Bjorn Vang Jensen wrote:

> >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.

Of course you understand.  The best, brightest and most successful pretty
much always get special treatment.

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

Finished product.  The man that writes the check at the dock, in my
experience, is always of oriental appearance.

> 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.

You are correct.  You think not.  I'm on the enforcement side.  Our analysis
goes to identifying trends that guide our efforts to apprehend criminals,
not to explaiing them.  Perhaps you would announce you plans for your next
investigation to the very people you are investigating.  We think it's more
effective not to.  I'm up to my eyeballs in a group of projects at the
moment, but I believe I've got the information you're looking for on hand,
perhaps in digital format.  I think it's in a certificatoin course for, no
surprise, fraud investigators.  When I've got a couple of things under
control, I'll see if I can dig it out, but it won't be for the next few
week.

>> >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 ?

You can't have it both ways.  Either they are poor and have not done
something to ensure that they don't remain that way or they are not poor and
starving as you claimed.  You and Strike have been very clear in suggesting
my ignorance.  I accept your assessment.  You decide which it is, but you're
going to have to go one way or the other.

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

Not for long.  Like many of the laws, the consequences escalated when it
became clear that I was knowingly violating the law.  While the imposition
of penalties for violations may not be an effective deterrent in all cases,
it is pretty certain to be a more effective deterrent than establishing a
law that you do not enforce.  One teaches consequences for your own actions.
The other teaches that there are no consequences.  That, in my opinion, is
an invitation to chaos and to exactly the kind of abuses you seem to abhor
the most, priviledge to the wealthy at the expense of the little guy.

> > 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 were real quick to tell me about how you are raising your child while I
am not.  Once again, you presume what you don't know.  My previous wife had
three children which I helped raise.  The youngest had been raised with just
the approach you seem to like for the little guy.  He knew the rules, but
nobody ever cared enough to enforce them, to subject him to the concept that
there is a consequence to his actions.  He did OK while we were together,
but after the divorce, he was taken from my ex wife's house for breaking
into a home and stealing two guns, one of which was a machine pistol.  As a
minor, that got him a stay in a court appointed behavior modification
establishment, one where every action had a consequence, positive and
negative.  When released, he seemed to be on the right track, until he broke
another law.  This time, it was a speed law, on a motorcycle his mother
bought for him.  He flew more than 100 feet before he hit the ground.  He
did not survive the accident.  Jayna got the call and I got to tell his
mother her son, my former step son, was dead.  So, I'll tell you what.  Next
time you're thinking about the relationship between violations of the rules
and the consequences, think about how you'd like to have to tell your
children's mother that their child is dead because one of those consequences
caught up to him.

> "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.

I think you need to go back and read what has been written.  I'm the one
that said it took a blend to work.  I am not the one that said we need more
legislation, only that when you establish a rule and a consequence, you do
more harm by not enforcing the consequence than you do if you don't make the
rule at all.

> Because the option was open to you!

Interesting concept.  Have you been homeless?  Do you have any idea how hard
it is to overcome the fact that you have no place to keep your clothes, no
place to clean your body and no place to stay dry or to sleep with any
certainty that you won't be disturbed by somebody who would abuse you or
arrest you.  I believe you suggested I walk a while in somebody else's shoes
before judging.  I now suggest the same to you.  Poverty is a despirate
situation.  It breaks people or it makes them stronger.  It is up to the
person to decide which path to take.  There are several.  One of them is to
commit crimes, to take from others for your own support.  I chose something
else.

 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.

Can they not afford abstinance either?  Is there something that forces them
to conceive children that they can not afford to raise?

> 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.

What's the going rate for shark fins?

  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 ?

No, but it does sound like the circumstances of a few million refugees who
found a way to get out.  Who found a way to get to someplace that gave them
a better opprotunity to succeed than they had on their home island.  Perhaps
you've heard of Haiti, or the islands of the Bahamas, places originally
populated by slaves who were shipwrecked or abandoned on islands barely able
to support life.  Perhaps you've also heard that, hard as it was, they
managed to do something about it and, on the whole, seem to be doing pretty
well.

> So with no way out to bigger and better things, someone offers you a way
to
> make a little more money.

Which is exactly what happened in my case and why I mentioned the drug
trade.  Somebody made me that offer.  I chose the harder, legal way.  I can
feel for the person that has to make the choice, but when it was my turn, I
understood the potential consequences of each option and chose the harder,
legal way.  I can understand those that chose an easier path, but that does
not mean I don't know the difference between right and wrong and it
certainly does not mean that I want do gooders making the illegal path even
easier by removing the consequences for chosing it.

You were quick to scoff at the things I do for others.  Doing my job, you
say, ignoring the fact that I, having all the options you talk about, chose
that job.  You're quick to dismiss contributions as an attempt to buy
compassion and as a tax dodge, despite the fact that it's a 70% cash loss
and only a 30% tax break.  So, I ask you.  What are you doing to change
things in your own part of the world?  How does the job you chose for
yourself benefit others, improve their lot, improve their chances?  How much
of your wealth do you give up for the support of people you've never even
seen, but know are out there needing your support.  Let's hear what you're
doing instead of hearing your complaints about what the next guy, or the
next country isn't doing . . . or is your whole solution to ignore the
situation, chosing to remove the consequences of violations of society's
rules rather than making the illegal path a less attractive one while
supplementing the opportunities for the poor to find another way?

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

Yes, it is.  It has withstood the test of time.  Every religion, every
culture, every society has rules.  Throughout history, the fall of most
societies, groups and countries has been preceeded by removing the
consequences of violating those rules.  This too is as old as the hils and
is just as true today as it was in the past.  Just because I focus on one
aspect of the problem, the one I can address most directly, does not mean I
do not support others with my words, my time and my money.  While your
concern for others is admirable, without action on all fronts, it's just so
many words.  As long as there is an easy way to survival, even at the
expense of others, with no consequences, all the compassion and education in
the world isn't going to change anything.

BTW, do you happen to know that our penal system includes an educational
component?  That we, the taxpayers, spend billions of dollars every year to
ensure those that suffer the consequences of ther illegal actions have an
alternative choice when they're released back into society?

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

I dont' have to guess.  You, and everybody else who has the education and
the intelligence to see the options more clearly, get to chose.  If you
won't, or can't do it, I'm sorry, but not understanding.  "Truth, justice
and the American way" would be nothing more than a cliche if there weren't
people with money, education and courage to work to make it real and, even
with our historic focus on such concepts, there are damned few still willing
to make the effort.  I hope you're one of them in your own country.  I know
I am in mine.

> 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.

The beholder is the society that fisherman lives in, you, for example.  If a
continuation of the situation is your goal, if the status quo is what you
prefer, then by all means support the removal of all rules and consequences
for their violation.  If, however, you want to see positive change, you're
going to have to make the hard choices.  Nothing is ever achieved with
effort and sacrifice.

Lee