bigskygal wrote:I'd only add that if the town of Freeport values the library highly enough to get police support in collecting overdue books, I think that's great.
Community police officers go to our schools to teach kids bike safety and stranger danger; why not be involved in teaching them the importance of returning borrowed items?
For the naysayers who don't consider this serious: If you rent a car for three weeks and still haven't returned it seven months later, should the cops shrug it off as a civil matter?
If I rented a car and they hadn't charged me for seven months I'd go back and get another one! Sheesh, who wouldn't?
bigskygal wrote:keld, I do expect the courtesy of an explanation and/or apology for that comment; I've never engaged in anything remotely in the category of trolling and I'm deeply insulted by the accusation.
Yes you do, I thought Dales was CP (why I couldn't tell ya) and thought yer post was a continuation of a previous exchange.
My bad...
Sometimes it seems as though one has to cross the line just to figger out where it is
My position regarding 'parents' v. 'breeders' is one I've developed from 41 years of life experience, the last 15 years of which have involved intensive involvement with families involved with social services or the criminal justice system. I extrapolate from those experiences to situations I observe in the public realm in the course of my daily life.
Expressing my opinion on the subject of breeders is something I'll continue to do in any relevant thread, regardless of participants. It's not intended as trolling.
I can't imagine having children and forgetting to return the library books I'd borrowed for them despite repeated notices from the library. I've stepparented young kids and I know how hectic parenting is, but that doesn't excuse failing to hang a calendar on the wall and marking the due date of the books, or at very least responding immediately to the library notice. If the house is so trashed they can't locate the books, there's a bigger problem with these breeders. Maybe they are so stoned all the time the kids are neglected, too. Maybe that's why police responded to the library's request for assistance, because the family is on the radar of local service providers from prior involvement.
We don't know; folks have a habit of reading such a story through the filter of their own experience. Perhaps some of us are assuming this library book incident involved a family of great character with a nice clean house and well fed and well behaved kids; maybe it doesn't.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
Failure to return an overdue library book may be accidental - an oversight. Purposeful failure to respond to legitimate requests to return materials is tantamount to theft. The library took a correct action; if the parents don't like having the rozzers ring the doorbell, they should act responsibly
Anyway, it is to be hoped that these parents do put a safety helmet on their child in the library - books can fall from stacks.
Meade
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Theft? Why only for library books. I once paid a substantial deposit to a contractor to repave my driveway and he never did it. It wasn't theft--the best I could get was a civil judgment against him. Isn't failing to return something a person of insitution lent to me pretty much the same? Somehow I don't see it as criminal.
Tantamount: Equivalent in seriousness to; virtually the same as
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
There are cases where civil and criminal liability overlap, as I'm sure you're aware, Big RR. Depending on the evidence, yours might have been one of those.
Whether law enforcement prosecutes in such cases is determined by weighing a number of factors.
This story, of course, isn't about prosecution, but about police involvment in collecting exceedingly overdue library books.
My point, which I have perhaps made awkwardly, is that I vehemently disagree with the opinions expressed that this was no big deal and the library should have let it go.
I say that as someone who routinely forgets the due date on her library books and often requires a call from the library to return them. But I DO respond to the library's requests. It's not that hard.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
As someone who is eagerly awaiting a DVD and a book from their local library, I agree. Later return of library items should be a capital offense.*
* Apart from when I do it.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
