Merriam-Webster defines "progressive" as "relating to, or characterized by, progress; making use of, or interested in, new ideas, findings, or opportunities."  There are other definitions, but that's the first.

Defining leftist pols as progressive sticks in my craw.  They are not.  They are repressive.  We rational people intent on living a meaningful, peaceful, and creative life should be dubbed progressive if anyone is to be.  Therefore, I am re-branding the leftists the Repressive Party.  Let's call a spade a spade.

Speaking of spades, the best way to keep from getting stuck in a hole is to stop digging it deeper.  Seems obvious to me, but then I am blessed with a modicum of common sense.  The anti-gun, pro-crime policies currently being foisted upon us by the Repressive Party certainly seem like a hole dug deeper.  I must ask why.  Who benefits?

The defund-the-police movement sprang up alongside the burn-and-loot-the-city movement.  How, you may wonder, does a government entity (city or state) observe the results of these violent events and think, "Let's have fewer policemen"?  Yet it does.  BLM now has corporate sponsors, and politicians legitimize it.  Yet BLM works in concert with Antifa, a terrorist organization.  We have ongoing out-of-control violence and looting (which the MSM often ignores), increased murders and unsafe streets, and citizens who find it increasingly dangerous to walk their own neighborhoods.

Obviously, the Repressive left cares not one whit for the people it ostensibly represents.  They are not interested in a society based on the rule of law or, at least, the rule of legitimate laws.  They are not interested in protecting and serving the people who elected them.  They have become rabid, power-mad rats, who must win at any cost.  They want us to cede all power to them.  It really doesn't seem to matter what they do with that power.  As long as they can keep adding justifications to repress us or disarm us, however illogical, they win.

Here in California, the crime rate is almost as high as the taxes and gas prices, roads are crumbling like badly made cornbread, and we have a governor fixated on saving his own hide.  We have a one-party state, which means, we have a government by Repressive fools.  Their focus is not on public safety; it's on taxing the "rich," who mostly hide behind loopholes, to redistribute the lucre gained from the middle class to the favored few.

Local governments rarely address the concerns of the citizen.  If a crime serves their purpose, they make noise about it.  If not, it disappears.  It's inconvenient, for instance, that it's citizens "of color" who are attacking elderly Asians.  Therefore, we have general outrage against "white supremacists" and community "support" walls covered with flowers and slogans, but no specific information on the attackers.  As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "isn't that special?"

Our local government spends our money frivolously.  As an example, instead of fixing potholes, they make mincemeat of public streets (and yes, these pictures show what used to be a functioning street with two lanes in each direction, metered parking on both curbs, and a bike lane).  Now it's a traffic jam in the making:

The latest California outrage is Senate Bill 82.  It's put forth by Berkeley's Nancy Skinner.  She generates a lot of bills, but this one's a doozy.

Skinner had a commission "study" crime for a year, and, as a result, her bill redefines any robbery that nets less than $950 as petty theft.  The maximum penalty is a $1,000 fine and a year in county jail.  The only exception is if "great bodily harm" is inflicted using a weapon.

The bill is also retroactive: people already incarcerated under the old law would be eligible to have their convictions vacated.  This is modeled, ironically, after a similar bill in San Francisco.  That bill's biggest success: getting businesses to close permanently.  How fun, if you have a retail business, to watch a horde of shoplifters openly gather $949's worth of goods apiece and calmly walk out.  You can't stop them or call the cops.

Then there are neighborhood thieves who roam urban and suburban streets looking for walkers to rob.  They drive up, hold a "non-deadly" weapon to the walker's head, and rob him of jewelry, phone, money.  If Skinner's bill passes, and they only take $949's worth of stuff (and who's to say your "used" wedding ring or watch has much value?), nobody will stop them.  Do you think the cops are going to pursue if they can't get an arrest leading to conviction?

The hole we're digging, the same as the one being dug in other Repressive-run jurisdictions, is getting deeper by the hour.  Maybe we can keep on digging and end up in China?  There, at least, they take crime seriously.

Image: Anti-Asian assault in Oakland.  YouTube screen grab.

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