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Comment by defaultname | Hacker News Reader

He committed pretty egregious financial crimes. They didn't have to "dig" far.

People do understand that most people aren't hiding major felonies or securities fraud, right? Most of us aren't evading taxes. We aren't running ponzi schemes. We aren't defrauding lenders. You can scrutinize the situation of the vast majority of people and come up with nothing beyond maybe a tag taken off a mattress (har).

Somehow in the (post) Trump era we have loads of people who really, truly believe it is some sort of injustice when people get scrutiny for the crimes they are actually committing.

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It's surprisingly easy to commit a federal offense: https://twitter.com/CrimeADay

There's always a logical fallacy in this sort of argument-

a) There are loads of extremely specific laws for various very specific problems. e.g. Taking obsidian from an obsidian flow federal park, for instance.

b) Ergo everyone commits crimes!. We're all criminals, they just selectively choose what to enforce!

b) doesn't follow at all. The vast majority of people will never even be in a situation where it was possible to commit the overwhelming bulk of laws on the book. And that never would regardless.

FWIW, criminals think everyone is a criminal. Tax evaders think it's just normal. Thieves think everyone steals. Etc.

>"Ergo everyone commits crimes!. We're all criminals, they just selectively choose what to enforce!"

I highly recommend watching "Don't Talk to the Police", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE for a different perspective of where the GP is coming from. While it is true the vast majority of the US Code is something that simply won't apply to you (like the obsidian example), there are plenty of laws on the books that are vague and subject to abuse by a motivated prosecutor. One such example is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is a massive topic in-and-of-itself.

>FWIW, criminals think everyone is a criminal. Tax evaders think it's just normal. Thieves think everyone steals. Etc...

...and law abiding folk think they never break the law.

Ever lent someone money at 0% interest? Did you report it on your taxes? If not, you may technically be guilty of tax evasion.

Ever binned someone else's junk mail? Welcome to mail tampering.

There is a big difference between the law as written and the law as enforced. I guarantee you, if you go looking hard enough, there are some downright stupid laws on the books.

Hell look at mask laws! It was a huge controversy in some places last year because minorities in jurisdictions with historical anti-face covering statutes we're damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

Look at San Fran. The DA won't prosecute shoplifters, yet people walk out stores without paying under the statutory threshold. You going to try to say that the law makes even a lick of sense when you get degenerate circumstances?

Or are you going to take refuge in "Well, only the laws that matter?" If we go down that road it only gets worse.

How about... Mmmm. Jaywalking? Loitering? Noise violations that never got reported? Driving overweight vehicles down a road designed with weight capacity 1 ton less? Using an aerosol not perfectly in accordance with the instructions? Test driven an vehicle you didn't have registered on a public road? Improperly disposed of medication? Thrown a lithium ion battery in the garbage? Travelled with something in a trailer that qualifies as hazmat without getting a placard? Speeding? Had livestock escape, damage something, with no real dramatic outcome? Still infractions. Even if charges aren't pressed.

"Look at San Fran. The DA won't prosecute shoplifters, yet people walk out stores without paying under the statutory threshold. You going to try to say that the law makes even a lick of sense when you get degenerate circumstances?"

Let's just focus on this nugget-

-the DA made no such claim

-the threshold in San Francisco is actually LOWER than Texas. So much was made about that when people were truly clueless about what they claimed

-in reality there are almost no prosecutions because the activist police force simply doesn't bother responding

Police nationwide tend to be pretty far to the right (see the NYPD having a barely above 40% vaccination level right now as a good benchmark of that, which as an aside vaccination should absolutely be a requirement for their job), and they like to intentionally do a really shit job if it achieves their talking points.

The guys rushing into stores and filling garbage bags? Yup, the police should be arresting them. That they don't has nothing to do with the DA.

Do people who make ad hominem comments on the internet think that everyone makes ad hominem comments on the internet?

Not only was my comment in no way an ad hominem, it's pretty ironic that you attempt one to denigrate.

Responding to "it's surprisingly easy to commit a federal offense" with "FWIW, criminals think everyone is a criminal" can be reasonably interpreted as an ad hominem. If that's not what you meant, what did you mean by that comment?

It's a general comment relating to the general discussion of how law-breaking a peoples are. Maybe don't take every comment personally?

What makes you think I took it personally? I was just making a general comment about how people who make ad hominem comments on the internet are.

I wouldn't say it's post-Trump. Online discussion boards have long been home to armchair contrarianism. I will say that these days it's couched in "devil's advocate" and alarmist "your freedom is at stake!" type language.

Or, in this case, temporarily embarrassed hedge fund managers that do not wish to have such a fate befall them.

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