Hypothetical snippet of dialogue. What conclusion to draw from it?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

Poll question: Hypothetical snippet of dialogue. What conclusion to draw from it?

Me: Hey, did you see that? Somebody in Country X got 20 years in prison for jaywalking. Ain't that nuts?
Acquaintance: Well, he should have thought of the consequences before doing that. If you can't do the time don't do the crime.
Me: You're being sarcastic, of course.
Acquaintance: Nope.

That person is:

[pipi_k]

1. How about "other"?

I don't think he's a jerk and I don't think he has a "properly wholesome attitude about crime".

There are lots of things that probably should not be crimes.


But as long as they ARE crimes, and unless and until those laws are eradicated, and assuming we're dealing with someone who is aware of the fact that X is a crime and will net Z as a penalty, what's the problem?


Work to get the law changed. Don't run around violating it and then kvetch about having to pay the penalty...

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. I was going to say something

but I decided to let people come to their own conclusions instead.

[lame54]

3. How do you feel about Manning?

[pipi_k]

4. My reply...

I have to admit that I wasn't really following the case all that closely so I didn't know exactly what crimes he had been charged with. Looked it up. There seem to be 22 crimes, including:


"Manning was arrested last May after he told a former hacker that he passed thousands of classified and sensitive documents to WikiLeaks."


So he apparently knew he was passing on classified documents, and doing so would land him in trouble.

I can't say I agree with the way he's been treated while in custody. That's not right.

But if he's guilty of committing a crime, then he takes whatever the punishment is. Although I read that one of those crimes, a capital offense, won't be prosecuted that way...