Sneaking into Porter's dining hall poses a risk.

If I hadn't done anything worth getting arrested over. I'm not understanding why you didn't do that, unless you didn't belong in the dining hall for some reason.

If the poster, Jamie, or anyone else wants to call in to my show to discuss this, there's room and time. Though this may or may not have anything to do with homeless students on campus, that's an issue that needs to be pressed (i.e. Univeristy Codes 51 and 57 that ban sleeping at night on campus).

Show times are Thurday 6-8 PM and Sunday 9:30 AM to 1 PM Call-in #: 427-3772

"I would have called the police and asked them to make the guy give my pack back."

An important thing to recognize here is that many of us have experiences that suggest such accusations will stick once they are presented to the police, whether they are true or not. I would have stayed to fight it, but even if I was innocent I would have been fearful about going to jail. I can understand someone else in that same situation just taking off.

I've been in plenty of confrontations with both xops and private goons, and here' my experience:

Cops and security guards are BULLIES! I once confronted a cop stealing a bike from a young boy, and he threatened to take my bike too. I patted my pack to imply a weapon, and what did he do? He turned away from me and back to harassing the kid in an effort to force me to strike first.

In the described situation, I would have grabbed the backpack and wrenched it back HARD, and if anyone tried to grab me in response I would have broken their grip and immediatley run for the door. If they appeared too threatening I would have given them reason to believe I might have a little more on me than they want to fuck with.

Once outside, I would have hopped on my bike and taken off!

The only thing that is completely honest in this account is the title. If you break into the dinning hall, good things won’t happen. I know plenty of the proctors at our school, and for you to get on your high horse because you disobeyed the rules is hilarious. Treat the people who work at the school with respect, and don’t go to sites like this to complain when you don’t.

There WAS struggling, wrenching, and pulling resulting in the straps on the pack snapping. Fortunatly - while tugging - the victim was able to open the pack and remove a few un-replaceable things before bolting.

As for the cops? They don't care.

Cops respond to calls. In this situation, they would have arrived, detained the "suspect", and asked a few questions. Any answers the "suspect" gives will be used against him, because the scene is already biased:
It's Porter staff vs. one impoverished kid.
Workers for the rich vs. the poor.
Several employees vs. one person.

It's 2006, and I shake my head in disbelief that we're still lying to ourselves. Police aren't here to PROTECT anyone. They're here for two reasons 1) Protection of private property, and 2.) Social control.

What happens next is up to the Porter staff. The cops ask "How much was the damage?" If they say it's over $400, the "suspect" is arrested, cuffed, and booked into the county jail for FELONY vandalism.
The "suspect" then gets to sit in jail, where he'll probably be offered a plea bargain - a reduced sentance for a plea of "guilty". Most people in jail are badgered to accept this. And most people - guilty or not - sitting in their cold concrete cells - take this offer thinking they can just get it over with. So they can just get out, feel the sun, the wind, the grass beneath their feet, and the embrace of loved ones.

But if choosing to fight the case, you'll be in there for at least a week - being shuttled back and forth from the jail to court - talking to public defenders - then finally being put to trail in front of a judge.
Depending on the evidence and witnesses, one of two things will happen. You get a sentance, or you're free.

If you get a sentance, you go back to jail. And you're story may get added to a similar site such as this one: http://www.innocentinmates.org/
At the end of your sentance - when you get out, you have a felony charge on record. This means several things.
- You can forget about finding a job.
- You can't apply for food stamps.
- You can't vote.
- If you were in college before - forget about getting back in.
- You may as well rely on scams to survive - risking getting busted.

And remember, all you did was jump a fence.

But lets go back to trial. Say, you're proven innocent.
You're released after spending a week in jail.
You're charged court and public defender fees - well into the triple digit range.
If you had a job before, you're probably fired.
And Fido - in your apartment - is curled up in the corner - DEAD.

I know. I made this to sound bleak.
If you're a white kid - like me. And you have no prior record. Most likely you get felonies reduced to misdemeanors and a slap on the wrist.

BUT if you're a minority, and/or you've been caught putting up that cool spray paint piece of yours on the side of GAP clothing during an unfortunate night in your past. This is reality. And maybe... you get a plea bargain.

But no matter who you are, white or black, you're life is reduced to a well carved job, work, school cycle. Anything beyond is illegal.
If you aren't productive - you're viewed as a problem.

My solidarity is with the homeless, the poor, the shoplifters, and any one who's shot at a police officer.

The person involved in this incident got away. You can too.
Quit fueling the system. Stop being productive. Quit your job. Stop drinking. Go vegan. And DON'T get caught.

Do what the police, CEOs, and chancellor say at all times and you probably won't have a problem. That means don't eat, sleep, or urinate without their permission. Pay for everything and do what you're told at all times. The cops have never imprisoned or killed people for being poor and/or of the wrong skin color. Amadou Diallo wasn't real!

and acting in a way that harms others. Nineteenth-century anarchists were able to advocate an end to government because they believed that people understood this--that your rights end where mine begin. They thought that people could coexist without laws and a legal infrastructure because people are basically good and will not go out of their way to harm each other.

Thus, there's a difference between deciding to live outdoors, and deciding not to have a job, on the one hand, and deciding to shoplift or deciding to shoot at a police officer. If you decide not to have a job--as distinct from not being able to be hired--you have to accept the consequences of your actions, because shoplifting harms others. The line gets blurrier when something like dumpster-diving or your own personal drug use is inappropriately criminalized.

If a person is breaking into Porter dining hall because it's a choice between doing so and not being fed, why can't we think of a creative way for UCSC dining halls to help out with community poverty (like donating unused food items or hosting a meal for the homeless)? We can make positive change happen without forcing individuals into a harmful context.

Jamie Bronstein brought up the notion that theft is harm. He ironically mentioned this in the context of 19th century anarchists, hehe.

Something else that 19th century anarchists thought was "property is theft". Therefore, those same 19th century anarchists would not have thought that sneaking into a building for a meal was harming anyone. The initial harm was done by the thugs long ago who enforced property on what had hitherto been the commons, and the continuity of the legal system that has legitimized that initial murderous theft. (Y'know, 500 years ago all the land that constitutes the US belonged to the Indians, whom through violence the land was taken and divided up amongst the conquerors for the benefit of the conquerors -- that sort of theft.) So, I am thinking it is interesting how Jamie brought up those anarchists, sorta missing the point that they were against private property, to *justify* maintaining the status quo. It seems to me terrible violence to the ideas of 19th century anarchism.

More generally, what constitutes "harm" is a evolving concept. Nowadays in most parts of the world, slavery is considered a tremendous harm. Two hundred years ago? It was considered the natural order. Aristotle himself defended slavery as necessary for higher culture to exist. Nowadays, we don't buy it. So what "harm" is ain't this thing that is written in stone unlike the tone of Jamie's posts. I find myself, for instance, completely indifferent to the idea that some hungry people are sneaking into dining halls on the UCSC campus to get some chow. I can't see how it harms anyone and can easily see how feeding the poor benefits someone.

just a side note, jamie, but anarchists of the 19th century regulary shot, bombed, and stabbed police, bosses, and politicians. i would say the anarchist movement today is much more tame than it was 100 years ago.

"anarchists of the 19th century regulary shot, bombed, and stabbed police, bosses, and politicians."

Wikipedia's discussion of "propaganda of the deed" lists less than thirty such examples, most in Russia, over the course of sixty years. While historically notable, it's hardly accurate to say that these acts occurred "regularly."

Some anarchist theorists of the time rejected "Propaganda of the Deed" as counterproductive, while others attempted to redefine it. German anarchist Gustav Landauer argued that "propaganda of the deed" meant the creation of libertarian social forms and communities that would inspire others to transform society. In "Weak Statesmen, Weaker People," he wrote that the state is not something "that one can smash in order to destroy. The state is a relationship between human beings... one destroys it by entering into other relationships"