I never expected to see those two categories in the same post, did you?

But it has come to this: San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa told reporters this week that he regretted his vocal support of California’s Prop 47, which voters passed in 2014, which reduced certain thefts and drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors if the value of the stolen goods was less than $950. This, amazingly, led to an explosion in retail crime and other social pathologies, with videos on social media showing looters casually walking out of stores with merchandise. Some prominent retail locations in San Francisco, LA and other cities have closed in response.

This was all part of the progressive-Democratic response to “over-incarceration,” with politicians like Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin Gavin Newsom, and mercifully retired NYC mayor Bill De Blasio, among others. The Retail Federation reported retail shrink across the U.S. reached nearly $100 billion in losses in 2022.

Gee, what a brilliant idea Prop 47 was !

At least Canepa has the courage to admit he was wrong, and that his bias, in this case progressive delusions, made him stupid.

“I had supported Proposition 47, which basically said you wouldn’t prosecute —the crimes were much different at the level of up to $950. I thought it was a good idea at the time because I thought, we need to give people an opportunity, we need to give people a chance,” Canepa said to CBS News Bay Area. “I made a mistake, it was a big mistake, and you have to acknowledge your mistake,” he confessed. “By doing this, what we’ve done is we’re letting people take thousands and thousands of dollars….And we [must] hold the people who commit these crimes accountable. The only way we can do that is through adjusting state law. That’s what’s hamstringing us…[The lawbreakers] have taken advantage of Prop. 47, because they know that if they do get arrested they can simply walk out of jail the next day and only face misdemeanor charges….If we don’t [change the law], then our shopping centers and retail giants such as Nordstrom face near extinction as they are continually looted by mobs of criminals and create a climate of fear for shoppers,” Canepa said.

To be fair, who could have possibly foreseen that crippling law enforcement, forgiving significant crimes if they were “non-violent” and making theft a safe gamble would lead to the deterioration of urban life, safety, and respect for the law? Do I need a sarcasm emoji for that? Anyone with a knowledge of human nature and the history of civilization and should have foreseen the consequences of that progressive delusion. Canepa was a fool, and unfortunately, a lot of fools elected him as well as equally incompetent officials across the country.

Yes, he deserves the sound of one hand clapping for at least having the courage to admit how foolish he was. That and twenty-five cents, as my father used to say, won’t even buy a bus ride.

By pure chance, I was preparing this post and thinking of Canepa (and his ilk) as I ran across this New York Post column about the deterioration of conditions in New York City as people increasingly show no respect for others and basic norms of civilized behavior. Ann Althouse commented briefly on the story, but her commenters were more forthcoming. Two comments in particular crystallized The Great Stupid phenomenon illustrated by Canepa’s awakening.

Blastfax Kudos wrote,

It’s so much worse than that. It’s the rats that have entirely lost their fear of humans, or even the sunlight. It’s the used needles you suddenly notice in the most odd places, such as under your shoe when you sit down in a restaurant. It’s not just the smell of weed, but the smell of crack cocaine, a smell that once you realize what the smell is, you suddenly realize you smell it everywhere. It’s the abject realization that the quiet schizophrenic that used to pick through the garbage quietly is no longer quiet, no longer picking through the garbage, and that no longer keeps to themselves might in fact kill you at any moment. It’s the acknowledgment the person slumped over in the alley is probably in fact dead, not just nodding off.

I used to be what most people would call progressive. I used to believe that society was only as well off as its least well-off person, that it only moved as fast as its slowest citizen and that we had a duty to help. I don’t anymore. I will never forgive “progressives” for what they’ve done or my own naivete. As a philosophy and a problem solving strategy it does not work and never will. There are people that do not get better, and progressives are sacrificing everyone’s quality of life for the hopelessly incorrigible, and insulting you as they do it.

Never again.

And in response to that, PrimoSt.L took of from “There are people that do not get better”…

That truth right there is liberal kryptonite. It destroys everything about their entire political philosophy. The entire ethos of progressivism is a kind of pseudo Christianity in which every person can be saved by the healing power of redistribution from people that have more of something to those who have less. Well guess what, there are people who have a giant hole inside them that can never be filled with enough of anything. They have always existed and people warned others in myriad ways throughout history of their existence and what can happen when they’re everywhere.

The progressive mind does not have a solution for the people who do not get better. They cannot wrap their heads around something needing to be done with those people that crosses into unpleasantness, and they will absolutely never do anything about it themselves.

I want a person [who] will not get better outside every progressive doorstep. I want one outside every congressional office in D.C. I want one in every coffee shop and bistro. I want one in every hair salon on 5th Avenue. I want a person that does not get better in every boardroom and at every trading kiosk on Wall Street. If normal people cannot have peace, fucking no one will.

Some people appear to be waking up. So far, however, not nearly enough.

But my neighbor who has had the huge pro-Black Lives Matter display on her front lawn for almost three years finally took it down. That’s something.