Compassion is killing us.
It’s ripping out our very soul as a nation — wreaking havoc on our once great cities, our safety and our way of life.
Not the necessary kind of compassion that is touted in various religious scriptures, of course. This is the cynical variety that is wielded as a political cudgel by the left. It’s the very foundation of their agendas: soft-on-crime policies; come one, come all open borders; a seeming willingness to let drug addicts rot in the streets.
After a few years of these measures, we’re in one fine, self-inflicted mess.
Migrants are overwhelming New York City, and Big Apple residents are being advised to carry Narcan to revive random strangers overdosing on the street. Across the country, big-box retailers are closing up shop because, despite living in the age of surveillance, we somehow can’t figure out how to combat rampant shoplifting.
Our cities’ progressive overlords want to radically change the country under the guise of offering endless grace, humanity and empathy to those they view as living on the margins of society. And they brand anyone with common-sense objections to these bad policies as bigots of the highest order.
But the consequences are landing hard and fast for all of us.
Take Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, one of the main pushers of the philosophies that have led to urban destruction. In 2020, she defended looters and shoplifters as downtrodden, poverty-stricken folks simply trying to put scraps on the table.
“So they go out and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money. They are put in a position where they feel like they need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night,” the New York Congresswoman said in a 2020 town-hall video that’s made the rounds again this week in the wake of the lootings in Philadelphia.
To no one’s surprise, these false Robin Hood narratives — sympathies offered to the criminal class — have only emboldened thieves. Who is going to follow the rules when there are no repercussions?
Law breakers know they will get away with it because prosecution-averse DAs like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner and Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg openly stopped taking on low level crimes.
Contrary to AOC’s offerings, looters are not quietly swiping the essentials to build a nourishing meatloaf, as we saw in the City of Brotherly Love this week — where thieves stormed stores like Apple and Lululemon for expensive tech, designer goods and booze.
They rolled through like a category five hurricane, leaving the shops looking like a FEMA case. After all, both destruction and greed are the point.
Influencer Dayjia Blackwell, who goes by Meatball, was so excited, so brazen, that she broadcast the mayhem online, taunting authorities: “Tell the police they’re either gonna lock me up tonight, or it’s gonna get lit, it’s gonna be a movie … This is what happens when we don’t get justice in this city.”
Meatball was busted but no one will be surprised if she gets a slap on the wrist.
Meanwhile, toothpaste is behind locked plexiglass in theft-ravaged drug stores. And Target is closing nine locations across the country — including the liberal-DA strongholds Manhattan, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon — erasing necessary jobs for hardworking members of many underserved communities.
“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.
Nonetheless, last month, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called for a kindler, gentler rebrand for hundreds of rioters that flooded the South Loop and looted a convenience store. “Large gatherings,” he insisted, telling a reporter who called them a “mob” that such language was “inappropriate.”
Words hurt, I guess.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ words in 2022 should hurt him — but they won’t, because he’s shameless. In a now memorable speech, Hizzoner boasted that he was “proud that this is a Right to Shelter state.” Within a year, he was begging for the buses of incoming migrants to stop, saying it will ruin our city.
Now, schools are overwhelmed. Hotels are bursting at the seams, and tax payers are being displaced to cater to the new arrivals. Adams is railing at the federal government, and rightfully so, but he still has himself to blame for his phony rhetoric.
The flouting of laws has also led to deadly fentanyl flowing unfettered into our country. New York City health officials have chosen not to fight but to fuel the problem, unveiling vending machines dispensing free drug paraphernalia. Did it shock anyone when the free crack pipes were gone in a day?
Leftist pols across the country have let the house rot to the point that some are now forced to play a draconian game of catch-up. San Francisco mayor London Breed proposed this week to screen welfare recipients for drug abuse. Surely that wasn’t on her list of campaign promises.
Ironically, there is little real compassion offered to the families of people murdered or assaulted by violent criminals let back out on the streets.
In Baltimore, celebrated tech entrepreneur Pava LePere was brutally killed this week by an ex-con who was released from jail for good behavior after nine years despite being given a 30-year sentence. Eventually, her story will be swept off the front pages, but the problems don’t go away.
Enacting all of these ooey-gooey bleeding heart sentiments without reason — or tough love — is just called being a sucker.