Wednesday Morning Rant [Joe Mannix]

It's rough out there for business in America's increasingly violent, lawless and dystopian major cities. We see plenty of news about it in the press and here. There are stories of robberies, stories of stabbings and shootings, stories of perpetrators going free and victims who fight back being punished. When you can't go shopping or buy gas as a customer without being menaced by gangsters and vagrants or run an establishment without being robbed or killed, what do you do? How do you protect yourself, your property and attract business?

The police will be of little help in any city with a Soros DA. The crooks, even if they're arrested, will be back on the street in mere hours. The non-crooks have no official recourse. One side effect of this will be a resurgence in vigilantism, but another will be private cops. This is the path one gas station owner in "Killadelphia" has taken to protect his property and attract customers. What was once a sight common only in the third world has made its way to our shores: businesses hiring mercenaries.

Last month, news broke about a Philadelphia gas station owner who hired armed guards to defend his business. The owner declared that such steps were necessary:

The security measure is a necessary one, Patel says, because police do not respond quickly enough while crimes such as shootings, shoplifting, and the theft of an ATM are a constant threat. Even his car was vandalized.

"They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level," Patel told FOX 29. "We are tired of this nonsense; robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs."

The local Fox affiliate handled it in typical fashion. In his Twitter post about the story, the reporter framed it - of course - as "does this make you feel safer?" Not a question about why such a thing might be necessary, but whether it causes discomfort in the blue hive:

A North Philly owner says he's had enough violent crime at his gas station so he's hired these guys to protect his customers and store.

Does this make you feel safer? Or uncomfortable. pic.twitter.com/ZOXvUxTvyW

— Jason Martinez (@JasonFox29) December 6, 2022

Most of the replies in that thread, based on my cursory examination of the subsequent posts, are "safer." There are a few to the contrary, but they're the minority from what I saw. There was one reply in particular that caught my attention:

@o_thirteen Replying to @JasonFox29
I went Honduras and saw armed guards with guns outside of a bank. This is where we are at in US cities.

So which narrative is correct on this story? Is it a publicity stunt by a gas station owner to tap into unwarranted fear of progressive change to bring in customers, or is it so bad in the bad neighborhoods of Philadelphia now that something like this is the only way to make a good effort at survival? Is it a cynical ploy to make the news and drum up business, or is it a sensible step to remain in business?

The sad truth is that it doesn't matter. If it's a cynical ploy or publicity stunt, it wouldn't work. If the conditions were fine, the owner wouldn't have thought of it. Even if he feels no real fear and is just tapping into the zeitgeist, that means that there is widespread fear in the declining city.

Look for more of this to come, not as a great overnight shift but as a gradual increase. It is inevitable as we continue our slide into third-world governance.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:00 AM

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