Have great pleasure in doing sth.
Criminal
Commit a crime
Drink—drank—drunk
Admission
prison
Jailbird
Resident
Citify
Deadly—destructive
Bear—stand—endure—tolerance
Restriction—boundary
limited
celebration—celebrity
champion
illegal
anonym—anonymize
purse
deceive
cheat sb. out of sth.
Rob sb. of sth.
Honest—an honest boy
Be honest with
In the case
Get used to
Lesson TWENTY
TEXT A
You Cant Do It Because It Hurts Nobody
Who do you think breaks the law in our society? If you believe that only tough guys commit crimes, you may have to think again. Answer the following questions honestly. Has anyone you know ever driven drunk? Can you think of a friend who has used drugs? Are you aware that your parents may not always tell the truth when they go through customs? Wont some of your friends admit that they have stolen an item from a store? Have any of your friends ever copied a CD onto a tape for someone else?
In case you did not know, all of these acts are against the law. Now, among the people you know, how many have never broken the law? Does that mean that most members of our society should go to jail? Unlike in the movies, we cant divide the world into bad guys and model citizens. Real life is much more complex. In the same way that diseases range from the common cold to fatal forms of cancer, crimes vary in degree. For example, smoking in an elevator will inconvenience people, but much less than threatening them with a gun.
In addition to breaking the law themselves, people tolerate various levels of crime. Why are we tolerant of some crimes? It may be that, by seeing others do something, we accept it more easily.
We may even start committing that crime ourselves. For instance, most people will find it easier to speed on a highway when everybody else is driving over the speed limit. When people celebrate a sports championship, if they see someone breaking store windows, they might start breaking windows themselves or even steal from the store. So the people around us influence how much law-breaking we can tolerate.
We must also wonder whether seeing violence on television or reading about it in the newspapers every day makes us tolerate crime more than we should. We become used to seeing blood on the news on television, or in full color in newspapers and magazines. Because we see thousands of dead people on TV, maybe we just try to ignore of the situation behind the violence.
If so many citizens tolerate violence and crime, or even commit crimes themselves, it may simply be because of the human mind. our minds may not care about specific laws. Instead, our minds may have a system of values that usually prevents us from hurting other people to improve our own lives. Yet, when it comes to respecting the rights of a mass of anonymous individuals, we might not be so responsible. While most people would not steal a wallet containing $50, they may not mind cheating on taxes, because cheating on taxes does not hurt any one person. It hurts society, but society remains an abstract idea that is not as real as a neighbor or a friends friend. perhaps this is why someone who robs a few dollars by force from a corner store will often end up with a longer jail term than a fraud artist who swindles thousands of dollars: threatening the life of an individual is not acceptable in our society.
When we look at the questions in the first paragraph and realize that many people have misconceptions about law-breaking, we could think it is surprising that only about 10% of Canadians have a criminal record. How could we improve the level of honesty in our society? Would a larger police force keep everyone honest? Would severe laws help make our society better? probably not. The police would never be able to keep an eye on everyone, and people would still find ways to bend new laws. Honesty will have to come from social pressure: in the family, at school, on the job, each and every one of us can encourage honesty by showing which behaviors are unacceptable. Teaching respect should become responsibility.
I prefer tea to coffee.
Mind avoid practice give up
