PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: bilbous on February 25, 2007, 11:57:33 pm
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Somebodies latest sig put me in mind of this old saying and I am wondering how many people would agree to the sentiment.
To me it means that if you are going to be convicted anyway you might as well make sure you are not innocent. Personally I cannot accept this philosophy however pragmatic it may be but I really think that few others would. Does that make me crazy? Do not mistake me I am no angel and do my share of inappropriate things but they are not things I set out to do for the most part.
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I don't think it applies just to misdeeds. Taking the metaphor on a more broader meaning you could say it's more like the old "If yer gonna set out to do something, do it right and see it through" mentality, even if it means getting hung.
I dunno, I have a way of seeing things from a weird perspective :P
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Fair enough. I don't quite see it that way as being hung suggests punishment to me but your "something" could be eligible for such Or I could be reading into it too much. By the way, I had lamb for lunch, a much preferable position although I am not quite sure how it fits in.
I just had a thought, perhaps being hung refers to in the slaughterhouse in which case the expression would probably mean it is better to have experiences before you die than to die without ever having any. Curious, I wonder why this has never occurred to me all these years.
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Interesting I had turkey for dinner. Teriyaki - that's chinese rice-wine marinade. With brown sugar. It was good.
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well, I like Emeralds interpretation myself.
Anyway, its hangged, not hung.
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I had chicken soup I made from scratch. I wonder how I would tell if lunch came from a sheep or a lamb, the package, which I never saw, could have been mislabeled...mutton.
it would be hung from a hook in a slaughterhouse wouldn't it?
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Better to have a great lawyer/defender to "prove" you are innocent/right :innocent:
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it would be hung from a hook in a slaughterhouse wouldn't it?
It most certainly would be. But didnt someone mention punishment? I figured the reference was aimed at theft and being hanged as punishment for it. better to steal the sheep and get hanged for it than steal a lamb. I may be misunderstanding the saying, iv not heard it before.
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I don't think it applies just to misdeeds. Taking the metaphor on a more broader meaning you could say it's more like the old "If yer gonna set out to do something, do it right and see it through" mentality, even if it means getting hung.
I dunno, I have a way of seeing things from a weird perspective :P
You've misunderstood Bilbous's posts. The saying means that if you're going to suffer for something you didn't do, you might as well do it.
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I disagree fully with such view.
Turning an act of injustice into an act of justice, specially if directed against you, is nothing but self-conformism and a way to negate the initial truth on it(you were a victim of injustice).
If someone framed you as a murderer would you become one?
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I disagree fully with such view.
Turning an act of injustice into an act of justice, specially if directed against you, is nothing but self-conformism and a way to negate the initial truth on it(you were a victim of injustice).
If someone framed you as a murderer would you become one?
Well, you aren't really negating any injustice because all you're doing is creating another injustice. And murder isn't a relevant example because the saying is more or less to do with things which aren't of as harmful a nature.
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"If you have to get wet, may aswell go swimming"
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I actually think it is more go experience what you can than do what you are going to be unjustly punished for. It really makes more sense to me. Also If you do what they accuse you of you are letting them define you and it matters little if you would not have done it, by doing it, you are what they say you are. If you have principles you have to live by them even if it becomes inconvenient although few people are able to be steadfast under all circumstances.
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I actually think it is more go experience what you can than do what you are going to be unjustly punished for. It really makes more sense to me. Also If you do what they accuse you of you are letting them define you and it matters little if you would not have done it, by doing it, you are what they say you are. If you have principles you have to live by them even if it becomes inconvenient although few people are able to be steadfast under all circumstances.
It depends on how much importance you grant motive.
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The meaning of it if I remember rightly was because at the time of it's inception there where a lot of crimes that if committed incurred the same heavy penalty. For example at one point in history thievery and murder where once given the same punishment. Ergo, if someone knowing that where about to take someone for their money they would just as likely kill said person as well as take the money. This way there is one less person to know or alert any others of it. Thereby keeping the thief from the danger being caught. Besides, if the punishment was death and this person was a thief, why then not a murder as well as it was viewed the same in the eyes of the law of the time. Of course then there was times that a thief was caught that only stole (but not murder) out of starvation or some great need and in some cases the court would lessen or wave any punishment thereof. That all dependent on the circumstance of the misdoing of the individual. Of course laws have changed and this old proverb doesn't hold as much meaning as it once did due to law changes...or so I've read. It seems more used in the political arena more than anything else these days.
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Isn't it grand how ambiguous language can be?
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If the saying really means if you are going to suffer for something you didn't do you might as well do it, it is a really crummy saying. Here (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060512.TEACHER12/TPStory/National) is a person who suffered from something she didn't do, should she then go and do it now?
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The explanation connected to British law does make more sense.
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(http://www.answers.com/topic/might-as-well-be-hanged-for-a-sheep-as-a-lamb)
Might just as well be punished for a big misdeed as a small one. For example, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb and have a third piece of cake--I've gone off my diet anyhow. Already a proverb in John Ray's 1678 collection, this expression alludes to the old punishment for stealing sheep, which was hanging no matter what the age or size of the animal.
It's not saying that you should live up to what you're accused for, it's saying that if you're guilty of something, you might as well get the most out of it if the punishment's the same. In the example given it's a woman breaking her diet - she's already had two pieces of cake, and totally screwed over her diet, so it wouldn't make a difference if she had another. She's going to have to start over either way (i.e. be hanged).
But remember this is a metaphor. It means different things to different people, regardless of what the writer initially meant by it.
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Where I come from hanging is a crime but not always punishable if successful done on oneself.
As for what it means, well that is another nifty thing about language, meanings change with the times so that such an expression could come to mean something entirely different than it originally meant.
Oh and it is better still from the criminals perspective to get away with it. Darn them guys!
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Hi,
Well, my opinion is heavily biased; To do as little crime as possible, regardless of the punishment or accusations. Unlike the modern street "wisdom" makes you think, rules were not made to be broken, they were made to protect You.
Nobody's perfect though, we all make mistakes. It's whether we go "Woo! I stole a candy! I'm so cool!" or "Oh no, I stole a candy... I'm so sorry." that defines what kind of men we really are.
What comes to Nurahk's post:
"If you have to get wet, may aswell go swimming"
I'd say it's up to everyone to decide for themselves. There's no law against swimming.
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A world without something to hold people back is a world I don't want to live in. I know people that would, if laws didn't exist, kill me and I know for a fact that there are millions of others that would be dead as well. Law protects the people that don't need to be told what to do from the people that do.
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Laws usually exist to protect the interests of their creators first, of their supporters second and of the people as a whole third.
If no one broke rules and questioned things, we would still be under the hold of the Catolic Church and of their "truth" and believe that the Earth is flat.
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Breaking rules and question things are quite different things. You thing that law-abiding scientists constantly questioning things are on a par with anarchists?
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Breaking rules and question things are quite different things. You thing that law-abiding scientists constantly questioning things are on a par with anarchists?
Galileo Galilei almost was killed by breaking the rule that: "The Sun turns around the Earth because everything that the Church says is Truth".
Many rules have second intentions on their making that are anything but altruistic.
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Many are but by no means are the majority. The approach that you are taking is that they all are.
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Neither all rules are acceptable and should be respected and obeyed without question as they all are "made to protect you".
Laws, rules, etc will meet exceptions even when they are created with good intentions and sometimes make things as Law X Justice instead of Law and Justice.
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Was it said that they all were? You saw rules and broken in the same sentence and lept to project you politic views on all of us.
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Don't stick paperclips into light sockets. That's a good rule, and it is meant to protect you.
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If you consider doing that you probably dont deserve to be protected. A right to education is all thats needed.
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Hi,
I don't understand what you were trying to say with your minitrue post, lordraleigh.
The second makes more sense to me:
Laws usually exist to protect the interests of their creators first, of their supporters second and of the people as a whole third.
If no one broke rules and questioned things, we would still be under the hold of the Catolic Church and of their "truth" and believe that the Earth is flat.
I agree that rules aren't perfect and some may even be pretty mediochre. In such case the rule should be studied and changed if needed. But not randomly broken by individuals.
I do think that there are situations where breaking a rule is the lesser of two evils. (eg. when someone's life is at stake.) This is what I meant by saying "as little crime as possible" in my first post. However, even then, the rule wasn't made to be broken, and breaking it should be avoided if possible.
About Galileo Galilei (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_galilei): I tend to think his crime was not his observations, rather the way how he published his findings.
If you consider doing that you probably dont deserve to be protected. A right to education is all thats needed.
Well, I agree that education can take one a long way. But many good values aren't taught in the schools anymore, they just tend to concentrate on making people productive. But that's getting off topic again.
Just my opinions.
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If you consider doing that you probably dont deserve to be protected. A right to education is all thats needed.
You saying 6-month-olds don't deserve to be protected?
(I mean that in the broader sense, btw :P)