A couple of months ago, Toronto constable Marco Ricciardi created a good deal of outrage when, in response to the city’s 400% increase in auto thefts last year, he suggested its citizens leave their car keys by the front door, allowing home invaders to steal their autos while doing little harm to their families. The outrage was of course in response to his insinuation that the crime spree in question could in no way be thwarted by the city’s police. Apparently lawlessness is now out of control in many North American urban centers! Gee, I wonder why.
Ezra Levant of the “far right” Rebel News, whose views I find preeminently rational, recently discussed crime statistics in California, a state dominated by Democrats for the last several years. In 2014, California passed Prop 47 which increased the amount a thief could steal from $400 to $950 before being charged with a felony. Many “conservatives” saw the legislation as an open invitation to shoplifting and various other forms of petty thievery, so-called “misdemeanors” generally inciting only minor legal repercussions if any at all. Bizarrely, an Associated Press article published in July, 2021, justified Prop 47 by arguing that it merely sought “to adjust for inflation and the cost of living.” But does this not implicitly condone criminality, suggesting to those so inclined that they have every right to increase their “profits” given the contemporary state of our economy? Indeed is not the article’s indifference to the plight of the retailers being robbed, both small, privately owned businesses as well as the Walmarts of the world, typical of the Left’s pervasive disdain for decent, successful, law-abiding people everywhere?
In 2011, California’s Supreme Court ruled that overcrowded prisons were subjecting their inmates to cruel and unusual punishment. But rather than recommending the building of more prisons, the court decreed that their populations needed to be reduced by approximately 33,000. “Liberals” everywhere spend hundreds of millions of dollars on “social justice” programs of questionable merit and effectiveness, but obviously defending the safety and rights of law abiding citizens is Not one of their priorities. To we old fashioned “conservatives” who continue to believe in the concepts of Right and Wrong, California’s Prop 47, which was clearly designed to solve the “problem” of its prison overpopulation, seems insane! In response to the growing consensus that California is no longer a place where many people want to live, San Francisco’s Democratic Mayor Landon Breed bragged this past January that crime in her city was down in 2023. Was this a result of the effectiveness of her policies or of the simple fact that 2022 had been absolutely horrendous? A few relevant stats may perhaps shed light on this issue.
In 2022, due both to the rising tide of crime and the cost of living in the state, California lost over 800,000 residents who chose to move elsewhere. Between 2018 and 2022, 352 companies removed their headquarters from California for the same reasons. In response to Landon Breed’s contention that her state remains a wonderful place to live, the N.Y. Post, in Feb. of this year, did a piece which, while granting that crime was down in San Francisco’s core, noted it was in fact exploding in various residential areas which used to be relatively safe. In the Taraval district, for example, a residential area teeming with family friendly restaurants, crime was up 44% over the last year! Diana Zogaric, who bought Shaw’s Candy store in 2020 in the West Portal residential district, told the Post she was definitely considering leaving San Francisco given the number of times she has been terrorized over the last three and a half years. No doubt it was for similar reasons that Macys announced in Feb. that it would be closing its giant Union Square store.
Such are the results of the Left’s elimination of Moral Integrity from its “compassionate” world view! While states such as Florida, ruled by Law and Order proponent Ron DeSantis, would seem eminently more crime-free than those ruled by Democrats, the truth is hard to find given the Left’s domination of the mainstream media. But is it not simple common sense that governments at every level make it clear that criminality of any sort is utterly unacceptable? Ought not the welfare of millions of small business owners be more important to our leaders than the welfare of convicted felons submitted to harsh living conditions due to overcrowded prisons? Ought not the maintenance of Law and Order to be a fundamental priority in every Civilized Nation?
A few days ago The Free Press published a piece by Leighton Woodhouse entitled “The Fall of Oakland.” Outraged by surging crime in his city, former Chief of Police Le Ronne Armstrong said its perpetrators seem to feel they can do whatever they want and get away with it. California has been governed since 2019 by devout Democrat Gavin Newsom. But is not the narrative of “progressives” such as he implicit with the notion that the “underprivileged” are always the victims of greedy, capitalist bastards? Indeed does not their Neo-Marxist Ideology undermine the very Principle of personal responsibility? Go ahead, rob that Walmart because your abject poverty is in no way a product of your personal failings. Such is the profound message of the contemporary Left which is leading many Western Nations down the path to Third World, socio-economic chaos.