Civilization Was Nice While It Lasted

From ZeroHedge: Marauding Bands Of Looters Are Stealing Billions Of Dollars Worth Of Merchandise As America Descends Into Lawlessness.

Three years ago, I bet that 99 percent of my readers had never heard of ORC. Of course by now almost everyone knows that ORC stands for “organized retail crime”, and it is prompting retailers to permanently shut down stores all over the nation. Right now, retail theft is happening from coast to coast on a scale that we have never seen in our entire history. Marauding bands of looters are barging into stores, grabbing as much merchandise as they can possibly carry, and then loading it into their vehicles. Online marketplaces make it easier than ever to turn stolen goods into cash, and at this point organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business. As I have repeatedly warned my readers, America is descending into lawlessness. The thin veneer of civilization that we all depend upon on a daily basis is rapidly disappearing, and if we stay on this path our society will soon be completely unrecognizable.

It isn't anything that people (including myself) haven't said before.

Here is my obligatory reference to Hobbes' State of War, which exists after the breakdown of law and order.

Closing of stores is only the first step. People who have economic prospects will leave the city as conditions deteriorate. That will only drive the problem out of the cities to suburbia. Rinse. Repeat.

And my somewhat less common reference to "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. Here is part of the first stanza:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I would ask why anyone wants to unleash this insanity on the world, but some men just want to watch the world burn. (Hat tip to Wirecutter.)