Everyone in jail ALSO had a good reason for doing what they did to get arrested and convicted.


Here's the thing. It's not like finding a $100 bill on the ground. Even then, you are supposed to report the find to the police and wait a certain amount of time for someone to claim it. That's what you do when you find an envelope with $20,000 cash and no contact info (yes, this HAS happened). After a defined amount of time, it's yours. But, you MUST go through the process.

This bike is not abandoned, lost, in a dumpster, on the side of a building, in an alley. This bike is locked to a pole.

If a bike is so much like a car, how would you feel if you locked your car and went away for 2 weeks and came back and found it stripped sitting on bricks?...and the OP was pulling out the last salvageable bits because someone else started the job.

Wrong is wrong.

Unfortunately, the full paragraph of the failed theft was over the character limit, but with a little editing, I got the core idea in.

ok
 

I guess most people thought it would be wrong. I never thought of someone being in the hospital. it just seems like a shame to me. I saw it today and it is already on its way to being totally crushed. I mean I guess the whole thing is just academic anyway because I wouldn't be able to get through the lock. I thought of leaving my name and number with the bank and taped to the bike stand. It just seems like a real shame.

Most people who don't take issue with it probably don't feel the need to reply. Those who are very much against it, have a vein that bulges in their head as they mash the keyboard and CAN'T WAIT to tell the OP how wrong he is. Internet.

ftfy.

sorry, i didn't mean to come across as so harsh, i was speaking sarcastically. i just know a LOT of hippy peace-and-love-and-sharing fixed gear riders, and i find it odd that no one ever seems to make a point against the absolute idea of ownership... but maybe none of them own a computer?

I think the debate is really this:

1 to 100

1 = NOT okay to steal
100 = OKAY to steal.

The more rationalizing you do, the closer you get to 100. The more you go looking for reasons why it is okay and how you are doing a "service" to society... the faster you get to 100

The road to hell is paved with 100's.

:crash: What is the shame for you? It's not yours, you are not losing anything. Just because you want it and you put value on it doesn't change the fact that you have no right to it. That lingering feeling you have betrays a dangerous streak of questionable character. Get over it. Life is not a door prize, go to work each day and when you have enough money you can buy your own. Then you can worry about people like you standing on the corner wrestling with their conscience as they covet your bike that you locked up for a night.

OWN a computer, lol. Get it, ownership.

He probably feels it's a shame that someone else is going to steal parts and pieces who won't appreciate it and will just sell it off. And it's a shame that the frame and front wheel that are left over are just going be destroyed laying there doing no good for anyone. It is a shame because he could put it to better use than the fate of it now.

I do love it when people try to come across like angels.

Has anyone on here ever picked up change...or even a dollar bill...off the ground? Why? It wasn't yours...

:bang:

it also doesnt have a lock around it

On one hand, just because you do it doesn't make it right. On the other, that's not even a remotely good comparison, both in the value of the items discussed and the fact that a properly locked bike shows a lot more intent to retain ownership than a dropped penny or dollar bill.

More than likely, a roving band of vigilante bike appreciators swarmed in with convictions of their own self-worthiness - and lovingly liberated those quality components to build up new bikes that will carry on where this sad orphaned bike could not.

And somewhere... of in the distance, the owner bikes true owner barked.

Steal the bike rack so no one else will lock a bike to it and get their bike stripped/stolen!!!
Typical NY attitude!

I think we are getting closer to 100.

I'd say close to 75 right now.:twitchy:

Perhaps what I said about the dollar bill was a bad comparison and 100% ridiculous, but the dude who said the OP should chop one of his hands off was right on the money!
:thumb:

Bikes are not people. They don't have feelings, and they don't have intrinsic value the way a human (or animal, IMO) does. I hear a lot of people on the forums talking about bikes in a weird way. Talking about keeping a bike going so it doesn't die (paraphrasing). This personification happens a lot when people talk about conversions "give her gears back!" Bikes are just pieces of metal just like a gold bracelet, a stop sign, or a gun. I just had to say that b/c it's been annoying me when I hear people talk about bikes like they are people.

at a certain point some bikes become "trash" to people while others like us still see potential

All I know is that after you build it up for your gf, it's gonna hurt when it gets stolen from her.

I see your point, but, I wouldn't have done that without trying to find out the owner first.

I know people who have adopted abandoned bikes on campus...They left a note on the bike for weeks with their name and number, saying they were interested. Simultaneously, they posted on multiple campus forums (craigslist or flyers could substitute) And after a month of the bike not budging and no calls, they took it. And posted up that they had it if the owner wanted it back, with contact info.

I think that kind of "theft" if you want to call it that is perfectly okay.

Get this- In the Army, we would be required to lock a nylon dufflebag. Some smartass would always quip "That's worthless, any thief would just cut the bag open with a knife!" The standard answer was......"It keeps the honest man honest". Yep, wisdom in those words.

It's locked, real simple- walk away.

Coming from a former not good at all kid, now wiser and a better human being, just walk away, trust me.

Sometimes it seems like people on here feel like they will open the floodgates and unleash a tide of bike thefts upon the world if they agree to even acknowledge a shade of grey where this is concerned. This isn't arithmetic where there is only one right answer and an endless supply of wrong answers.

I've looked at bikes that have been sitting the streets for a couple of months and contemplated giving it, or some components off of it, a better home. I'm pretty sure most of the people that have been so quick to judge on this topic have too. I don't feel bad about thinking such thoughts. Do you? If you don't, then why should you feel bad about acting upon them?

Some people have had good reasons for doing what they did to get convicted and incarcerated. I'm sure you weren't implying this with your statement, but do you really believe that everyone matriculated into the American penal system absolutely belongs there?