Why do people hate rats?

[DrFaroohk]

No, not those furry little creatures that crawl around in your walls and eat garbage. I'm talking about someone who informs the police that someone else has committed a crime.

And I don't just mean other criminals. I mean everyone. Recently, in my local area, a group of guys went a little crazy with their booze one night and wound up causing all sorts of mischief - they even at some point stole a large fishing boat and crashed it into all the other fishing boats in the local marina. Stuff like this.

Only one guy was caught, and all everyone talks about is what a fine, upstanding young man he must be since he didn't rat out his friends.

I can understand why his fellow criminals would hate rats. To a criminal, a rat is someone who directly working against him and can seriously fuck up his day. So I can see why his friends would think "Yeah, that's awesome that he didn't rat us out!" But even regular people seem to think that being a rat is a bad thing, and that this guy must be the best dude in the world to have not ratted out his friends.

What the hell? I always thought that being a fine upstanding young man meant not getting drunk and going on rampages and stealing people's fishing boats and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

[Fashion Lad!]

No one likes a tattle-tale, mkay.

That's purely it. Remember being a kid.. no one liked the tattle-tale.

[jackfaire]

Teachers would punish you for ratting out your friends or anyone else then wonder why no one would speak up when they asked them too.

[Slytovhand]

But... aren't we all grown up now???

Or is society still incredibly immature?

[Bloodsoul]

Honestly, my first thought to the thread was:

No, not those gangly little creatures that hang around in your malls and eat garbage.

[Greenday]

But... aren't we all grown up now???

Or is society still incredibly immature?

Are these seriously questions?

If so, then no and yes. Most people don't ever seem to grow out of that bull.

[Savannah]

I'd guess that if you rat out your friends you are seen as being disloyal. And of course loyalty is more important than, say, doing the right thing

[jackfaire]

I'd guess that if you rat out your friends you are seen as being disloyal. And of course loyalty is more important than, say, doing the right thing

Some believe that the whole loyalty thing is the right thing. They believe that telling on someone else is morally or ethically wrong.

However oh my god the cries of how could they find him innocent wasn't there any witnesses that you will hear from these people

[blas87]

My only pet peeve with rats is the ones who are IN on the crime and rat out their pals just to get a lighter sentence/less jail time/smaller fine/etc.

My bf has a friend like that, though bf is much smarter than he was when he was younger and doesn't deal this stuff anymore, he knows for a fact that his friend got his slate wiped off nicely from anything he did wrong because he'd nark out stuff his friends were doing.

[protege]

Some believe that the whole loyalty thing is the right thing. They believe that telling on someone else is morally or ethically wrong.

...and then these same people will bitch and complain about how "crime is out of control" in their neighborhood. That is, they don't want to turn in people who commit the crimes, yet complain about it Sorry, but that shit doesn't fly with me.