Pelican,
Stealing is often (self) justified but rarely justifiable (in any moral sense).
Although I would hasten to add understandable in some extreme circumstances as Foxy rightly pointed out.

RobP
Stealing property back is simply false justification (two wrongs never make a right only an escalation.)

I’m glad you don’t live near me. A “few ks over” can make the difference between injury and death. Try comforting a mother who has lost a child because a driver was a few k’s over. I have several times and it never got any easier.
Sure we all do break the laws but to then claim it’s unreasonable is simply being irresponsible. Yes I’ve had the odd speeding fine but never argued if I was in the wrong. By the way most states allow some leeway.

Runner
Stealing isn't just the province of secular individuals in fact the bible in places advocates it… taking land from the rightful owners is stealing to kill to do so is murder and to kill an entire population of men is genocide and take women and children as slaves is obscene regardless of the 'justification'.

Col
Sure stealing from a boss was wrong as is Accepting pay without tax stealing too from the other tax payers.

Obviously you feel that minimum wage laws and paying off the books to avoid payroll tax workers comp etc and hiding income is ok if there are lots of desperate or unemployed people. I'll bet there were lots of other breaches as well. A business person who 'bends' the law on one issue tends to regard the practice like bananas... trival and does so in bunches

examinator

It is good to see you insist on a few absolute values. I wonder where they came from? Amazing how people who reject right and wrong are very
adamant about their opinions. Just goes to show we all like making up the rules especially when we reject the Rule Maker. You illustrate my point well.

Col you said "although, “…to correct an injustice”.
Sounds like “self-justification” and out of character for you."

I was not attempting to justify merely stating what my motivations were at the time. It was an injustice as perceived by me (and friend) at that time if you get my meaning. There is no doubt we were underpaid and the employer's actions were illegal (under award) but by the same token, I made the choice to take on the job and the choice not to report to relevant authorities so have to accept responsibility too. Put simply, two wrongs don't make a right.

I agree with most of the comments made. I would never, and have not, done anything like this since.

Mainly because I believe that we function best when we abide to a standard set of laws. If we all took justice into our own hands it would be chaos. And who decides what is unjust and what isn't - humans can make all sorts of excuses for their behaviour.

And our legal system does accommodate individual circumstances as life is not always so black and white. Killing another person in self-defence for example is different to pre-meditated murder as it should be.

Foxy
You are right of course. In desperation we would have compassion for someone who stole from hunger even if we might not condone the action. Weighing up the choices between possibility of death by hunger with our moral conscience may be a big ask.

runner
Secularism is not at fault here - you do grasp at straws sometimes. Rather a secular legal state, than one where the law might be influenced by extremist religious views where women are stoned for being raped. This is done in the name of religion.

Examinator “Sure stealing from a boss was wrong as is Accepting pay without tax stealing too from the other tax payers.”

The topic was Pelicans ethics…
It was not
the ethics of Pelicans Ex-boss

so maybe you can quote, specifically from my post, which of it you used to deduce you cheap attempt at a character attack with the phrase

“Obviously you feel that minimum wage laws and paying off the books to avoid payroll tax workers comp etc and hiding income is ok”

(Gosh and you spent so long telling us all how you were Mr Perfect and what a bad boy I was…. Well Mr Perfect would not try taking cheap shots without a basis for them and you and I both know, there is nothing in my previous posts to justify what you claim is "“Obviously” what I feel.."

I suggest you back off or I might decide to review some of your past postings, with the intention of revealing what a hypocritical sycophant you really are

“Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone”

If you wanted to pursue the path of logic regarding the ethical issues of the boss, we could equally question the ethics of this socialist government who believes it is entitled to place the yoke of debt around the neck of our unborn grand children to allow Krudd & Co to bluff their way through the swamp of incompetence in which they are drowning and dragging everyone else into with them,

I find the theft of tax payer funds in pursuit of an ill conceived and ultimately failed “Stimulus Package” (which are really pork barreling voter bribes and union boss payoffs) the most unethical action of all.

Pelican” I was not attempting to justify merely stating what my motivations were at the time.”

I understand.

As I said, it seemed “out of character” from the person I image when I read your posts…

It is why I separated it from the previous part of my quote of your post

No slight was intended in any way…. :- )

And yes “Put simply, two wrongs don't make a right.”

“life is not always so black and white”

I disagree, I do see things as “black” or “white”.

The problem we all have to deal with is

the line which divides the black from the white is not a straight line but it twists and curls around the convoluting priorities and circumstances of our lives and includes things like “mitigation”

Self Defense is not a mitigating circumstance, it is a "defense" in its own right

Thus an, otherwise, unethical act is ethical because of the justification of self defense...

Different process or prevailing circumstances and conditions to your stealing example...

(although, there is no self defense justification for stealing :-) ).

Examinator,

IMO, yours is a very PC answer.

"Stealing property back is simply false justification (two wrongs never make a right only an escalation.)"

No it isn't, provided you did nothing wrong to start with and you were only getting back what was rightfully yours in the first place. It doesn't mean going on a thieving spree, just retrieving in due measure what was taken from you.

"Try comforting a mother who has lost a child because a driver was a few k’s over."

The tear-jerker. No offence intended to people who find themselves in this situation, but this happens in only a small percentage of cases. The only way to really stop this situation is to ban the car. Advocates anywhere?

"Sure we all do break the laws but to then claim it’s unreasonable is simply being irresponsible."

Would you be happy with getting fined EVERY time you broke the speed limit? After all, according to your logic, that would be right wouldn't it? You, like most of us, would be broke ... in the hip pocket. I wonder how long it would be before people ditched their absolute commitment to the law under those circumstances? Anyway, speeding fines are meant to change behaviour not as revenue raisers. If the Government is secretly using them as revenue raisers, then I reckon they definitely deserve to have the money "stolen" back off them. I actually think this attitude is healthy. If the majority had the same attitude as you, society would quickly descend to a master-slave relationship as the powerful quickly realised they had no real opposition.

BTW, when I say a few kms over the limit, I mean on busy throughfares where the cops usually patrol or have speed traps. In my experience, they very rarely set up traps in suburbs where hoons can do damage by speeding in narrow streets etc. I'm 100% against hoons. And I'm also against cops strictly, arbitrarily and over-enthusiastically enforcing a law against people going about their everyday business for what is a minor infringement with little or no danger involved.