The Irishman, Arabs, and handless crooks

Tim the Irishman and I were having breakfast in Guam, but my appetite wa soon tempered by his description of witnessing justice, Arabian style. In the town center, a convicted thief had his hand lopped off, in what sounded like an ancient and quite methodical method of brutal amputation.

The ritual involved wrapping the guy’s arm with a leather strap, which, I guess, helped choke off the blood flow somehow. But it works, from Tim’s account. The thief was soon minus a hand and lived through the process.

To which I say: Cool! Just don’t describe it to me during my Southern Slam breakfast, please.

I’ve always hated thieves, and figure they deserve all the bad that comes to them. Honest folk invest their life energy in providing for their families, and scoundrels who steal things are essentially stealing somebody’s time, effort, and worries. In a nation in which so many unworthy people are given so much, I’ve had to watch my buddies and I work and sweat and struggle for every gallon of gas in the tank, every piece of bread on the table, every scrap of clothing in the closet. Material goods, for us, are possessed only as a result of our toil.

A year or two for burglary? Why? Invading someone’s house and taking anything from their sanctum is tantamount to emotional and material rape. Only a society in which very few people earn their goods and their sanctums would fail to understand the degree of turpitude involved. If it was up to me, I’d lock thieves away forever, and give them nary a thought afterwards. Or, better yet, out-source the corrections process to the Arabs.

Tim the Irishman professed no love for the Arabs, but did observe that the dearth of theft was a comforting aspect of life over there.

American society is divided into two camps: those who earn their stuff, and the second-handers who are given stuff. These two camps generally have far different opinions regarding property crimes. Show me a thief, and I’ll generally–not always, but generally–show you somebody somehow tied to a government entitlement check. By giving stuff to people who don’t work for it, we’ve created an exponentially growing class of people utterly without conscience. Their very economic existence is rooted in the premise that what’s theirs is theirs, and what’s ours is theirs, too. Sometimes, the government helps them with the looting. Sometimes, they just help themselves. There’s essentially no difference.

And, by extension, show me a society burdened with a lot of thieves and I’ll show you a bad economy. People and industry can’t produce wealth if the wealth is merely up for grabs. Who would invest in such an environment? Who would work in one? Who would live in one? Who would want to raise their children in one?

Theft isn’t a result of poverty. If it was, there would be no honest poor people, and no crooked rich ones. Instead, poverty is a result–partially–of theft.

Think about it. And if you don’t, I’ll send Tim over to your house at breakfast time to elaborate.

Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. “Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com”