nottheonion

You know what, yeah you're basically right.

There's no basis of trust with the public. There was a time when you'd go downtown and the hardware store was owned by the guy who lived across the street from you, the clerk at the grocery store was your friend's son, the lawyer your mother worked for as a secretary came in to your office to add a new car to his insurance policy. There were communities, you knew each other, you grew up together. There was room for benefit of the doubt.

Now I live in one of the houses on one of the streets in a residential zoned area along with ten thousand interlopers who have gathered here around a collection of national chain retail stores to build tall fences along property borders and sit inside and stream one of the same five shows in solitude. Everyone is a stranger and thus everyone is a threat and you might as well destroy someone at the first tiny sign of any issue because strangers are perfectly replaceable.