California never lets a good crisis go to waste

Today’s cultivated crime spree is tomorrow’s rationale for authoritarian measures.

California is preparing to pass Senate Bill No.553. This will require virtually every employer in the state to adopt comprehensive workplace violence prevention plans. The bill is in response to the catastrophic levels of shoplifting in stores and confrontations that can arise from such activities. Although not stated explicitly it is aimed at retail outlets.

Pitched as a way to prevent injury to employees, the bill has nothing to say about the origins of the shoplifting epidemic and its basis in previous initiatives that effectively decriminalized theft.

The measures proposed to meet SB 553’s requirements will place costs on businesses. Critics have complained this will burden small businesses already struggling in a challenging economy.

The wording of the bill is positive. It focuses on reducing harm and protecting individuals. But its main effect is to threaten legal sanctions to prevent anyone interfering with criminal activity. The protection of private property will effectively be out of bounds in some circumstances.

The impact of these measures is predictable. Increased crime, bolder criminals and fewer prosecutions. Over time even this bleak prognosis can only decline further. A lawless world.

Looking at this as objectively as possible it makes little sense. Who would make it easier for criminals to operate and establish legal processes to ensure no one will be able to stop them in the act? This can only lead to a breakdown of civil society.

When we look beyond the headlines societal dysfunction has its uses. The most successful political players never let a good crisis go to waste. And if a convenient crisis is not forthcoming then you can always engineer your own.

Initiatives like this have a depressingly predictable trajectory well understood by those proposing the changes. It all begins with the passing of a bill, dressed up in appropriately opaque language. Then the serious criminal gangs take note.

Laws are passed, criminals respond

The California Senate looks likely to pass the bill and it will soon be added to the statute books and become law. Everyone will take note. Including the criminals.

A similar effect was seen when it was announced District Attorneys in California would not take action on stolen goods worth $950 or less. No sooner was this established than thieves emerged to raid many stores, aware they were unlikely to face consequences.

Online footage regularly shows us what parts of California now look like. Criminal gangs casually entering large retail outlets and walking out with thousands of dollars of goods. The police have long been disincentivized to act. Why bother if the DA will not even prosecute? Police are guided by public interest, something most overlook. It is a waste of resources to arrest people for crimes that will not be pursued.

To add insult to injury some conscientious staff who tackled criminals have been reprimanded and even fired by companies more concerned about lawsuits than law and order. It is quite a Utopia the progressives create when given real power.

But if the past is any indication then the moment the bill is passed everything changes.

Criminals will become bolder

The inevitable result is to embolden criminals. How could it not? Increasingly we are seeing the emergence of gangs coordinating their efforts, typically a large group swarming retail outlets to overwhelm security guards, confident the police will be unlikely to respond.

Plenty of surveillance footage already exists of half a dozen people casually walking out of a store unmolested, pushing carts laden down with thousands of dollars of goods. The staff stand by, unable to intervene. These activities will only increase. Theft will skyrocket from its already elevated levels.

Criminals will be aware from June 2024 all the companies they target will require strict rules and guidelines to handle incidents of theft rather than the less formal approach currently taken. In most cases this will be clear instructions for employees to avoid any conflict and will presumably make in-store confrontations between staff and shoplifters even less likely.

Markets react quickly to most things. Some stores in California have expensive goods under lock and key. Others have nothing on the shelves except branded markers. Shoppers take a note of what they need and a member of staff can retrieve it from behind the counter once paid for.

All these extra steps cost money. Any further steps taken to minimize theft as a consequence of the bill will be passed on to shoppers in an era of inflation where prices are already high.

And we can expect more of these protective efforts from retailers. What else can they do?

This development has practical issues too. It will become more of a hassle to buy basic goods. Some will avoid the inconvenience and shop online, potentially depriving a local economy of much needed sales as the funds instead fill the coffers of distant corporations.

A growing disrespect for all laws

Another effect is psychological. When foolish laws are passed it tends to erode respect for all laws.

This is human nature. If self-serving politicians charged with running things abuse their position and use laws to further their social engineering schemes few will be motivated to obey them. They will have a daily reminder online of criminal gangs doing just that and facing no consequences.

We saw this during the prohibition era. There was little support for the prohibition laws themselves and over time people paid less attention to other laws. This can be devastating to a society and will only hasten California’s decline.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, except perhaps the visionary plans of politicians. But all plans must be tested in the real world which has constraints no one can ignore. Laws written for effect, and not focused on core problems affecting real people, severely damage the credibility of governments and the privileges we grant them.

Breakdown equals lawlessness

Disdain for the law is just a precursor to genuine lawlessness. The spectacle of watching criminals commit crimes, occasionally get caught and then be released only to go on and commit more crimes erodes whatever remaining respect anyone has for the system itself. Once that faith evaporates then civil society cannot easily survive.

The knock on effect is likely to be despair and a sense of hopelessness. Inevitably this is unbearable, especially in a first world nation.

In the United States we expect basic law and order to be maintained. It is inconceivable those in positions of authority would think differently. This realization is itself depressing, to watch your world break down and head for collapse. And all because existing laws will not be enforced.

Although despair has its uses.

People complain to the authorities

We can expect many protests. It is doubtful this will have an effect as the consequences of this kind of legislation are easy to predict. Pushback in the form of emphasizing the carnage will cut no ice for those with more enlightened ideas about crime and punishment.

But the undesirability of the world this creates will encourage people to clamour for more. Voices will grow in volume. In time others will join the cause, exhausted with the decline and desperate for any remedy.

At this stage it won’t occur to most people they will be canvassing the very people who are destroying their neighbourhoods and their livelihoods. Few understand the mindset of their enemies as being so callous as to use these tactics to gain advantage, to intentionally induce chaos to trigger calls for more interventions.

There will be plenty of coverage of the protests. Online and mainstream. To some it will feel like progress, that they are making headway. Their voices are being heard. And indeed they will be heard. The authorities will be counting on it.

Draconian measures are accepted

Any relief will come in a form that suits the authorities. They seek control, not an ordered society.

Restoring order is a useful disguise, so there will be much discussion about clamping down on crime and improving civil life, all the while avoiding scrutiny of the sequence of decisions that led to the need for intervention.

A slew of proposals will offer to solve the problem. Most will likely involve restrictions. Digital IDs of the type used during the Covid pandemic response could be floated as an inexpensive, high tech option. A login method to access the blighted retail outlets that can differentiate between the nice people and the criminals. All you need to do is swipe your phone on entry. It will feel like an improvement on the chaos because the slight inconvenience will feel like security.

These ideas are already in the ether. With minimal fuss we could witness desperate Californians embrace a digital prison where you need implicit consent from a central authority just to shop, all energetically requested by the people themselves. The perfect cover.

But how long before it is tied in to broader measures to control the plebs? That unwise comment on a social media post, I mean it could be misconstrued as sexism or racism. You’ll need to delete it before you can buy any more food for your kids. You understand we are not making you delete it, you are free to ignore it. But the store you want to enter is part of the Retailers for Online Safety and Harmony, a progressive group of concerned ruthless corporations ran by psychopaths who agonize over the plight of the disadvantaged. What’s the problem, you’re not some kind of bigot, are you?

We already know many on the hard left salivate at the thought of total control over the useless citizens who put them in power. These ambitions are continually promoted in many areas of life, all pitched as some kind of next-gen frictionless society only a caveman would reject. If you can make the plebs feel more secure enmeshing themselves in this way there will be no stopping them.

Digital entrapment

Those acting from a position of fear will not care about these impositions. That became all too apparent during the Covid pandemic response. Only a few will object and the use of anti-hate groups to discredit their position will make the work of a tame media that much easier.

The Luddites who refuse to be tagged are actually bigots. They don’t want the vulnerable to be safe. Let them buy their toilet paper and food from some out of town supermarket. Their selfishness can be combatted with righteous indignation, thereby disguising the removal of individual sovereignty within an appealing sense of civic duty and smugness that some find hard to resist.

It could be that easy. All of it triggered by a decision made by politicians most still think have their best interests at heart.

It will be lost on most that those who actually do care about us would not tinker around the edges of a visible crime spree like widespread theft in California. They would send in SWAT teams to make an example the next time it happened. Then they’d throw the book at them and be done with it. The fact none of this is happening or even being discussed tells us Californians are sleepwalking into the beginnings of a nightmare they’ll have to shoot their way back out of.

The ruthless don’t care about anything except themselves. The narcissists and psychopaths drawn to positions of authority instead view these machinations as a sophisticated game of 4D chess the hapless shoppers cannot grasp.

In a sense they are right. Most people do not have abnormal drives to control others. They are just trying to get by in life. But this hubris is easy to detect in those who would be our masters. They imagine they see further than the rabble.

When ordinary people display the great sin of normalthink and ask in a bewildered tone why they aren’t shooting people who are clearly engaged in coordinated looting, not shoplifting, it is taken as rock solid evidence the great unwashed of humanity cannot be trusted to run their own lives. What kind of backward savage would punish crime?

Is this likely?

Can this happen? Hard to say, and much can go wrong. But it follows from the proposed legal changes. They make absolutely no sense unless the goal is more crime.

If the goal was less crime we would see stiffer sentencing for shoplifting and associated behaviours like handling stolen goods. We would see citizens and employees championed when they tackled thieves instead of condemnation and criticism. The authorities don’t care about crime. They care about themselves.

Does it mean they will succeed? Not necessarily. Elaborate plans rarely work. Plus this is California. Their current set of brilliant initiatives include no penalties for drug use, fast release from custody even for serious crimes, and a constellation of other social crusades resulting in visible decay almost everywhere. Tent cities, widespread drug use and the mentally ill walking the streets. An open air lunatic asylum where once picturesque boulevards and famous landmarks are defaced by squalor, violence and destruction.

The best laid plans rarely work out, and elaborate ones least of all. But if this goes ahead the damage will be real and felt by many. Whatever the ideas of California’s overlord class the price will be paid by ordinary people. And if things hit the fan Californians may find themselves enslaved by their own mounting fear and discomfort as they voluntarily embrace a dystopian control grid their betters want to impose for the good of all.

All that for a crime that is rare in healthy societies because they actually sentence and jail thieves.

Clearly these events are worrying. The progressive urge to enact grand visions around egalitarianism and novel approaches to crime and punishment never work. They are too divorced from real life. They are a product of the intellect not experience. Even worse they can trace their origins to the university campus, an environment not known for its vice-like grip on reality or compassion for the trials and tribulations of everyday people.

Then there is the cloying obsession with sentimental analyses of complex phenomena, like antisocial behaviour. The insistence that sob stories replace practical measures anchored in the real world. We incarcerate criminals to remove them from circulation not to agonize over their tough upbringing or compensate for childhood neglect. And yet here we are, listening to political actors lecture experienced police officers about how to handle dangerous people. All it takes is compassion and a lens of equity and sympathy. Antisocial wastrels who can’t hold down a job and cause mayhem are people too after all. One mustn’t judge.

The price we pay for this misfocus is losing normality. A normal life where we can expect at least a degree of safety and security. An existence where shopping for necessities doesn’t feel like running the gauntlet through a post-apocalyptic killzone.

Normality is all too easy for politicians to sacrifice to push through their great visions. So what if a few people get knifed in the cookie aisle by some thug? Maybe he was traumatized by the existence of capitalism.

It is often said where California goes first the rest of America follows. Increasingly that is the rest of the Anglosphere too. The West Coast phenomenon of woke has infected every English-speaking country, from London to Melbourne. Even the slavery industrial complex, unique to the United States, has made its way across the Atlantic.

However we have all seen San Francisco. The squalor, the poverty, the visible decline. No one aspires to witness open drug use and dysfunction. Yet on they plod, doubling down on every bad idea, unable to face reality. Unable to accept civilization means respect for law and order.

If California decays even more, as it almost certainly must with initiatives like Senate Bill No.553, it can only damage the progressive cause. Many who support progressivism casually buy into the hype, the utopian claptrap about equality and decency driving enlightened policies. The reality horrifies even them when they see the filth and the violence, when they see what a world without law and order actually looks like. It looks like steep decline and it feels dangerous.

The progressive drive for chaos is not normal and nor are the actors in these dramas. Those with mental distortions only see their own goals and are indifferent to the people they ostensibly serve. It takes a long time for reality to sink in, which often baffles those observing from the sidelines. Can’t they see the crime and the absurdity of this?

To the people drawn to public office, political or democratic processes are just obstacles to be overcome not a manifestation of the will of the people. Once there the grand plans emerge, resistant to real world data or common sense. They believe they can do anything. They’ve made it to such dizzying heights because their vision is the right one.

When pushback comes it is resisted. The plebs don’t think big enough to grasp the full picture, the impressive ambition of a brave new world where thugs are understood as misunderstood and need our compassion while they steal a thousand dollars worth of goods somebody had to work hard to make available for the citizens who don’t behave like animals.

To normal people such a world is lawless and chaotic. Crime can never be allowed to pay which is why the sensible don’t endorse the notion of petty crime. No crime is petty. It always affects someone even if the material cost is modest. It is a breach of social mores, the invisible glue that holds society together. Only once this is gone do we appreciate how precious and rare it is, and how it requires us all to play along and make it work. The chain of tiny allowances we barter with to grease the wheels of society is lost on the antisocial. Indulging their dysfunction affects us all.

Most don’t yearn for control systems, they want order and safety. Even if the confused want to spout nonsense about a more equitable world they still need a stable foundation on which to mount their soap box. Hard to do when all around you is falling apart.

The only benefit of decline is it forces the dreamers to confront reality. Being robbed at gunpoint is often a useful corrective to living in a mental fantasyland. Violent thugs are uncomfortably real as are bullets and knives. Most real of all is looking straight at someone with the dead eyes of a psychopath and recognizing the total absence of humanity, something many are equipped to instantly detect. There is no going back from that as any cop or prison officer can attest. Not everyone feels a connection to the world and some will happily watch it all burn.

SB 553 and other progressive ideas will turn a clown world into a dangerous clown world. No one wants that. But if you can’t be an inspiring example for others to follow you can at least be a horrible warning. The proposed bill is the precursor to that warning. Perhaps this time around the blighted, confused California will infect the rest of us in a positive way as the inhabitants themselves lose their place in life and descend so far no one can ignore the carnage they have wrought on their once magnificent state.

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