Summary: The Left grows more ambitious, accelerating and broadening their programs to remold America. Meanwhile, the consequences of their policies of the past 50 years loom ahead – a crash with few precedents in our history. Will they change course or press on? How will we react to their latest plans? How will we respond to the coming crash? These are the choices that will make our future. Of course, we will neither look ahead or prepare.
“A society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder – and nearly always from the former….”
― From Arnold Joseph Toynbee’s A Study of History. Failure is always an option.
This won’t end well for us.
About the Left’s latest experiment on Americans
“California’s Prop 47 leads to rise in shoplifting,
thefts, criminal activity across state.”
By Fox News, 1 November.
Proposition 47 was supported by the state Democratic Party and championed by the American Civil Liberties Union {and} passed by a wide margin in 2014. The idea behind it was to reduce certain non-violent felonies to misdemeanors in order to free up resources for cops and prosecutors to focus on violent offenders. …
Since Proposition 47 was passed, there has been an increase in theft across the state. Cities like San Francisco have seen organized crime rings turn shoplifting into a well-organized racket …. Among the nation’s 20 largest cities, San Francisco now has the highest rate of property crime, which includes theft, shoplifting and vandalism.
Del Seymour, founder of the non-profit Code Tenderloin, told Fox News that fencers – often from Mexico and Guatemala – set up shop in the middle of the day and night around the city’s United Nations Plaza area. He said he’s also noticed that the stealers and dealers have gotten bolder by the day. The retail heists taking place, he said, aren’t some small-time operation but instead a sophisticated network of international dealers who cross the border to buy stolen goods. …
The problem isn’t just San Francisco-based. Across the state, retailers say they have been hit hard by shoplifters since Prop 47 went into effect. …In San Diego County, 7-Eleven franchise owner Jassi Dhillon told NBC 7 that he has to deal with shoplifters at all six of his store locations. “It’s happening every day, hour by hour,” he said. Dhillon said shoplifting isn’t a priority to law enforcement and said when cops do show up, the shoplifter has left the store or isn’t concerned about the citation they are issued. ‘It’s becoming a lifestyle for us now because we can’t do anything much except take the loss,’ he said.
Rachel Michelin, president of the California Retailers Association, said …She said black-market dealers frequently cross state lines because they know California will go easy on them if caught. ‘They know what they’re doing. They will bring in calculators and get all the way up to the $950 limit,’ Michelin told Fox News, adding that ‘one person will go into a store, fill up their backpack, come out, dump it out and go right back in and do it all over again.’ Michelin said she’s seen footage from member retailers that she described as ‘completely insane.’ ‘They will go into a grocery store, steal alcohol and walk out the front door with it,’ she said. ‘They know no one is going to prosecute them. The district attorneys aren’t.’ She added that there are even more sinister acts afoot. Many out-of-state crime rings use children to do their dirty work because they know they’re low on the totem pole of prosecutions. …’teenagers know that there are no consequences anymore. It’s part of a game. If you get caught, all you have to do is get out of the store.’
The NYT puts a positive spin on this: “In California, Criminal Justice Reform Offers a Lesson for the Nation.” Allowing all these “small” crimes to take place without arrest and prosecution means that they are not in the statistics – therefore they are not a problem! They point to the rates of violent crime and large-scale theft, unaffected by Prop 47, as evidence that Prop 47 is working. Q.E.D.
Eric Sandberg at National Review gives a more accurate perspective.
“After Proposition 47: Crime and No Consequences in California.“
California’s Proposition 47 downgraded a variety of “non-serious, nonviolent crimes” that had previously been considered felonies to misdemeanors. These include shoplifting, grand theft, receiving stolen property, forgery, fraud, and writing bad checks. As long as the total value of the stolen property is under $950, only a ghost of an offense has occurred. A thief may now steal something under that limit on a daily basis and it will never rise to felony status. In the event that a perpetrator is pursued and apprehended, the consequence can be a small fine or a brief stay in jail, In reality, these repercussions are rare. …
The underlying premise of Proposition 47 was to free up funds so the state could focus on violent and serious offenders. Savings would be diverted to school-based prevention and support programs, victim services, and mental-health and drug treatment. Therefore petty thieves, who might be drug addicts, would avoid costly and ultimately detrimental incarceration. …
Nearly a thousand dollars in stolen property is hardly minor, especially to those who have little to lose. …A liberal Berkeley student studying in a café whose laptop is swiped from a table feels just as violated as the right-leaning visitor to Los Angeles whose luggage is stolen. A struggling small-business owner wonders how long he can withstand the damage done by constant pilfering. ‘Every bicycle in our building has been stolen,’ says Karen Burns, president of a San Francisco condo association. ‘I’ve caught so many people stealing packages. They don’t care. They know nothing will happen to them. It’s crazy. It’s horrible.’
For law enforcement, however, there is little incentive to chase down low-level criminals. Even if the person is escorted to the station, odds are great he’ll be back on the street in an hour or so.
Proposition 47 didn’t stop with theft. The personal use of illegal drugs was also reclassified to a misdemeanor. Although the intent may have been kind (it’s cruel to punish people for having an addiction) and practical (they’ll emerge from prison hardened, and a felony on their record makes it more difficult to reintegrate into society), the downstream impact on the community at large has been disastrous. In San Fransisco, for example, shooting up in public is commonplace, whether it’s on the steps of City Hall, in front of a supermarket, or at the entrance to a children’s playground. …Now more than ever, residents and merchants are living with a proliferation of addicts who roll up their sleeves, inject, and then nod off on the sidewalks or career down the street and into traffic. To fulfill customer demand, dealers sell packets of powder or pills in plain view of passers-by. There is no reason to hide. Why not shoot up wherever you want, leave bloody syringes in piles, steal, and deal when there are few if any consequences? …
This is just the beginning
Reason #483763627-H to decimate police budgets and transfer the funds and authority to non-punitive arms of government (healthcare, social housing, drug treatment) https://t.co/WS4FnKXCgy
— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) November 3, 2019
The Left has begun a campaign to delegitimize and defund police. See the hashtags on Twitter, such as #fundcommunities, or search for “defund police.” Lots of them. And in New York City: “Anti-cop protesters in Brooklyn blast fare evasion crackdown.” The subways system in NYC is breaking down from decades of underfunding; fare evasion costs several hundred million dollars each year.
Close to a thousand anti-police protesters descended on Downtown Brooklyn Friday night, blocking traffic, vandalizing a city bus and shouting obscene insults at NYPD cops. The demonstration formed soon after 7 p.m. on the streets near the Barclays Center, with protesters unfurling large banners that read “F—k the police” and “Don’t let these pigs touch us.” …The demonstration was in response to a planned crackdown on fare evasion by the NYPD …”
Of course, the squad is there to cheer them on.
Ending mass incarceration means challenging a system that jails the poor to free the rich.
Arresting people who can’t afford a $2.75 fare makes no one safer and destabilizes our community.
New Yorkers know that, they’re not having it, and they’re standing up for each other. https://t.co/asvidIe5zV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2019
Looking ahead
The next two decades will see one of the most significant transitions in US history, as scores of State and local governments that have been long run by the Democratic Party collapse. Some will default (in the US, States are sovereign – they can and have defaulted on loans but do not file “bankruptcy”) or file for bankruptcy (lavish but underfunded pensions will be the most frequent precipitating event).
Some will crash due to social instability from a growing underclass (fed by open borders), eroding political legitimacy, middle-class flight, and mad public policies (e.g., in education and maintaining public order). San Francisco is a candidate for this, unless severe changes are made soon. Others will follow. A severe recession will make these crashes more likely.
As this future becomes more visible, the Left’s desire for radical social experimentation becomes stronger. The pace of change they are forcing America through accelerates. Fourth generation feminism (the quest for superiority). Promoting transgender and other new experiments in gender relations in schools (e.g., drag queen story hour). A radical reinterpretation of US history to delegitimize the Constitutional Regime (e.g., the NYT’s 1619 Project – it is all about slavery. Drastic redistribution of wealth and income. Not just opening the borders, but encouraging migrants with cash and services (irreversibly remolding America in a generation). Forced drastic changes in lifestyles to fight the “Climate Emergency” that the IPCC’s scientists don’t see. The list grows each month.
Perhaps we will see a collision between our increasingly powerful Leftist elites – who control academia, much of the news media and NGO, most of the new tech elite – and a public enraged at the crash of so many Democrat-run State and local governments. Or perhaps like good peons we will just accept whatever lot our rulers give us, whine and carry on.
Either way, our choices will make America’s future.
For More Information
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- Stoking hatred in America for political gain.
Books about our broken criminal justice system
Our system is broken, but that does not make it wise to facilitate crime.
Prison Break: Why Conservatives Turned Against Mass Incarceration
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
Locked In
The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
