Welcome to a bonus episode of the Daily Article podcast, written by Dr. Jim Denison and narrated by Chris Elkins.

Today's article is titled Organized Retail Crime and the Peril of Self-Defense.

Why are drugstores putting toothpaste, candy, and soap behind lock and key?

Organized retail crime.

Rings of criminals who steal products and then sell them online is the problem.

Retailers must now balance the challenge of escalating shoplifting and angry shoppers.

One obvious lesson this phenomenon illustrates is that we value what we want. We do what benefits us.

Even when we act sacrificial, like making products more difficult for consumers to buy,

there's usually an ulterior motive that we hope will outweigh its cost.

One of the foundational ways we are culturally conditioned to self-advance

is self-reliance. From the ancient Greeks to today, our culture

focuses on the individual as the key to truth and meaning. Know thyself with Socrates' famous pathway

to wisdom, not know thy family or know thy community or know thy God, not seek wisdom from the past, but seek wisdom in yourself.

This existential worldview pervades everything we do today.

Yuval Levin has noted the degree to which CEOs and employees alike

use their employer as a platform for their personal agendas.

CEOs have become celebrities as never before.

Employees use their social media platform to amplify what their employer is doing or not doing,

that aligns with their personal views.

Employees are even choosing employers based on such personal agendas and then working to ensure that the company continues to align with them.

America has been composed of red and blue states for years, but now our partisan divisions are far more complex.

There are blue cities within red states, Austin, Texas, for example, and vice versa. There are blue communities

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