Lee,

>What I don't  quite understand is why anybody
>bothers to make laws that they don't intend to enforce.

What I don't quite understand is why many of those laws tend to be enforced
most vigorously on the little guy.

>The people of my country are not the ones paying such high prices for shark
>fins or tuna.

Hmm. What's the price of a piece of bluefin sashimi in the US these days ?

> Which stats, exactly, have you written ? Since most US government stats
>are
> available on the Web, I'd appreciate it if you could point me to the stats
> you wrote that indicate that pre-incarceration income distribution in the
> entire prison population is skewed towards the wealthy. If it's not on the
> web, perhaps you can just cite some examples...

> I deal with current crime and developing trends.  You
>may be sure that very little of mine are available outside of the
>enforcement community.  Not only are my stats not available on the web, the
>data upon which they are based isn't either.

And why is that ? Since when were socio-economic statistics sensitive
information ? I think not. So I'll settle for what very little of yours IS
available outside the enforcement community, then. Please enlighten me.

> >The starving are, as a whole, law abiding.  In some cases, that's why
they
> are starving.

>You can posit whatever you like.  You and I are not indicative of what the
>poor and starving will or will not do.

That's absolutely right!

>Both of us have pretty much demonstrated our willingness and ability to do
>something to ensure we did not remain poor and starving.  The poor we're
>talking about have not.

Oh ? So now they're finning sharks for a hobby, are they ?

> And neither did I, did I ? I said you broke the law that was laid down.
>You
> broke it for a reason, and you hoped you wouldn't get caught. But your
> reason for breaking it was stronger than your fear of getting caught,
> obviously. That's my point.

>The first time I got into that cookie jar, my desire to have a cookie
>(greed) was greater than my fear of being caught.  The second time I
thought
>about it, my fear was a bit stronger.  That's what happens when the
>penalties established for a crime are imposed, or at least what is supposed
>to happen.

You got it right in the last sentence. You still kept on raiding the jar.

> I'm not "planning on raising my children". Unlike you, I AM raising
> children! And I raise them to have compassion and to not see the world in
> black and white.

>You didn't answer the question.  Are you teaching them that there are rules
>by which we live and that violating them generally involves undesriable
>consequences, or are you teaching them that their wants and desires are
more
>important than the rules the rest of us live by?  I think I know the
answer.

You know, at best, half of the answer.

> By applying the ultimate gloss-over - merely legislating against them ? I
> haven't seen you address a single one of the underlying problems yet. All
> I've seen is a well-fed white man on a very high horse in a very rich
> country.

>1. I've solved the same number that you have.  Was that our goal in this
>discussion?

"Address" and "solve" are two very different things. I've never claimed to
have solved anything. I've confessed to understanding that laws in and of
themselves are useless as crime prevention, and that to make them in any way
meaningful, you must work towards educating and enriching the community at
the same time. You haven't displayed a similar understanding yet.

>2. Where did you see me suggest legislating against anything ?

So you're not ?

>3. You may see a well-fed white man now.  What's amusing is that you
presume
>that this is just the luck of the draw.  That it's not the product of
>somebody that was once poor enough to wonder where his next meal was coming
>from who got tired of living that way and did something about it . . .
>without breaking the law in the process.

Because the option was open to you! Your extreme ignorance of Asia makes it
almost impossible to debate this whole subject with you, but I'll try to
paint a quick picture of the people and circumstances in the countries we're
talking about. There ARE no options. If you are a fisherman, you are
probably born into the trade. You are virtually certain to never attend
school beyond 5th grade, because when you reach that age, you can fish. That
is if you went to school at all, which there is a low likelihood of, because
your parents can't afford the $5 (yes, five) monthly tuition, let alone
outfit you with shoes for the long walk, or for that matter writing paper.
They can't afford contraception, or their religion forbids it, so you are,
on average, one of 10-15. There is a better than average chance that HIV is
rampant in your community. Average income from fishing would be about
$400-700. Per year.  Per household. You are likely to live to be maybe 50.
You own a few pairs of shorts, a few t-shirts and maybe a pair of sandals
made from an old tire. You share your tin shack with rats, cockroaches,
snakes (who prey on the rats), fleas, lice, mosquitoes, and scabby, mangy
dogs. You will be doing this your entire life, because there is no way out.
You don't have the education. You don't have the time, because you have to
be out there day in and day out, just to keep your family alive. No aid
agency gives a shit about your plight. Neither does your government, because
you don't earn enough to be a taxpayer, let alone a bribe-payer. That is a
pretty good picture of the fishing communities in the Philippines,
Indonesia, Cambodia and southern India. Probably parts of China too. Does
that sound like your circumstances ? Didn't think so. Get down on your knees
and thank whatever god you believe in. If, that is, you still  believe in
one after reading the true picture above. I stopped after seeing enough of
it.

So with no way out to bigger and better things, someone offers you a way to
make a little more money. Maybe enough to buy another pair of shoes, one not
made from tires. Maybe enough to buy a small bottle of soy sauce to put on
your rice, which comprises 50% of all the food you ever put in your stomach.
Maybe even enough to buy a bottle of knock-off, probably expired medicine
for your little girl, who's been coughing her lungs out from the TB which
also runs rampant in the community, or shaking from the malaria that she
contracted in the mangroves you are forced to live in. All you have to do is
slice the fins off sharks. You have no education. To you, sharks are vile
animals anyway. There are few fish left in the seas you fish, for a lot of
reasons. The whole community is living off the same little patch of sea, and
your boat is only a 10' long outrigger. Dynamite and cyanide have exacted a
heavy price. Longliners have depleted the stock. But these guys offer you
money for the body parts of a disgusting pest of an animal. You won't get
rich. Others further up the supply chain will (but you don't know that), but
for your hard day's work you are at least likely to net a whole $5 - if you
catch 2 or 3 sharks today. If, against all odds, you can do that every
single day (less the days when inclement weather or sickness keep you
ashore), then you might increase your family's income to a staggering $1,500
per year.

And this you shouldn't do because someone 10,000 miles away has decided, for
reasons you can not possibly comprehend, that it is somehow bad ? Even
though, as far as you know, all the rich and influential people in your
country endorse it by eating shark fin soup with gusto ? Wakie-wakie!

That is the picture, Lee. Your own sob story, while no doubt painful and
humiliating at the time, doesn't even come close. You could have gone to a
soup kitchen to get food. You could have gotten clothes from the Salvation
Army or Blue Cross. You could have turned up at a hospital and gotten some
sort of treatment if you were sick. Your world wasn't riddled with TB and
HIV, malaria or malnutrition. You didn't have 10 children to feed. You had
an education of sorts. Your circumstances were far from ideal, but it was a
squillion squillion miles away from the daily reality of millions and
millions of people out here.

> I've seen your posts where you confessed to doing your job. Wow, well
done!
> As for contributions to charity, they leave me cold. You can't buy
> compassion and understanding. But the tax breaks are good, of course...

>Ahhh, I see.  So what have you done lately?  Contributing to others is
>paying out of compassion, not buying it.  As for the tax break, I'm sure
you
>understand better than that.  For every dollar contribute, I get a tax
break
>of about $.30.  The 70% net cost is hardly a compelling incentive.  Must be
>something else, ya think?

Who knows ? Guilt, peer pressure, religious pressure, buying absolution
maybe. To me, giving without caring means nothing. Tithe is as old as the
hills.

>Here's the bottom line.  Laws are put into place for a reason.  If they are
>unjust, then they should be eliminated or changed.

And who gets to decide that out here, do you suppose ? The rich or the poor
? Take a wild guess...

> If they are just, then
>the penalties established for violations should be enforced.  While there
>are circumstances that may drive anybody to do almost anything, violating
>just  laws is never OK

Just is in the eye of the beholder. And if the beholder is the man in my
picture above, a shark finning ban is not just by any stretch of the
imagination.

Bjorn