Pigdogfucker

From a comment on the Magistrate’s blog:

A burglar or shoplifter commits a malicious act of evil each time he commits his crime. The results may be less painful to the victims and their families [than being killed by a Mr Toad driver], but the stain on the soul of the criminal is much darker.

Now, burglary is a horrible thing to experience, so fair play, sort of. But the idea that shoplifting is a “malicious act of evil” is frankly one of the maddest things I’ve ever read.

There is no moral aspect to shoplifting. Simply none. Nobody is harmed by it. I repeat, nobody. If you think shopkeepers or shareholders are harmed by it in any morally meaningful sense, then you are an idiot.

We need laws against shoplifting, because otherwise the current economic system would not be sustainable. But they are like laws against revealing commercial secrets and copying creative works – only people with no understanding of what morality means can believe that the breach of such laws is a moral offence rather than merely an administative one.

This may be the most entertainingly bonkers comment thread ever:

[Some poor sod being libelled] is the one writing messages to himself, sending Miss Lowde anonymous letters, pressing his face against the window and sending her pictures of dead nudes. He has thrown women downstairs in the past, and only escaped his crimes by stating that he went to Oxford University

I didn’t realise an Oxford education was accepted as an excuse by a court of law (I wonder if the Magistrate can confirm?) – I’ll have to try that next time I send people pictures of dead nudes and throw them down the stairs.
(yes, I know that Felicity Lowde has made life genuinely threatening and horrible for Rachel North and others – I’m glad that Rachel can also see the funny side).