Machan's Musings - So I Was Robbed
by Tibor R. Machan
The other week I went to San Francisco for a conference, parked in a "Public Parking" place, on a busy corner (2nd and Howard), and my car was broken into and a bunch of stuff stolen. And I am partly to blame.
Yes, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Living as I do in a neighborhood where homes and cars can be left unlocked, I got spoiled. And all I had to do is stop to think a minute. Once before, in the 70s, the same thing happened to me in the same beautiful City by the Bay—then someone broke into my old Volvo and stole a nice leather coat I bought a few months before in Berlin. And when I lived in Palo Alto for a year to work at Stanford, I experienced my first home burglary.
Although this is no evidence of any trend—other than perhaps of my mistreatment by Bay Area thugs—it should have been on my mind as I locked up my car and walked away from it. So the rest of my Easter weekend was spent on damage control since my lap top, which was part of the loot, contained information that could be used by some hacker to get into my various accounts and maybe purchase things (although these are mostly online book shops, so I doubt they will be of great interest to someone breaking into cars).
It goes to show you that while, of course, it is the perpetrator who did the worst thing here, the victim, too, could have acted more wisely, prudently, and therefore is guilty of misconduct. That lesson isn’t often heeded. I didn’t heed it much on this occasion but I promise to be better henceforth. In many instances those who should know better and act accordingly miss out by not realizing there are hazards all around us, some posed by nature, some by others. The natural hazards are, of course, more easily anticipated—California often shakes, so one can do better by preparing for a quake here and there; Florida is hit by hurricanes often enough so one should probably make sure one’s home is sturdy; and the Midwest has its floods, the north its deep freezes and so forth.
But there are also too many other people who are hell-bent on making life miserable for the rest. From simple vandalism to brutal murders and terrorism, these folks are vicious, mean people who will not be discouraged by finely fashioned welfare programs or by the sentiments of social workers or anti-globalists. No, they have gone corrupt. And they will lash out and anyone can become their victim.
Yet, the victims, too, are doing something less than exemplary by not paying attention to such people, by downplaying the reality of their existence, by forgetting that they are out there, especially in certain regions of the neighborhood or globe, preying on whoever is distracted, whoever forgets about them, whoever thinks they will just go away some day because of all the good will some people waste on them.
I am writing all of this in part so as to fix the matter in my own mind, good and hard, not to continue with my own complacency. Sure, I had an alarm, sure it was broad daylight, and sure in was in the middle of a mostly civilized city on a sunny weekend day. But not only is it common sense to take extra measures in any big city but I had personally been put on alert. Yet I chose to be out to lunch, something I detest when I let myself do it.
As I say, I promise. In the meantime I will continue with my damage control, get things fixed, replace the losses, see if my insurance covers any of it, and become better about coping with the vile ones of the world.
Oh, yes, I also went to the police to report this and the cooperation was fantastic—well, not really. The officers—half a dozen of them sitting there, chatting and joking and barely paying heed when I made my report—pretty much regarded this event as something that’s solely my problem, not theirs. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they were more interested in victimless crimes—drug offenses, prostitution, whatever—than in cruising about the avenues of San Francisco, being alert so as to stand ready to secure our rights.
All the more reason to be more alert oneself.
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