The United States is suffering a brutal wave of robberies at pharmacies such as Walgreens and CVS. On a near-daily basis, employees watch helplessly as thieves enter and even fill suitcases with products from the shelves. But for some far-left leaders, these companies should continue to allow their products to be stolen, and if they close due to the inability to tackle crime, they are racist. “These closures are not arbitrary and they are not innocent. They are life-threatening acts of racial and economic discrimination,” said Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley.
Pressley is a member of “The Squad,” a group of far-left Democrats in the House, which includes figures known for their socialist leanings, such as Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar. This week, in a speech on the House floor, Rep. Pressley spoke about the closure of a Walgreens in Massachusetts, but her goal was not to encourage a policy to stop crime and prevent young people from committing theft, but to accuse the store of being racist for being forced to close due to what the company has described as "rampant theft."
"This closure is a part of a larger trend of abandoning low-income communities like the previous closures in Mattapan and Hyde Park, both in the Massachusetts 7th. ... When a Walgreens leaves a neighborhood, they disrupt the entire community and they take with them baby formula, diapers, asthma inhalers, life-saving medications, and, of course, jobs," Pressley said.
What these far-left politicians like Pressley are doing is subverting values. While thieves are presented as victims who have no way to support themselves and steal because they are supposedly on the verge of death, business owners are framed as the bad guy, branded as greedy millionaires who put the lives of those most in-need at risk on behalf of economic ambitions.
"Having a website with talking points about health equity and underserved communities is not enough. Walgreens is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that needs to put their money where their mouth is and stop divesting from black and brown communities," added the leftist representative, speaking about a private company as if it were a charity institution. In fact, Walgreens is one of the chains most affected by the shoplifting wave that is plaguing the country. The company announced last year that it will likely close about 200 stores across the country. But Pressley doesn't care about the company's losses, or the employees who will be out of work, or the families of those employees. She is worried about the thieves.
Anyone who has witnessed one of these robberies, which are very common in big cities run by Democrats, knows that this trend is not about helpless elderly people taking food to survive. These people are young, some act in groups, filling entire suitcases and bags with products. In some places, these products are resold just blocks from the store from which they were stolen. Trying to justify systematic theft by claiming that it is a matter of survival is a huge lie that very few will believe.
This type of speech discourages businesses, who not only have to deal with continued theft and laws that defend thieves and make it almost impossible to punish them, but also with the narrative pushed by people like Pressley that accuses them of being racist and putting people's lives at risk. The entrepreneur is the engine of a society, the one who generates jobs and the one who produces goods and services that make people's lives better. Without thriving businesses, countries are poor.
And the extreme left not only discourages business, but also encourages thieves. One of the basic rules for living in society is to respect private property. When theft is validated by places such as Congress and the legal system, what follows is a path of violence and moral and economic degradation.
These narratives destroy all incentives to be a good person. This is not restricted only to the incentives of businesses to generate jobs and to produce goods that benefit society, but the incentives of workers to get up every day to do their jobs. For those who do not have a strong moral structure, the question is: what is the point of working when stealing is easier and is not punished?
The phenomenon of frequent shoplifting is not only an economic problem, it is above all a moral problem. And figures like Rep. Pressley are promoting a society where the thief is the victim and the worker is the villain.
