Every time I work myself up into a fine anti-elitist rage, I am confronted by something like this:
The ads popped up Saturday afternoon, saying the owner of a Jacksonville home was forced to leave the area suddenly and his belongings, including a horse, were free for the taking, said Jackson County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Colin Fagan.But Robert Salisbury had no plans to leave. The independent contractor was at Emigrant Lake when he got a call from a woman who had stopped by his house to claim his horse.
On his way home he stopped a truck loaded down with his work ladders, lawn mower and weed eater.
"I informed them I was the owner, but they refused to give the stuff back," Salisbury said. "They showed me the Craigslist printout and told me they had the right to do what they did."
The driver sped away after rebuking Salisbury. On his way home he spotted other cars filled with his belongings.
Once home he was greeted by close to 30 people rummaging through his barn and front porch.
The trespassers, armed with printouts of the ad, tried to brush him off. "They honestly thought that because it appeared on the Internet it was true," Salisbury said. "It boggles the mind."
I don't know which is more appalling: the person who posted the ad, or the people who believed it even after the owner showed up. I'm not sure I want to share a country with either.
The article's datelined March 24, 2008, last Monday.
Ah, the elite's filled with morons and jagbags too. Any hope for humanity is hope for individuals. The masses, I'm afraid, are irredeemable.
"I'm not sure I want to share a country with either."
If you're going, can I have your stuff?
Naturally, given your hardscrabble background you reflexively fall into periodic anti-elitist rages and question authority at all times (certainly when its most critical!), but you can also take comfort in:
"And I think some in New York are going to laugh even harder when they try to unleash some civil disobedience, Lenin style, and some New Yorker who understands the horrors of war all too well picks up a two-by-four and teaches them how very effective violence can be when it's applied in a firm, pre-emptive manner."
http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/003959.html
Fight the power!
I'm surprised that more people haven't tried this tactic as a means of getting revenge against someone, and that more people haven't been injured over this kind of thing.
There was a South Park episode where Cartman tricks people into going onto a ranchers land to do something to his pony, whereupon they get shot by such a staunt 2nd amendment supporter. Seems too easy of a trick.
It's tough when the Sackville-Bagginses won't return your spoons.
"I don't know which is more appalling: the person who posted the ad, or the people who believed it even after the owner showed up. I'm not sure I want to share a country with either."
Now you know how we feel.
(re: the recent series of posts about rightness, wrongness, and Iraq. Although I'd soften the last line a fair bit - I'm fine with sharing a country; I'd just wish they'd stop trying to rationalize or prioritize their foolish errors/misdeeds, stop yelling at us for acting a wee bit annoyed at the whole situation, do their best to help get the stuff back, and - in some cases - not seem entirely likely to post/fall for another such ad next week.)
Hopefully he got license numbers on the way home, but a good chunk of his stuff is likely gone for good. Ten years hence a sociologist will be referring to this event in some academic study on the social dynamics of passive mobbing.
Since he's an independent contractor, I've a hunch that somewhere back up the line, he made a business enemy who was responsible for the false ads. Look for that guy to be arrested within a couple weeks.
I'm sorry. The people who continued taking his stuff after he showed up should be prosecuted. When you take the word of a anonymous internet positing over a actual person, you have cross the line from idiot to thief.
Sadly, this isn't the first time:
here's a similar story from last year.
You think that's bad...we live on the same planet that Walmart lives on too.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/25/walmart.insurance.battle/index.html
If you've read Gibbon, de Tocqueville and Darwin, this behavior should make perfect sense. Just wait until the oil runs out. We should then have some good empirical evidence to refute (or not) the sad (kind of neo-Marxist zero sum) hypothesis that we are nice because we are rich.
I don't get it. Do you suppose that if more people had money or college degrees their morals would improve?