The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. – Justice Robert Jackson, US Supreme Court
He who does not punish evil commands it to be done. − Leonardo da Vinci
This brief video gives us a glimpse into the progressive future. A San Francisco shoplifter loads up a bag of stuff from a Walgreen’s store, while a security guard looks on helplessly.
No, that isn’t right. A shoplifter surreptitiously takes small items and conceals them in his clothes or backpack, so he will not be arrested and embarrassed. But this guy openly stuffs his bag with other people’s property, knowing that no one will do anything about it. The idea of private property goes out the window. The Penal Code goes out the window. The concept of ordered liberty goes out the window. “Thou shalt not steal” goes out the window.
This chaos cannot persist for long. Stores such as Walmart are closing in the San Francisco area. They are no longer able to show a profit. But you can’t shoplift from a closed store. You can’t get a free meal from a closed restaurant. You can’t steal what no one else worked to produce.
Sooner rather than later, if people don’t control themselves, some entity will arise to control them. We hope it will be our representative government that awakens from a temporary slumber. But it may be a tyrannical government that people feel is necessary to save them from chaos. Or it may be local vigilante groups that roam the streets looking for trouble, as they did in the San Francisco of Gold Rush days.
But one thing we can be sure of. The disorder exemplified by this video is only temporary. What comes next is up to us.
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