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What if the Gardaí paid you to report people for minor crimes?

1356

Comments

  • #62
    Cantremember
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭Cantremember


    carraig2 wrote: »
    Let's ask another question. Assuming most people know that the govt of Ireland since 1921 is one selected by the Irish people and the laws passed are passed by elected representatives of the Irish people and that said elected representatives have broken laws and abused their power by having them covered up, and said representatives have also abused their power to cover up law-breaking by their kin, friends and cronies, what sort of crimes would people be comfortable reporting or going to court as a prosecution witness?
    Not just cowardice and cute hoordom stops people reporting.

    Apparently from the above argument because of the failures of some people to abide by the law then no one else should.


  • #63
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    Well he was breaking the law, and dealing cannabis resin from a place where 4 of us lived. All sort of undesirables would be calling to the door looking for him. Many of them would then hang around for a smoke after buying the stuff. The atmosphere was unsociable and I didn't feel safe going into the living room with some of the people who'd hang around. We asked him to stop doing this, or to move to a place where his housemates didn't mind what he was doing. We asked him more than once. He kept doing it. So we went to the Gardaí. They came, found enough cannabis to do him on a charge of possession, and he disappeared from our lives.

    you see, i'd equate this to ratting on someone for owning pirate dvd's.

    just petty and no doubt you're somehow "proud" of your accomplishment?


  • #64
    sopretty
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭sopretty


    I don't think so. If there was a dealer in my house, bringing people into my house to smoke, and if he didn't get the hint, I'd report the idiot too. Ain't nobody got time for that!


  • #65
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    sopretty wrote: »
    I don't think so. If there was a dealer in my house, bringing people into my house to smoke, and if he didn't get the hint, I'd report the idiot too. Ain't nobody got time for that!

    that's fair enough, to be honest, i probably wouldnt stand for it either, but i most certainly would not have reported it to the guards!!


  • #66
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    pundy wrote: »
    you see, i'd equate this to ratting on someone for owning pirate dvd's.

    just petty and no doubt you're somehow "proud" of your accomplishment?

    What a silly comparison. It's this use of the word ratting. It's so emotive. The man's activities were having a genuine and adverse effect on our quality of life. We asked him to stop his illegal activities, and using our home as the place where he carried out this business. He didn't. So we reported him for breaking the law.

    It's your moral compass that could do with a tuning.


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  • #67
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    What a silly comparison. It's this use of the word ratting. It's so emotive. The man's activities were having a genuine and adverse effect on our quality of life. We asked him to stop his illegal activities, and using our home as the place where he carried out this business. He didn't. So we reported him for breaking the law.

    It's your moral compass that could do with a tuning.

    my moral compass is perfectly in tune Walrus,
    and it comes as no surprise to see an attitude like yours on here, because this country is full of them. (wrong though)

    so what about someone dealing in the street and you happen to capture it on tape? rat or not rat?


  • #68
    Cantremember
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭Cantremember


    pundy wrote: »
    my moral compass is perfectly in tune Walrus,
    and it comes as no surprise to see an attitude like yours on here, because this country is full of them. (wrong though)

    so what about someone dealing in the street and you happen to capture it on tape? rat or not rat?

    Why not call it as it is? Do nothing and give tacit consent to the event.


  • #69
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Cantremember wrote: »
    Why not call it as it is? Do nothing and give tacit consent to the event.

    well in the case of Walrus' housemate, yes i agree that it must have been pretty bad for them to have to resort to that.

    hopefully he is not proud of his actions though. (Walrus for ratting i mean)


  • #70
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    pundy wrote: »
    my moral compass is perfectly in tune Walrus,
    and it comes as no surprise to see an attitude like yours on here, because this country is full of them. (wrong though)

    so what about someone dealing in the street and you happen to capture it on tape? rat or not rat?

    What attitude do I have? Again, there appears to be this sort of thing emerging whereby others (especially those working in the public service) are expected to be bastions of moral rectitude, while the person expecting such peerless ethics are allowed show utter contempt to citizens who do report crimes. Usually small crimes that they frequently break themselves.


  • #71
    carraig2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,072 ✭✭✭carraig2


    Cantremember wrote: »
    Apparently from the above argument because of the failures of some people to abide by the law then no one else should.

    Not my viewpoint at all. I abide by the law because that is the right thing to do. Nothing to do with who set the law or what punishments are there.
    I am just trying to answer bodice ripper's point that Irish don't report lawbreakers and Dutch people do and your point that Irish politicians set the law not British so why don't Irish report.
    I am not supporting the Irish person's viewpoint at all, just trying to understand what it is about.


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  • #72
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    What attitude do I have? Again, there appears to be this sort of thing emerging whereby others (especially those working in the public service) are expected to be bastions of moral rectitude, while the person expecting such peerless ethics are allowed show utter contempt to citizens who do report crimes. Usually small crimes that they frequently break themselves.

    are you proud of yourself for ratting on your ex housemate for dealing hash?


  • #73
    carraig2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,072 ✭✭✭carraig2


    pundy wrote: »
    are you proud of yourself for ratting on your ex housemate for dealing hash?

    His housemate broke the law. He already explained it was not just about the law-breaking but the other housemates asked him to stop and he continued. Why is it OK to attack him for reporting someone who has no regard for the law or for the people he lives with?


  • #74
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    pundy wrote: »
    are you proud of yourself for ratting on your ex housemate for dealing hash?

    What would pride have to do with it? I don't feel proud of the fact that I reported him. I don't feel any shame for having done so either. I felt relief when he was arrested, and subsequently evicted from the house. Because his illegal activity was having an adverse effect on my quality of life.

    How do you decide which crimes are worthy of being reported to the Gardai?


  • #75
    longhalloween
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,207 ✭✭✭longhalloween


    pundy wrote: »
    are you proud of yourself for ratting on your ex housemate for dealing hash?

    I'd do the same if I felt threatened in my own home.

    I maintain that a person can do whatever they like so long as their actions don't affect other people.

    But if they do affect others then f*ck them, call the guards.


  • #76
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    What would pride have to do with it? I don't feel proud of the fact that I reported him. I don't feel any shame for having done so either. I felt relief when he was arrested, and subsequently evicted from the house. Because his illegal activity was having an adverse effect on my quality of life.

    How do you decide which crimes are worthy of being reported to the Gardai?

    ok that's fair enough, i was asking were you proud of yourself, because it was important to me to find out what sort of person i was dealing with here.

    i would deem any crimes which ACTUALLY harm others to be worth of being reported...

    what if cannabis was legal? what would you have done then if you couldnt have relied on the law to get rid of the housemate? because he would have been within his rights -

    just because, it's a ridiculous law, akin to pirated dvd's - it will ALWAYS go on, and there's no reason for it to be illegal. (that's another thread i know)

    but hypothetically, you would have had to rely on another route of sorting it out than the "law".


  • #77
    longhalloween
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,207 ✭✭✭longhalloween


    pundy wrote: »
    just saying it because i want to prove that there WOULD have been another way to handle that situation, and to prove what a ridiculous law it is in the first place.

    What would you have done in his position, where you and others felt threatened by a housemate, who kept inviting undesirable people around to engage in illegal activities?


  • #78
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    pundy wrote: »
    ok that's fair enough, i was asking were you proud of yourself, because it was important to me to find out what sort of person i was dealing with here.

    i would deem any crimes which ACTUALLY harm others to be worth of being reported...

    what if cannabis was legal? what would you have done then if you couldnt have relied on the law to get rid of the housemate? because he would have been within his rights -

    just because, it's a ridiculous law, akin to pirated dvd's - it will ALWAYS go on, and there's no reason for it to be illegal. (that's another thread i know)

    but hypothetically, you would have had to rely on another route of sorting it out than the "law".

    I haven't considered your hypothetical as it isn't the topic being discussed. It's also a bit of a lazy strawman argument. And as I keep saying, he did cause us harm. He also broke the law. So we used the law to rectify the situation.

    You know what. Looking back on it, maybe I did feel a slight sense of pride in doing so. I certainly felt no remorse. He had made our lives miserable, and then he was gone. His layabout friends and customers were gone. The atmosphere, the smell, the dirt and the ashtrays were gone. Ya, not pride. Relief and excitement.


  • #79
    josip
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 16,061 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    ... I didn't feel safe going into the living room with some of the people who'd hang around. We asked him to stop doing this, or to move to a place where his housemates didn't mind what he was doing. We asked him more than once. He kept doing it. ...

    At a personal level, the dealer semmed like an ar*ehole and I think they deserved all they got.
    Don't understand why a few people's backs are up about it.


  • #80
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Davarus Walrus wrote: »
    I haven't considered your hypothetical as it isn't the topic being discussed. It's also a bit of a lazy strawman argument. And as I keep saying, he did cause us harm. He also broke the law. So we used the law to rectify the situation.

    You know what. Looking back on it, maybe I did feel a slight sense of pride in doing so. I certainly felt no remorse. He had made our lives miserable, and then he was gone. His layabout friends and customers were gone. The atmosphere, the smell, the dirt and the ashtrays were gone. Ya, not pride. Relief and excitement.

    you must be extremely sensitive to have felt like your life was made miserable by a housemate (technically within his rights to have "friends" over to the house) smoking a bit of hash in the living room.

    please Mr. Law come and save me i'm weak!!!


  • #81
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    pundy wrote: »
    you must be extremely sensitive to have felt like your life was made miserable by a housemate (technically within his rights to have "friends" over to the house) smoking a bit of hash in the living room.

    please Mr. Law come and save me i'm weak!!!

    Not sensitive. I was paying €500 a month to live in a house with 3 other people. I was studying for my MSc. The three of us asked him to stop dealing cannabis from the house, as we weren't comfortable with it, or the amount of stoners we had hanging around most evenings. He continued to do so, we called his bluff, and the Gardaí arrested him a few hours later.

    What would you have suggested we do?


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  • #82
    carraig2
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,072 ✭✭✭carraig2


    pundy wrote: »
    you must be extremely sensitive to have felt like your life was made miserable by a housemate (technically within his rights to have "friends" over to the house) smoking a bit of hash in the living room.

    please Mr. Law come and save me i'm weak!!!

    Bit harsh surely


  • #83
    longhalloween
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,207 ✭✭✭longhalloween


    pundy wrote: »
    you must be extremely sensitive to have felt like your life was made miserable by a housemate (technically within his rights to have "friends" over to the house) smoking a bit of hash in the living room.

    please Mr. Law come and save me i'm weak!!!

    Calling the guards was the right thing to do. That's what they're there for.
    pundy wrote: »
    (technically within his rights to have "friends" over to the house)
    I don't think anyone has a right to invite stoner customers around your house for a smoke. :rolleyes:


  • #84
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    I have reported people for not having tax/insurance and also for using red diesel in their car. Also reported people to the social welfare for suspected fraud.

    Even counterfeit DVDs are a crime that feeds the larger gangland criminals. I rat out anyone who I see breaking the law regardless of how severe or trivial people think it is.


  • #85
    bodice ripper
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,681 ✭✭✭bodice ripper


    longhalloween wrote: »
    It's fairly popular on the motoring forum: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057188341

    Then let them be bought. I am not joining in.

    In 15 years of driving I have been breathalized three times, but my tax checked countless times. That'll tell you where the guards priorities lie.


  • #86
    Ferris_Bueller
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,830 ✭✭✭Ferris_Bueller


    This is a depressing thread. In my opinion if it ever got to the stage where people were looking to rat one another out for small offences it would really make Ireland a much worse place. Maybe it's just me, but something I love about here is that it feels like usually people will look out for one another, whether it's someone flashing their headlights at you when there is a speed van down the road or whether it's a shop cashier letting you off if you're a few cent short, that's something I love about Ireland and although I'm not a very well traveled man, I have never got that feeling in another country.

    If people were actively looking to catch each other out it would destroy that atmosphere, I honestly can't believe some of the posts from people on here.


  • #87
    Cantremember
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,305 ✭✭✭Cantremember


    pundy wrote: »
    ok that's fair enough, i was asking were you proud of yourself, because it was important to me to find out what sort of person i was dealing with

    And what sort of person are you? I'm curious about the sort of person who puts forward the views you do.


  • #88
    pundy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 673 ✭✭✭pundy


    Cantremember wrote: »
    And what sort of person are you? I'm curious about the sort of person who puts forward the views you do.

    im the sort of person who doesnt go around ratting people out for small crimes or "minor crimes" as the OP put it.

    some people in this country have a very ingrained sense of betterment or "one-up-man-ship" than your fellow irish citizen, and this type of thing proves to me that these sort of people will stop at nothing to get their kicks and their sense of betterment can only be achieved by this type of behaviour.

    it's disgusting. it makes the "rat" disgusting too. revolting in fact. and it's literally these sort of do-gooder ar5eholes that have this country ruined.


  • #89
    homeless student
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,020 ✭✭✭homeless student


    foggy_lad wrote: »
    I have reported people for not having tax/insurance and also for using red diesel in their car. Also reported people to the social welfare for suspected fraud.

    Even counterfeit DVDs are a crime that feeds the larger gangland criminals. I rat out anyone who I see breaking the law regardless of how severe or trivial people think it is.

    kama is a bitch;)


  • #90
    longhalloween
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,207 ✭✭✭longhalloween


    homeless student wrote: »
    kama is a bitch;)

    Yeah, lets hope all those breaking the law aren't hit by it ;)
    pundy wrote: »
    im the sort of person who doesnt go around ratting people out for small crimes or "minor crimes" as the OP put it.

    But you're the sort who actively promotes drug use and berated a poster for removing an anti-social person from their home


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  • #91
    Davarus Walrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,280 ✭✭✭Davarus Walrus


    Ferris_Bueller wrote: »
    This is a depressing thread. In my opinion if it ever got to the stage where people were looking to rat one another out for small offences it would really make Ireland a much worse place. Maybe it's just me, but something I love about here is that it feels like usually people will look out for one another, whether it's someone flashing their headlights at you when there is a speed van down the road or whether it's a shop cashier letting you off if you're a few cent short, that's something I love about Ireland and although I'm not a very well traveled man, I have never got that feeling in another country.

    If people were actively looking to catch each other out it would destroy that atmosphere, I honestly can't believe some of the posts from people on here.

    A shop cashier letting you off a few cents isn't a crime though. It's a nice thing to do. It has nothing to do with people selecting which laws they think are worthy of reporting, and those they feel can be ignored, or passed off as some sort of two fingers to authority by not reporting them.

    It's a bit hypocritical of someone to give out about a politician forgetting/failing to submit a receipt for a mobile phone bill, but who then goes out and breaks a law he doesn't feel like keeping. It's applying a higher moral and ethical standard to others. And that's more of a problem in this country than people reporting crimes.


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