Crime And Punishment

 Okay, okay. I know that recently I have been prattling on here about the wonders of socialism and how it's not so awful. 

Into that pleasant conversation blows the boisterous opinion of one Emily Gallagher, New York State Assembly person from Brooklyn. It is Ms. Gallagher's assertion that shoplifting should be legal for products connected to "biological need." 

I will let her explain: “Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them,” she said at a news conference outside a Manhattan Criminal Court. She continued, “And we are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by. So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need.”

Okay. Valid point there with the "wealth disparity" thing. The trouble arises when it comes time to figure out how we go about dealing with it. My guess is that the employees of the local CVS or Walgreens are living somewhere right around the poverty level. The money they bring home each week for "biological needs" is a means for survival, not buying a mansion or a yacht. If those ginormous profits from these billion-dollar companies are affected, it will not be the millionaires who feel the pinch. It will be those employees who are let go, or the stores in which they work will be shuttered, creating even more "biological needs" that might not be met. 

On a purely bourgeois level, I can also attest to the ridiculousness of having to wait ten to fifteen minutes in the aisle of my local "convenience store" after I have pushed a button summoning one of these hard-working wage slaves to some and open the plexiglass case where the Crest is kept safe so that I might take some toothpaste to the register to pay for it. This experience coupled with the price increases on these basic-needs items are the other side of the story. 

Like the corner stores that sell products for "biological needs" that are routinely the scene of multiple and sometimes extraordinary theft. These events are often pitched in a tone of "us versus them," but they are really "us versus us." I don't know how much toothpaste you would have to score in order to decrease that previously mentioned wealth disparity. Food banks and local assistance organizations for housing are sometimes forgotten in this chain of injustice. They attempt to bridge the gap that all of us eventually feel. Maybe now would be a bad time to bring up Ms. Gallagher's annual salary of one hundred forty-two thousand dollars a year. I can only assume that she is parting with a sliver of that each month to help support the "biological needs" of her constituents. Unless she needs the cash to pay for her traffic tickets.