Gus Van Horn blog Posted April 9, 2007 Report Share Posted April 9, 2007 By Gus Van Horn from Gus Van Horn,cross-posted by MetaBlog In a society whose residents are routinely discouraged from exercising their common sense and who are becoming increasingly afraid to take any initiative for fear of being sued, is the following -- mass looting by "permission" -- really at all surprising? Someone with cruel intentions placed a fake ad on Craigslist, inviting people to take whatever they wanted for free from a Tacoma home. Homeowner Laurie Raye says there's little left now of the house. The outside of the home is trashed, the inside is nearly gutted and covered in graffiti. ... ... A phone caller alerted Raye to the destruction. She walked through her garbage strewn front yard to find her house dismantled. "Including the front door," said Raye. "This used to be a very nice vinyl window here." From the light fixtures to the hot water heater, everything is gone - including the kitchen sink. Her neighbors later reported seeing strangers hauling stuff away from her home, seemingly looking for salvage material. The "ad" was posted on Craigslist last weekend. "In the ad, it said come and take what you want. Everything is free," said Raye. "Please help yourself to anything on the property." Not to absolve the person who placed the ad, but.... What kind of mental passivity does it take to believe such an ad? What mean stature to be so ready to believe it? And what low threshold for theft or vandalism to use such an obviously lame excuse to commit a crime? In a culture transitioning from a norm of personal responsibility to a norm of parasitism, one starts to see a low cunning all over the place. This time, we saw it whenever someone read the ad and calculated that public officials would probably take their claim that they were suckered by the ad at face value, absolving them of all legal responsibility for what they did. I know this is the Pacific Northwest we're talking about, but let's hope they're wrong. -- CAV http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/002443.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Korthor Posted April 9, 2007 Report Share Posted April 9, 2007 (edited) Well, there actually was a report receiving national attention this past weekend that someone was giving away their house if anyone would pay to move it. I also see signs from people moving out offering to give away stuff all the time. I don't know if I would read this unfortunate incident as a sign of mental defects amongst the proletariat. Instead, it is a troubling reminder that the internet is not just a site for potential identity theft, but also for vandalism. Edited April 9, 2007 by Korthor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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