Wow. Great job, New York Times!
That’s a gift link to this head-exploding piece: “‘The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?’ ” That states pretty clearly an example of Rationalizations #1, #2, and #2a on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List: 1. The Golden Rationalization, or “Everybody does it,” 2Whataboutism, or “They’re Just as Bad“and 2 A. Sicilian Ethics, or “They had it coming.” These rationalizations aren’t so high on the list by random chance. They are near the top because they are ancient, popular, invalid and obvious rationalizations that have been rotting society for thousands of years. Yet the New York Times thinks its worth pondering whether such anti-ethical reasoning is justified.
I hate to repeat myself, but this exemplifies how today’s Left thinks.
Left-wing “influencer” Hasan Piker and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino did a video interview with culture editor Nadja Spiegelman on “the ethics of theft.”
[Pssst! There is no “ethics of theft.” Theft is both unethical and immoral, as well as illegal (you know, that Ten Commandments thingy).] This is a podcast that should have lasted,oh, ten seconds or less. Nadja begins with this fatuous intro: “I’m proposing a new term: Microlooting. People are taking small things from big corporations and they’re feeling justified. But is it a slippery slope? What’s going on with our moral code?”
Of course it’s a slippery slope, and if you even have to ask that question, you’re too clueless to moderate the topic!
Then we get quotes like these:
Ethics Alarms 
Piker comes from wealth and the interviewer lives in a 2 million dollar brownstone.
When their assets are taken they will be the first to complain.
Based on the Times editorial stance I assume someone breaking down their paywall so all can read free of charge or their photographers cannot sue if someone takes their images without royalties will be just fine and dandy with them
To make this even crazier, Nadja Spiegelman is the daughter of Art Spiegelman, most famous for chronicling the saga of his father Vladek surviving the Holocaust in the “Maus” graphic novels. If she had to live through what her grandfather did, I’d expect she’d be a lot more grateful for her current privileged existence.
They seem to think of themselves as modern day Robin Hoods. But here they are stealing from the rich to … give it to ? … the rich? … i.e., … themselves? Clearly, the Times can no longer afford to hire anyone who’s an actual adult. Do we need a new saying? “Don’t trust anyone under forty?”
The erosion of morals is appalling, disgusting and frightening. There is no actual justification for theft, but the assertion that big corporations are stealing from their employees isn’t explained or challenged. Even if that were true, only the employees could use that reasoning, not everyone else.
Unethical beyond excuse or redemption – spot on.
Apparently, this is so lefty-cool it comes with it’s own neologism, “microlooting”, though with all the same old justifications thieves have voiced for millennia. Not everyone is on board: https://nypost.com/2026/04/23/us-news/real-new-yorkers-furious-over-microlooting-writers-shoplifting-at-local-whole-foods-she-is-rich-i-am-not/
Piker is all for theft until it’s his car that disappears, his house that the squatters move into and his bank account that gets emptied.
Anytime Lefty can pair lazy, unethical corner-cutting with sanctimonious Gosh I’m Nice/I’m Dialed In/Look At Me smuggery, they’ve got a winning combination.
Along those lines, there’s something in our nape of the neck called No Mow May: People allow their lawns to grow unabated during the month, ostensibly to aid pollinators.
To no one’s surprise, their lawns end up looking like abandoned tangles of urban blight. Come June, neighborsnextdoor (THEY Report/YOU Decide!) posts display a quantum shift from missing cats and how they’re saving Mother Gaia to soliciting professional de-thatchers and small engine repair because their lawn mowers broke while trying to level their self-inflicted weed-choked morass.
I asked my neighbor/pal (a world-renowned entomologist with a wicked sense of humor) if there was anything really beneficial to these efforts. His reply; a head-shaking, condescending sneer accompanying a “Well; I guess so long as they think they’re doing something” said it all.
PWS
That’s just a sample from many equally nauseating statements. Read the rest if you dare, or if you want to understand the sick culture the U.S. is fighting right now.
All across America (and definitely in the culture where I live) people feel that they are being cheated and defrauded. Take for one example the man who assassinated the insurance executive of the cheating, stealing insurance corporation that refused to honor its side of the business by authorizing procedures.
I can report that here (in South America) the perception that people with more standing, wealth and power always (always!) get away with cheating, dishonesty, and robbery, while the “little man” always pays for his crimes.
Similarly, up North, the same dynamic applies except the US is far less corrupt.
The US culture is in deep, deep crisis, and I find it quite hard to understand 1) how this cane about and 2) what the solution is.
I don’t know if this essay is of interest to you. It’s a very long essay and I haven’t finished reading all of it myself. Just sharing, if it is of no interest to you just disregard.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/what-can-be-done
Thanks. I will certainly look it over.
Those privileged kids need to take a trip to a “food desert” and do some reporting about why food desert exist. Hint: it has something to do with shoplifting.