Rich Steal from Poor - Robbery in Nairobi

[Pente]

My wife and I were robbed in broad daylight by a pair of motorcycle thugs. I struggled against one for about 10 seconds, and even though there were about 30 people around us, nobody helped.

There faces were wrapped with rags and they wore nondescript green vests. As they drove off with my wife's bag, I tried to get as many details about the motorcycle as I could. I noticed that it was a fairly large cycle by Nairobi standards (600 to 750 cc size), extremely quiet muffler, probably automatic transmission & four cycle engine from the sound.

I generally feel safe being in third world countries by the simple virtue that I own practically nothing. I walk around in Levis and a tshirt. I have a cheap $10 watch and I rarely even wear that outside. I am in excellent health and have no problem with resorting to violence to protect myself. My most valuable material possession is a Dell D430 laptop with a 32 GB SSD drive. My second most valuable possession is a pair of cheap Nike shoes that are over a year old.

My wife lost her Android phone ($100) and her small netbook (around $150). These are tools that she uses for work and makes her much more productive in her job (which pays about $200 per month). She lost basically everything of value that she owned.

What really bothered me about that robbery was the opulent display of wealth by these thugs. That motorcycle was worth at least $2-3k and probably closer to $5000. They had the wealth to invest in a major resource to make it safer for themselves to steal from poor people. Their M.O. was smooth and practiced. I doubt they will ever be caught.

As a libertarian, it got me to wondering...is this why some people hate the rich so much?

[Lethn]

People hate the rich because they're the most obvious scapegoat to hate, they have no idea who their real enemies are because they don't know anything about their own countries.

[Gronthaing]

People hate the rich because they're the most obvious scapegoat to hate, they have no idea who their real enemies are because they don't know anything about their own countries.

That's quite the generalization. Not all rich people got their money from stealing the poor. That's true. But in a lot of countries that is exactly what happened, and still happens.

[GermanGiant]

People hate the rich because they're the most obvious scapegoat to hate, they have no idea who their real enemies are because they don't know anything about their own countries.

That's quite the generalization. Not all rich people got their money from stealing the poor. That's true. But in a lot of countries that is exactly what happened, and still happens.

It would be exaggeration to say that true riches steal like this. This, in my opinion, is an act of spoiled brat whose dad is rich. One can not be rich by stealing like this... because today or tomorrow, they'll be caught and punished. Riches take advantage of the system to make money.

[Gronthaing]

People hate the rich because they're the most obvious scapegoat to hate, they have no idea who their real enemies are because they don't know anything about their own countries.

That's quite the generalization. Not all rich people got their money from stealing the poor. That's true. But in a lot of countries that is exactly what happened, and still happens.

It would be exaggeration to say that true riches steal like this. This, in my opinion, is an act of spoiled brat whose dad is rich. One can not be rich by stealing like this... because today or tomorrow, they'll be caught and punished. Riches take advantage of the system to make money.

Sure. Of course they don't steal like this. I wasn't saying they all go around picking pockets on the street. I was commenting on what the user above said.

[lolled]

As a libertarian, it got me to wondering...is this why some people hate the rich so much?

Maybe because they feel that stealing from the rich won't make them poor and they will still be rich.

[username18333]

In a world where the things we need and use go bad, sharing comes naturally. The hoarder ends up sitting alone atop a pile of stale bread, rusty tools, and spoiled fruit, and no one wants to help him, for he has helped no one. Money today, however, is not like bread, fruit, or indeed any natural object. It is the lone exception to nature’s law of return, the law of life, death, and rebirth, which says that all things ultimately return to their source. Money does not decay over time, but in its abstraction from physicality, it remains changeless or even grows with time, exponentially, thanks to the power of interest.

(Red colorization mine.)

Massive “accumulation of wealth” (i.e., “hoard[ing]” [Eisenstein])—in this case, by “the rich” (Pente)—begets otherwise-indomitable economic scarcity.

[ObscureBean]

Don't sweat the small stuff my friend, what happened to you is unfortunate but you only lost that which you didn't truly need.
You'd only waste your energy indulging emotions.
 
The human world comes as a package, you can't have ups without having downs.
Adopting/accepting the human world as your world binds you to the fine print which a lot of people seem to overlook: justice is always arbitrary. It is only through arbitrary justice that the 'world' can provide you with ups. 

[username18333]

. . .
 
The human world comes as a package, you can't have ups without having downs.
Adopting/accepting the human world as your world binds you to the fine print which a lot of people seem to overlook: justice is always arbitrary. It is only through arbitrary justice that the 'world' can provide you with ups. 

It is an idea of direction that begets left; it does not otherwise exist.