Ashley, you're obviously well-educated and well-versed in the particular brand of politics that you're trying to peddle here, but your demagogic ravings are flawed. You should sit in a dark room for a bit with a damp towel over your head before you reply next time round.Admittedly, you have never said that the theft of the McNugget was a political act. I will happily concede that. My difficulty is that you have in earlier postings said that '...all forms of crime by the poor against the rich should be supported' (3/2/97), and you nobly stood by that statement in a subsequent posting. Add your comment about crime that it is a 'sad fact' that 'so little of it is directed against the rich and powerful'. Later you say that 'the employee in question should be supported' (6/2/97). Now, it's not too much of a quantum leap to infer from those statements that you are peddling politics - your own blend of Socialist wierdness and 'bitch the rich'. Again, I could be wrong, you may not have perceived your writings as such, but I do.
As for my opinions on the law of theft - what have they got do do with it? Laws against theft tend to support everyone - 'the rich man in his castle, the beggar at his gate' - and protect everyone against 'intra-class' and 'inter-class' crime. Certainly they allow the rich to keep their riches, but they also protect the 'have-nots' against those who would have them have less. As for the origins, well, the commandment 'Thou shalt not steal' (Exodus 20:15) was written by a better hand than mine an awfully long time ago, and that seems to serve for me. Of course, Trotsky may have had a better idea. I'm sure you'll keep me informed on that. As an example of early laws, the ten commandments served as a set of rules to help keep a desert community together enough to bloody the nose of the Romans several times, so there must be something in them. Koranic law, although much later on in the game, even allows protection for the starving man stealing when he has nothing - assuming it is interpreted properly. And yes, my nursery school teacher told me that stealing was wrong too.
You do seem to insist that you are not holding up this act of pilferage as a political act, but on re-reading your postings (an unalloyed joy, if I may be so bold) there is a certain political taint about your opinions of this act. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then surely people can be forgiven for thinking it's a duck. In the words of Malcolm X, 'You can't deny it! You may not like me saying it, but you can't deny it!' You are politicising the actions of a petty thief, no matter what 'class war' veils you draw around your words.
In closing, the 'Stalinist jibe' was actually a 'goad'. Pretty effective too, if I may say so.
