A society that lacks a moral compass puts the criminals over regular citizens and worsens the lot of everybody.
There are collections of Jewish folklore stories of the “wise men” of Chelm. The stories revolve around the utter cluelessness of the town’s leaders and are very popular with young and old. One of the more famous tales involves a crooked bridge over a dangerous gorge. Many a fine horse along with its wagon and passengers found their way off the bridge and down into the gorge. The wise people of Chelm had an emergency meeting to discuss the bridge. The obvious solutions would be to fix the bridge or replace it or possibly add guardrails or warning signs. Instead, after a week of deliberations, they decided to build a hospital at the base of the bridge. Today, the United States is morphing before our very eyes into Chelm.
Store Thefts
Stores throughout the US are being targeted for shoplifting and heavy-duty theft. One can find endless videos of people walking out of stores with huge bags or full shopping carts of goods for which they did not pay. Some brave employees have tried to stop them, only to be physically harmed by the thief or fired by their employer.
The obvious solution to the problem of large-scale and frequent shoplifting is empowerment of store security. Let them make arrests or even draw weapons. Additionally, police need to be instructed to make a priority of arresting store thieves. The ones arrested cannot steal any longer and the others who thought to be like them might just learn not to start. With increased security and policing, shoplifting could go back to being a minor nuisance instead of a major drag on income. But our Soros-sponsored DAs from Chelm do not want to prosecute shoplifters, even those who take hundreds of dollars of goods and do it repeatedly with the intent to sell and make profit. No, our highly-credentialed lawmen would rather have stores close and have the most trivial items locked up rather than prosecute those who are destroying the foundations of a functional society. We once waited 10 minutes for someone at Walmart to open the case where laundry detergent was kept; today, one will have to go through that experience for every single item desired.
Illegal Immigrants
Millions of illegal immigrants from numerous countries have found their way to the US since Joe Biden became president. Any hope of finishing a wall and having controlled immigration went out the window with Biden entering the White House. Border communities are overrun and cities like Chicago and New York can barely handle the influx of a few thousand illegals. A few dozen illegal aliens sent from Florida put Martha’s Vineyard into a full-scale panic.
The obvious solution for a normal society would be to finally build a wall on the southern US border and make immigration a controlled process that benefits the United States and its citizens. The Chelm solution is on display in New York, where the mayor loves illegal immigrants as long as they are somewhere else. Mayor Adams has sent illegal immigrants to neighboring communities. He has taken over hotels and schools. He has convinced fifty houses of worship to take them in and in his latest pitch, he is asking private citizens to take illegal immigrants into their homes. Chelm would have given him its man of the year award.
Elections
One can easily vote by mail and then later go to the polling station and vote again. One can fake a signature and vote for someone else. One can collect ballots, but only those for your preferred candidate, while leaving the rest in the garbage. One can vote without proper identification. In short, many people do not trust the results of voting because of too many potential places for abuse.
The adult answer would be to move back to a national day of voting, namely the first Tuesday in November of an election year. If that is too much to ask, then one could significantly strengthen proof of identity for mail-in and day-of ballots. The Chelm solution is to keep the system as loosey-goosey as possible. Having a simple picture ID, something that here in Israel and in most countries is an afterthought, is considered to be some racist plot to prevent minorities from voting. Hundreds of millions of ballots are sent to homes, while signature and date checks are lax, opening the possibility for widespread fraud. The goal is not fair and honest elections; the goal is to keep the Democrats of Chelm in power.
The list could go on—movies, sports, universities, agriculture, and business. In each, one sees destructive, unproductive behavior while the solutions to the problems are obvious. But those in charge take the exact opposite approach and stand in wonderment when sales crater or people take their time and money elsewhere. Movies that tell white men how evil they are lose a fortune, but the studios will make more of the same to please the folks at Davos. The Irish and the Dutch want to destroy their herds to make the rainmakers at Davos smile at them. Nobody expected the stories of the wise men of Chelm to become reality, but each day makes the original stories pale in comparison to the behavior of our political and business elite.