You can't blame him for choosing a more exotic and exciting path, can you?
Who can afford to be an angel in this world? There are so many evil sociopaths out there, who start wars, spread propaganda, etc. It's impossible to be completely ethical in this world. It goes against the system. Have you all seen the film "Zeitgeist" and "Zeitgeist Addendum" on YouTube or Google Video? It explains why true ethics cannot exist in our system.
My dad even told me that "people can only have morals if they can AFFORD to have them". If you go to third world countries, you will find that many have to scam, cheat and lie in order to make any little money at all. Most people are desperate and suffering out there. Only a few at the top of the pyramid have it all. This is a very unjust world. And a man often has to take what he can get.
Where have I heard this defense before? Oh yeah...
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/07/bernie-madoff-f--k-my-vic_n_602605.html....Bernie Madoff appears to have none of the remorse expected of a man staring down a 150-year prison sentence.
According to a lengthy new piece by Steve Fishman in New York magazine, Madoff, who apparently pals around with a former mob boss and a spy in a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina told a fellow inmate, "F--- my victims. I carried them for twenty years, and now I'm doing 150 years."
Madoff, whose con artist bona fides seems to have turned some fellow inmates into "groupies," even indicated to other prisoners that some of his victims actually deserved to have their money taken from them. Overall, Madoff comes off as cocksure, unrepentant and a bit miffed at the world. Here's New York magazine:
He was past apologizing. In prison, he crafted his own version of events. From MCC, Madoff explained the trap he was in. "People just kept throwing money at me," Madoff related to a prison consultant who advised him on how to endure prison life. "Some guy wanted to invest, and if I said no, the guy said, 'What, I'm not good enough?'?" One day, Shannon Hay, a drug dealer who lived in the same unit in Butner as Madoff, asked about his crimes. "He told me his side. He took money off of people who were rich and greedy and wanted more," says Hay, who was released in December. People, in other words, who deserved it.
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IOW's the money's too good, who can blame them? Blame the victims instead...
Yes, we can blame them. This is insulting to the great majority of people who remain honest.
And yes, that includes the Third World. I've traveled to Latin America and Asia (Philippines and Indonesia) quite a bit. Most people don't hustle, don't steal, don't con. Your father is dead wrong. In the Third World, it's mostly the wealthy who constantly steal, along with crooked govt and esp cops. They do it mostly to honest poor people.