Pen Pen's Evangelion
A Pen Pen for your Thoughts
This section will just be for, basically random thoughts and feelings. Since my thought process is mostly random you can probably expect this to be updated frequently. Back to Previous Pennys. Back to Pen Penny.
Legal Thieves
Venezuela is considering decriminalizing the theft of food and medicine when the thief is motivated by extreme cases of hunger or need. This “famine theft” clause is part of a broad penal code reform the country is performing for humanitarian concerns. Critics say it will fuel crime in the country that already has thousands of robberies each month. However, technically since it’d no longer be a crime, it wouldn’t be fueling any crime. By making it legal, it’d actually be reducing the amount of “crimes” that are committed. With two thirds of Venezuela’s 25 million in poverty and one third of that without the ability to get basic food needs, there’s not going to be a lot of crime if it’s passed.
The proposal says that those show steal food, medicine, or inexpensive goods without using violence to ease hunger through prolonged and extreme poverty would not be punished. Critics say this will just be a license to rob. Supporters of the clause argue that it is not merely a license to rob because it will only apply to nonviolent crimes. Of course, then it’d be a license to rob nonviolently, and that’d basically be a license to rob, except you wouldn’t really be “licensing” it, so it’d probably be more like a decree or announcement to rob rather than a license.
Of course, both sides seem to be ignoring the biggest problem that arises from such a clause. That is, the terms aren’t tangible. What if I have some strange desire to eat diamonds? Or gold? I may be poor and haven’t had any precious stones to eat in quite some time, so I can steal them nonviolently if I want to. What exactly would be qualified as an “inexpensive good” that you can steal under the clause? Is it based on the view of a rich person? So, that golden watch is inexpensive to the richest man in the world and therefore I’m exempt from punishment if I steal it. What if I claim to need a medicine only to sell it later?
Let’s not forget the people trying to survive on by running a small store of food stuffs. So the law only applies to those who steal successfully? That’s kind of strange, so you’re educating the poor to steal better and better and they’ll get rewards from it? Oh, there’s no way that could go wrong. What if I got together a bunch of poor people and we stole something very valuable, but if you divide it among the people, and each person’s pay off would technically be “inexpensive” would I go to jail? If the store owners become poor because they’re stuff is stolen can they steal back, or will there be a “no steal-backs” clause as well? I think this sort of law opens wonderful new possibilities for the people of Venezuela. - 1/25/04
Home