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[–] 141 points 1 year ago (50 children)

When US Americans get painted this way, it feels like a "Humans- Fuck Yeah" story. Like I'm just so used to us having our downsides highlighted that it feels special to be seen for a positive attribute

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  • [–] 121 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    It's a bit like learning that Russian cargo ships don't get boarded by pirates because they'll just start fucking shooting.

    Say what you want about Russians, but that kind of rules.

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  • [–] 70 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Russians are the scariest white people.

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  • [–] 65 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    I feel like these stories provide second-hand catharsis, but I don't know if it's necessarily a positive light.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Yeah seems like committing a violent crime in response to a petty crime to me.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago

    Humans work off of incentives and risk. If there's essentially no consequences for pickpocketting and the incentive is quite high with expensive phones and cash potential, the balance is way out of proportion. A good chance of getting your shit rocked brings it a bit more in line.

    The possibility of getting shot or stabbed is way out of proportion the other way. That's the problem with America. You can't even give someone the bird when they nearly crash into you without fear of getting shot.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago

    I don't agree with characterizing being robbed from as not a big deal, especially when it's as physically intimate as pickpocketing.

    Maybe it's no big deal to lose a bit of money if you're rich, but I would be truly fucked to lose my phone or wallet, and more than inconvenienced to lose money or objects which would need to be replaced with money.

    But more than that is the sense of violation. What gives someone the right to come into my home or put hands on my body and take my personal things? It's dehumanizing. It feels disgusting to be treated that way. Of course I'm going to defend myself.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago* (35 children)

    I interpreted it as a negative, like "Americans are violent," heh.

    Is it?

    I sympathize with the complex though.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    There's a significant percentage of Americans that wouldn't take that as a negative. As in, aren't just violent, but are proud of being violent and consider it to be a positive quality. Not all of us, but a fair few. Hence you get things like some gun people fantasizing about having someone break in to their house so that they have a justification to shoot someone and feel righteous about it.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (33 children)

    We have a hyper sense of justice instilled in us from a young age. It's like the basis of our country (or so we're taught).

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  • [–] 66 points 1 year ago (32 children)

    I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.

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  • [+] 21 points 1 year ago (31 children)
  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I get it, but it has to be obvious how quickly this logic can spiral, though.

    If I come around a corner and find you putting the boots to someone begging you to stop, you're getting smoked by the biggest thing I can find. I don't know the context. Violence to stop violence is measured.

    Being wronged isn't a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Being wronged isn't a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.

    am i supposed to ask the robber nicely to give me my stuff back?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I mean, it's a reasonable place to start at the very least?

    We're talking about pickpockets, right?

    Someone tried to pickpocket me in Europe on the train. I blocked the door and, despite having no common language, I left them know I was aware they had taken my stuff. I'm pretty sure they understood it was my intention to get it back and that was going to be a hassle for everyone.

    They just handed it back and left.

    Should I have just started swinging?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (16 children)

    So committing a crime yourself, assault (and/or assault with a deadly weapon), in response to the first crime, pickpocketing, is suddenly totes okay then? I don't get it. Seems like retributive extrajudicial punishment to me. Just because it's a real thing that happened and not just perceived doesn't suddenly absolve you of committing violent crime in return. If you hospitalize the pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp, you've given them far more severe and retributive punishment than just taking their wallet in return.

    I mean, who knew, maybe this is why we have laws and shit.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    It's not a crime. You can use force to reclaim stolen property. Legally, it gets 'interesting' when you involve a weapon in your use of force, because some areas allow the threat of deadly force far before it can actually be used and you're probably going to expose yourself to legal avenues if the police don't like you when they show up. But simply kicking someone's ass after they stole from you? Perfectly permissible.

    If you want to talk about the morality of it, that's a different conversation.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    If I beat the shit out of a pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp too bad so sad, they have a permanent reminder of the principle of fuck around find out or FAFO. I was minding my own business right until they decided to make themselves my business.

    Legality is stupid and does factor into 99% of my actions so I will disregard it as a decision making factor.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

    Lmao you're unhinged dude. Get a grip and maybe realize the shit in your wallet isn't more valuable than a human life.

    Especially considering its probably all credit and debit cards that you can cancel almost immediately and get any money spent by a thief returned to your accounts. But yeah, someone deserves a lifelong limp because they inconvenienced you. Get the fuck outta here lmao.

    You might not support someone like Trump politically but you're no better than those who voted for him. These attitudes are 100% why US society is deeply fucked, the politics are just a symptom of this violent brainrot.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    But is more valuable to me, I barely give an iota of a fuck for my own existence why would I give a damn about some shit heel who introduced themselves to me by trying to take my shit. Much like my height life is short and cheap.

    Also I could keep only peanut butter in my wallet, doesn't mean a pick pocket wouldn't deserve at minimum a swift kick to the gut for trying to take it. Minding ones business takes literally no energy, making sure others mind theirs takes a bit more, going out of your way to get in other folks business takes a shit tonne more.

    And finally the various cultures and nations within the US are broadly based on the principles of minding ones own business. How far that extends varies but it makes sense given how many folks left Europe because other people couldn't mind their own business. Trump and his supporters are all some type of supremacists be them financial, religious, or racial which is what makes them dangerous not the broad violent tendencies that is present across the US. I can assure you if I murdered a handful of their leaders say every NIFB cocksucker society would greatly improve, for context the NIFB or New Independent Fundementalist Baptists are a bunch christonazis.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Says the person who comes across as a moral absolutist. Do you want a cookie profligate?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (7 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (6 children)

    They're filled with forever chemicals and asbestos. Unironically how a small but old treat company near me got shut down, good riddance tasted like plaster the one time I had one of their so called treats.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (5 children)

    Lmao, what are you even trying to say here, dude? Get a grip. Calm down. So fuckin angry at the idea that someone questions your violent tendencies. Gee, I wonder if that anger is proof in itself of your violent tendencies.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Dude I have autism and PTSD, I am nothing but rage. But it's not necessarily a matter of getting angry at you questioning it per se but more so what I perceive as moral absolutism against violence. I generally take the position against pacifism on an individual level, mostly because 9/10 Americans are all bark no bite which is rather bad with the whole rise of fascism thing. The most expedited method to stopping fascists is to start the killing of them as soon as possible which was about 50 years ago with the foundation of the "moral majority".

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    This erroneously assumes new fascists aren't being born every day. It also erroneously assumes that the threat of retribution deters things like fascism, or crime in general. It's a weird sort of eugenics where "if we just kill all the fascists there won't be anymore ever."

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    The point isn't to kill them all it's to kill their leaders and make examples of them. Do you really think many folks would've wanted to cheerfully read off aids death lists back in the 80s if Rush Limbaugh had been vaporized by a car bomb?

    Fascists are inherently cowards who back down when an example is made of their louder fellows, there's a reason they mostly do actions in groups and it's because they know they'll get their shit kicked in otherwise. The problem is that this shit kicking is not extended to the leaders, for the sake of so called civility.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-does-not-support-the-use-of-the-death-penalty/

    I dunno man plenty of science shows that being put to death does basically fuck-all to prevent other people from committing the same kind of crimes. You can hide behind the hope that they're cowards all you want, but that's still leaning on assumptions.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    You realise beating up a pickpocket is itself a stupid game that will get you in jail, right?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    If the idea is that I can't defend my own property then I understand why pickpocketing is so rampant elsewhere.

    I don't want to kill anybody, but I'm not gonna just hand it over with a smile on my face.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    I didn't say I want to assault anybody. But if someone tries to take my wallet, would I push them off and move away swiftly? Yes absolutely.

    I guess to me, that seems rather defensive. I don't want to engage any more than I have to to extricate myself from the situation

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Spraying someone with pepper spray is a violent assault. It's banned in a number of counties due to the possibility of permanent injury or even death, and the risk to bystanders.

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  • [+] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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  • [+] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)
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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I think that's a positive. Americans, in the absence of law enforcement, will fight to defend themselves and their property (and vicariously, the property of others).

    Stopping thievery, is, unto itself, a just cause.

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