Don's Tuesday column

THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson      Red Bluff Daily News 10/01/2024

            Changes forced by threat of jail

Employment numbers, the flip side of unemployment, appeared in Saturday’s Daily News; as usual, “the rest of the story” (hat tip Paul Harvey) is the millions of workers nationally who’ve simply dropped out of the working/job seeking “labor participation force.” The local 6.6 or 6.9 percent rate is realistically closer to 10 percent or more, depending on how many “work force dropouts” there are.

Included in the “employed” segment are, locally, a nearly 20 percent increase in government jobs, which contribute nothing to the private sector economy (money they spend is simply taxpayer income redistributed)—but God bless our public servants.

Americans are vastly worse off for the 20-to-50 percent increase in the cost of everyday groceries and essential products or services, compared to pre-COVID (ahem, the prior president). Another stealth bit of bad news for Americans is the fact that virtually all jobs have gone to foreign-born workers. Also, most “jobs” reported are part-time, not the full-time ones on which a family with two incomes can keep ahead—except that there are so many “families” consisting of single mothers, God bless them, whose baby-daddies ought to be providing for the needs of those kids, rather than public benefits alone, or supplementing their low level jobs.

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A weekly reminder to stop by the Republican election headquarters in the former Ramsey Jewelers location at 748 Main Street. Rub elbows and share your politics and patriotism with other conservatives in a “safe space” free of “woke” loonies, who need to be told, “Have an issue? Here’s a tissue.”

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Readers are greatly benefited by some (not all) syndicated columnists. Kudos to the editor for providing Michael Reagan, whose life and wisdom in President Ronald Reagan’s family and political orbit provides a weekly dose of truth on the national presidential race. If you missed it, go back and read it again. He makes a case for his preferred candidate that should move local voters to support “common sense.”

Another gem of California’s political “bard” class appearing weekly, is Dan Walters of CalMatters. “Californians back measure to crack down on crime despite Newsom’s opposition,” delivered what should be “common sense” on the issue of “unintended consequences” of Prop 47, over which voters were snookered by an intentionally deceptive title, “Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act,” in 2014.

Even the Google AI-generated summary includes the admission that the goal was simply to reduce prison populations; to “de-incarcerate” criminals convicted of property, drug and violent crimes through a rote process of judicial/lawyer collaboration. In the “unicorn and rainbow delusions” of that act, massive savings from not providing “three hots and a cot” to countless criminals would be “invested” in “programs that support schools, victims, and mental health.”

The impetus for Prop 47 was that minority inmates were “victims” of a white, racist justice system and deserved leniency. Rather than admit the wrong-headed-ness of what the British call the “mollycoddling” of offenders, Gov. Newsom’s political class in Sacramento rushed to “flank” and block voters from approving the obvious remedy: Prop 36. Newsom failed to garner enough support among even the farthest left legislature in America; hence, you will be able to mark your ballots to approve Prop 36 and, hopefully, “take a bite out of crime.”

It is, after all, a truism handed down for centuries: the threat of assured time in jail is not only the biggest disincentive to “doing the crime,” it is also the most effective deterrent to continued drug addiction and illegal public camping.

To those protesting the supposed harsh punishment over drugs and homelessness, I would offer a bit of wisdom from radio host Lars Larsen heard on an Oregon talk station: Addicts themselves have repeatedly admitted that getting clean and sober was pretty much optional—meaning they gave it a faint effort before going back to the pushers and dealers—until it was forced treatment or jail. They’d be cut off from drugs or booze in the cells, but the incentive to stick with the program, while free and able to get on with a productive life, was undeniable.

Those obsessed with giving irresponsible homeless campers every benefit, while shelter spaces go empty, ought to realize they are only enabling social, mental dysfunction and substance abuse by refusing the alternative of jail for such people. Sometimes, actually very often, people require making hard choices to do what’s right.

Let us not forget one part of Kamala Harris’s California record—which will be more thoroughly delved into in coming weeks—was her pivotal role in promoting Prop 47. That includes the deceptive renaming of it to convey the opposite of what could easily have been foreseen: criminal damage to “neighborhoods and schools.”

Kinda undercuts a lot of her narrative as “the prosecutor” to know she did all she could to enable drug, theft and property crimes in California, doncha think? That’s the way I see it.