at the risk of getting my head chopped off....i might as well get in my two bit
stealing at the end of the day is stealing. it shows your character and your background in life & even goes to reflect your upbringing.
somewhere either in this thread or another thread, a person had written that he would employ a felon but not a thief. even if nothing else, this sentence just goes to highlight a persons character & once a thief even if it was ingame, will resort to the same tactics in real life as well.
my opinion....this verdict was righteous & the courts should hand out more of these verdicts. the thieves (if ingame, then likely to be in real life as well) deserve to be punished. the community service sentence will probably deter them from stealing in real life once they are adults and are capable of deciphering the outcome of a jail sentence. or else right now too if they have been 'naughty' as juveniles (which i think that must have been) and this can be supported from the fact that they did resort to real life violence as well.
the only flipside to this is that....usually a person is deterred by a fear of the unknown, but once a person experiences the unknown (like going to jail etc) then he gets bolder about it (ready to face jail again), hence making the next time inevitable. but this is more true for the 'hardcore' or the 'repeater' variety of people.
anyways....'once a thief always a thief' is my opinion. exceptions will always be there and there will be a reason for that exception. else the quotes apply and nobody should get off unpunished for any kind of theft whatsoever.
a rape is a rape even if its marital and a husband cannot claim that its not rape since the woman is his wife. or child abuse is child abuse and a person cannot claim that its fine if the child is his own....similarly, stealing is stealing and a person should not be able to claim that its just virtual and not real.
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i'll avoid responding to anything that is directed at me....the above is my opinion and i would not like to get into any debates about it. feel free to use the above as a means for a healthy debate amongst yourselves without involving me in it
- hash