Alcatraz, Always.

San Francisco is locked in a prison of the mind.

Over the weekend I took the wife and kids up to San Francisco to visit Mission Dolores, the sixth mission built in Alta California under the direction of Saint Junipero Serra (a man who is well deserving of being called saint).

Going up, we had some worries. We have all seen the videos coming out of San Francisco; we know the stories. Random acts of violence carried out on public transportation by the drug addled and mentally deranged pilgrims to and products of post-liberal paradise, the likes of which would have shocked even the most jaded nurse of Victorian England’s Bedlam to the point where Renfield would seem to have the qualifications to be Prime Minister in comparison. Cars broken into and burglarized the moment someone dares step out not the street long enough to sample one of the West Coast’s world famous double-doubles (unconfirmed if the perpetrator of these crimes wore a mask, a cape, stripped clothes, and night have been more interested in hurting the competition).

I live close enough to Los Angeles to are firsthand what Democrats can do to a once-beautiful city. I’ve felt the firsthand shame at showing out-of-town tourists the Walk of Stars on the Sunset Strip, hidden beneath mulch-like layers of garbage, used needles, and human excrement. Big nothing could have prepared me for what we really did encounter in San Francisco.

San Francisco is nice!

The city is cleaned up, no more poop maps needed. It’s not perfect, but it’s everything that a world class city deserves to be. Almost no trash in the ground. Minimal graffiti. Almost no homeless. We felt safe everywhere we went the entire time that we were there.

Why? Is it still clean from Xi Jinping’s visit? Maybe. At the very least that showed then how to clean it up. Was it implemented as part of Gavin Newsom’s run-up to a presidential campaign? For our nation’s richest and most innovative finally get tired of being stabbed to death?

Most likely, it was all of the above. But some lessons are only half-learned.

And, like much of left-wing America, it will keep in making the same self-destructive mistakes. Because deep down, the city still hates itself.

This is exactly what drove San Francisco into becoming so and to begin with; a city that had seen a second gold rush. And it is one that is only just beginning. But, the city has already been trained into viewing success as a moral failure stemming from a lack of empathy. So naturally they decided to practice their empathy by feeling along with the criminals yearning to get out of jail, for the freedom to pillage the city with impunity.

San Francisco’s escalating crime rates under District Attorneys George Gascón (2011–2019) and Chesa Boudin (2020–2022), and Mayor London Breed (2018–present), reflect the consequences of left-wing governance bolstered by George Soros’s financial support. Progressive policies prioritizing leniency over accountability, critics argue, directly fueled spikes in homicides, property crimes, and public disorder. While external factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and economic challenges played roles, the evidence strongly suggests that left-wing reforms, enabled by Soros’s funding, were the primary drivers of San Francisco’s crime surge.

George Gascón, appointed in 2011 and elected twice with Soros-backed PAC support, implemented reforms like ending cash bail and reducing prosecutions for low-level offenses. He claimed these policies reduced recidivism, with only 6% of released defendants committing new crimes compared to 11% previously. However, property crimes soared 49%, with thefts up 37% and overdose deaths rising 150%. His low 40% misdemeanor charge rate signaled to criminals that consequences were minimal, emboldening lawlessness. The left-wing push for equity over enforcement set a precedent for rising disorder.

Chesa Boudin, elected in 2019 with significant Soros funding, doubled down on progressive ideals, eliminating cash bail and diverting violent offenders to rehabilitation. The results were stark: homicides surged 29%, car thefts rose 27%, burglaries 38%, and arson 36%. Visible chaos: smash-and-grab robberies and open drug markets dominated public perception, leading to Boudin’s 2022 recall. While some data shows a 2020 crime drop (rape -48%, robbery -23%, theft -39%), these reductions were overshadowed by high-profile crimes and a sense of lawlessness, directly tied to Boudin’s refusal to prosecute “quality of life” offenses aggressively.

Mayor London Breed, aligned with left-wing policies, exacerbated the crisis by cutting police budgets $120 million in 2020, leaving the city with fewer officers. Murders rose 30.4%, and property crimes spiked 30–44%. Public disorder, from homelessness to open drug use, flourished under her watch. Though Breed later condemned the “reign of criminals” and appointed tougher DA Brooke Jenkins, 2023 data showed continued rises in vehicle thefts (10.5%), homicides (23%), and robberies (13%), underscoring the lasting impact of her earlier progressive stance.

Soros’s over $40 million in national DA race funding, including substantial sums for Gascón and Boudin, empowered left-wing candidates to push reforms that deprioritized punishment. Critics argue this created a culture of impunity. Soros claimed in 2022 that reformist DAs didn’t cause crime spikes, but San Francisco’s data, 38% burglary increases and rampant theft, contradicts this, pointing to left-wing policies as the root cause.

While the pandemic and economic issues contributed, the correlation between left-wing governance and crime is clear. Reduced prosecutions, defunded police, and lenient reforms eroded public safety. Boudin’s recall and Breed’s policy shift reflect voter rejection of these failures, yet persistent crime in 2023 shows the deep damage of progressive missteps. San Francisco’s crime surge is a cautionary tale of left-wing governance prioritizing ideology over accountability.

what better symbol of this than a place where people were once meant to learn from their mistakes. Or, at the very least, be punished for them.

Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rock 1.5 miles off San Francisco’s coast, is surrounded by cold, turbulent waters. Its history spans military defense, federal imprisonment, and tourism.

After the U.S. acquired California in 1848 following the Mexican-American War, the Gold Rush made San Francisco a vital port. Alcatraz’s position in the bay made it ideal for defense. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore designated the island for military use.

Construction of a fort began in 1853. By 1859, Alcatraz was the West Coast’s first U.S. military fort, armed with up to 111 cannons and housing a garrison of soldiers to protect the bay. No major battles occurred, and during the Civil War (1861–1865), the island shifted to a new role as a military prison, holding Confederate sympathizers, deserters, and later, Native American leaders from the Indian Wars, such as Apache and Modoc prisoners.

In 1907, the army made Alcatraz a disciplinary barracks, focusing solely on military incarceration. New cellblocks were built to house hundreds of inmates. Maintaining the remote island was costly, and in 1933, the army transferred it to the Department of Justice, closing its military chapter.

In 1934, Alcatraz opened as a federal penitentiary, designed for the nation’s most dangerous criminals: those too risky for other prisons. Known as “The Rock” for its isolated, rugged setting, it housed infamous inmates like Al Capone, Robert Stroud (the “Birdman”), and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.

Security was paramount. Cells measured 5 by 9 feet, guards outnumbered inmates three to one, and the bay’s strong currents deterred escapes. Over 29 years, 1,576 inmates were held. There were 14 escape attempts involving 36 men; most were recaptured or killed. The 1962 escape by Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, who dug out with spoons and fled on a makeshift raft, remains unsolved, though they likely drowned.

The prison closed in 1963 due to high operating costs and deteriorating infrastructure, leaving Alcatraz empty.

In 1972, Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area under the National Park Service. It opened to the public in 1973 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1986. Today, it attracts over 1.5 million visitors annually. But based on what you will see when you get there… It seems like all of this was only a footnote of the history of the island, at least as far as the current caretakers are concerned. Instead, from the moment you head down the ferries gang plan, you find much of the museum dedicated to a few years during which the island was occupied by hippie communist secessionists.

In November 1969, a band of Native American activists, under the banner of Indians of All Tribes, brazenly seized Alcatraz Island, a decommissioned federal prison in San Francisco Bay. Their occupation, rooted in a flimsy misreading of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, was a stunt to grab attention rather than a coherent protest. For 19 months, the group’s chaotic takeover saw them vandalize federal property, squander resources, and foster disarray. Infighting, poor leadership, and vague demands crippled their efforts, while reports of drug abuse and petty crime further eroded their credibility. Living conditions on the island plummeted due to their mismanagement, turning their so-called stand into a disorganized mess. The occupiers’ refusal to engage rationally with authorities prolonged the standoff, alienating potential allies and painting them as reckless agitators. By June 1971, federal forces ousted the remaining activists, ending their futile spectacle. The occupation achieved no tangible results, leaving behind a trail of damaged property and squandered opportunity. Far from advancing any cause, the activists’ disruptive tactics and lack of discipline exposed them as attention-seeking opportunists whose actions did more harm than good to their stated goals.

And much of the jail is devoted to this unfortunate blip, including the entirety of the area once dedicated to the jobs that prisoners would do while held at Alcatraz. Of course, once you got to the sales themselves, there were a couple of placards to some of the better known mobsters, as well as the preserved cells that were tunnel out of during an escape attempt which the purveyors of the museum, probably sympathize with. In fact… next to the signs bemoaning, the fact that military prisoners may have been jailed due to homosexual breaches in the code of conduct between sailors, there was only one prisoner that seemed to not deserve any sympathy. A prisoner that probably never even existed to begin with.

After seeing the work area, I decided to compound my misery by listening in to one of the tour guides common, a late middle aged woman in a period outfit that looked more like the gold rush than anything that would’ve been contemporary to Alcatraz days as a prison who, while barely able to contain her giddiness at the tail… recalled the fable of the only civilian to be jailed Alcatraz during its time as a military prison. This was someone who she claimed had been selling fake vaccine cards to military members during the Spanish flu… at which she said “nothing ever changes does it.”

According to this tail, the gentleman question was charged with 100 something counts of attempted murder, but did not survive his sentence because he “disappeared” and was most likely killed by the military guards who… Again, according to her.. “didn’t take like lightly to someone putting their families in harms way.” And while… if this story were real… it would probably be more likely that he had sold counterfeit cards to those very same guards who helped smuggle him out.

The story isn’t real, at least according to what I was able to look into. And I promise you if it was Huffington post or BuzzFeed or whoever would have done a write-up on it back in 2020.

The reality of that particular narrative doesn’t matter as much as the reality that it reflects. Gavin can clean San Francisco up. Trump can turn Alcatraz back into a prison. But the people of San Francisco are still living inside of a prison of their own minds.