<p>Guys, honestly, think about it.
If you and this guy were the finalist in a essay competition, and he won cause he took the final essay from some prize winning third party. Would you be miffed? Yeah, you would be hella *<strong><em>ed. Thus, don't even try to put this under the "victimless crime" category. If it is victimless, then it wouldn't be a crime.
Even though I let people cheat off me sometimes, it's with my expressed consent... I let them do it as a favor, cause I'm their friend. This guy is plain plagerizing off people without their consent. It's a pretty rotten thing to do. It pretty much amount to stealing. Imagine someone stealing your computer. You'll get *</em></strong>ed off, no?</p>
<p>
Not quite. The definition of crime does not necessitate a victim. Possessing small amounts of marijuana, for example, is a crime. Who is the victim in that scenario?</p>
<p>But in your example of an essay contest there is obviously a victim. However, the snitch who told on their friend was not doing so because he lost an essay contest--he did it because he thought it was morally right.</p>
<p>^^the obvious victims would be the people who are enslaved and forced to grow marijuana in third world countries. Not to mention you are supporting organized crime and hurting your health. There are always consequences to your actions.</p>
<p>Ice:
O.k, if you want to get technical, crime is an act that violates a political, religious, or moral command that protect the interests of the State or the welfare of its citizens or subjects. Victim, by the most basic definition, is a person or entity who suffers injury or loss through an act. Thus, under the most basic applications, the smallest crime could violate a political code that in is the interest of the state and thus, in the very least, cause injury to the state by undermining the legitimacy and authority of the governing party. In the case of the essay, plagerization would have undermined the system of work ethic upon which our educational system is based, thus making our educational system a “victim.”
You used marijuana in you example, so let’s stick with that. Possession of marijuana is a direct violation of the legal code of command, and thus if left unrectified, the situation would become a demonstration of the inefficiency of the legal system and thus undermining its legitimacy. Thus, there you have the victim – the governing regime. More broadly applied, possession of marijuana has the potentiality to induce injury in a third party (i.e. child) who, through a ready access to the drug, may become psychologically dependent.
Honestly, read carefully before trying to refute my claims! Obviously he didn't do it because of losing an essay contest. I was using an anecdote. My point is that the winner was rewarded for an effort that he did not exert, a direct correlation to the case here.
Are you advocating cheating, by the way?</p>
<p>
[quote]
the obvious victims would be the people who are enslaved and forced to grow marijuana in third world countries.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>i guess by that logic, no one should ever by diamond rings from Tiffany's... but the last time I checked there hasn't been a slowdown in demand for them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not to mention you are supporting organized crime and hurting your health.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>marijuana is legal in other western countries. tobacco is legal in the US. think about that hypocrisy for a second. this is about big business over and above anything else. if pot was indigenous to the Americas, you can bet that it would have been legalized and commercialized a long time ago. people would be talking whimsically about Thomas Jefferson's pot plantations. the fact of the matter is, America has never been and will never be the lowest cost producer of pot. the US can say that about tobacco and hence we are the largest supplier of that lethal product the world has ever seen.</p>
<p>if you want to take the criminal element out of pot, then we should legalize it.</p>
<p>funny how people talk about how destructive pot is to one's health while millions of Americans suffer from tobacco related health risks (the ultimate irony is when a doctor prescribes pot to ease the pain of cancer chemotherapy) and people bemoan the addictive nature of pot while millions of Americans pop "legal" drugs like Prozac to their heart's content... so please spare us your sanctimonious sermons about the evils of pot. try reading Reefer Madness before you get on your high horse:</p>
<p>Actually, prestige, ever since the release of "BLood Diamond," the diamond industry has been experiencing a little decline.... nothing significant, but enough to cause a little stir. :) Mass media, what can I say? :p
Hmmm. arguing along lines of practility, agree with you on your second point... but maybe I'm missing something... how is that relevant?</p>
<p>P.S.
STOP CALLING THE GUY A "SNITCH"
Thank you. :)</p>
<p>I agree with Tarhunt. You have quite possibly expressed my own views about cheating in a very concise way.</p>
<p>And stop saying that the OP was a snitch! The only person that did anything wrong was the person who cheated. Some of you are just jumping to the cheater's defense because you've probably cheated as well [and yes, I've looked at the other thread].</p>
<p>So honestly.. back off the OP. It's sad that some of you have never really learned that cheating is not a victimless crime.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, small addition. He is only a snitch if he was told in confidence that his friend cheated and he agreed to not tell and THEN told. He never agreed to such a thing, so in all technicallity, he is not a SNITCH. :)</p>
<p>Nice logic, Inaina. ;-)</p>
<p>
You can't be serious. You're absurdly defining victim broadly and imprecisely. A "victimless crime" refers to people and only people.</p>
<p>
And whose fault is that? Certainly not the drug itself.</p>
<p>
I understood exactly what you meant. You were trying to apply a completely different scenario in an attempt to prove your fallacious point that this wasn't a victimless crime.</p>
<p>
Of course not--where did I ever say that? You're resorting to shameful platitudes because you cannot effectively prove your point. ("But what about the children?")</p>
<p>
I was only being precise and calling the person what he considers himself. In fact, he titled his thread "Snitching."</p>
<p>Ice: Please be a little less insulting. Resort to logic. :) I love a sound debate.</p>
<p>Perhaps in your vocab, victim only applies to people, but it has been used to represent any party that has been injured. This is the definition under which I am currently posing my arguements.</p>
<p>*More broadly applied, possession of marijuana has the potentiality to induce injury in a third party (i.e. child) who, through a ready access to the drug, may become psychologically dependent. </p>
<p>And whose fault is that? Certainly not the drug itself.*</p>
<p>Yes true, it's not the drug'f fault, just as it's not a gun's fault that someone is shot. However, that's not your arguement. YOur arguement is the possession of drugs. </p>
<p>I understood exactly what you meant. You were trying to apply a completely different scenario in an attempt to prove your fallacious point that this wasn't a victimless crime.</p>
<p>Explain how my scenario is "totally different." Please, do be specific.</p>
<p>Of course not--where did I ever say that? You're resorting to shameful platitudes because you cannot effectively prove your point. ("But what about the children?")
So you are not advocating cheating? So you agree that a victimless crime, if such a thing exist, is wrong? Wonderful! we have consensus.</p>
<p>I was only being precise and calling the person what he considers himself. In fact, he titled his thread "Snitching."
Interesting point. Note that he didn't call himself a "snitch" directly. Thus, you can't simply extrapolate that he was refering to himself...The OP seemed more of a consultation to whether the general public would consider him a snitch... Note how at the end of his message, he asked "is what I did wrong..." an indication that he was asking, not naming...</p>
<p>PLease do reply, I am so fond of a good arguement :)</p>
<p>
My vocab only reflects the general consensus of the population, which, in effect, is how terms are defined in the dictionary.</p>
<p>Now I know you don't like these things, but here is how the American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition defines victimless crime: "A term sometimes used for various acts that are considered crimes under the law but apparently have no victim. One such crime is prostitution, which is viewed by some as a commercial exchange between two consenting adults."</p>
<p>So, yes, I believe posessing small amounts of marijuana is a victimless crime.</p>
<p>
Nonsensical.</p>
<p>
No, unfortunately you got things backwards--I do not believe all victimless crimes are wrong.</p>
<p>But enough of our arguing. Back to the issue at hand: Was the OP right in snitching on his "friend"?</p>
<p>...and I know you don't like to get technical, but:
A term sometimes used for various acts that are considered crimes under the law but **apparently have no victim. One such crime is prostitution, which is* viewed by some *as a commercial exchange between two consenting adults
please note the "apparent" and the "viewed by some," thus indicating that it is not a general consensus but rather, a debatable issue. :)
Oh yeah, where in that passage does it mention that a victim have to be a human being?</p>
<p>OK, back to the original point. Don't you think that perhaps it's relative? By the institution's standards it certainly was right that the OP "told" on his friend... but I suppose by the underground code of student camaraderie, it was not so much in the right. So which set of standards are we going by? Moreover, don?t you think there is also the issue whether the OP intended to place his friend into so much trouble?</p>
<p>In publishing, plagerism is HUGE, a very big deal...and can cause major problems for the publishers, evenif they are unaware of their writers cheating</p>
<p>ICE: P.S. Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you usually act so degradingly toward everyone?</p>
<p>as well, people in journalism, publishing, etc are trained to know that</p>
<p>when my D was in middle school a student 'wrote" a poem...it seemed familiar, so we looked it up</p>
<p>the teacher had submitted it to a contest...well we had to tell her and show her the sources we found...she had to write a letter withdrawing the poem, and was extremely embarrassed</p>
<p>she was glad we told her because if it had come back to her, SHE might have looked like a fool at best, a cheater at worst</p>
<p>Citygirlsmom is absolutely right--in publishing plagiarism is a huge deal. But the OP's friend was not publishing his paper or profiting off his plagiarism. We do not know the circumstances of the assignment, but it definitely was not at the same level as a published work.</p>
<p>Inaina, I thought perhaps we could end our debate, which was clearly going nowhere. And don't take anything I said on this message board too personally--I don't know you, you don't know me, we just happened to debate on a political and ethical issue.</p>
<p>And before you blockquote and disect what I just said I thought I should make it clear that I AM NOT ADVOCATING PLAGIARISM. The issue is whether it was the OP's ethical obligation to investigate a "friend's" high-school paper for plagiarism and then turn him in for it.</p>