I'm fortunate enough where if someone stole my car, its not the end of the world. I work from home. I can afford to pay for Uber or public transportation. My life is mildly inconvenienced.
Where my buddy works two minwage jobs. Steal his car, and he's going to struggle a lot. I helped him when his car was in the shop, and he was a mess.
And yet commenters here are going, "Poor car thief what a victim of circumstance." While also totally cool with him fucking over others? Your empathy is fascinating.
The criminals here are the billionaires who created a system where you friend has to work TWO minimum wages job to barely get by. Don't defend a broken system, eat the billionaires!
Both can be true. People see his humanity, he's not willing to put this baby in a bad position. He may very well be a victim of circumstance. But for all anyone knows, the people he stole the car from could have replied on it just as much. I know I'd never financially recover from that and I wouldn't have a lot of empathy for the thief, but that doesn't mean the situation isn't nuanced.
he's not willing to put this baby in a bad position
Probably because he didn't want to get charged with child kidnapping. How much worse did this child's life get because their parent's car got stolen? "Sorry son, we had $8,000 started for you to go to college but someone stole our car when you were younger and that's not something that you can bounce back from in this economy so you've got to take out loans." Fuck him and fuck people who steal from their own class.
I make decent salary and recently my old car was hit while parked and the insurance totaled it. Those thieves paid me the bluebook, which is about 2/3rds of what it actually would cost to buy that car again, if I could even find one similar. I could likely wait a month and buy back my own car after repairs for that new price too. The insurance company probably made money out of the deal.
I figure the payout must be about the same for having the car stolen. So honestly, if anyone wants to steal my car just let me know and after you hock it for parts or whatever we can split the proceeds and the insurance payout and maybe we'll both get ahead.
But barring the magical coming of universal solidarity, I can confirm that it sucks ass to lose your car even for the relatively stable and well off.
Yeah we used to hang horse thieves for a reason. Losing transportation can be a family destroying event, or even a death sentence.
There was a passage near the end of The Road where the child calls the father a murderer for robbing someone, but the father said he didn’t actually kill the man.
Yeah the thief is clearly an awful person. The parents are also bad. The only character in this story that deserves empathy is the baby as he will be doubly harmed by having awful parents who just suffered a dire financial set back because of the actions of the thief.
That being said it is easy to commend the thief, even though we shouldn't, because we automatically have that empathy for the baby and disdain for the parents for being so irresponsible.
I really don't think an "awful person" would give two fucks about the baby. It sucks he feels like he has to steal cars but that alone doesn't make him awful and the fact that he was so concerned about the baby supports the claim that he is NOT awful
I have to agree here. Its true that the person is/was struggling, but its action has made others struggle too. My post of course was aiming only on the act of returning the child.
If someone steals my yet to be paid in the next 2 years car, I am going bankrupt for the next 7 years. I plan to sell it once it gets paid, then buy another one. If it gets stolen, I have no perspective and financial conditions in buying a car again just by saving money.
I heard that this post is bs since the thief didnt whent to the parents, he droped of the baby at a gas station and asked the attendant to call 911 and then whent off his way.
Its most likelly he done this to not be hunted down by police for kidnapping a child.
So the people that are defending him here probably arent aware of this so i say give them a break but at the same time they are probably using this to push their tankie pov propaganda bs so lol hard at them if you have to.
To be fair, kidnapping doesn't have a minimum duration before it becomes legally applicable; he already kidnapped the child the first time he drove off.
E. If it wasn't clear, my logic above is why I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on that one small facet of this interaction.
C'mon, he's obviously a nice guy who just needed a car because capitalism, and when he realized there was a baby inside he breastfed it, sang it a lullaby, and returned it to the parents. He now visits the family every Christmas and they laugh and laugh at how they all met.