Theft has always been a problem ever since the days when Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain. I'm not aware of any incidence of Cain actually stealing anything but he did kill his brother and that's pretty bad. It's the first crime recorded in the Bible. In some countries the penalty for theft is amputating the thief's hand. I actually approve of that, but we don't do that here. In the USA we impose a penalty such as a fine. I don't really know how effective the punishment for theft since now stores are locking things up to keep people from stealing them. They hired loss prevention people for years, but that was expensive and ineffective.
Putting make up and shaving stuff behind locked doors may curtail theft, but it's very punitive against those of us who don't steal. We have to wait for the employee entrusted with the key to the lipstick cabinet, then that person has to wait while we decide which product best suits our needs, the the employee has to escort us to the cash register and tell the cashier to make us pay for the item. Considering the fact that ten years ago theft was a problem, but nowhere near as bad as it is now. What about the future? Thieves will continue to be a problem and items that are not locked up will disappear with more and more frequency. Will stores resort to assigning a security escort with shoppers to ensure that there is no more theft?
That is not practical. Nor would it be effective. The cost of such an action would be more than we could bear. We've seen the effects of mass lawlessness when people decide to riot and loot and burn stores. Violent crime is happening with more frequency and in the big cities the police are afraid to get out of their cars because if they make a mistake they could lose their job or even go to prison. All they have to do is write a couple of traffic citations a day and everyone is happy so they look for people who look like they work for a living and are less likely to be a problem and stop them and issue a traffic citation for whatever offense they may have committed. The cop who makes twenty felony arrests a month gets paid the same as the one who writes twenty citations a month, and the one making the high profile arrests is in much more danger than the guy who stays in the patrol car and looks for easy marks.
Where I live people are running Stop signs as if they aren't even there. We can't afford to hire enough police officers to keep up with the problem and it's getting worse. I've seen how fast the aisles are cleaned out during a riot and I know what a breakdown of society looks like. As I look around the country and see shootings happening with increasing frequency I realize that we are headed for a real catastrophe. Americans today can't even talk to each other and that is the most troubling thing of all.
We're just a rats ear away from becoming violent toward each other and when that happens battle lines will be drawn and social order will melt away. Don't think it can't happen. It's happening from sea to shining sea. We can't continue to hate each other because we vote for different candidates. We have to be better than that. America is a strong country, but is is slowly unraveling and if the United States of America ever fails the entire world will spiral downward. There will be wars all over the planet and it could all be stopped in an instant if we could just leard how to appreciate what we have and work together. Not everyone will get what they want, but everyone will continue to enjoy the peace and safety of being an American.
The country is worth saving. Hopefully more and more people will realize that and let us step away from the brink.
