A Biological Need To Steal?
Plus: Trump threatens Oman, the cost of Medicare for All, and booze laws in Britain and Boston.
A biological need to steal: Look, I took A.P. biology, and while I wouldn't say I was the greatest student, I am pretty sure there was not a section on the biological urge to steal. Yet that is what New York Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher claimed recently in a rant outside the Manhattan Criminal Court.
"Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty—people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you're stealing those things, you need them," said Gallagher, according to The Daily Wire.
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"We are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by," Gallagher reportedly said. "So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need."
I will give the leftists this: There are legitimate arguments and discussions to be had about overpolicing, about excessive and draconian sentencing, and about prison and jail conditions and how society should treat offenders. Those are arguments that some on the right prefer to ignore. Criminal justice policy is genuinely complicated.
But the question of stealing isn't. Theft is wrong. Even small thefts. Even small thefts from big corporations.
Anyone who has been to an urban drug store in the last several years and found empty shelves and locked cabinets knows there are wider societal consequences, that the people who don't steal end up paying the price for widespread, flagrant property crimes. It isn't kindness or benevolence to bless this sort of anti-social behavior, or to defend it as something like a natural right.
The way to address the genuinely difficult and complex questions of criminal justice is to address the complex and difficult questions of policy, not grandstand about how stealing is a biological need.
Even if it's just a small, fringe faction, it's disturbing that progressive provocateurs are coming out as objectively pro-theft. But it makes sense, in a way, given the recent trajectory of America's political left.
A worldview that sometimes cashes out into affirmative justifications of theft (or, for that matter, looting) is a worldview that makes it easier to support massive expropriation of wealth and absurd, practically Soviet levels of taxation and government control of the economy. Which, according to at least one recent estimate, is essentially what the Democratic Socialists of America are calling for.
Speaking of socialists…
Sunshine State socialism: Florida is holding primary elections today. It's a Republican stronghold, with nearly every major statewide office held by the GOP.
But a trio of what The New York Times calls "underdog democratic socialist candidates" are trying to make inroads in Democratic primaries. (Notably, DSA luminaries like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) are staying out of the state.)
Like so many of this summer's leftist insurgents, Florida's socialist upstarts support rent control and Medicare for All. Do they have a plausible plan to pay for it? How do other countries manage government-funded healthcare, and if they can, why can't the United States?
Those questions, and more, were the subject of much of yesterday's Reason Roundtable podcast. Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reem Ibrahim, Matt Welch, and I had a wide-ranging discussion about the enormous cost of Medicare for All and the expensive, unserious agenda now being pushed by the DSA.
We also touched on a few other topics, including a listener question about government policies we actually like.
Watch and listen below:
Oh man, Oman: On the one hand, it is pretty clear that Donald Trump wants out of the Iran war. It has caused him nothing but irritation, depleting the country's supply of munitions, closing the Strait of Hormuz, making inflation and international relations worse. And, after all, he was the Republican who campaigned against prolonged, pointless wars in the Middle East. He's stuck, with no obvious way out.
On the other hand, usually the way to end a war is to stop bombing, and he keeps threatening to bomb the Middle East. His latest threat was directed not at Iran but at Oman, which has reportedly been conducting negotiations with Iran about managing traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump sees this as a threat to ending the war he started. So he's threatening more war. "If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them," he told Fox News' Trey Yingst.
Can Trump bomb his way out of a foolish war? Unfortunately, we might find out.
Scenes from the Greater Boston area: You know what city isn't cracking down on booze? Boston. The city allowed limited outdoor drinking this summer during the World Cup. And now city lawmakers are debating extending bar hours to 3 a.m. Nearby Cambridge also rejected a proposal to limit bars to serving no more than one drink every 30 minutes to any individual customer.
QUICK HITS
- Britain has some real problems: Slow growth, bureaucratic inertia, police crackdowns on speech. But as two different Brits have pointed out to me recently, they have one thing the United States doesn't: a widespread expectation that it's legal and socially acceptable to drink outside—on city sidewalks and even in public areas like parks. This presumably includes standing around in spaces just outside of pubs, especially during the summer, when the weather is nice. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, some U.K. lawmakers are trying to crack down on such boozy festivities: "Some venues would be subject to strict table-to-chair ratios and only be able to serve drinks as a table service. Venues could also be barred from serving alcohol to anyone not sitting down with a substantial meal."
- In 2024, I wrote about how everyone, including and especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), hates prices. This was back when Warren was warning about the potential for dynamic pricing at fast food chains like Wendy's. Well, now Warren is worried about dynamic pricing for ice cream.
We should all be worried about "dynamic pricing."
That's when companies change their prices in real time.
If it's hot out, the cost of ice cream could go up.
If it's cold, tea bags could go up.It's a way for giant companies to squeeze you even more.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) August 16, 2026
Prices are good, actually!
- Sarah Ditum on the damage done by Jason Arday, the Cambridge scholar who became the subject of scrutiny after revelations of professional plagiarism and biographical fabulism: "Arday's self-mythologising was not harmless. He hurt the academics whose work he plagiarised. He hurt the discipline he belonged to. He hurt the early career lecturers who were competing with him for jobs, but couldn't match his fantastical legend. He hurt the families of non-verbal children who believed the story of his unprecedented late acquisition of language, and either blamed themselves for lacking the patience and love of Arday's mother, or blamed their children for their failure to blossom."
- Predictably, some people are blaming journalists for Arday's death and demanding that laws be changed to further restrict the rights of the press:
This is a great piece from Sarah. The backlash against the reporting about Arday is a reminder that the attachment to free speech (even reporting quite clearly in the public interest) is worryingly thin in the UK, including among people who think of themselves as liberals. https://t.co/zyqR2n2cyO
— Mike Bird (@Birdyword) August 17, 2026
- Meta, the company behind Facebook, is headed to federal court today in what looks to be a major child safety case, with 29 states charging that the company promoted its product despite knowing that it resulted in anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and other mental health problems, reports Politico. This sort of consumer safety case increasingly looks to be the line of legal attack that states and other Big Tech critics see as giving them leverage to take down large tech companies. Read Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown for some informed skepticism of this legal maneuver.
- This summer's overperforming Spider-Man movie aside, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been flagging recently. But MCU chief Kevin Feige has a plan to keep it going: The X-Men, which are slowly being integrated into the movie's sprawling narrative. He recently said there could be "100 more" movies featuring X-Men characters. Who's excited for an entire spinoff franchise devoted to Alpha Flight?
