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Saturday, May 2, 2009

The "Returned Stolen Money" Fnord

By E-Mail, someone wrote:

OMFG! Why are people upset about Obama getting $100k in campaign contributions from AIG!

If you look at campaign contributions, nearly every candidate (except for Ron Paul) received a *TON* of money from the banksters.

Even more offensive is that Obama is forgiven if he gives back the $100k. I never understood that concept. "Politician receives campaign contributions from a later-discredited source. The politician gives back the money. He is then forgiven."

Similarly, some banking executives received huge bonuses or wasted a ton of money renovating their office, even though they received bailout money. The executives say "It's OK. We gave the money back. There's no crime if we give the money back."

Suppose someone steals a car. The police catch him, and he gives back the car undamaged. Can the thief claim "It's OK. I gave the car back. It's no problem."? Can you imagine that excuse working?

As another example, some of Obama's cabinet appointees were found to be behind on their income taxes. They were merely allowed to pay back taxes owed, with no further penalties. I'm going to use that defense, if I ever get assaulted by the bad guys for practicing agorism!

Politician/CEO criminals get a different standard of justice than for non-insider criminals. Typically, they are forgiven if they return the stolen property.

Insiders have set up the law so that, whenever they commit crimes, the only penalty is that they have to give back the stolen property.

If you get caught committing a crime, and the only penalty is that you have to give back the stolen property, then the incentive is to steal as much as you can! If you get caught 10% of the time, then the rest of the time you make a nice profit!

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