Posted on 08/27/2015 6:45:43 AM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Legal Relativism and Food Insecurity
In the new “legal relativism” and mob justice atmosphere that uses “social justice” as an excuse to loot and burn down stores in their neighborhoods, Everett Mitchell, the Director of Community Relations at the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus, stated during a discussion panel, “Best Policing Practices,” that prosecuting shoplifters from Walmart and Target is “aggressive police behavior.”
“I just don’t think they should be prosecuting cases for people who steal from Walmart. I don’t think that. I don’t think that Target, and all them other places – the big boxes that have insurance – they should be using the people that steal from there as justification to start engaging in aggressive police behavior.”
Perhaps it is why, for the first time in my life, I experienced yesterday at my local Walmart a person stationed at the exit, checking receipts carefully and scanning baskets of goods purchased. It wouldn’t be a far stretch to start checking purses, bags, and backpacks like they did under communism.
The thief does not just take your money and property, he steals your freedom.
Let’s say a thief steals your cell phone. The cell phone cost you $200 and you make $20 an hour at your job. You now have to work ten hours to replace the phone that the thief stole.
The thief isn’t working ten hours for a phone.....you are.
That is ten hours that you could have used to buy a vacuum cleaner. But you lost the freedom to choose how to spend your money when the thief stole your cell phone. The thief stole your freedom.
It works the same for stealing from a store. The prices go up and then you have to spend more of your freedom (by working) to receive the same level of product from the store.
The thief has again stolen your freedom.
It is the same with the thief stealing from the government. You must spend more of your freedom (by working) to receive the same level of service from the government. This is why printing so much money is such a destructive idea. This causes inflation which then robs you of your freedom as you must spend more of your freedom (by working) to buy anything.
The victim is the slave of the thief. The victim involuntarily gives up his freedom (by working) to provide for the thief. The victim is the slave to the tyrannical thief.
Yeah, well, they’re rich.
Years ago I had the pleasure of talking to a missionary couple who had just come back from Haiti.
One day, in Haiti, they were in the local open air market when someone stole something and ran!
He did not get more than a few yards when the Ton=Ton Macoutes were on him and beat the man to a pulp.
The missionaries were horrified with what they saw when a local shop keeper came up and told them it was necessary for that man to be beat to a pulp. If they had let him get away with stealing, the shop keepers would be wiped out immediately by being looted.
Somehow this lesson is lost in the USA.
I would not operate a store anyplace that I could not expect legal protection. A close relative owned a store with high-value, highly-pilferable merchandise, and the store went under because of theft. Without the rule of law, or the right to shoot thieves, you cannot operate a business.
The total of all saleable goods was indented. Then the total incoming goods were carefully measured for the year. The head authority of K Mart conceded there would be one and a half percent "shrinkage". At above three percent the head honcho came up from Toronto to Northern Ontario. My job was to bring down the heavy losses of "invisible waste". Every one sidled away from the head honcho.
I ran my rear end off and put in extra hours- no reduction. I was given a table of margins of retail profit. They said ten percent shrinkage was running the store at a loss. They eventually closed the store. My successor had a nervous breakdown also. They could not find the "hole in the wall". Excuse the ramble, but the utter and complete stupidity of the academic boggles the mind. Here in Canada food stores are said to operate at a two or three percent margin of profit. The immense volume, since people must eat gives them a tidy return. This if people pay for what they take out.
Uncontrolled theft means closures and business failures.
Way back in the 60s I worked at a K-Mart, then at an Abraham & Strauss store as a student nurse in NYC. Price increases have more to do with the percentage of shoplifting than with the cost of manufacturing. Not to mention that poor-selling items are often eventually priced to sell quickly to get that stock taken care of. But shoplifting is worse than most realize, especially in stores where people can walk into dressing rooms and try on items. If not monitored strictly, a person can change all underclothing and wear out a new dress or two. I have often seen old underwear in trashcans because after the person vacates the dressing room, the old clothes are left for the clerk to take out. It is costly, not to mention disgusting.
Having insurance to cover the cost of shoplifting is a small part of the picture. Depending on the amount of shoplifting, those insurance costs rise quickly, especially if high-price items are targeted. As insurance costs rise, ticket prices still have to rise along with them. There are probably some things these big box stores do not attempt to regain from insurance because of the increase costs in insurance. I recall that Walmart recently posted a very significant operating cost reversal for the past quarter. Something like 7 billion dollars. Those losses have to be made up for any business to stay in business.
A joker took a pair of jeans off the counter and went to the front desk and claimed a refund. The staff did not follow orders -"no refund without sales slip". I phoned the person named on his application for his money back. A female voice answered. "Is Pete xxxxx there" I said. She wanted to know who called. I told her and she screamed "He's dead!" He should have been.(LOL)
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