Petty criminals are living in a golden age. Never before in the history of mankind have the elites of Western society been so concerned with the inconvenience that enforcing the law imposes on the lawbreaking community.

Our ruling elite has a naïve belief that the order they see in the more fashionable parts of their respective cities is the natural state of man. When in truth, Devil’s Night in Detroit is the natural state of man.

In Washington, DC the city council is most concerned about the law violating people.

The reporters at the Washington Post, ever prepared to hop aboard the next cultural fad, have found, “Some legislators are questioning whether fare evasion [on the Metro subway and bus system] should be a crime at all, arguing that targeted enforcement campaigns are bound to ensnare poor and low–income people who don’t have the money to pay their fares — let alone fines.”

This “fare evasion” worry is an offshoot of the “mass incarceration” delusion that posits minorities are being rounded up and thrown into prison on an unprecedented scale. It’s difficult to understand how people residing in a jail, after having been convicted by a jury, constitute an outrage. Common sense would conclude mass incarceration is a result of mass lawbreaking, combined with improvement in law enforcement technology.

It’s not a chicken or the egg question. It’s a chicken, egg, omelet progression.

The defies all logic part of the city council conundrum is how easy it is to avoid being arrested for fare evasion. The choices are practically endless. Pay the fare. Walk. Take a cab. Ride a bike. Carpool. Stay away from the Metro. None of those choices result in arrest. Only the choice to break the law results in arrest.

Yet, it’s the arrest and not the lawbreaking that concerns the council. And the DC isn’t alone. Other leftist hotbeds are working to decriminalize ride stealing. Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. is proving you don’t have to be Harvey Weinstein for him to let you off the hook. According to The Wall Street Journal, “The Manhattan district attorney’s office says it has largely stopped prosecuting subway–fare evaders, offering many offenders alternatives such as counseling and community service.”

In 2015 the entire state of Washington decriminalized turnstile jumping for minors. Their excuse being “such convictions would give teenagers criminal records and that it would be difficult for them to make it to court to challenge a citation.” Unless the court is on a subway line.

Removing responsibility for teenagers is the real pipeline to mass incarceration. The WaPost may contend it’s “unclear whether decriminalization has led to more fare evasion.” But I can give you a hint. Ask an illegal, during a break between demonstrations for his “rights,” what lax enforcement has done for the border–jumping community.

This is where the incoherence of the left’s philosophy regarding responsibility and maturity is so obvious. According to the cultural Marxists who rule us, a four-year-old boy is mature enough to decide if he wants to grow up as a man or a woman and start a drug regimen that will affect him the rest of his life.

While a 16-year-old male is not quite mature enough to evaluate the consequences of breaking the law.

One of the tools used to beat law enforcement into submission is statistical disparity. Cherry–picking data is the greatest gift to race hustlers since Jesse Jackson’s first paternity suit. A New York group contends arrests for fare evasion happen more often in low–income neighborhoods. This has all the scientific rigor of the claim that you won’t find many cats in a neighborhood with Chinese restaurants.

Arrests reflect the number of times the crime occurs. At the Capitol Hill Metro station there are very few arrests for fare evasion, unless Antifa is in town. I suppose the system could post a Turnstile Jumper Apprehension Team, where it would be as lonely as the Maytag repair man, but it would not be a good use of taxpayer funds.

The ACLU is among the professional agitators pushing decriminalization. Nassim Moshiree explains, “Absolutely there’s been a raised consciousness on this that did not exist 20 or 30 years ago.” And right he is, since approximately 30 years ago is when the New York City subway system was a dangerous and disgusting carnival of aberrant behavior that repelled riders.

The New York subway started its climb out of the sewer when respect for if not the rule of law, then at least the consequences of law was reestablished. Today none of these preening social justice warriors remember those days. Instead they are more than willing to risk the safety of your commute in the future to appease law breakers today.