OK, so I'm TOTALLY stealing this idea from Shakespeare's Sister who has the same post up right now, but my question is totally different.
If you happen to walk by a business and see a huge basil plant growing "wild" next to the building in the parking lot, is it stealing to snip off a few leaves? Or what if you are at a nursery and you see a plant spewing its seed all over the ground and you pick up a couple to bring home.
I need to know if it's stealing. I'd like some comments here. I have a site meter and I know there are visitors lurking.
Very well said Paul. You deserve a prize but I have none to offer. :-)
ReplyDeleteTechnically, both acts are stealing, if the basil plant or seed-spewing plant are on someone else's property, whether they are using that plant (or seeds) or not.
ReplyDeleteBut whether it would be interpreted as such by the respective plant owners depends greatly on the general attitude and mentality--and therefore nationality and/or political persuasion--of said owner. A Hawaiian or a Barbadian, in my experience, believe all things that grow belong to Mother Earth and so would not be upset or likely to press charges (as long as one did not steal a whole containerized plant from a nursery, just the spilled seeds). A Floridian redneck would probably run out of his house and point any one of fifteen shotguns, Glocks, or Uzi's he owns at you for plucking a leaf from a plant whose name he cannot pronounce, the purpose of which he could not say. As to the seed thing, it would depend whether he knew that seeds can grow into more plants, or, rather, beleived that God creates them before His day of rest.