Property assignment (1) Helion black and Mister Deer

This passage from Mencius briefly describes how men are inclined or subject to give into criminality or illegality if they lack of livelihood. When lacking of livelihood, men are psychologically vulnerable. When a person is in a non-legal position, there must be someone else that has to prevent or stop such person to pursue his illegal activities. But if the man who has to stop these actions, is a benevolent person, how can he actively engage in stopping the criminal? The passage talks specifically about the entrapment (or better the imprisonment) of the criminal. In order to stop those criminal activities, there must be a “humane” ruler, who must follow specific set rules, which prevent him to enforce his powers beyond them. The passage ends with a quotation that probably refers to the fact that, to be humane, democratic and just towards other people, you cannot be wealthy. This is probably because Yang Hu, who’s quoted in the last part, probably believed that wealth most of the times, empowered men, taking away their humble and humane sense of justice.



1. When a humane man is in authority, how could the entrapment of the people be allowed to occur?

Jeremy Hammond is a hacker and an activist. He hacked into Stratfor which is an intelligence agency. The federal government caught Sabu who was a hacker in lulzsec and they turned him rat. Sabu tricked Jeremy Hammond and some other well known hackers into doing illegal activities and recorded them for the FBI. The government used Sabu to entrap Jeremy to get what they needed on him.

http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/stratfor-hacker-fbi-entrapment-shaped-my-case/d/d-id/1111797?



2. One who would be wealthy will not be humane; one who would be humane will not be wealthy.

 I feel as if this could relate to Aaron Swartz, Aaron snuck into the MIT server room and downloaded files from jstor. Aaron became very interested in Open Access, which would let anyone have "free access to research output, including peer reviewed academic journals, conference papers, book chapters, and monographs. Aaron was charged with numerous crimes and was potentially facing 35 years in prison; It all became too much for Aaron and he killed himself as a result of the trials.
Aaron chose to try to be humane over being focused on the money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz


3. Therefore an exemplary ruler must be respectful, frugal, and reverent toward his subjects, and must take from the people only in accordance with the regulations.

The Apple vs the FBI case has been widely talked about for the last month or so. When Apple was asked to break into the San bernardino terror suspects phone they refused and legal battles commenced. Apple stuck to principles and the laws put into place even though it was a very controversial case. They were protecting their businesses interest and their customers privacy rights.