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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (30095)	2/5/1999 1:05:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 108807

I did not say that I thought that stealing property was worse than killing people. But, in my observation, people who steal property for a living are worse people than people who killed someone in a drunken rage. A person who has decided to steal for a living is completely antisocial, but is intelligent enough to keep his activity confined to areas where he can operate unobserved and undisturbed, most of the time. As Lather says, most of us have given in to temptation at one time or another, so we are reluctant to be judgmental of the petty thief. But the petty thief is not so petty. I once represented a burglar, he never committed violent acts, but he broke into at least one house a week, and stole thousands of dollars worth of property, which he fenced for hundreds. His accomplice was his girlfriend, who was a maid for a maid service. She had no criminal record, and so she was bonded. (Able to get an insurance bond). Once I learned that, I realized I could never hire a stranger to work in my home. He was a very bad man. One of his victims claimed that he stole many items which my client swore he never saw, and his insurance company reimbursed him. I don't know whether my client was lying, he had motivation to lie because the court ordered my client to reimburse the insurance company. However, I know for a fact that people who I had thought were my friends, two different people, one a lawyer, one an insurance salesman, submitted fraudulent, padded insurance claims in similar situations, laughing at their own cleverness. I think they were very bad men, too. I never represented a murderer, you need special training to do so, but I represented people charged with malicious wounding, and it was always the result of a drunken, mutual fight. These were weak, bad people, but not as bad as the others I just described. In my opinion. Ted Bundy is not the norm for violent criminals. Most violent crime is committed in a fit of passion. Almost all property crimes are committed coolly, rationally, even, by people who will strike again and again and again. Each individual property crime is less morally wrong than any individual violent crime, it is the aggregate that makes the individual more heinous, in my opinion. I think the worst crime is sexual abuse of children.