Still disagree Darren_Garrison. An abused spouse could say the same.
That was NOT hitting “fairly lightly”
Did you account for poor aim?
Or it could be the stick wasn’t actually heavy enough.
Who cares? If you walk into a shop, start blatantly stealing stuff, and show a knife, you’ve abrogated any expectations of nice treatment by the shopkeeper/staff. I would say it’s out of line for them to straight up murder you, but a savage beating is within the lines of reasonable.
That’s a popular supposition, but I can assure you there are a great many people who are only held in check by threats of punishment or incarceration. Or getting their ass beatdown, I suppose.
I didn’t say police, police state. My point simply being we live in a modern digital Panopticon. License plate readers, facial recognition tech, DNA matching, cameras everywhere. Technology wise, as a society we are nearly at the point of total information awareness. The crime levels are largely a matter of discretion or choice, not a matter of enforcement per se. If they want your ass, they can find you.
I’m not advocating a police state, but at this point I should be able to walk around unlit alley ways with $100 bills hanging out of my pockets at 1 AM without getting attacked. It’s a curious feature of American life, spend more money on something than the next 12 countries combined and yet be completely broken and ineffectual.
When people can’t imagine how lynching was applauded they should remember threads like these (we seem to get them about two times a year).
I don’t believe that is any sort of reasonable comparison. In the old West days for example, law enforcement was practically non-existent. Further, there was no way to lock anything up, practically speaking. Horse thieves were hanged on occasion, in part because the loss of transportation could mean death.
Or maybe you did make a reasonable comparison, though not in the way you might think. When law-enforcement or rule of law is absent, then everything is a Capital offense. This is what it looks like. Civilized people aren’t going to like it, they certainly aren’t going to applaud it, but it is to be expected as it is the historical norm. The only thing we learn from history, is that people don’t learn from history.
Oh, really?
You’re making quite the case.
Welll you don’t need to get snippy at me, maybe you can address the issue at hand instead.
What is your criticism?
So, you think that a person who gets a raise below inflation acts like they got their pay cut? I’ve done salary administration, and been on committees on it, and if anyone does this they are outliers.
I wonder how the other departments did. I bet not any better, given that San Francisco, like most cities, struggle. Are they being defunded too? How about the military?
Right wingers, stop complaining! The left is defunding big government!
Oh, they don’t? They realize that defunding is a real cut, not just a lower than inflation increase? Never mind.
It’s not.
Sometimes referred to as “Armed Historians”
Your link says 10.82% and that San Francisco has a lower rate than overall. Not sure what overall is defined as.
I disagree; but, out of curiosity, what if the shopkeeper posted a helpful notice about what treatment people can reasonably expect therein, and then let people decide for themselves whether or not to consent to such treatment?
I admit that I’m conflicted here. Do I think the clerk should have continued to beat that man? No. But then I don’t have any sympathy for the would-be thief who was beaten. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Do you include “customs” as rule of law? Because there are lots of societies without police or judiciary or laws that self-manage and are not reduced to using capital punishment for every offence.
You may remember this, back in 2016 an 18 year old in Arkansas was arrested on charges of robbery for taking a soda from a McDonald’s. The young man ordered a large water through the drive-thru, exited his vehicle, went inside and filled it with soda, and tried to leave. Employees asked the man to return the stolen property, which he refused, and when they tried standing behind is truck preventing him from leaving he backed into one of the employees (who wasn’t signifcantly harmed I believe).
There was a lot of talk at the time of how stealing something so utterly inconsequential could turn into a serious crime. The manager of the McDonald’s said that this kind of thing happens from time-to-time, someone orders a water, gets a Coke instead, and employees normally just ignore this behavior. But this time was different because the man so flagrantly stole the soda that he felt like he just couldn’t let it slide that time.
A normal shoplifter tries to surreptitiously make off with a few goods. This guy was brazenly stealing out in the open as if to say “$%@# you” to everyone around him. He was out there where else could witness what he was doing without a care in the world. The fact that he brandished a knife should outrage me more but it really doesn’t.
Since California doesn’t really even attempt to deter shoplifting anymore, there is a real possibility that the response of the store owner will be to simply close their store rather than continue to keep taking losses. If you are an employee, then the shoplifter not only steals from the store owner, but threatens your livelihood, even if indirectly.
Was the guy ever disarmed of the knife?
but this reminds me of the over-reaction when a Korean shopkeeper shot a shoplifter in the back of the head walking down the street, and got away with it in LA
And it’s certainly not within the lines of “legal”.
I have all the sympathy in the world for store owners and employees feeling furious at armed criminals wrecking and stealing their goods. But rightful fury does not justify you in committing gratuitous violence. Even the rightfully furious need to be able to control their emotional outbursts.
You are only assuming that he was blind with rage. He could have been doing it calmly, methodically, and with distinct purpose.