Re: Valid Product Keys for Windows XP SP2 Professional Volume License Edition

Gregg Hill wrote:
Alias,

I did not respond because I did not see that part in your post. I thought I had read it all. OK, for your sake regarding this portion, I'll respond.

You are wrong in your assumptions about my upbringing. I was raised by an atheist father and a Catholic mother who almost never went to church. I have no faith in God.

However, my Dad was born in 1918, my Mom in 1920, and I in 1959, so my values come from an older generation, the one that went through the Great Depression. My grandfather (my Mom's father) was an Italian immigrant who came here (legally) around 1910 or so with nothing but the shirt on his back, and not speaking a word of English. He was 16 and worked in the rail yards and coal mines for years, rather than just claim being poor as an excuse to steal. He worked a few years and made enough money to go back to Italy for a month or so, pump out a baby, then come back here to work some more, then go back and make another baby, then do it again. Finally, in 1929, he had enough money to get the whole family over here. Imagine his situation now, in 1929, right after the crash, with his family of three kids, and his parents who were too sick to work much. He and his family lived through the entire Great Depression. My Mom, who was the poorer of my two parents, never stole anything from anyone (neither did anyone else in the family, nor did my Dad), in spite of having to wipe her ass with a Sears catalog because the family could not afford toilet paper. They lived in a house with no electricity and had an outhouse. They were better off in Italy!

Sorry, but being poor does NOT equate to having lower moral values. Having low moral values is something you CHOOSE, because you CAN change that.

I didn't say that and apologize for mistakenly guessing at your upbringing.

Your attitude sounds like that of someone I worked with a few years back. He had been in jail for stealing radios out of cars, and he told me that I just did not understand being poor and not having food to eat. I asked him if he and his stealing buddies spent every single penny they got from those stolen radios on food. The answer was NO, some of it went to booze and drugs. I then asked if he had approached the owner of each vehicle and had asked them for a few dollars in exchange for washing their vehicle or some other form of honest work. Again, the answer was no. He CHOSE to steal instead, rather than even ask if there were some way to EARN the money for food.

I like your comment that, "...stealing anything worth less than 400 euros is not considered a crime." But you did call it stealing, and that is morally wrong. How many times do I have to explain to you that something does not have to be illegal to be wrong? It does not matter the amount taken without permission to be wrong. Raping a woman in certain countries is not punishable by law, but do you consider it OK to do so if it happens within the borders of that country?

I don't advocate stealing one dime from anyone. I do advocate fair use in regards to software. You think they are both stealing and this is where we disagree. I compared breaking the EULA to breaking laws like prohibition, slavery, marijuana, etc. and you had no comment. If everyone lock steps to Microsoft's rules not only will they not change, Microsoft will believe everyone agrees with them.

I, too, have been poor, much poorer than you can even imagine and did not steal either, even though I would not have had any serious legal consequences because, like you, I don't think it's right to take something that belongs to someone else.

See the difference?

Alias





"Alias" <aka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:eG0X%23UPBHHA.1220@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gregg Hill wrote:

You are absolutely beyond hope if you cannot comprehend it now. I am done with you.

Gregg
Promises, promises.

How come you didn't see fit to reply to this?:

You obviously was also raised with a Christian silver spoon in your mouth and have no idea what it's like to be poor. To further ruffle your moral feathers, in Spain, stealing anything worth less than 400 euros is not considered a crime. In other words, if you walk into a store here and steal a 300 euro TV, the worst that can happen to you is a fine and, if you're poor, you claim insolvency and pay nothing and do no time.

You, I suspect, would like to go back to the times when, in England, stealing was punishable by hanging and being poor was illegal and, if caught being poor, was sent to the "poor house" to work for cruel.

To get back to your recently upgraded country, laws that people don't agree to are traditionally broken in order to change them:

Prohibition

Segregation of blacks

Revolutionary War

Slavery

Marijuana.

Etc.

Using your "high moral" logic, blacks would still be slaves, no one could drink alcohol, the USA would still be a colony of England and Texas could still give you life for one joint.

Alias

I certainly hope you do not equate any of the above with using software on a computer, which is a total luxury.

My logic would in no way condone slavery. While I do not have faith in God, the Bible still has **tremendous** value in its teachings, such as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Even though I do not have faith in God, I do realize that it isn't rocket science to know that you should treat people as you would want them to treat you. If you do not want to be owned, abused, whipped, or killed, then you should not own, abuse, whip, or kill someone else. (Yes, that is a huge over-simplification of slavery, but the discussion is not about that travesty in our history). The principal applies to software. If you don't want people stealing from you, don't steal from people (or from Microsoft).

I am adamantly against alcohol because of the damage I have seen it do to my friends and to others, but I would not say that no one can drink it. It just enrages me that some piece of garbage kills an entire family with his car because he wanted to drink a beer. That beer was more valuable to him than a human life, and that is just plain twisted.

The US would not be a colony of England, because when those people left England to come here and start a new life, the British government had no right to come here and force them to obey the laws of Britain. We had every right to kick their butts out of here. Of course, the ones who came here had no right to screw the Indians, but that is a whole other thread.

And as for getting life for one joint, man, I hope not, or our ex-toking(?) President would be in deep doo-doo! Sorry, GW, that just slipped out!

I do not look at our planet as you do, with divisional lines drawn on a map. That only leads to people hating each other just because the other guy lives on a different piece of dirt, or worships a different deity. I hate to break the news to you, but you are a human first, then a person of a certain country and/or religion, or lack thereof. If all lines on all maps got erased, and all religions ceased to exist, all you would have left is a bunch of humans living on a big wet rock in space. You can change your country, you can change your religion, but you cannot change the fact that you are a human being. Look at it that way and you see the fallacy of war, stealing from other people, hating your neighbor because he is Muslim or she is Christian, etc.

Is it OK with you if I do not respond any further and actually spend my time doing some work, or having fun with my wife? In closing, moral values are something you choose. I choose to keep mine where they are and treat people as I would have them treat me.

Take care, Alias!

Gregg


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