the Law, you pronounce its western history a mere construct of lawyers, yet you appeal to some halcyon past where dogs are “traditionally” nothing, and select that out for preservation.
I’m not sure what you are arguing. It isn’t nanny statism to punish people for stealing, or jail them for stealing, or inherently irrational to have laws that single out pet-stealers and eaters for any particular punishment; in Hawaii it addresses a problem more peculiar to that state than others, and one that acknowleges the serious provocation of harming a person’s companion.
Five years penalty is the max, the men who stole the dog won’t likely get the maximum, as it is their first offense. They will probably get less than a year, and they will probably give up stealing other peoples pets.
Well, isn’t even that unreasonable? I mean, “those actions limit freedom by design,” right?
I mean, “those actions limit freedom by design,†right?
I LOVE that show!
And that’s the problem. You’d prefer he be locked up on the taxpaid dime for something you admit cannot, to you, ever be made whole.
…most people would PREFER to not have criminals stealing their shit. Left irresponsibly around or not.
Most?
But most people should prefer government not go around listening to whim either.
He should be locked up (on the taxpayers dime) because he is a menace to society. The harm to me may be personal, but that doesn’t mean it is an issue simply between the two of us. He gets locked up for stealing my shit, so he doesn’t (hopefully) make his way down to your door next week. The criminal justice system doesn’t, in any way, compensate the victim. Insurance companies do that. People who do bad things should be punished. That’s it.
Dog stealing – in a broader sense, is every bit of a crime as theft of other property. Dogs are stolen usually not for food (at least here in Detroit) but as pit-bull bait. Do you really think that people who do this should simply be given a fine? A strongly worded letter of condemnation?
.
I’d prefer people learn to respect shit that isn’t theirs.
Do you think the law can cause that to happen? How much law then? And how deeply should it intrude? Goldfish? Name-calling? Dangling taillights? We’re fast getting there.
uhm, yes. If more people feared prison for stealing stuff, we wouldn’t have such a crime problem in Detroit. And, I’m very specific here. I don’t see the criminalization of dog stealing as a slippery slope argument leading the criminalization of name calling. STEALING. Grand larceny – which varies by state.
The standard should be; if you take something that isn’t yours you shouldn’t be allowed out among (polite) society.
So theft delivers a life sentence?
Well, a girl can dream. But I’m sure they have some nice sentencing guide lines that are tad under life sentences.
“those actions limit freedom by design”
Heh. Since my weak and feminine nature requires manipulative appeals to emotion, I will appeal to yours and note, that wearing a sports bra is somtimes, not always, an improvement over the natural freedom state. One’s self must balance the intrusion on that state and the unnatural constriction of liberty resulting, vs maintenance of peace, order, and goodwill. And if the fit is good, and the running bouncy, the net result is likely to be little felt except for good.
It’s a filipino eat dog world. I get that. But folks have a right to stop the practice of dog-eaters taking companion animals to butcher and cook and eat, through force of law, via action of their elected representatives.
And it’s hard to stop the practice because the men who did this think it makes their Johnson bigger and work better, and puts hair on their chest.And all their drinking buddies have double-dog dared them.It’s quite emotional for them.
Hawaiians live around more folks who think dog meat imparts machismo, so penalties are naturally stiffer. You don’t generally have to tell people not to eat other peoples pets. In Hawaii, the specific applies, and so now there is a higher price to pay. Might as well try that Cialis stuff.
Still at it, kids? To the last eight or so comments I’ll say this: SarahW actually has it. “I’m not sure what you are arguing.”
Yeah. Tell you what, y’all (Carin and alppuccino excepted) just keep telling me then, because I’ve gone to fisking some of this thread line by line and still you project whatever it is you hope I’m saying. Hope you straighten that out amongst yourselves.
For example: Theft is a crime. Synova, good find. However theft cannot result in life sentences. Nor should it, in the case of a couple hundred bucks, result in a five year attempt by the DA. SarahW, the on-or-off sports bra analogy doesn’t, er, fit in a world of an infinite number of possible criminal penalties, especially if we circularly discuss dog-theft penalties at the same time according to how we think the court may rule. Not in a land that leads the world in incarcerations and where a quarter pound warrants serious time in the cell next to a psychopath. Sean, we live in a nation of laws? You don’t say. Daley, you have so characteristically little traction I’ve simply come to expect your various sputtering decrees, so do have a nice day.
My premise: A docile nation now expects its power structure to account and fix its feelings, the chilling convergence of left and right nannies. Discuss. Or not, as is now the case.
My premise: A docile nation now expects its power structure to account and fix its feelings, the chilling convergence of left and right nannies. Discuss. Or not, as is now the case.
You know, every once in a while I find myself agreeing with you, but then you go an insult a bunch of people, usually women, who are good and decent people. Then I tend to ignore you.
I guess you can count me amongst the number of people who fail to see the inevitably collapse of our society because we imprisoned someone for stealing and eating a family pet.
JD – “I guess you can count me amongst the number of people who fail to see the inevitably collapse of our society because we imprisoned someone for stealing and eating a family pet.”
It’s that linkage between a single state law where JHoward has presented no evidence that personal feeling or whims were involved in the law’s genesis where I struggle, plus again his immediate attacks on the other members of the board. He has personality problems.
JD, in referring to my take on the issue, you’ve inverted symptom and disease. I do not. As regards good and decent people (among them what you may see as a weaker sex needing moral or intellectual support) I guess I’m not too keen on reputation trumping the quality of content. Nor am I sexist in how I assess reason — I find reason quite gender neutral.
I just happen to see how society ebbs and flows in natural, intended response to its legislation, legislation firmly beholden to special interests. Not too terribly complex when you’ve seen it first-hand and by now haven’t we all seen it first-hand? If not, would that not alter our credibility?
daleyrocks, having lost your appeal to reason, now you appeals to the crowd’s convention. You know, dr, speaking of conspiracy theorists, were this the Soviet Union you could have imprisoned me for your personality disorder — for the whole world that disagrees with your insulated POV being your hammer’s nail.
Because political dissention is so messy. Because of noncomformity!
BECAUSE OF THE SOCIAL PAIN!
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Is there a specific dog stealing/eating law in play here? The lady dog owner (in the video) says it’s animal cruelty, a class 3 felony which will garner, according to her, a slap on the wrist.
Huh? Five years is way too light. I mean, living in a society where people aren’t looking at your dog in terms of its caloric value is really what all the rest of our success as a nation is built on. Before I went to New York this was not something people really questioned.