Why Some of Your Grandparents Can’t Easily Obtain Their Medication
I’ve met Rudy Giuliani. We belonged to the same cigar club in New York (which has since lost its lease). Those were the days when he was still in the afterglow of “America’s Mayor” from the way he led after 9/11. And those were the days when crime in New York was way down. He and the police commissioner, Bill Bratton, instituted tough approaches to “minor” violations, believing they would lead to arrests and halting of major violations. So there were penalties for blocking intersections (today in Manhattan, city buses block intersections with impunity), for jumping turnstiles in subways, for the guys who tried to wash car windshields at red lights. And crime greatly diminished.
Today, we have district attorneys and other highly progressive politicians who have either made “minor” crimes acceptable or have refused to prosecute them. Here’s the simple math for those of you who never majored in math (I certainly didn’t): When shoplifters steal from stores without any worry about being prosecuted, fined, or jailed, the store ownership decides to close those stores in such areas because they can’t afford to conduct business at a loss. So the pharmacies, local retail shops, clothiers, and so forth close up or relocate. Instead of walking for a few minutes to pick up drug prescriptions it then requires a 20-minute drive or public transportation for 40 minutes to a store that’s in a safer neighborhood.
Activists demand that laws be passed preventing the chains from closing local stores, rather than laws preventing the “free” looting of local stores. Now ain’t that poor math?
We once lived in the suburbs of San Francisco, my office was in the city, and we relished being there, day or night, for meals, entertainment, and culture. Now, I try not to return. I was there recently for a program and it’s depressing: aggressive panhandling, human excrement on the streets, people with dangerous mental health issues, robbery, muggings, and so forth. One of our greatest cities degraded by ignoring the laws and elected officials with some bizarre vision of society.
And who’s most hurt by those pharmacies that close? The elderly, the disabled, the people without personal transportation, single parents, and so forth. If you don’t want stores to close, stop the cause: crime. And to stop crime, stop ALL crime. Once you forgive the “small stuff” people move on to the larger stuff. Have I mentioned that auto theft in the US and Canada is on a severe upward trend?
