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Many Voices, One Freedom: United in the 1st Amendment

March 28, 2024

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How can Democratic Socialist citizens ignore reality? Not long ago, we saw on network news the spectacle of a reporter saying the BLM protests were “mostly peaceful” while a building burned behind him. They consciously evade the connection of cause and effect that is right in front of them. Rioting leads to burning buildings.

Now the latest evasion of reality: According to Breitbart reporter John Nolte, “Walgreens has closed 17 stores in Democrat-run San Francisco due to rampant shoplifting problems created by voters.” Nolte quotes The San Francisco Chronicle headline: “Out of control’: Organized crime drives S.F. shoplifting, closing 17 Walgreens in five years.”

“Theft in Walgreens’ San Francisco stores is four times the average for stores elsewhere in the country, and the chain spends 35 times more on security guards in the city than elsewhere[.].” according to the Chronicle.

One comment about Nolte’s article posted on FreeRepublic.com said, “I watch a YouTuber that lives in San Fran. He was talking to a security guard at Walgreens. Guard said there was nothing he can do when people walk out of the store with a cart full of stuff.” 

Why? Because of Proposition 47. Nolte reports, “By a margin of 60 to 40 percent, the idiots of California basically legalized shoplifting. Proposition 47, which passed in 2014, no longer made it a felony to steal if the value of what you steal doesn’t exceed $950. It’s also no longer a felony to receive stolen property valued at less than $950.”

A misdemeanor equals a slap on the wrist, and you go your own way⏤to steal again.

Free Stuff R Us! Come and Steal It!

Instead of advertising “low, low prices,” the state of California is advertising “low, low penalties for stealing! Go to a store, any store, and take what you want! Free stuff R Us!” California has basically legalized shoplifting. 

The article in the SF Chronicle describes the human cost. A 77-year-old now has to walk six more blocks to find a drug store to get his meds. Some neighborhoods are now a “food desert” where no groceries can be bought. 

“This has been out of control,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who held a hearing Thursday with retailers, police, the district attorney, and probation departments. “People are scared to go into these stores — seniors, people with disabilities, children. It’s just happening brazenly.”

Cause and Effect

Well, clutch my pearls and call me shocked. Legalize crime and get more crime? Who knew? I’m shocked, shocked! What part of cause and effect do liberal Californians not understand?

Maybe they need remedial toddler training their parents did not give them: touch a hot stove burner (cause) = OUCH! Your fingers hurt (effect). You may say the hot burner is racist, misogynist, homophobic, white supremacist, and evil. That will not change the law of cause and effect. Touch a hot burner, and you will be burned.

Now for the more difficult concept (for liberals) – the CHAIN of cause and effect. Legalize (by making it a misdemeanor) shoplifting (cause), and you get more shoplifting (effect). More shoplifting (cause) and stores close down (effect). Closed stores (cause) and seniors and others suffer from more distance to go to get prescriptions filled (effect). 

Live With Your Answers

I once worked at a therapeutic camp for teenagers referred by the juvenile court system. Their dominant symptom was blaming others for their behavior. “I touched the hot stove and burned my fingers? It must be the fault of the police!” Our mantra at camp was “Live with your answers.” “You forgot to pack your tent poles for the camping trip? You’ll have to find a fallen branch to prop up your tent. Live with your answer.” In this way, they learned to take responsibility for their own behavior (cause) that produced the work of finding a branch (effect).

San Franciscans and other Californians are living with their answers. When your answer is to legalize unlimited theft, you have to live with the consequences: no more stores. In my novel The Rainbow Option, my heroine observes similar situations (“We regulated the food away!”) and tells the government tyrants, “Live with your answers.” 

In the novel Atlas Shrugged, the entrepreneur makers got tired of the government takers taxing and regulating them to the point where they spent more time satisfying government mandates than producing products. Their solution? Go on strike. Stop making. No making equals nothing for taking. Walgreens has stopped making stores available in high crime districts of San Francisco.

Are Businesses Shrugging a New Economic Virus?

Maybe Walgreens is the first outbreak of a new economic virus: businesses shrugging. Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged, compared businessmen and entrepreneurs to the mythic Greek god Atlas who held the world on his shoulders. When the voters and government put too big a burden on the shoulders of businesses and entrepreneurs, her advice was “Shrug.” 

My comment to democratic socialists, liberals, and virtue signalers everywhere is, “Live with your answers.”

Reality will force you to live with your answers no matter what.

MANY VOICES, ONE FREEDOM: UNITED IN THE 1ST AMENDMENT

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