- McJobs and Workers -

Morality and dogmatic politics never mix

Posted by: Simon Palbera ( none, UK ) on February 13, 1997 at 19:35:19:

In Reply to: understand why rules and laws come into being posted by Ashley Lavelle on February 13, 1997 at 16:40:20:

Please can we dispense with all this Stalinist smokescreen and get back down to the real world and the facts of this case?

The protagonist of this saga 'liberated' part of his employer's property, and lost his job for doing so. I think I've established that this was justice, albeit harsh. This isn't a class issue, and to make it into one forces a lot of assumptions about the thief in question.

By calling our hero a thief, I am simply calling a spade a spade. He took something that didn't belong to him from the entity it belonged to without their consent. That's theft. Simple. Clear. No political angle. I'm sure that the Bible, the media, my nursery school teacher, and even you, in your more lucid moments, would agree with that.

This is not an issue that deserves to be dressed up in the borrowed clothes of striving for a decent society. If we ever hope to see a decent society, we are going to have to get free from some of the shackles of political dogma and start believing in our consciences and our own moral code. I won't allow myself the luxury of theft from those who have more than me by justifying it to myself that they deserve it. What tommyrot!

This is not, repeat, not an example of a glorious political act. It is petty pilfering. If you seek to found any kind of society where the 'haves' are a legitimate target for the 'have-nots', you will rapidly find it descending into a state of permanent chaos as the 'haves' and 'have-nots' will simply alternate. If that's what you want for your Utopia, I'll pass on that if I may.

Certainly, we can all sing 'Arise ye workers from your slumbers' and strive to do something about improving workers conditions, but to do it over one chicken McNugget that someone pilfered? Please believe me, there are better martyrs out there.

It is simply wrong-headed of you to blindly support a crime under the excuse of a political act. I will support the workers over the ruling class where it is justified. We are not looking at any kind of despotic atrocity here, simply someone stealing a piece of chicken for a friend. No mention of starvation, oppression, or any mitigating circumstances. It was theft, is theft, and shall be theft.


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