Target Gives Up on Blue Cities in the Face of Organized Retail Theft

Is anyone, aside from a few Democrats shocked by the fact that businesses can't operate in an environment where there are no laws to protect them? Target closes 9 stores in response to retail theft, adds locked cases at some stores

"We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance," the company said in a statement.

Let's be honest. Big business doesn't give a crap about the "safety of teams and guests." If they did care, they would not object to employees going armed. They object to conditions that lead to "unsustainable business performance."

And I'm not shocked at the list of places; places where Progressives have decided that enforcing the law is not fair.

The stores set to close include one in Harlem, N.Y; two in Seattle, Wash.; three near San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.; and three in Portland, Ore.

I suppose that when those cities are completely abandoned by all businesses, large and small, the Progressives will say that it is proof of the horrors of free markets, or the racist nature of America. They will never admit that the fault lies in their policies of excusing lawlessness. (Hat tip to Willam Teach of Pirate's Cove.)

It is at this point I usually reference Thomas Hobbes, and his classic work Leviathan. Thomas Hobbes describes the situation in which the uncivilized elements of society are not held in check by fear of police power as being a State of War. (That is in The Leviathan.) Why do you think that Justice holds a sword? And while I usually settle for a short quote, it seems appropriate to quote the entire passage that applies:

Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man. For ‘war’ consisteth not in battle only or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known, and therefore the notion of ‘time’ is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many days together, so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is ‘peace.’

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time or war where every man is enemy to every man, the same is consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

A State of War, as described by Hobbes, is coming into being in our Blue Cities. Retail businesses are the first to feel the strain, and leave. They will not be the last organizations to do so.

Without security, business cannot thrive. And that includes basic necessities like grocery stores, and clothing stores. Soon, other types of businesses will abandon these cities for similar reasons, taking services and jobs with them. And the Pogressives will blame everyone but themselves.