I think the attitude, if you can get away with it just do it, is becoming more common and is likely only to become more so.

Young people are realising that if this is just a materialistic universe (as seems to be the prevailing worldview in much of the west), then morality has no objective basis. At most, all there is is law. So you don't have to worry about the little niceties of life, just look out for yourself.

I expanded on this in an OLO article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7544

Dear JP,

«I think the attitude, if you can get away with it just do it, is becoming more common»

I cannot trust myself with hand on heart that I could avoid this attitude on my own, so thankfully I was graced with the insight that there is no way that I could ever get away with "it" (and I'm not referring to police and similar human institutions), that it is just not possible.

While the veracity of one's theology can be disputed, hardly anyone would dispute the fact that it is commonly the only thing standing between oneself and the animal-dictates of one's body.

It only takes one or two self absorbed mongrel bar stewards to kill community spirit and the cooperation that makes it work!

And we see these mongrel miscreants at work when our charity bin aid donations are scavenged by second hand dealers!

Or again when pious to the very core, so called op shop volunteers do essentially the same thing, but when the goods are already on display and with price tags on!

Or when a "green grocer/shopper/grazer, minus a conscience? Thinks it's OK to rob community garden to rip a pitiful profit from a community they are clearly, not a part of!

Me? I'd say take and welcome! But only after, let us pray!

A long time ago, a thief I couldn't discourage with a gun, routinely broke into a shed to steal petrol!

Anyhow, I got to the point where I felt obliged to donate some to this poor person who clearly couldn't afford to buy his own and from the sweat of a hardworking brow? So I left some for him and ensured a old siphon pump was handy. So he could help himself to some I'd prepared earlier and sweetened. And has hit was 'is 'abit, late one evening after lights out, we heard the unmistakable sounds of drum lid being unscrewed and the tinkle tinkle of juice emptying into jerrycan.

The following day, one of our richest neighbors set of for a well earned Christmas holiday in the most heconomic 'olden station wagon in creation!

Tooting past the petrol station 'e regularly waved at, as he went by in 'is super heconomical SW.

Only to grind to a halt 50-60 miles further down the road, needing an "expensive" tow truck and a replacement engine!

The petrol theft stopped from then on and the new engine not nearly so heconomical as the hold one!

Vell yes, a good curry should burn just as much on the vay out as it did on the vay in! Too much sugar just kills it you see!?
Alan B.

This is the way of capitalism.
Anything else is socialist evil according to the folks around here.
You cant have it both ways.
You rightards knew what you were doing when you destroyed all our communal safeguards like unions and mutual societies, diverse media and public schooling et al.
You knew your ideology of individualism would lead to social breakdown and decay.
Just as long as a few got obscenely wealthy its all ok. Right?

Dear Mikk,

Yes, you have a point: all thieves should be unionised!
As a further communal safeguard and for the sake of social cohesion, members of TRUA (Thieves and Robbers Union, Australia) should proudly wear a special distinctive uniform for work.

This illustrates an interesting point, which is that in a time of reducing statistics for assault, murder, etc, we have more news reports of assaults and murders. Consequently, there is more fear about, despite the fact that my world and that of most readers is currently pretty darned good.

Similarly, it is much easier to find a news article about a murder in a far-off land than it is to find news of communities working together closer to home, despite both being everyday events. Result: More fear, less feeling of community.

I have spent a couple of decades in each of Apex, Rotary and my local Rural Fire Brigade and shorter stints in other community organisations. These overlapped: I am not a centenarian. I am also not a saint.

Either directly or indirectly, I have become aware of many folk who have achieved much more than I could dream of doing. They are the ones who likely also hold community gardens together and are first to help Little Athletics.

Yet the news focuses on strife. Fear and disunity are the results.

No yuts
The point is the right wing fascist ideology that is capitalism leads to social breakdown.
Which includes thieving, depression, suicide, violence, drug taking, alcoholism, murder, child abuse, idiocy and hatred.

Its a bit rich for you rightards to come here complaining.
Get better locks. Build bigger fences. Hire security.
Imprison yourself.

Or admit that we have a problem and more of the same wont fix it.

Before we degenerate into barbarism.

Aren't your expectations that everyone will share your values a little bigoted?

Aren't the socialists entitled to believe they have a right to a share in your labour?

Aren't recent arrivals entitled to their belief that the unguarded property of is theirs to pillage?

Check your privilege and be grateful for the diversity in our new multicultural world.

Dear Mikk,

Social breakdown can be lamentable or welcome, depending whether the society in question is good or bad, respectively. Regardless, those malaises that you mentioned ("thieving, depression, suicide, violence, drug taking, alcoholism, murder, child abuse, idiocy and hatred") are not good in any case.

Yes we do have a problem because many of us are unable to find good reasons to refrain from the above malaises.

Your solution seems to revolve around the idea that if people value and look favourably on the society they live in, then that would give them the incentive to refrain (and as a last resort, there's always the fear of police). You also seem to think that getting rid of capitalism would be sufficient for people to like their society.

Knowing myself, this wouldn't do the trick for me. While the absence of negatives may bring about a sense of relief, in order to like a society there must be genuine positive(s) about it which all its members agree on. However, even that wouldn't be sufficient to withstand the onslaught of selfish desires for long.

JP started this thread, and I seconded him, by explaining that without an assertion (better still, knowledge and experience, for those fortunate enough to have it, but assertion is the minimum) of the divine, one has no motivation and strength to overcome their base instincts, in which case they would constantly fall prey to the above and other moral maladies. Even those who would refrain from physically committing crimes out of fear of being caught, would still commit them mentally. Is this a desirable situation?

One may rightfully ask: "What's the difference between the fear of being caught by the police and the fear of being caught by God?"- indeed, I do not approve of primitive theologies that portray God as a powerful, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent policeman: long-term successful theologies can only be based on genuine positive inspiration.

You are looking at this all wrong, John Wright.

Let's take your "community garden" and apply it to the real world.

"The rich" can equate to the people like yourself who contribute to the community by starting businesses and creating jobs. They pay taxes on everything they do. They even pay their employees taxes. Add superannuation, maternity leave, holiday leave loadings, severance pay, etc, etc, and sooner or later they give up their garden plots because everybody else is ripping out their carrots and lettuces.

Along comes the government who decrees that community gardens must be established and "the rich" like yourself must plant carrots and lettuces, and if the "poor" who steal the vegies you created, then that is good because it is creating "equality."

Next, the government realises that it can get votes by promising "the poor" that they can take as much of the carrots and lettuces you grew as they want. Then they create an immigration program guaranteed to import carrot and lettuce stealers in order to suck up to them and get their new votes also. Think I am kidding? 50% of Muslims in Australia are on the dole. The six Muslim suburbs in NSW are the new Labor heartland.

If you create a local vegetable garden then it only works in places where people share your community values. That means you had better be very particular about who comes into your community. If you import people from dog eat dog communities who not only think that stealing your vegetables is what "smart" people do, and if they form a separate community where those views are commonplace and are reinforced, then you can forget about community values and community cohesion.

This is what the stupid "Scandinavians" are finding out right now. if you create a community garden where everybody thinks that everybody else in the world thinks like you do, and then in a fit of stupidity allow people from dog eat dog communities to simply walk over your borders and make themselves at home, you are going to go bankrupt.

LEGO,
I was looking for you. This is not about Gordon Gekko's garden; it is about War and Peace of Japan. I hope I am not bothering you too much.

I (Yoshimichi Moriyama) said by quoting someone's comment, "(US) Ambassador Grew reveals that most Japanese actually wanted peace with US," in my two comments on Sheila Smith/Looking Ahead in Asia, With Our Allies/Council on Foreign Relations/November 30, 2016.
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2016/11/30/looking-ahead-in-asia-with-our-allies.

I also sent three comments on Project-Syndicate.org/Joseph Nye/The Kindleberger Trap/January 9, 2017, and two on Project-Syndicate.org/Jeffrey Wasserstrom/Trump Through Chinese Eyes/January 10, 2017.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-china-kindleberger-trap-by-joseph-s-nye-2017-o1
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-opinion-trump-taiwan-by-jeffrey-n-wasserstrom-...

I wonder if you mind reading them.
Thank you.

Lego, your remark about the immigrant unemployment ratio raises a point.
I do not know if this attitude applies here but it would not surprise me.
In the UK an Imman was asked about the high unemployment of moslems.
His reply was that under sharia the nonmoslems are required to support moslems.
This is normally done by means of the Jaziri tax.
However in the UK the reply was, well you work and pay taxes and we
take the money. He considered that that was quite fair.

So that is possibly the reason for the 50% unemployment.