Do You Mind If I Steal That?

More stuff in life would be free if we could get over our pesky morality. Legalizing all non-violent theft would mean big savings at the prison end of our mutant utopia. “Involuntary Sharing” would be a nice name for it. The initial free-for-all would sort itself out over time.

Maybe not, but everybody already steals, as long as they can justify it. Not just grocery grapes and workplace paperclips, either.

Politicians and Corporations lovingly share we the people’s money with each other. This is not new, just less hidden thanks to the Interzone. “Less government regulation” means more to share. (People forget why regulations were originally written.) Steal $30 with a gun: go to prison. Steal $3 million with convoluted paperwork and a lawyer: get elected to Congress.

Cheating on taxes? Nice idea, but how are the States gonna be World Police and World Banker unless everyone pitches in? Pony up, cowboy. Maybe a little extra for Gramma’s overpriced medicines, food stamps for your too-dumb cousin, and gasping Auntie’s ‘disability’ after 50 years of smoking. The stuff that actually matters.

Now, if you get ‘food stamps,’ and you’re not entitled, that’s stealing too. But if you buy food, eat it, and give away the extra, then go ahead, what the heck. You’d have to steal a snackillion food stamps to equal one shiny new Hi-Tech Christian bomb. The food stamps you ‘steal’ may benefit neighbors, friends, poor folks, and grocery stores. Bombs are a bad deal, pound for pound, no matter who eats them.

The young and bulletproof “share” movies, games, and music. Their logic is that they are taking things they would never buy, and that most of it is crap. No argument there. In Cheap’s youth, he bought “recordings,” and taped copies for friends. Despite their whining, the industry survived, unfortunately. Bootleg liquor will never kill industrial booze, either, nor is it stealing. Blatantly socialist “public libraries” did not kill the book industry.

All banks become thieves the minute they accept we the people’s money. They celebrate “free enterprise” when the money’s piling up, then “bail out” socialism when it vanishes. The government bank that ‘prints’ money is stealing when they crank up the presses. The more they ‘print’ the less it’s worth. If the geniuses in charge manufacture 20 pootillion rubber duckies, we’ll be burying them in landfills.

Our beloved Military steals unashamedly. Year in year out, well-documented investigations show billions “unaccounted for.” Pocketed by some deserving patriot no doubt. No worries, it’s all for the righteous cause of spreading death, er, democracy.

If a person, corporation, or government has so much of a thing that they don’t miss it when it’s gone, is that still stealing? Probably, but there it goes.

In his energetic youth, Cheap Dude labored for a firewood cutter as his second or third job. Sometimes his task as they drove out of the woods was to sit with pen and permit in hand, to make it legal if the men in green began following. The cutter thus got many cords of wood from a five cord permit. Yes the guys were stealing wood, from we the owners of the National Forest. Which made Cheap an accomplice. Less than ‘minimum wage’, unreported, ‘black market’ income!

To them it was not stealing, it was hard work for a few bucks to help keep their broods fed and themselves beered. Neither was on food stamps, too cocky to submit to demeaning paperwork and interviews. ‘Black market’ work far more manly. The real economy.

Last year, roughly $10 billion was spent by companies on “loss prevention.” About $2 billion was actually “lost” anyway. Clearly it would be more cost effective to just let folks steal!

A proposal: When a person becomes unemployed, penniless, homeless, ill, and starved, he or she should be issued a Stealing License. When bogus store ‘security’ hassles them at the door, they flash the license. “Oh, sorry, have a nice day, come again.”

It’s implied anyhow: when families are starving, and providers honestly unable to find any paying work at any wage, food will be obtained by any means possible. Opulently ‘stocked markets’ are food money in the bank for everyone.

If Biff Crapton, king of the Crapmart dynasty, has a billion dollars, he could give away $990 million and still keep $10 million. Cough up the bucks, you greedy bugger! You can only drive one car and live in one house at a time. And if someone starving steals from you, remember where you got that money to begin with. Pat ‘em on the back, and wish ‘em good luck.