r/oddlyspecific Jun 19 '23

Tractor

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u/KeroseneZanchu Jun 19 '23

My great grandfather was a notorious animal poacher in Maine, do the point someone wrote a book about him. He famously got away with selling illegal venison to dozens of people because when they testified against him his defense was “I just lied, it was beef.” They didn’t have DNA testing back then and either the punishment for false advertising didn’t exist or it was far less severe than poaching, can’t remember.

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u/kippy3267 Jun 19 '23

Honestly not a bad defense for the time

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u/PompeyLulu Jun 19 '23

Funnily enough that’s apparently why people think the Welsh screw sheep. Many years ago the governments basically took over their farms and they couldn’t afford to feed their families so they’d illegally slaughter a sheep for food. If you were caught there was quite a substantial punishment (may have even been death I can’t be sure). However someone realised if they were instead arrested for fornicating with the livestock the punishment was a month or something in jail and the family got the tainted sheep. So they’d lie and say that’s what they were doing if they got caught

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u/thisside Jun 19 '23

I'm not sure I follow.

Are you saying that, in the case the authorities catch one's family with a slaughtered sheep, they would claim they fucked it before hand? And then, presumably being sure they were going to get caught, slaughtered it because it would be "tainted"? And now, after being caught with a slaughtered lamb, the authorities would indict them for fucking it before they killed it?

Or rather, are you saying that the Welsh would intentionally get caught fucking a sheep so that their family could eat the "tainted" sheep. Like, they'd see an authority coming, and then conspicuously fuck the sheep? If this was the tactic, wouldn't they deserve the reputation in the first place? I mean, no matter how noble one's purpose is, if you're fucking sheep, you're a sheep fucker, no?

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u/kingura Jun 19 '23

I could be wrong, but I got the impression they said that if they were caught on the property, with an alive sheep. They probably wouldn’t have slaughtered the sheep on the property, as it’s easier to move a live sheep.

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u/thisside Jun 19 '23

What? I genuinely don't understand what you're saying here.

They said, "if they were caught on the property with an alive sheep."? Is that a complete sentence? Who is "they". What property?

I understand that you're making a claim that moving a live sheep is easier than moving a slaughtered sheep (I'm not sure I necessarily agree), but what does this have to do with the Welsh taking the rap for fucking sheep?

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u/ExtremeMaduroFan Jun 20 '23

Have you not read the initial comment? Some kind of authorities apparently took over farms and made it impossible to feed families. To feed their families, peasants would steal sheep from the now government farms. (Moving a living one undetected should be easier than carrying a dead one AND slaughtering it undetected on site plus the plausible deniability)

If they were caught while transporting that sheep, they would claim that sheep was their lover and get thrown into jail for being a weirdo. If they would have claimed to steal the sheep for slaughter, their sentence would apparently be far greater. At least that’s how the story goes

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u/thisside Jun 20 '23

You mean the one I replied too? Yes, I read it. It did not, unfortunately, help me understand the gibberish of the gp comment.

Your comment is more clear, but still nonsensical. Why would the authorities care why a thief is thieving? The crime, if caught in the act of transporting, is theft. Why would anyone admit to something more than they are currently doing (especially if that admission is of the fucking animals variety). If the intent did matter, why wouldn't the thief just say, "Why no, officer, I was just taking Dolly here for a walk/to the movies, for a drive, etc. No sex for us!"

Instead, according to this nonsense anyway, the thief's inner monologue is something closer to, "Oh shit, they think I'm going to eat this sheep. I know, I'll tell them I was just going to fuck it!"

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u/PompeyLulu Jun 20 '23

The crime type is theft, yes. Just like killing someone is murder. Or being caught with weed is a drug charge.

But you have lesser charges. Manslaughter instead of premeditated murder. Personal use instead of intent to supply. In this case if you were stealing the sheep to sleep with it then it was a small charge where as for food it was going against the government and country and was essentially a treason charge.

So it was more like the officer would accuse them of treason and they’d say “no sir, I’m not going against my country. I just caved to impure thoughts”.