[Christ]

I can't personally agree w/ the "you needed it more than me" method of thinking... I've stolen things before (I'm pretty sure we all have).

As a young child, it was in learning the roles of life.

As a preteen/teenager, it was moreso "because I could". And I was good at it.

As a Young adult (14 to 15, mostly) It was from necessity, I had to eat, and couldn't survive then without stealing. (Long/short - I moved out to prove a point. I proved that I could at least survive on my own. I later realized that I was proving it to myself, not my father, who had known it before-hand. Rather not discuss it further.)

I kept track of things (food, mostly) that I took. When I got a job, after I quit school, I began working full time, and paid back those things that I had taken. The store owner knew my father personally, so when I told him what I had done, he took it in stride, added it up, and I made payments until it was paid for.

The point of this was to say that while there are times I believe it might be necessary - the store owner most certainly would not have provided me with food free of charge, or on credit - most times, it's not because a person thought they needed it more, or could utilize it better. They saw value. Absolute value. And they intend to cash in on it.

That said, yes, I lock my door. It keeps the honest people honest. Let's face it. A thief wants in your house, no lock is going to stop them.

It's like encryption ciphers... there is always a better, faster, smarter hacker out there.

As far as a free world, I theorized about this in my school days. No matter how long I thought about it, how many times I ran a scenario through my head, or how many notes I took, human nature was always an infinite variable. And the structure would always falter.

I wish it were possible, but currently, I don't believe it is. Future-borne, it might be plausible.

I tend to believe that people are good-natured, and fall astray at times. It's the falling astray that leads to the indecencies that make for the banes of mankind.

To quote a paradoxical thought: Without evil, there can be no good. One may not exist without the other, and they must fall in line. In balance.

I honestly believe that Humankind will have left this earth before ultimate freedom will even be on the horizon.

BTW - I was almost suspended from school for reading books from or about the likes of Marx, Hitler, etc.

Mein Kampf was one of several books I had begun studying, in an attempt to familiarize myself with psychology. (Suggested reading) I was nearly expelled for refusing to give up the book while on school grounds. A perfect example of educators interfering with education.