Priest Tells Poor To Shoplift 86
Father Tim Jones has said to hell with the 8th commandment and advised the poor in his church to shoplift if they can't afford to feed their families. He said, "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither. I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses but from large, national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices. I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need.I offer the advice with a heavy heart and wish society would recognize that bureaucratic ineptitude and systematic delay has created an invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope." Of course, church leaders, business owners, and the police strongly disagree with the father's moral relativism.
huh? (Score:3, Informative)
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Most churches do quite a bit to help the poor, whether or not they are constituents of the church. The problem lies in the fact that churches are quickly fading (esp. in the developed world) so their donations are dwindling, while, at the same time, the number of poor is increasing. Even if the church is supporting them, generally it's to the tune of a couple meals a week, generally, not enough to raise a family.
There are other mechanisms in place to help the poor, but, due to the abuse of some, it can be d
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You imply that church charity is abused.
In fact most charity organizations abuse and mislead donors. This include churches.
Very little money donate because of mother Teresa went to the poor. Mostly it went to support nuns.
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I meant that the "other mechanisms" were abused, namely the government. I know way too many people who were welfare lifers before welfare reform went through. Then there are people who claim unemployment even though they don't need it, who quit their jobs but find a loophole to receive unemployment, and, my personal favorite: those who sell foodstamps for booze and cigarettes.
I'm not disagreeing with you on your point, it is valid; I just wanted to clarify mine.
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And the nuns did what with it? Bought recliners and PS3s?
Or did it maybe feed and keep the missions running where the nuns were? The nuns who were, you know, helping the poor?
Money that supported the nuns indirectly supports the missions they're on. It's not like the administrative costs that eat 85% of your donation to the Red Cross.
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You imply that church charity is abused.
You imply that it isn't. They all are, from time to time.
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Churches do as much as they can... However it isn't enough overall. A wealthy church normally brings in about $6,000 a week/ roughly about $300,000 a year.
About $100,000 a year goes to paying the mortgage on the church and the priest home (which they share with an other priest) and the office.
Roughly about $5,000 goes to utilities.
About $45,000 goes to underpaid staff.
That brings us to $150,000
The priests salary for 2 $50,000
Maintenance and upkeep $50,000
That leaves about $50,000 for charitable works. So
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Really? If they go to church...Shouldn't their church be supporting/helping them?
No, a person should be doing their own shoplifting, not relying on a church or others to do it for them. Aide-toi. Le Ciel t'aidera.
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If "x is wrong, but isn't as wrong as y" doesn't qualify as moral relativism, I'm not sure what would, precisely.
Still, overall, stealing food for your family is wrong, but I agree that it is not as wrong as letting them starve.
But, of course, Father Jones might want to consider taking his example from Bishop Myriel, if he's going to tell his flock to take their example from Jean Valjean.
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If "x is wrong, but isn't as wrong as y" doesn't qualify as moral relativism, I'm not sure what would, precisely.
I don't think that term means what you think it means. It's not saying that, morally speaking, X is "relatively" worse than Y. It's more along the lines of saying that there isn't an absolute morality. For instance, Person A might disagree with Person B as to whether action X is moral or not: it's not Person A's "relative" judgment about X vs. Y. There's a Wikipedia entry on Moral Relativism [wikipedia.org].
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Nope, its not relativism (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly, one may or may not agree, but it is not relativism.
It is clearly a hierarchy. And duh... Feeding your children is more important than not stealing.
Relativism would be the implication that the hierarchy itself was relative. Relativism would be something like: We believe random acts of murder are worse than random acts of theft in America, but in XXX things are different.
Relativism removes any universal ethical thinking and leave us only with historical/cultural morals.
I'd hope all of the obvious t
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Saying "X is always wrong." is a trivial example of moral absolutism. However, saying "X is wrong unless condition Y holds." is precisely as absolute as the first example. There is absolutely nothing about moral absolutism that requires the absolute ethical rules to be of low complexity. Nor is there anything forbidding absolutist ethics from acknowledging competing interests(so long as there is an absolute rule about how to choos
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If you followed the New Testament, the stealing is wrong, but you're forgiven for it. However, I can't agree with this guy. Maybe it's different in his city, but in mine we have bread lines who will feed anyone who shows up; I know one woman who isn't poor but goes to the bread line because she likes the food. And there are several charity food pantries that will keep a family fed easily.
Plus, there are "food stamps" (now called "LINK") and WIC. The problem with America's poor isn't lack of food, it's lack
Food for drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
The only people I know who go hungry are those who trade their food for drugs.
What should people with chronic medical conditions do so that they don't have to choose between food and the medication that keeps them alive?
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I wasn't talking about medical use of drugs, I was talking about people who sell their food stamps to get high. I've met folks like these, have yet to meet anyone who goes hungry because of the cost of medicine.
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especially when most medication is purchaseable for between $8 and $12 dollars for a 30 day supply from evil companies like Walmart.
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especially when most medication is purchaseable for between $8 and $12 dollars for a 30 day supply from evil companies like Walmart.
Unless the drug has been out for less than 13 years. A patent lasts 20 years, of which roughly the first seven are spent gaining approval from a national drug regulator.
I'm in! Let's go rob the church! (Score:2)
After all, it's not like they even earned it. And if they say stealing is okay, why not let them live by the consequences?
While we're at it, why not kidnap this priest and see what sort of money you can get for him on eBay.
Seriously, someone should take this moron aside and tell him two wrongs don't make a right.
the human heart (Score:1)
the problem with comunism is that if you trust everybody to take just what they need, you will be eaten alive. Nature gives the same opportunities to all species, and we as humans have a choice to take what we need, or to take what we can. So now we proudly wear our mp3 players, cellphones and so on, claiming we need them.
I believe the priest is right, but naive. What we need is real education so that people to stop being selfish idiots, not to make it ok for the poor to steal from the rich.
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Spend some time in communist Cyprus, where the janitor make the same amount as the hospital administrator. But past his first sentence, the 15 year old is missing the point.
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ALl those items you listed hungry people could care less about.. Does your grocery store sell iPods, and DVDs? (Im specifically count walmart as NOT a grocery store, they have some nasty produce.. ugg, but i digress) lots of grocery stores, also lock up Cigarettes, and razor blades and booze at the customer service counter. and who steals batteries, you cant eat them, you cant pawn them, and they arnt that expensive..
Personal items like wallets an
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so they can get out of the cold at night. Where I live, there is lots of heated, unused space, and yet people are freezing outside. WTF?
Spend a little time as a property owner that's tired of bums pissing in the corners in your property you're going to try to show the next morning, or what happens more often, they light fires inside anyway despite of the heat, and burn the place down.
Ya, these types need to be locked out. You can't just blanket-trust every man on the street not to trash your place if you l
I don't believe you (Score:2)
Spend a little time as a property owner that's tired of bums pissing in the corners in your property you're going to try to show the next morning, or what happens more often, they light fires inside anyway despite of the heat, and burn the place down.
Really? THAT'S what happens more often? So you're telling us that not only have bums burned down your buildings, but they do it SO OFTEN that you can tell us it's the more common result?
Forgive me if I call you a FUCKING LIAR. I propose that no building you own has been burned down. Instead, you are a property owner who uses the FEAR of a bum burning down your buildings to justify the draconian property security that you favor.
I think I'll tell my parishoners to go piss on your property. On the b
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When I worked at a family business downtown, I had to deal with the homeless urinating in any spot that they thought shielded them from view of the street. This is despite there being a maintained public restroom in the park ACROSS THE STREET.
Three nearby buildings were destroyed by fire started by transients building a fire in a trashcan within the building. The buildings were vacant, but their destruction also resulted in heavy damage to the neighboring buildings. All three buildings were historical land
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Homeless and injectables or smokeables don't mix. The only time I met ex girlfriend's mother, she was begging on a corner sitting on streams of her own urine. When I told her that "a lovely young woman who reminded me of you wanted you to have this cheeseburger and food vouchers" she looked at me, nodded and then turned and started asking the cars for money.
Keep the hard drugs away from the homeless - like that's possible.
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This is despite there being a maintained public restroom in the park ACROSS THE STREET.
In Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, city park restrooms are closed half the year because if the city were to keep the water turned on, the pipes would freeze whenever the temperature drops below 0 deg C (32 deg F).
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Forgive me if I call you a FUCKING LIAR
Where do you live? Spend just a little time anywhere near the homeless and you will see that what the praent poster said is absolutely true.
And, no, I am not a landlord. I live in NYC and see what the homeless do. And it isn't a small minority. The small minoirty are those that have simply found themselves down on their luck and need a little help.
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It doesn't happen most often, but it does happen.
Trashing the place they break into always happens.
Of course most homeless have no self respect, and as such have no respect for others.
Please don't toss the recently unemployeed father homeless tail at me, they do not make up the majority of homeless.
Most are either lazy or have a mental issue. I coud argue tat lazy is a mental issue. They need help, but they also need to respect other peoples property.
We sued to do a much better job with the homeless, but th
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So what you're saying is that if we had universal healthcare, these people would be patients rather than randomly pissing all over everything and damaging property? And that then the few who really were down on their luck would be less likely to die in the streets?
Sounds good!
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Then the healthcare is "nearly universal". Someone who has a check waiting for them so they can live somewhere and buy food, but chooses to live in the street and beg for enough to get a burger (or beer) CERTAINLY has a mental health problem that leaves them incapable of living on their own.
That is, they have a mental illness/imparement that results in a disability. If that is not being addressed in at least a group home/assisted living facility, then the care and welfare are not universal except in name.
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Really? THAT'S what happens more often? So you're telling us that not only have bums burned down your buildings, but they do it SO OFTEN that you can tell us it's the more common result?
Yeah, we've got 4 garages behind the apartments I live at. They're expensive street rat traps. If we don't keep them locked up, poor people start living in them; within 2-3 months, they manage to burn it down. In all but one case, the door has buckled from the fire immediately (flimsy aluminum on a sticky track anyway) and they got trapped inside, and died.
Leaving unused space unattended to attract the homeless is actually a pretty effective way to exterminate the homeless, especially when they start
Da Bible sez... (Score:1)
I think he's trying to echo the truism (read: not a command) found in Proverbs 6:30-31:
Men do not despise a thief if he steals
To satisfy himself when he is hungry;
But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold;
He must give all the substance of his house.
As someone who embraces liberty religiously (by being a Christian) as well as politically (by leaning hard toward Libertarianism) and philosophically (by being both), I don't condemn the necessities thief either, although in my experience people steal alc
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It does bring an interesting idea though. Perhaps the parents should instruct the kids to find a cop and kick his shins until he takes them in. Repeat as necessary. Mom and dad can do the same. Perhaps eventually when the stats on jailhouse families come out America will be shamed into building a decent social safety net.
Or, they could do what the longer term poor do. Form gangs, deal drugs, pimping and prostitution, etc. Much of the problems with these things si a direct result of our lack of a safety net.
Father Tim Jones of England (Score:2)
England, home of Jonathan Swift, who also had a modest proposal...
Sometimes orators makes shocking or controversial statements to make a point.
From TFA:
"In his sermon Sunday Jones ... added that his advocacy of shoplifting was a 'grim indictment' of society and a plea for help for the most vulnerable."
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Agreed, although Jonathan Swift was Irish. I'm American, so close enough as far as I am concerned.
Yes, he was Irish. (Score:2)
My bad, and my apologies to the Land of Erin. Swift was indeed Irish.
My point is that if this priest had gotten up on Sunday and said,"We should be better to the poor," I doubt even the parishioners would have noticed. But since he said, "You know what? Frack 'em, go take what you need from the greedy buggers and the Lord will let it slide..." and suddenly we're talking about it half a world away...
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My point is that if this priest had gotten up on Sunday and said,"We should be better to the poor," I doubt even the parishioners would have noticed. But since he said, "You know what? Frack 'em, go take what you need from the greedy buggers and the Lord will let it slide..." and suddenly we're talking about it half a world away...
Ah, for want of a mod point. +1 Insightful.
stealing of that kind legal in some countries (Score:2)
Germany used to have a paragraph in it's laws ("Mundraub") specifically indemnifying under certain circumstances people who steal for the purpose of immediately preventing starvation.
In the context of a modern social system where novdoy has to starve any more this paragraph was scrapped. For countries with a backwards or otherwise lacking social system it would make perfect sense. I think there is a human duty to help those at immediate risk of death as long as it doesn't put the helper or his family at sim
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The reason I disagree... (Score:2)
The reason I disagree with the priest condoning shoplifting is that it cements a stereotype that the poor can't be trusted.
I know this story is based in York, but here in the US, the poor couldn't even follow his advice. The problem stems from corporate food chains normally do not locate their stores within urban areas ( I know they don't where I live ). If it weren't for "mom-n-pop" grocery stores, the residents would have to travel to the suburbs to get groceries.
Community leaders are trying to entice n
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When I was poor I stole to survive. I went on to get good work and make decent money. I will be the first to say I couldn't be trusted if you left your food delivery truck unlocked at a grocery store.
So of course they can't be trusted.
However I would say the any community where a hungry family is reduced to stealing or starving is already broken.
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If you're going to play the get a job card, you need to be prepared to offer those jobs. To do it properly, they shouldn't be of the minimum wage that won't pay the rent anyway for working harder than the manager ever does variety. Unemployment is rising, not falling.
Let's stop firehosing the Rich with Free Money (Score:3, Interesting)
If the Government can be the "Lender of Last Resort" for the Wealthy,
If we can pony up seven to eight hundred BILLION dollars because the banks got greedy,
If we can bail out any Fortune 500 company with it's hand out,
If we can provide every form of corporate welfare imaginable to shield the Rich from the harsh realities of the market,
Then why can't the Government be the Employer of Last Resort? We've got infrastructure falling around our ears, we've got social problems galore, why not simply take every unem
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If we can pony up seven to eight hundred BILLION dollars because the banks got greedy, ...
Then why can't the Government be the Employer of Last Resort? We've got infrastructure falling around our ears, we've got social problems galore, why not simply take every unemployed person in America and put them to work fixing problems far too long neglected?
And yeah, let's put tax rates back to where they were in 1950 to pay for it, and ask any who complain why they hate America?
700,000,000,000 *1
/ 100,000 *2
/ 452,000 *3
gives,
15 *4
15 years of a $100,000 job would really turn things around for this country. It would allow them (including myself) to probably buy that house instead of renting that they have been wanting to. But right now, they are out of work. They could also buy the car that they need. (Even a green efficient one!) We wouldn't need to raise taxes either; anyone who tells you so is either a liar, or under a delus
Oh, I like this plan. (Score:2)
Just off the top of my head...
Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing bridges.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people on standby for the next inevitable Natural Disaster.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people building public access broadband.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people fixing schools.
Four hundred fifty two thousand people beefing up Police Departments so that cops on the street don't have to panic and overreact to every incident like they're the last man in the zombie apocalypse.
Four hundred
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452,000 is "new claims" not the total number of unemployed in the US.
America has unemployment over 10%, that amounts to 5+ million people receiving benefits and several million who didn't qualify or whose benefits have run out.
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Yup. I'm not sure I'm a big fan of make-work, but if I wanted an economic stimulus I'd rather see the money going into roads, bridges, trains, airports, buildings, etc, than in payments to megacorps.
That megacorp probably tires to outsource overseas any chance it gets, and it avoids paying taxes any time it can do so.
The infrastructure makes it a lot cheaper to do business INSIDE the US, and it benefits lots of small business who only hire locally and who generally can't afford massive tax shelters.
Nothing
Oh, God, no. I don't mean make-work. (Score:2)
I mean the work that's way, way past overdue. I mean the "Let's fix the bridges and levies the civil engineers have been screaming about" work. I mean the "let's bring electricity to rural America" work. I mean the "Let's build an interstate highway system" work.
Have you seen public schools in America? There are two elementary schoold within a ten-minute drive of my place. Both of them have leaks in their roof. They actually had to cancel classes twice this week when the main line to the school flooded the
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That is a dreadful state of affairs. If the legislators want to make sure none of them ever kick drugs or in any way ever stop causing problems for society, then they're doing a fine job of it.
If they really want people to clean up, they should offer X amount in aid and add Y amount more on passing a drug test. Meanwhile offer treatment programs and harm reduction.
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Meat is not a luxury. If I don't eat meat for 3 days I lose my ability to heal, to the point that cuts just start forming and opening on my skin. After a week my immune system fails, I start getting sick all the time. Vegetables make me sick in quantity; the rough fiber on the outside of broccoli and apples seems to lay on my stomach, beans on the other hand seem more easily digestible but will also make me sick after a large enough intake.
I feel horrible if I'm not eating meat. I'm sensitive enough t
He deserves to be beaten (Score:2)
What about "though shalt not steal" does he not understand?
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What about "though shalt not steal" does he not understand?
Deserves to be beaten?! What part of “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” do YOU not understand?
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Probably the part that was mistranslated in the king james bible.
Of course? (Score:1)
Of course, church leaders, business owners, and the police strongly disagree with the father's moral relativism.
Why "of course"? Church leaders, and even business owners and governments all encourage rampant over-breeding among the lower classes, along with a healthy dose of ignorance and reliance upon so-called moral "authorities" like this priest.
More poor people means more churchgoers, more recipients of government "services", and more "consumers". The negative externalities of overpopulation, crime, unemployment and needless warfare are passed on to the rest of society.
In modern civilization, when shocking numb
Food is literally cheaper than dirt in the US (Score:1)
You can get a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs at Walmart for $2.50. A typical beggar could earn that in less than an hour of begging in front of the store. Here in the US, we have subsidized farms, put entire villages out of business, and monopolized entire agricultural sectors so that food can be extremely cheap. Even the poorest of the poor can afford a meal if they are willing to work or beg a little.
Furthermore, anything small enough to shop-lift is most likely not going to be nutritious.