Doodlings from Occupy NH – Isn’t that, plainly asked, stealing?

by
Skip

Ah yes, another edition from venturing into Occupy philosophy!  One of the more hard core folks had enumerated a number of things that Occupiers should be doing and to which I have already replied (here, here, and here).  Here were a couple of more of his tactics for how to overthrow our present American society:

6. Stop paying your credit card bills. Debt makes us all slaves to the interests of the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

7. When your home is foreclosed on, refuse to leave.

Credit card debt – agree, getting oneself into debt is a rather bad thing for one’s quality of life. You hate answering the phone, you can’t buy the things you want (or that you think you need), and none of your friends understand why you aren’t going out partying with them anymore. But let me get this straight:

  1. You voluntarily agreed to the terms of the credit card company; you signed and they sent you a card.
  2. In exchange for your voluntary agreement to their terms, they agreed to pay your vendor in advance for the stuff that you have bought (be they goods or services). They did so based on your word, your integrity, and your promise to adhere to a contract which you willingly signed. They completed their part of the agreement.
  3. You went and actually purchased stuff.
  4. Again, you voluntarily promised to pay the credit card company back for the funds they put out in advance. You also voluntarily promised to pay them the cost of the use of their money (interest).

Now, bluntly put, you are actively saying that you have no problem in not paying them back? In fact, you have broken your promise and have voluntarily decided to defraud those that have spent their money on your behalf. In actuality, "they" have not spent "their" money, they have spent their shareholders’ monies. Now, you may say that they are merely just big companies, but many 99% individuals, like Granny across town, also own their shares – you are stealing from them. Are you saying that it is justifiable to do so simply to better your own financial well being?

What about the stuff you bought?


Is it still justifiably yours, even if you now have refused to pay for it? And if so, what is the intellectual and moral difference between you and the person who runs into a store, grabs something, and runs out with it (as Steve pointed out here)? Or, how is this acting differently (albeit, writ small) from the 1% that you claim is stealing from the 99%?

And if this is the action appropriate to "this system", how can we trust that you will not do this in your ideal of a "new system"? Or that if you are the architect of that new system, that anyone could trust that your new system would not be similarly rigged? I am not calling you out – but I am asking blunt questions based on your own words and intentions as in "if OK now, will it be OK when you have replaced capitalism"?

Defaulting on your mortgage is the same deal – just with a couple of extra zeros to the left of the decimal point thrown in.

Author

  • Skip

    Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

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