Don’t Look Directly At It
And in the world of The Progressive Retail Experience:
During the lengthy interview quoted above, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth hints at the development of “creative” solutions for customers demoralised by unimpeded thieving and the subsequent lockdown status of many stores. Paying customers, a seemingly shrinking demographic, will, we’re assured, be offered a “better… in-store experience” via “new scheduling optimisation logic” and “leveraging our omnichannel capabilities.”
Oddly, Mr Wentworth, whose business is planning to close another 450 stores during the coming year, avoids any use of the words shoplifting, looting, or theft.
Perhaps he finds such terms unsavoury, much like the Observer‘s Martha Gill, the Guardian‘s Owen Jones, and academic Gloria Laycock, according to whom, the law-abiding should resign themselves to ever more inconvenience and social degradation, and being alienated from their own neighbourhoods, because punishing habitual criminals – who are, we’re told, “traumatised” and “vulnerable” – is somehow unfair and terribly unfashionable.
Update:
Commenter [+] adds,
It has to be said, the prospect of shopping for shampoo in a store where pretty much everything, including shampoo, is under lock and key and requires elaborate and protracted negotiation in order to actually buy it, and in which looters might at any time appear and start smashing up the place, with little opposition, does not entice. But hey, maybe that’s just me.
John D observes, not without cause,
It doesn’t exactly bode well. And as noted previously,
And being insulted in this way, as if one were uncivilised and not to be trusted, seems unlikely to invite warm feelings or repeat custom.
Quetzalovercoatl adds,
At which point, readers may wish to cast an eye over the previous shoplifting post, linked above, in which you almost have to marvel at the mental contortions, the elaborate contrivance. Whereby this increasingly aggressive and routine predation is romanticised, despite all evidence to the contrary, including countless videoed examples and the use of machetes. And in which, the aforementioned Observer columnist dismisses the thieving and looting as “relatively trivial,” as businesses close and entire neighbourhoods are demoralised and robbed of amenities.
Mental contortions in which the obvious, practical, and traditional response to such behaviour is hastily waved aside as “exactly the wrong approach” and “the worst instincts of the electorate.” As if arresting and imprisoning habitual thieves, thereby interrupting their criminal adventures, should be considered a total failure and unworthy of the effort. Instead, our Observer columnist and her equally progressive peers blame the retailers, the victims, and suggest more padlocks, and more barriers on shelves of shampoo.
Oh, and “decriminalise shop theft,” of course.
As if that weren’t already a common assumption of those doing the looting. And as if the lack of prompt punishment, and the consequent air of impunity, somehow wouldn’t embolden the creatures being so grotesquely indulged. A boldness with no obvious upper limit. As if signs of weakness in one area of life, this cowed impotence, couldn’t possibly inspire other kinds of crime and antisocial behaviour. As if the response could never, ever be, “Ooh, what else can I get away with?”
All to avoid enforcing even the most basic standards of behaviour. Of civilisation. Because, what, somehow that would look bad…?
For those unfamiliar with The Progressive Retail Experience, the series to date, numbering some 608 entries, can be found here.
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Sorry to derail with the first comment, but I had posted this at the end of the last thread, and then suddenly this thing appears.
***
Elon gets into it with Paul Graham and Noah Carl. Elon posts what he says is a Paul Graham piece, but is it really?
It sounds like a parody. But I don’t think Elon wrote it.
Thoughts?
Here’s the latest horror being passed around X: earlier, a video of a shirtless girl with mastectomy scars sitting in an electric wheelchair, writhing uncontrollably and not able to speak. Nobody knew who she was.
Now we find out, and it’s as bad as you can imagine: her name is “Micah,” her parents are “unsupportive,” and her handler in the video encourages her to interact with an electric pot, which I assume heats up to scalding temperatures.
But because the instructions say that disabled people should stay away, they declare it “ableism” and defiantly touch it anyway.
My God, the insanity. What the hell kind of Cordyceps fungus is this?
So normal people don’t like shopping in a prison surrounded by ferals? Who would have guessed?
It has to be said, the prospect of shopping for shampoo in a store in which pretty much everything, including shampoo, is under lock and key and requires elaborate and protracted negotiation in order to actually buy it, and in which looters might at any time appear and start smashing up the place, seemingly with impunity, does not entice.
But hey, maybe that’s just me.
If a store has even basic stuff locked up it’s a sign the neighbourhood is unsafe and you should leave.
As noted here,
And being insulted and degraded in this way, as if one were uncivilised and not to be trusted, isn’t likely to invite warm feelings or repeat custom.
I wonder if this is part of sliding us into the new paradigm of ‘You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy”? The first part is self-evident in that it’s getting difficult to buy anything, but it may take a bit of effort to get to the second part.
The killing part of this is that the answer to the problem is apparent to all but no one in power will take the necessary steps. It’s almost like they’ve never seen It’s Not About the Nail.
Or perhaps we should all just get along? (X out of the login box and the reel should play.)
As in the previous shoplifting post, linked above, you sort of have to marvel at the mental contortions, the elaborate contrivance. In which this increasingly aggressive and routine predation is romanticised, despite all evidence to the contrary, including countless videoed examples and the use of machetes. And so, Observer columnists dismiss the thieving and looting as “relatively trivial,” as businesses close and entire neighbourhoods are demoralised and degraded.
Mental contortions in which the obvious, practical, and traditional response to such behaviour is hastily waved aside as “exactly the wrong approach” and “the worst instincts of the electorate.” As if arresting and imprisoning habitual thieves, thereby interrupting their criminal adventures, should be considered a total failure and unworthy of the effort. Instead, our Observer columnist and her likeminded peers blame the retailers, the victims, and suggest more padlocks, and more barriers on shelves of shampoo.
Oh, and “decriminalise shop theft,” as if that weren’t already a common assumption of those doing the looting. And as if the lack of prompt and severe punishment, and the consequent air of impunity, somehow wouldn’t embolden the creatures being grotesquely indulged. A boldness with no obvious upper limit.
All to avoid enforcing even the most basic standards of behaviour. Of civilisation.
Because, what, somehow that would look bad…?
If a store has even basic stuff locked up it’s a sign the neighbourhood is unsafe and you should leave.
That and the proliferation of places doing paycheck and title loans, as well as vape shops, in the vicinity.
Look, a certain class of people just suck. I see it when I have to go into a Walmart in some of the more rural counties in East Tennessee. For God’s sake, woman, can’t do at least get dressed to go grocery shopping? The pajama bottoms, stained sweatshirt, and the messy bun atop the head – not to mention the vape pen always at hand – is not helping you. Nor are the neck tattoos on your man.
Now, having said that, I know there are people who would vociferously reply, “Jesus said the poor you will always have with you! You don’t know that woman’s circumstances. Some of the worst people are among the wealthy and affluent!”
And this is true, no one would doubt that with examples like the Menendez brothers. But here is the difference – the Menendez brothers would never point to the poor people as the reason for their homicidal actions whereas many in the lower socioeconomic classes use the “rich people” and “corporations” as their excuses and scapegoats for their own acts. After all, they got insurance, don’t they? Ain’t like they’re gonna be hurtin’.
And then comes the beginning of a question that makes me have to restrain myself from slapping their face: “Don’t I deserve . . .?”
NO. You don’t. You deserve diginity as a fellow human but even that can be compromised BY YOUR ACTIONS. After that, no – if you want the benefits of a civilized society, then you contribute to it.
That reminds me: Back when I knew a lot of fans, there was a significant fraction who hosted or attended “alternate” holiday get-togethers because they came from “awful” families. But as I got to know them, I discovered that in fact they were the damaged and toxic ones and concluded that their parents and siblings were probably quite normal and good people. Sort of like my suspicions about Harlan Ellison’s supposedly evil sister who he liked to anathematize in his writings.
[ Post updated. ]
I fully understand the necessity of locking things up, and thus do not feel even slightly insulted, but the inconvenience is often a deal-breaker: If the purchase is not urgently needed, I’ll either go online or avoid neighborhoods where such security measures are necessary.
I’m happy to treat people like Martha Gill and Owen Jones as greater enemies of society than the habitual criminals.
Lots of talk about criminals as “vulnerable” because of poverty and “homelessness”, but maybe they’re poor because they make bad choices due to stupidity and depravity.
F*** these people. The problem is that these over educated idiots are comfortable, proud even, to mutter such word salad idiocy knowing full well that they will not be directly challenged for it. The interviewers generally let it go but even those who challenge it do so with logic and reason. Logic and reason are not effective tools here. If they were, things would not have reached this level of absurdity. The stockholders let it go as well. Curious if anyone would venture to explain what that is? There’s a huge reason that has been apparent to me for…decades..but people have…for decades…rolled their eyes when I bring it up.
They do seem to operate on the assumption that the ongoing display of weakness, the cowed impotence, will somehow not be emboldening to the predators. As if the effective decriminalising of repeated theft and looting couldn’t possibly embolden other kinds of crime and antisocial behaviour. Again, as if the response could never, ever be, “Ooh, what else can I get away with?”
I mean, the whole thing is hopelessly, contemptibly unrealistic.
I read it three times and still find it hard to believe that it’s not parody. Yet it indicates just how bloody stupid we have allowed our “smart” people to become. These people go completely unchallenged by anyone in the meat space around them. Again, logic and reason are not the proper tools. People better start to speak up, loudly and forcefully, before the tools of verbal language become as impotent as L & R.
Also everything Stephanie just said. Especially about the poor in Appalachia, whom I must add are unwilling to work as well. Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals being somewhat instructive in regard to the persistence of certain aspects of Celtic culture.
Emboldening the predators is what they want.
Absolutely that. It’s like these tossers haven’t a clue what criminals are like.
Because the psychologists that they went to, or were sent to, told them that they were broken because they “came from dysfunctional families”. It wasn’t their fault. It was the fault of the families who tried to instill any sense of discipline. Because the very concept of discipline has become associated with fascism. The psychologists themselves being broken and marginal nut cases only ampliphies the problem.
I’d say it’s worse than just not being aware of – or seemingly interested in – how predators operate and what opportunities and social messages they might register and act upon. They seem unable even to extrapolate from the behaviour of small children.
Oh, they understand alright. It’s just that, being revolutionary Marxists, they see criminals as “victims of capitalism”. And furthermore see the unleashing of criminals as a useful tactic in their war to destroy the existing society and impose socialism.
Speaking of criminals and their enablers, I seem to be seeing more news items about violent crimes committed by middle aged habitual offenders. Presumably a consequence of progessive anti-prison policies.