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Commentary: To a fault

While shopping at a Sacramento Target recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom witnessed a man walk out without paying. The governor asked the cashier, “Why am I spending 380 dollars? Everyone can walk the hell right out!”  (Video: youtube.com/watch?v=QonVZO3RmCI)

Sometimes, too much of a virtue can cause problems.

For example, while honesty is a virtue, there are times when a white lie is better than a hurtful truth. You can be too honest.

It is also good to be generous to strangers, but not to the point where your own family goes hungry.

Something similar can happen when social ideals are pursued too zealously.

Keeping our country safe is a good thing. But an overly keen pursuit of national security has variously resulted in (1) the internment of innocent Japanese citizens, (2) the blacklisting of idealistic artists for thought crimes, and (3) the waterboarding of people who might have been terrorists. 

Sometimes, things are just taken too far.

Sobriety is a good thing, too, but prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcohol brought violence, corruption and toxic bathtub gin. Jails and morgues were soon overcrowded. 

In the end, Prohibition was deemed too extreme, and the idea was dropped.

Is it possible that we are pursuing some of our social ideals too zealously today? Before addressing this question directly, I’d like to do a little thought experiment.

Imagine, for a moment, a place where there is no punishment for shoplifting.

First, there would probably be more shoplifting. After all, there are those among us whose primary reason for not stealing is that they fear being caught and punished. 

With no punishment, they’d probably just go ahead and steal. So there’s that.

As a result, paying customers would have to pay more. They’d have to pay for not only the goods they were buying but also the cost of those that others had stolen. I mean, the store would have to recover those losses somehow. 

You might think that insurance would cover those losses, but of course, the cost of the insurance would have to go up, and the store would have to raise prices to cover the higher cost. 

That’s just how it works. Insured or not, prices would go up.

Meanwhile, the thieves would sell their stolen goods on the black market for a fraction of what the store would have to charge. 

As the thieves’ cost is zero, any price is pure profit to the thieves. These black market sales, possibly on the internet, would further erode the store’s paying customer base. Why pay more?

Some of the remaining paying customers would probably feel pretty stupid, standing in line to pay for increasingly costly goods as thieves carried the same goods past the cashier and walked out the door. 

Some of them might even decide to become thieves themselves. The ratio of thieves to paying customers would probably worsen over time.

If there were too many thefts in a given store, it would probably start losing money and eventually have to close. After all, a store that is losing money can’t stay open for long. 

The thieves would then have to go to the stores that were still open to steal, and the process would probably start over. As prices rose, as stores closed, as jobs were lost, as neighborhoods declined, everyone would probably suffer to some degree.

Back to the question. Are we pursuing some of our social ideals too zealously?

Forgiveness is a virtue, and when expressed in public policy, it can mean not punishing someone harshly for a minor offense. For example, I think we can all agree that sentencing a repeat offender to life in prison for petty theft would be harsh. 

But what our little thought experiment suggests is that being too forgiving of petty thievery creates its own set of problems.

Gov. Newsom’s experience at Target lends credence to the notion that whatever is happening right now isn’t deterring much of anything. 

I, myself, watched a man walk out of a store with a case of beer under his arm as the manager pointlessly shouted, “I see you!”

Here’s the point: The law doesn’t have to be harsh to deter petty theft; it just needs to be fair, swift and certain. That’s all.

A good society has high ideals and takes steps to realize them. However, the world is complex, and moral complexities inevitably arise. 

Sometimes, with good intentions, we follow the logic suggested by an ideal step by step and look up only to find that we have taken a step too far.

In such a situation, the best thing to do is probably to take a small step back.

Scott Chambers is a professional cartoonist, writer and editor.

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