Not too surprised. Living in the US, giving a shit about the safety of owned property is pretty much the only thing you can count on.
Property is more important than lives. Where else would people literally say they’d shoot someone for going on “their” land.
In the US, we have a phrase for the mindset you’re describing:
“Fuck you, I got mine.”
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Yeah, this seems to be the most plausible answer here, assuming the baseline claim is true.
It tooke me years to understand that in the US apparently instead of burglars just breaking in, stealing stuff and leaving, “home invasions” are a thing, where people are facing armed robbery in their houses, often including rape. It seems that in the US crime often has a much more violent and hateful component to it than in other western countries.
I call it colonial trauma. Our forefathers would rape the help and the worse that would happen is getting berated by the judge.
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When US Americans get painted this way, it feels like a “Humans- Fuck Yeah” story. Like I’m just so used to us having our downsides highlighted that it feels special to be seen for a positive attribute
It’s a bit like learning that Russian cargo ships don’t get boarded by pirates because they’ll just start fucking shooting.
Say what you want about Russians, but that kind of rules.
I think that’s a positive. Americans, in the absence of law enforcement, will fight to defend themselves and their property (and vicariously, the property of others).
Stopping thievery, is, unto itself, a just cause.
As we say in the USA:
“The police don’t protect us, we protect us”
That’s kinda cool seeing how apparently you guys do put your money where your mouth is 😄 I wish we talked about that kinda stuff more and not just about the bad. I feel like remembering that not every aspect of being American sucks might give people a better reason to resist too.
Americans are naturally anarchist, we just have a shitload of bootlicker propaganda shoved on us at all times and too many people buy it
How do Europeans react to pickpockets?
I caught a pickpocket in Madrid with his hand in my girlfriend’s purse. He was directly behind us on the escalator. We just kind of were like “hey not cool,” then had an awkward escalator ride. We were late for a flight, so didn’t really have time to do much anyway.
I have had stuff stolen in Paris. Mostly, you have no idea it happened until they’re long gone.
I’ve been in a situation like that. Street perfomance, many a people. Some guy bumped behind me. I somehow quickly noticed a lack of phone. I told my dad, soon as I realised. He went up to the guy, the guy was all like “eh, he dropped it” or whatever. Feels like they just be awkward
warn other people of their presence, publicly shame them
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I often find Americans abroad to be quite charming in how American they are. Certainly, there are some that are obnoxious (and even their friendliness can be obnoxiousness in a way), but it can be quite endearing; Americans (especially the ones you meet while travelling) are so outgoing, and they’re so keen to make connections with people. Like, is it cringe when an American says “oh my great great grandfather was Scottish”, as if makes any difference at all that they are 1/16 Scottish? Yeah, somewhat. But after a friend explained to me that she sees it as coming from a deep desire to connect with other people, I began to see it as quite sweet.
It’s part of why I grieve for what’s going on in America right now. “American-ness” is a messy, mixed concept, and it would be unreasonable to ignore how much of that concept is deeply problematic. However, I feel that there is goodness within that concept, and the people in power at the moment seem hell bent on destroying or undermining what goodness exists there.
In 1992, I caught an eight year old pickpocketing my friend. We were 4 18yo males from Texas. So I am holding this kid a couple feet off the ground trying to decide what the hell to do with him. My friends didn’t really know what to do either. He was struggling pretty good, but not enough to get free. His mom came rushing over yelling something unintelligible, so I just threw him at her, and they took off running.
glad people are finally noticing this aspect of 2a. maybe the conversation can eventually start to touch on things like how it works for unions, reproductive rights, preventing cop fuckery, resisting environmental exploration. long story short, how the perpetrators of systemic and corporeal violence almost exclusively only target the vulnerable and unarmed.
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Omg, this turned out to be a thread with plenty explanations to USians that societies have laws, police, judges…
You can blame the orange guy all you want, but your culture is completely derailed. Murder (under whatever “reasons”) can’t be a national sport.
Weapon manufacturers really did a good job in the land of the free…
I mean obviously the gun laws are insane but the act of collectively beating the shit out of pickpockets has my respect.
Violent retribution as a core principle might contribute to your completely insane murder rates.
Man, people should have a right to defend their shit. The idea that someone should be allowed to take your things in front of you and you should be charged if you beat them up is pretty unhinged tbh
I fully disagree and enjoy living in a society free of such barbaric tendencies.
Make your people happy and maybe they’ll stop stealing your shit.
There are people who steal no matter how wealthy or comfortable they are. Theft is not stopped by making people happy. Reduced significantly, yes. But absolutely not stopped. Wage theft is the largest form of theft in the world, done exclusively by the better off and rich. Never forget that
(And yes, I’m saying that people should have the right to beat up their employers to get back their stolen money)
Also not really a thing here, and that’s fucking insane
It is a thing there, in fact.
What about a pickpocket that stole a stupid iPhone from a rich teen who would get a new one the very next day? And, in some less frequent cases, the pickpocket may have had actual needs like buying medicine…
That’s the reason we have a judicial system. Not even police are supposed to do harm, only prevent harm and bring into justice system.
I know the system has many flaws. That’s beyond the point. Those who prefer to go vigilante are calling for making it worse. Specially if we take into account the effects of inequality on a hands-on self-service judicial approach…
But the judicial system famously doesn’t differentiate between people doing what they need to for good reasons and those doing it for bad reasons…
How’s the pickpocket to know the person in question’s situation? That’s one of the top justifications scammers in india use as to why they pretend what they do is reasonable. But reality is they don’t know, and they don’t care. They’ll steal from anyone.
And, in some less frequent cases, the pickpocket may have had actual needs like buying medicine…
Likewise, a pickpocketing victim may also need to buy medicine.
Fair point. Thanks for providing it with assertiveness.
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I know the system has many flaws. That’s beyond the point.
That isn’t beyond the point. That is the point.
Also you can make up sob stories about those people all day if you want to. Got nothing to do with reality but if you like to feel sad for them knock yourself out.
Watching 60 days in is an absolutely insane thing to watch as a non american. People living like cockroaches in moldy shit stained rooms. People just sleep on the floor because they are over capacity, violence, food that looks just downright like a hazard to eat. And people in there are like: yeah, i’ve been here 10 times. I can’t get a job so i do crime and then i land here again. Or guys like: i grew some weed, so obviously i’m in this slave hole for 10 years.
have they tried not doing crime?
USian checking in, and you’re absolutely right. We somehow have the biggest police budget, while simultaneously having the most violent crimes & incarceration rates of all the developed nations.
there’s no “somehow” about it. police don’t stop crime.
Right, they punish ex post facto & not judicially
The other day, I was learning about the private prison system in the UK. It was grim seeing how that whole process leads to the proliferation of crime. Things are a damn sight better here than in the US, but it’s clear that our current trajectory is taking us closer to the US on that front.
It’s a self reinforcing cycle, because the rhetoric of crime leads to the proliferation of prisons, and a system that finds it profitable to criminalise people. I’m not even talking about prisons in terms of rehabilitation Vs punitive justice here, but almost the stage before that — people who probably shouldn’t be considered criminals at all. I suppose what I am positing is that we should be applying preventative medicine" lens towards crime and criminals. But of course, where’s the profit in actually addressing socioeconomic inequities?
The saddest/funniest thing to me about this whole bit is how every. single. US. person defending their right to righteously beat the shit out of someone for picking their pocket never, ever, even considers the idea that they might lose.
It’s just like gun owners in general. They all think they’re a perfect shot and the other guy must be like a Storm Trooper in Star Wars and can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
Everyone thinks they’re the hero and that they don’t need cops and laws until they’re the one bleeding out in an alleyway on the verge of death because they were stupid enough to “fight back.”
US Americans are completely fucking unhinged and live in a fantasy land where somehow every single one of them is the biggest and strongest with the biggest dick and will always win because their cause is righteous. What a crock of shit.
Willingness to stand up for oneself is not necessarily the same as one overestimating their ability to fight.
I was bullied regularly as a kid. I was no match at all for most of the bullies, they easily had strength, size, numbers, and fighting experience over me, but since the schools wouldn’t or couldn’t do a damn thing to protect me, especially when the bullies followed me well away from school grounds, the only choices I had were to either endure it, or to try to change the situation by standing up for myself. Even if I got my ass beat even worse just for standing up for myself, at the very least it made it clear to them that I was no longer guaranteed to be a frictionless target and that sometimes changes things for the better.
It’s not about winning. It’s about putting up the fight, because the potential outcomes of not fighting back aren’t always much better than standing up for oneself.
That said, I personally wouldn’t want to put a foreign trip in jeopardy by assaulting anyone if it wasn’t an actual self defense situation, much like back at home. I’m just responding to this idea that willingness to fight is not the same thing as being overly confident that one will come out on top.
and that sometimes changes things for the better.
And a lot of times it changes it for the worse, too. What even is this argument?
I don’t think you understand what it’s like to be constantly bullied and constantly on guard. At some point there is no concept of “worse”. At some point there is only the sense of “literally anything in the world except this.”
And I think you’d be shocked to find out how wrong you are. You’re describing my high school years. Guess what? Fighting back made it worse.
I’m genuinely sorry to hear that and I’m glad you made it out of there. But I stand by my point.
As do I. Sometimes the bullies genuinely have the upper hand. Like the Nazis versus the people in their concentration camps. Fighting back just lead to more violent retribution against those who were already being mistreated. You can’t magic your way into suddenly winning a losing battle. It’s absurdity after absurdity in here.
People!! Ugh. Downvoting me is letting your internalized opression taking over your moral!
I don’t downvote much. I logged in today just so I could downvote you.
Not sure why other folks did it, but for me, you seemed to like the attention.
I live in Canada, there’s surprisingly little pickpocketing here too, and we don’t have the same gun/weapon laws.
Like the Americans, we’ll straight up beat you to a pulp if you try some shit, and we’re very sorry about that… You motherfucker.
What reaction were the French pickpockets expecting? Ope, lemme get that for ya?
Certainly not assault. Most (french) people catching a thief inside their pocket have a bad enough day to not risk getting injured while winning a prison ticket.
Killing people over things do sound american lmao
Yeah but we’re not talking about things here, we’re talking about people coming up and taking from you, which is an act of violence to which one should certainly expect a response. Don’t like the response? Keep your hands to yourself, simple as that.
Yeah yeah let’s punch gypsies. Killing people over things is ahrborrent.
Bet you’re a yank lmao. Scum
No, not over things. I’m not talking about laying a trap to protect a thing. I’m talking about being robbed. I do not care what motivates the attacker if they attack me on the street, that’s why we have carry permits; so everyone can know up front that street robbery is risking your life for nickles.
Not entirely positive that this happened. I mean the Americans beating pickpockets. I’m sure it could have happened, but I live in France and was here and never heard about this…
There is a Medium post (https://scribe.rip/the-bad-influence/americans-in-paris-ready-to-rumble-with-pick-pocketers-f62b169abccd) but there isn’t a single French news source (that I can easily find) related to this ever happening.
I agree, this is posted as news when it’s likely anecdotal or even fabricated. It plays on the American self-image as John Wayne types, when everyone in Europe knows they’re usually not very streetwise and walk around with maps and cameras talking loudly.
The other comments here are quick to jump in with opinions about how Americans don’t take any shit, implying European simps just roll over for these pesky pilferers.
It’s a real Don’t Mess with Texas vibe based on another dodgy blog article.
In São Paulo it was a little mini-assault.
You’d get shoved from behind, maybe bumped into from the side, while yet another guy is actually taking your shit. Extra credit if you’re at a curb so you stumble.
Then everybody splits, your instinct is to turn around to see the guy who shoved you, by the time you’ve done that and realized what happened, your shit is goooone.
What are they doing in Paris that the mark has a chance to grab them? I guess if you’re in a reasonably athletic pack of 4-5, but at that point surely there are easier targets?
I suppose people who don’t watch American sports don’t appreciate that there are many obese Americans who can still run 40 yards in six seconds and expertly smash you into the ground when they get there.
people who don’t watch American sports
I’m gonna go out on a fucking limb and say people playing professional sports are not representative of the average obese assholes who have to walk around with a fucking oxygen tank lmao.
expertly smash you into the ground
Seriously, why do Americans all think they’re the best fighters around? Is it too much television and action movies? You’re in America, you really think an American pickpocket isn’t going to be packing some kind of weapon and if they clock that they’re being chased they are afraid to use it or something? I dunno, it seems to me the vast majority love just fantasizing about this while in reality they’d be bleeding out on the pavement before they had a chance to touch the person who swiped their shit.
Pretty sure they were talking about football players. Not really a fighting thing. That’s literally half the game.
Football players still very often fail to actually tackle someone even when they try.
This isn’t about standing up and doing axe kicks and shit, this is about chasing somebody down and getting the ball back from them.
I’ve personally chased somebody down who assumed they could outrun me because I was fat, ten years after the last time I played gridiron.
My knees were wobbly and I was a little lightheaded afterward, but it’s the one athletic ability your stereotypical dumbass American will have. We’ll literally break our own ankle trying to do a stepover. Or maybe that’s just me. 😄
This assumes that you can do it perfectly every time, not that you’ll sometimes be outclassed by someone who is actually in shape, actually faster than you, or has better control over their motor skills and can dodge or jump to escape you. Your little anecdote about the one time you tackled someone without breaking your body trying to do it doesn’t prove anything.
Sure.
I totally agree that absolutely anybody with current training in anything would have made me pay dearly for my stupidity.
However, because I’m a random American who played football, I was the one with the scintilla more experience, and I got to keep my teeth.
The American dudes who played sports in high school and are now in their 20s and 30s haven’t had their health collapse yet.
European cops are way more intimidating than American cops, by and large. I’m not trying to be jingoistic, I’m just saying that running after someone who is carrying something is the version of the national sport the vast majority of us actually play.
Your national sport is walking from office to a car to drive home to sit on a couch. Average American walks three hundred meters per week, the second you stop training for the sport you played once a week as a child 10 years ago, you stop being able to run any reasonable distance.
I guess another national sport of yours is overestimating how strong and powerful you actually are.
In my city in the UK, there have been a lot of thefts recently where someone will grab a phone out of someone’s hand and then escape on a moped or bike. Sometimes they start out on foot and hop on a vehicle, but sometimes it’s a “drive by” pickpocketing, so to speak (though calling it pickpocketing feels a tad erroneous if there are no pockets involved).
In big European cities, a more subtle version of what you describe can be quite common. Like if a suspicious person bumps into you (in a manner that’s fairly common in a big city), people who suspect that they have been pickpocketed may pat the pocket that their phone or wallet is in to check that things are still there. This is then observed by someone working with that first person, and they watch and wait for an opportunity to surreptitiously swoop in. When it happens, even if you immediately feel that you have been pickpocketed, it can be difficult to discern who it was.
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No wonder we had to step in for WW2.
