Looting As a Way of Life

Written by Robert Knight

Karl Marx’s famous prescription for economic equity is “from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.”

A more honest version is “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” which takes brute force in most cases.

This is the ethos of the radicalized Democratic Party, whose mantra is centralized power and redistribution of wealth. The street version is called “looting,” but that word aptly summarizes their entire agenda.

This is the ethos of the radicalized Democratic Party, whose mantra is centralized power and redistribution of wealth. The street version is called “looting,” but that word aptly summarizes their entire agenda.

The Biden administration’s war on America’s energy sector has unleashed ruinous inflation, which pushes people into higher tax brackets so the government can take more of our income. And taxes are never high enough.

Democrats portray any resistance to more spending as the equivalent of kicking a begging orphan in the teeth. The party’s power rests on plundering the middle class and increasing the ranks of their Free Stuff Army.

As for the street version of looting, Chicago’s next mayor, Brandon Johnson, refused to strongly condemn rioting in his city.

Hundreds of “youths” rampaged downtown, attacking tourists and smashing things. But the mayor-elect seemed more worried that the little rascals might have become unpopular.

“In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend,” he said. “It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”

It’s not their fault, you see.

In 2020, Mr. Johnson was interviewed after looters ransacked dozens of stores in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. The young newswoman repeatedly gave Mr. Johnson a chance to decry the lawlessness. But he would have none of it. Instead, he ranted against — you guessed it — corporations that make “profit.” You know, the ones that manufacture or sell things that make modern life possible.

One of those awful corporations, Walmart, is closing four Chicago stores because they are losing too much money to thieves and are unable to protect employees and customers from violent criminals.

Mr. Johnson insisted that the mobs of teens and 20-somethings cleaning out stores just want to be able to “eat.” That’s why they steal those yummy cigarettes, beer, jewels, Coach purses and smartphones.

The same goes for a dozen looters who ransacked a Louis Vuitton store in nearby Oak Brook, Illinois, last year, making off with $100,000 in merchandise. They just want to eat, too.

More and more companies are showing that they have finally had it with crime-ridden cities.

Last week, Whole Foods, citing security concerns, closed its huge downtown San Francisco store after operating it there for less than a year. Since 2016, Walgreens has closed 22 stores In San Francisco, a once-beautiful metropolis now overrun by vagrancy, tents, human waste and used needles. The company, which had resorted to placing items in locked cases, cited “organized retail theft.”

From Portland, Oregon, to Chicago to Baltimore, criminals and mobs have made city after city unlivable.

Democratic officials’ shocking refusal to back law enforcement or do more than gently rebuke looters and rioters epitomizes the party’s worldview, which elevates envy, racial resentment and mob “democracy” over personal responsibility. Plus, they push sexual anarchy, whose transgender blitzkrieg is wreaking havoc on vulnerable children and women’s sports.

Over the past few years, Democrats in major cities have elected dozens of pro-criminal district attorneys backed by leftist sugar daddy George Soros.

District attorneys can play politics by choosing which laws to enforce, which ones to ignore and which people to prosecute. The crown jewel is Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has abandoned the war on real criminals while pursuing a ludicrous case against former President Donald Trump.

So-called progressives embrace looting at all levels in the name of “fairness.” For instance, did you know that creditworthy homebuyers and those refinancing home loans are about to be looted on behalf of people with bad credit?

A new federal rule taking effect May 1 will force solvent loan-seekers to pay higher mortgage rates and fees in order to subsidize “affordable housing.”

“Homebuyers who make down payments of 15% to 20% will get socked with the largest fees,” The Washington Times’ Dave Boyer writes.

If you diligently save to pay more cash upfront to reduce your mortgage payments, you will be punished. That’s the left’s idea of “fairness.”

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson, who was appointed by President Biden, said the higher fees will “increase pricing support for purchase borrowers limited by income or by wealth.”

In other words, let’s give more loans to people who can’t afford them and won’t pay them back. This was the magic formula concocted by then-U.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) that crashed the housing market in 2008 and ushered in the Great Recession.

Why not have another taste of it under Mr. Biden? He has wreaked havoc on pretty much everything else except his own family’s foreign-fed bank accounts.

Democrats who still love this country and don’t want to see it turned into Venezuela need to leave it or step up and vote out the radicals who spread misery wherever they take power.

Unless they do, Democrats might as well adopt a new party slogan: “Looters of the world unite!”

Robert Knight is a former Los Angeles Times news editor and writer and was a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This column was originally published by The Washington Times.

He has been published by the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Christian Post, AmericanThinker.com, DailyCaller.com, Townhall.com, OneNewsNow.com and many others.  He has co-authored three books and written 10, including “Liberty on the Brink: How the Left Plans to Steal Your Vote” (D. James Kennedy Ministries, 2020) and “The Coming Communist Wave: What Happens If the Left Captures All Three Branches of Government” (D. James Kennedy Ministries, 2020) . 

You can follow him on Twitter at @RobertKnight17, and his website is roberthknight.com.