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richardhutnik on 19 June 2012
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Kasz216 said:
spurgeonryan said:
Of Course they would give it to Robin Hood. What do you think Richard?

It can actually be a deeper philosophical question then you'd think.

Afterall, many cultures who killed animals to eat, ended up thanking the animal.  Not the hunter... and if it weren't for the evil rich dudes in the first place... there would be nobody to rob... and therefore no wealth to be distributed to the people.

Not that i think Richard was going there.  I think he's just trying to create the most strawman arguement possible to force people to either avoid the thread or choose Robin Hood... Which you obviously would in western culture.

Then try and piggyback that onto a point painting the US government as Robin Hood.... ignoring the fact that most rich people do seem interested in helping the poor and that we already have a welfare system that pretty much makes starvation unheard of in the US.

Which in general was one of the two main issues behind Robin Hood more so then "take from the rich and give to the poor."  That people were starving, and couldn't eat... often times even though food was always right there. (No poaching in the king's forrest and all that.)

As such, I'd say Robin Hood, but I can see the arguement for Both.

What is put to the test here is intention vs outcome.  In this, one should be thanking a thief for getting help, but they did something.  One would think that it would be appropriate to thank the person who originally had the resources, but they didn't want to give it.

In my case, this comes from another forum, with myself ending up getting public assistance, and the person in question was outright hostile to myself, and he was totally opposed to welfare.  He then replies in one thread "Aren't you going to thank me?" because he paid taxes, but didn't want welfare to be given and certainly wouldn't of helped me in person.

And it is a deeper philosophical question than would appear on the surface.  It goes to, as stated before, outcome and intention.  Like, take another case of an evil genius who tries to destroy the world, but saves it.  Do you thank him for what he did when the intentions were evil?  There are multiple other ways to frame this and make it even more tricky to determine the outcome.  But, in this, one gets deeper insights, the way they do with a koan.