Why we can't have Nice Things

I know the names of several famous French philosophers, Voltaire, Descartes, Robespierre, etc. But I couldn't tell you what separated the thinking of one fancy cheese-eater from any of the others. 

I do know one of them, was a virulent antisemite. You'd think I'd have remembered his name. But alas I've been busy with more important issues of the day. Yesterday I left the keys to my car on the front seat. Thereby alerting nearby thieves, "Here come take my Mustang Mach E." 

Oh, and I didn't do it once. I did it twice in one day. Note to self: Look into Prevagen.

Today, however, I became a fan of Rousseau. He could or could not be an antisemite, after all, in those days, it was as common as soft brie. 

I came to discover Rousseau wrote a treatise on the Social Contract, that is the theory that we all abide by a certain a set of unwritten rules in order to maintain a sense of civilized society. I can't be the first to notice that the contract has been decimated as of late, in ways both big and small.

My daily late afternoon walks, lengthening everyday thanks to my newfound, and painless mobility, often take me by the Ivy Station of the Expo train line. 

It's adjacent to the tony Shay Hotel, home of LA's finest rooftop bars. It's also home to a panoply of sketch characters who tend to congregate under the elevated line. They gather there not to discuss French Philosophers but to smoke weed, distribute their refuse and, when the impulse strikes them, hop on board one of the trains overhead.

Two weeks Ms. Muse and I boarded a Metro Train to attend the Hands Off Protest in downtown Pasadena. As any Metro rider knows, the TAP system of paying the fare is cumbersome at best. And the machines to transact loading the card seemed to have been designed by the same folks who gave us vacuum tube computers and perforated punch cards.

The aforementioned weed smokers can't be, and won't be, bothered by all that mishegas. They simply jump the turnstyle or walk thru the exit gate, whose protruding plastic wedges do little to discourage the transportation freeloaders. 

And of course there are no consequences for violating the vehicular honor system, which is part and parcel of the social contract.

But it gets worse. Much worse.

Yesterday there was an article in the LA Times about squatters who have illegally moved into houses owned by the Metro People. These huge beautiful houses were vacated years ago, along a corridor earmarked for a highway connecting the 110 to the 210 freeway. That never happened. 

Nor did the No Trespassing signs stop squatters from moving in. Not only did they feloniously force their way in, they cut deals with the city so they could stay in. I don't know who pays for their electricity, gas, and water, but I suspect it's you, Tommy Taxpayer and me, Law Abiding Sucker.

Now the city wants them out. Hold onto your chappeaus, because this is where it gets good. And by that I mean Not So Good.

The city is currently negotiating a deal with the squatters, sorry, the unhoused, to provide them with low cost rental units AND pay them up to $20,000. In cash. If they'll move out of the houses they have no legal claim to.

This makes my blood boil. 

And maybe not for the obvious reason. Because this flagrant rewarding of people who commit crimes has a steeper price tag than one might imagine. It's not only a perversion of common sense, these well-intentioned Democratic city politicians are literally feeding the GOP political machine. 

You can be sure these $20,000 bribes will be picked up Republicans and exploited, rightfully I might add, as financial malfeasance. It's a gift to Red Hats at the hands of people like me, and maybe even you, who just want citizens and their governmental leaders to abide by the social contract. 

Not doing so is how we got Trump!