You, E_brown, were the one who introduced the concept of "social banditry" (whatever the hell that is supposed to be) and said that this is "a pretty cool story line:"
Quote:Second, the existance of a community of rebel tech-nerds who are challenging laws and industries, although it is a recurring theme, is still a pretty cool story line. This is the modern version of social banditry.
Banditry is theft, so it seemed apparent to me that you are saying that theft (stealing, banditry) is cool. If you have a problem with the use of "cool," find a mirror and start an argument.
Blackbeard was real, and he was a pirate. The fact that he usually did not harm his victims, if they offered no resistance, does not alter that he not only countenanced theft and murder, but that that was his business. His log book, captured after his ship was boarded and he was killed, shows that he was concerned to keep his crew supplied with rum and wine, because that was necessary to keep them sufficiently contented that they would not desert or turn on him. Pirates are never, in reality, heroic--they are scurrilous criminals, who either have abandoned a career or a potential career at sea, or never had any real prospects to begin with. There is nothing admirable about them.
Robin Hood likely never existed, or, if he did, the version of the Robin Hood legend peddled by Walter Scott in
Ivanhoe is made up from whole cloth. Nevertheless, even that romanticized version is an expression of a prejudiced point of view which equates to all Anglo-Saxons are good, all Normans are bad (except for Richard Lionheart, and Scott carefully fails to mention that Richard was homosexual--nothing wrong with that of course, but it would have offended his Victorian audience--and particularly that Richard was a vicious homicidal egomaniac).
Whether it is a pirate such as Blackbeard, or a cobbled-together legend such as Robin Hood, especially as received from the pen of Walter Scott--the fact remains that it is wooly-headed nonsense to suggest that those who get their living by theft ought ever to be glorified.
My post contained a specific disclaimer about the details of this particular case--i haven't said that anyone involved is stealing. I simply intended to point out that stealing and banditry ain't cool--to use the term you introduced.