• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Poll about theft

If Person B steals from Person A and gives the item to Person C, is Person C obligated to return it?

  • Yes

    Votes: 32 91.4%
  • No

    Votes: 3 8.6%

  • Total voters
    35

People who were personally tortured in a modern legal environment are very different from nth generation descendents of people who lost out when the customary norms were very different.

If someone - e.g. an enslaved person - did work on a land to improve a property that they were never compensated for, why wouldn't they be entitled to a lien on that property just like any other worker who improves a property and isn't paid?

If they were still alive I agree they would be.

Their great great grandson shouldn't be though because we pretty much all have ancestors who were exploited one way or another by modern standards.

As a teenager my gran was basically forced to work in Germany (that or her younger siblings would starve with one more mouth to feed on meagre rations), and other male relatives were utilised as directly forced labour.

I don't believe I am due anything for that.

Why would that be incoherent? Certainly the span of time doesn't make it easy to gather evidence, but if wrongdoing can be established and an ill-gotten asset still exists, why shouldn't this be acted on?

Because all land is "ill gotten" multiple times.

If someone - e.g. a First Nations group - never consented to transfer of land, why shouldn't they be entitled to get that land back?

Why don't you give your house to the descendents of the traditional owners of the land?

It's immoral to keep stolen property you believe others are entitled to.
 
They raised the question - without answering it - whether this idea that colonizers have taken better care of stolen property better than the original owners would have is paternalistic and insulting.

That's in the article too (it might actually be pretty much a transcript):

“There’s something wrong about stealing items that belong to another people and then, self righteously claiming you look after them better than those who are entitled to own them would,” he says...

The idea that it belongs to 'another people' is also quite dubious. It wasn't an important cultural artefact but a personal possession that belonged to one person who could afford it due to wealth accrued from conquest, slavery and exploitation.

Historian Zareer Masani...

He says there is no tradition of museums in India, before colonial times.

“The reason it survived is that it was shipped off to England and conserved and preserved. Had it been in India would have just fallen to pieces eventually because no-one would have been interested for a couple of hundred years.”

It costs money and requires effort to preserve things, and most things folk don't care enough about to preserve. They only become valuable much later (think of collectibles today). Think of all the ancient texts that no longer exist, it's not because anyone destroyed them, just that it is hard to find a continuous stream of people willing to pay to preserve them. Most things don't survive.

If there are artefacts of major cultural significance (Elgin marbles, Benin Bronzes, etc.) then I do agree they should be returned. But just because something was once owned by a person in another country doesn't make it something of major cultural significance.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
People who were personally tortured in a modern legal environment are very different from nth generation descendents of people who lost out when the customary norms were very different.
Please don't throw your back out moving those goalposts.

This case is just one example that shows that your idea about how colonial liability ought to work - i.e. that the former colony takes on all liability for crimes committed during the colonial era - is not reflected in reality.

If they were still alive I agree they would be.

Their great great grandson shouldn't be though because we pretty much all have ancestors who were exploited one way or another by modern standards.

As a teenager my gran was basically forced to work in Germany (that or her younger siblings would starve with one more mouth to feed on meagre rations), and other male relatives were utilised as directly forced labour.

I don't believe I am due anything for that.
Do you seriously believe that liability ends when the wronged party dies?

A quick googling ought to correct that basic misunderstanding of how the law works.

Because all land is "ill gotten" multiple times.
It was? Please tell me about why you think that the traditional land of, say, the Three Fires Confederacy in Essex County was "ill gotten" by the Confederacy before the British acquired it from them.

Why don't you give your house to the descendents of the traditional owners of the land?

It's immoral to keep stolen property you believe others are entitled to.
The place where I live wasn't "stolen." Not initially, anyhow.

The area where I live was acquired by treaty, negotiated in good faith by both sides. Since then the treaty has often been dishonoured, first by Britain and then by Canada.

As an analogy, we got the land fair and square, but then decided to start skipping out on our payments.

And I certainly do feel that the First Nations who had their treaties disrespected should be provided with everything they're due under those treaties, plus reasonable damages for us having failed to honour the treaties.

All this is separate from compensation for personal wrongs committed against individual indigenous people (which is what you seem to be hyper-focused on, though I'm not sure why).

Edit: do you understand that a lot of this issue - in North America, at least - is as much an issue of treaties between nations as it is a matter of wrongs inflicted on individuals? Do you at least agree that Britain is bound by its treaty obligations with other nations?
 
Last edited:
Please don't throw your back out moving those goalposts.

This case is just one example that shows that your idea about how colonial liability ought to work - i.e. that the former colony takes on all liability for crimes committed during the colonial era - is not reflected in reality.

Wow, a fallacious use of a fallacy on RF. What a surprise :openmouth:

You think it is 'moving the goalposts' to note an obvious difference between current liability towards actual living people you tortured and historical liability towards the belongings and territory of people who have been dead 2 centuries based on non-existent international legal principles?

Do you seriously believe that liability ends when the wronged party dies?

A quick googling ought to correct that basic misunderstanding of how the law works.

How what law works?

What precise laws govern international conduct in the 18th and 19th C in the manner you are suggesting? Under what jurisdiction do they fall? Who enforces them? What treaties regulate them?

The place where I live wasn't "stolen." Not initially, anyhow.

The area where I live was acquired by treaty, negotiated in good faith by both sides. Since then the treaty has often been dishonoured, first by Britain and then by Canada.

As an analogy, we got the land fair and square, but then decided to start skipping out on our payments.

And I certainly do feel that the First Nations who had their treaties disrespected should be provided with everything they're due under those treaties, plus reasonable damages for us having failed to honour the treaties.

So you didn't pay but think you still get to keep it?

A quick googling ought to correct that basic misunderstanding of how the law works :wink:

You seem to think centuries old international law works somewhat similarly to modern domestic law after all.

Anyway, the treaty was broken, so they should get the choice of the land back or what was due under the treaty. My guess is the land is worth far more in financial terms, and more still in cultural terms.

If the traditional owners of the land asked for it back, would you give them the land your house is built on, or are you just virtue signalling and happy to talk a good game as long as it doesn't come at any real personal cost?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Take the poll first, then read the spoiler. Then comment.

Do you see any implications with respect to Native Americans, or perhaps to descendants of slaves?

I am not saying things are that simple, but it is food for thought, n'est-ce pas vrai?


I didn't vote because I missed the option of "it depends".

If it's genuine theft with no additional circumstances or factors AND person B knows this and knows where it came from, I would say: yes, he should give it back.

But there's lots here that can change that outcome.
Is person A for example Pablo Escobar? I wouldn't give him anything back.
Was the thing stolen actually the property from C which A stole and which B stole back?
Does C know that the thing was stolen?

Etc
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
(Trying to look innocent)

Hmmm
You're setting yourself up for failure when you look like this, all suspicious what with the fake mustache and covered in ink and all....

upload_2021-8-5_15-47-23.png


:D
 
Top