The Beatings Will Continue Until The Beat-ee Decides Otherwise
By Mitch Berg
Citing the rise in meth-related crimes and low revenue, Target is closing nine stores in Nebraska, Kentucky and Montana.
Just kidding. They’re in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and New York City:
Target is closing nine stores in major cities across four states, claiming theft and organized retail crime have made the environment unsafe for staff and customers – and unsustainable for business.
The big box chain is part of a wave of retailers – both large and small – that say they’re struggling to contain store crimes that have hurt their bottom lines. Many have closed stores or made changes to merchandise and layouts.
Of course, the hecklers are out in force; “crime can’t possibly be that bad…”.
It’s not clear that crime is growing significantly more serious. But as economic fears grow amid inflation and rising borrowing costs, shoplifting often comes with the territory, industry watchers say.
Somehow I suspect that’s not the reason these small businesses in Oakland were bucking the narrative:
Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.
Target was not the only retailer to raise concerns about retail crime today. Approximately two hundred Oakland business owners closed up shop for a couple hours Tuesday morning and held a demonstration to bring attention to crime plaguing the area.
If there were just some sort of connecting thread…
September 27th, 2023 at 11:57 am
I especially liked the comments by people with zero skin the game financially, “industry watchers” and “skeptics”, who claim that Target’s reasons are exaggerated.
Of course, led by the inspired new thinking from the mayor of Chicago, maybe just create a government owned Target-like store. That should fix things.
September 27th, 2023 at 12:26 pm
Riot/looting in Philly’s shopping district last night.
This is wokeness distilled. You reduce crime by NOT prosecuting criminals.
September 27th, 2023 at 1:55 pm
What makes a system of laws work is its time-tested capacity to deliver order which allows the flourishing of other social and private goods. The Democratic party’s tolerance of municipal anarchy challenges this Hobbesian fundamental.
What makes democracy work is to subject governance to the commonsense tests of majority approval, preferably articulated through slow-moving deliberative institutions over time and successive elections. The majority cannot be tyrannized by its minorities.
There is widespread angst across the American public created and fed by the perception that Washington is a Republic of Money and that elites have gamed the process of majority voting to their insider benefit. In particular, the party of the people — the Democratic party — doesn’t quite seem to work for the people.
To be clear — when I mention the “Democratic party’s tolerance of municipal anarchy”. I’m referring to: San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles.
September 27th, 2023 at 2:01 pm
“Democratic party’s tolerance of municipal anarchy”
Is there a substantive difference in the policies of Democrats running the cities named above versus the policies in Minneapolis, Baltimore, East St. Louis, Detroit, and Stockton?
Or are they the same policies being implemented by the same party, more slowly but with the same intended result?
Are the named cities different or merely farther along the path?
September 27th, 2023 at 6:11 pm
I am going to make the bold prediction that crime will increase if you do not subject people who commit crimes to abuse and jail time. I know that is crazy talk, I do not even have a degree in criminology.
September 27th, 2023 at 6:46 pm
Lol.
This is perfect. Bread and circuses for the adults; phallo and vaginaplasties for the kiddies.
Weimerica is Weimar Germany on meth. I can’t wait to see what happens when White people have finally had enough.
September 27th, 2023 at 9:18 pm
Biden has put political appointees in charge of federal departments. None of them will, or his any desire to face election. It is rule by bureaucratic fiat.
Brought to you by the party that claims that it is defending democracy.
September 28th, 2023 at 12:50 am
[…] Destiny Shark Tank: Byron Donalds – No Border Security, No Shutdown Deal Shot In The Dark: The Beatings Will Continue Until The Beat-ee Decides Otherwise, also, Translating DFL To English The Political Hat: Activist Scholars This Ain’t Hell: […]
September 28th, 2023 at 6:50 am
Back in the bad old days, tar and feathers awaited public officials who didn’t do their job… or worse.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:41 am
That’s where we are headed, JD.
September 28th, 2023 at 9:14 am
Before there were police, there were Neighborhood Vigilance Committes who dispensed rough justice to troublemakers. The “social compact” of modern society was that citizens would give up vigilantees in exchange for law enforcement to maintain order.
Not enough cops, too many spineless prosecutors and worthless judges, rampant crime everywhere . . . looks like the deal is off. Which means we go back to the old ways. Already happening in certain sub-cultures (Black drug gangs, Latino human traffickers), only a matter of time before it comes to Wayzata and Woodbury.
Time to buy more guns and ammo.
September 28th, 2023 at 9:27 am
That could be problematic, Big. Guns without ammo are just glorified door stops, and US will surely commandeer what ammo we have left on the shelf to replace 3000 tons of ammo blown up in Uke. I guess we have to learn to reload and use black powder. Back to frontier days indeed.
September 28th, 2023 at 10:00 am
Instapundit has addressed this very topic for years. The newest version:
Remember, police aren’t there to protect the public from criminals. Ultimately, they’re there to protect criminals from the public, and the more-savage and less-due-process-laden punishments the public doles out. The bargain is, let the police handle the crimes instead of being vigilantes. No police, no bargain.
September 28th, 2023 at 10:34 am
He’s right, jdm. And it’s a critical part of the argument with leftists. “You don’t like the American system, fine. What would you prefer?”
I know a lawyer who volunteered to serve as Mock Trial attorney coach. He had a hard time explaining to students why the Constitution was a revolutionary concept and far better than what existed at the time. Students had no idea how other governments were structured, who benefitted or suffered from those structures, how limited the freedom and opportunity of ordinary people.
In 1776, England, France, and Spain were the world superpowers, all with kings and aristocracies. None of them had a Bill of Rights for ordinary citizens. The notion that ordinary citizens could govern themselves was unthinkable.
Sadly, there are too many on the Left who believe the American system isn’t perfect and is therefore fatally flawed so we must immediately destroy it so we can eventually replace it with a better system, the details of which we’ll work out the details later. It’s that time in the middle, between Not Perfect and Perfect, that worries me.
September 28th, 2023 at 11:01 am
The current system gave them Trump, and the US is full of well credentialed people who literally believed that Trump was going to send furriners and homos to concentration camps.
They will do absolutely anything to keep Trump out of the White House. They would rather the military pulled a coup and killed Trump and a few million of his supporters than see Trump back in the oval office.
And so they have proceeded to give Trump supporters a legitimate argument that they are using the JD and local Democrat judges and prosecutors to persecute Trump and cost him the election.
This is a very dangerous game they are playing.
September 29th, 2023 at 12:14 pm
[…] As we noted the other day, Target is closing nine stores in four, blue, cities. […]