Missing the California of My Youth
I am a California native, born and raised here. I’m only in my early thirties but can remember a time when my Golden State was a completely different place.
Twenty, fifteen, even ten years ago California was a bountiful land of opportunity that beckoned all — Midwesterners to foreigners – to come here and make a fresh start, to take a shot at the middle class and beyond that the Golden State exclusively offered. California was one of the few places where one would not find judgment waiting for decisions in life or how one ended up here. Multiple-pierced tattoo artist/bartender starting a disco club/tattoo parlor business? No problem. Bearded, beaded, dreadlocked, thick-accented Rastafarian looking to set up shop? That’s just fine too, we welcome you with open arms.
Most cities and neighborhoods were clean, urban, and welcoming, not unlike typical suburban areas and cities across America. The San Diego area (and much of Orange County) had an almost Midwestern feel; values passed from that area of the country to new generations that had emigrated here wove a strong fabric into the population. The Central Valley was the same.
Looking back some 60 years ago, my grandparents came here from the economically downtrodden Texas Dust Bowl in search of the American Dream. Stories of the venture were told at the dinner table, seemingly pulled straight from the pages of a Steinbeck novel. My grandfather started out here performing menial tasks and odd jobs before landing his “dream job” — a full-time custodial position with benefits. This career was only interrupted once, as he was called for duty in the ‘40s. Since he was not physically fit to serve overseas, he was enlisted to serve in another way — by performing welding work on U.S. ships being built in Long Beach harbor. Sheets of steel touched and hewn by his own hand helped win the war. He and my grandmother later went on to raise six children and retire in the High Desert.
My grandparents on the other side came here from Missouri to find a better life, They found it in Redlands, California. The family worked an orchard and every “hand” in the family had a part to play. I think back to the vivid stories that my grandfather would tell of the family farm, at least when he felt particularly chatty – which was rare and special when it happened. A particular photograph of my grandfather as a small child that he showed me once comes to mind. He was sitting in the back of a Model T, “halfway to California from Missoura on the Tin-Lizzy Express,” he said. As a young man in his teens he was shipped off to India, enlisted and stationed to the U.S. base there. He never saw combat and came back home to raise four children. The man loved California and rests in peace with military honors at March Air Force Base near Los Angeles.
As I grew up in California, there were indications of what was to come — the creeping issue of illegal immigration, for instance, that, despite the will of California residents, continued to bleed state resources and slowly morph inland neighborhoods into veritable Third World mini-nations, linguistically and culturally cut off from the America we all know. The state’s body politic was a circus act, yet political clowns mostly left to their unnoticed devices due to the amazing wealth creation of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, world-class ports, industry-leading small businesses, and large corporations that found a welcome home here. Taxes, in most cases, were much lower than what they are today but rising. The education system was in decline but we were still not at the bottom of the list.
Yes, California government has been a failure and unresponsive to California voters, yet, most California voters voted for the same type of government, … again!! The only promising sign I see is that they are defensive about their vote. I have been a Californian for over 40 years and have watched California change from a wonderfully open accepting place, with highly productive and creative people to a politically correct oppressive environment with an arrogant and entitled populace. I am not a liberal, yet most of my friends are. They know California is failing, but they seem to be in denial about how bad things are now and even though they admit they don’t know what to do about the problems their solution is to default to the same old solutions, ie, more government. It is very frustrating to say the least.
Sorry, any human society is like a high-perf engine. Allowing anti-social nutballs and goof-offs to remain in a society is like dumping a bunch of metal filings down the oil-filler tube. You either clean them out or listen to your engine blow up. CA was the biggest behavior-sink in America. Almost every village atheist, village queer, and village socialist ended up in LA or The City. Hey, it doesn’t work. CA is screwed because it’s populated with people who can’t/won’t play by society’s rules. Therefore, society disintegrates and ceases to function. But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good — America can bid good riddance to bad rubbish.
You’re right, Jacobite. The moral rot settled in first — thank you Hollywood for your lead in that effort.
All the airy praise about California being so welcoming of all sorts of people ignores the damage done when amoral people (Oh, goodness, did I just make a moral judgment? Well shame on me!
) reach critical mass in a society: their dysfunctions infect the health of the whole. They are like drowning men who will not stop scratching and clawing for life and ultimately drown themselves along with the strong swimmers trying to save them.
All this stuff about the government being at fault, so inept and corrupt, misses the point that bad governance is a result of bad people. Oh, dear, another judgment statement.
Charm,
Your fellow citizens default back to the old ways, e.g., Jerry Brown, because they are not motivated enough to change or to fix the system they helped create, and allowed to thrive. Your state is failing because Californians are allowing it to fail, and they expect “somebody” else to drain the swamp they have allowed California to become. At one time CA was a magical land, filled with promise, hope for millions of people wanting a better life, and they were WILLING to work for that better life. No longer are they willing. California citizens have failed themselves.
California will collapse, and break down into an Hispanic vs. Anglo civil war, that the Hispanics will win, as they are younger, backed by the media, and with gangs like MS-13, better armed and ruthless.
At that point, it will simply be best for the US Army to occupy that part of the state north of Sacramento and near Reno, and let the rest rejoing Mexico.
General Santa Ana, ironically considered probably the worst general in all history, will have ultimately won.
Eric, that is a distinct possibility as such revolutionary ideas are taught in “mainstream” courses at public universities, ie. that Hispanics will “take back” that which is rightfully theirs – California.
Tim,
The reversion of California to Mexico is a matter of when, not if. This last election will accelerate Anglo middle class flight from the state and also accelerate the state’s economic collapse as a result.
Starving, broke Mexicans would be very easy to rally for an independence movement.
Check out this great article about CA from NRO. Sad reality…
Illegal immigration is sinking CA. It has taken over once vibrant central CA farming communities and it will soon spread to LA/SF suburbs.
Some key excerpts:
I wanted to witness what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland.
In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class. By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit.
I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California’s entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.
Here is the link to the recent NRO (national review) article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255320/two-californias-victor-davis-hanson
Eric,
you very well could be right about the civil war but way wrong about who’s gonna win. These illegals are not heavily armed. Yes…you do have the punks in the gangs who pack but I can tell you that “whitey” has been stockpiling for a long time in this state. They will just be targets of opportunity when the “restoration” begins. As a 42 year old San Diego native, and have worked multiple counter narc JTF missions on the border courtesy of the US Army, I can tell you that all hope is not lost. The pain just has to be great enough for true restoration to occur. When it does go down are you gonna be ready? You don’t sound to confident.
Centermass: California is not the only place “whitey” is stockpiling implements of persuasion. There IS going to be a fight over basic resources, I believe, throughout the US. We are prepared to stand our ground. The politicians may waffle and wave in this socialist, marxist regime, but a lot of us WILL NOT. WE WILL STAND OUR GROUND!
Plus, Californians have been brainwashed into disarming.
It really makes me sick! I’m a native Californian (Bay Area) and it disgusts me that a people who have had no part in building the state will steal it and turn it into the same failed state it was when we bought it from them.
PS – I left the state in ’95 and have never looked back! I’m really trying to convince the rest of my family to abandon the sinkhole!
Arizona better plan a fence for its western border as well as the southern one. I think we’re about to have war zones on both fronts before long.
If you want to ruin any region, just let Democrats take over political control and you’ll get your wish.
This state will be Mississippi in another 50 years.
At least Mississippi has a competent governor in Haley Barbour who knows how to attract business rather than drive it away.
I’m sure Missisippi has all kinds of excellent qualities, but the fact is is that most of the south, thanks to generations of misrule by Democrats, is behind the rest of the country in just about every way imaginable (though some parts are starting to recover, now that the Democrat political stranglehold no longer exists)…and California, once a rock-ribbed Republican stronghold, now a liberal Democrat hellhole, is heading in the same direction.
The American south should be the most advanced, richest part of America. It has all the advantages…only, it was ruled forever by Democrats…and they ran it into the ground.
And they’re doing the exact same thing to the once great state of California.
Well then you should at least be happy that the most changeovers in the political makeup occurred in the south.
The GOP holds the redistricting trifecta in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Ohio – plus, as noted earlier, Nebraska and North Carolina.
Not to mention Democrats leaving the party and becoming Republicans in several states also mostly southern.
I’m real happy. No more Democrat stranglehold on the South means no more generations of black people living under despotic oppression, no more Democrats using the KKK like the Nazis used the SA to terroize and murder people, no more blatantly rigged elections where totalitarian trash like FDR miracuously gets 99% of the vote (a la Saddam Hussein), and eventually, with Dem rule broken, states like Mississipi will recover from the effects of Democrat rule and it will be a rich state with excellent schools instead of what it was for 150 years or so under the rule of the Dems.
What’s not to be happy about?
However, it will be worse than Mexico in three more years.
I agree that it’s wrong to use Mississippi as an example of America-gone-bad. For many years it was such a metaphor because of poverty, backwardness, etc. It has come a long way since that time and most of its inhabitants believe in self-reliance and individual liberties. Finally, don’t forget that at least Mississippi had the Civil War and its aftermath to blame for its situation. California, on the other hand, is a suicide case.
And I’m not from Mississippi.
The California crisis IS the direct result of progressive public attitudes run rampant, and here is why:
The typical Californian has no skin in the game, and hasn’t for 30 years. As few as 300,000 state residents were paying 50% of California’s personal taxes before the 2007 downturn, and the other 97% were riding along paying for the other half. When 97% of the population is being subsidized by 3%, what happens?–they become completely irresponsible.
The citizens are so government-dependent because they were never paying for it. The attitude of most voters in the state is that there is money in here somewhere and I’m not responsible. I’ll just keep all those feel-good, egalitarian, socially lefty ideas of what “ought to be” rolling around in my head when I vote because I haven’t been paying for it and never will. Well, the bill is now due, and the fortunes of those 300,000 who were writing all the checks have turned lower–or they have left the state. The tab is now sitting there to be paid, and Sugar Daddy isn’t at the table.
In typical California fashion you can bet its citizens and politicians will duck responsibility to the bitter end–asking voters in Texas and other more sane states to pay their tab. Good luck with that. Other citizens had no role in the feel-good leftist mess that California has created for itself, and they will be loathe to pay for it.
‘Progressivism is great, until you run out of other people’s money’.
California isn’t the victim of some dastardly small minority of collectivist infiltrators. It is the results of the philosophy that Californians have virtually created on the back of Lenin and Trotsky. California is not only a mess, it is the source of that mess in the broader US. I expect California to fall, and in falling, stop the madness they have been exporting for years to the rest of our faltering country.
California always prevails over its settlers. In a few generations people mellow out and they become easy pickings for the next group. It happened to the Indians, the Spaniards and now the Americans. Life’s a little tougher south of the border, nice and ripe in California.
When the struggle to survive is removed, so is the will to survive.
I spent nearly ten years in California, and that think many of the people there are getting exactly what they have asked for. The rest suffer for it.
Like Mr. Daniel, I too look back on my youth in California as the best thing that could have happened to a kid. Although I didn’t arrive there until 1946, when I was nine, I compare my childhood just outside San Diego to a ‘Happy Days’ experience.
Good schools, excellent education, all-race student body (with no discrimination that I ever saw), drive-in movies, surfing, beach parties, part-time jobs, customized cars, compulsory phy. ed. classes every day, discipline in the classroom (and the halls), etc. etc.
Of my three years in high school, I can only remember one young lady having to go away to live with her grandparents because she ‘got in trouble’. That just didn’t happen in those days without a great stigma being attached; and living together without being married … surely you jest!
After joining the Navy and moving away, I kept track of CA through friends and family and occasional visits back to the old homestead, as it were. What I saw and heard (politics, property values, crime, social values and sexual mores, etc.) turned me off of ever returning there to live, especially when my children were in school.
So upon retiring from the Navy, we decided to retire in the southeast and I have never regretted that decision, especially now that CA’s politics are so skewed towards madness (i.e. Pelosi, Boxer, Brown, et al); truly, my heart goes out to all you folks who put up with that trash – talk about the ‘Peter Principal’ on display!
“(with no discrimination that I ever saw)”
There was racial discrimination when I was a kid. It just wasn’t enforced by the government.
There was an unoficial color line in housing in the ‘burbs, for example, and it was broken mainly by construction companies (like the one run by Joe Eichler, a Californian/American hero ,forgotten by everyone else, remembered by people like me) who told racists trying to keep black people out of the suburbs that they didn’t care what color a man’s skin was, as long as the color of the money in his wallet was green, and that they would sell houses to anyone they damned well pleased, without regard to the opinions of racists.
End of discrimination.
“Good schools, excellent education, all-race student body (with no discrimination that I ever saw), drive-in movies, surfing, beach parties, part-time jobs, customized cars, compulsory phy. ed. classes every day, discipline in the classroom (and the halls), etc. etc.”
Walt, this is exactly what I experienced too, even in the 1980s. Thanks for sharing….
Ahhh, the Cali of my youth. I remember growing up in San Diego in the ’70′s where it was still a bastion of mostly conservative values, with a small-town feel, where we viewed the northern parts with disdain for their looniness. I remember Gov. Moonbeam Brown ushering in the era of decline for most of the the state and slow, creep of liberalism into fortress San Diego. North and South are virtually indistinct now; cesspools of failed socialism.
The landscape has changed drastically since the early 80′s.
I also left southern CA 10 yrs ago. Graduated from elementary to graduate schools in CA. Grew up in the SF Valley and settled in Orange County before leaving the state. What we have is flight of non-Hispanics akin to flight of the whites from inner city to suburbs. It’s beyond me that CA regulates and taxes the haves to death while giving away gravy trains to the illegal aliens from all over the world. I’d say let CA declare BK and unravel the public union pensions and give aways to the illegal aliens.
A half-century ago, California had less than half of its present population. Even then, its tax base and elected officials supported one of the best public school systems in the nation, a State water project, construction of major highway systems, flood control, bridges, airports, energy production facilities and transmission corridors. Peerless agricultural, petroleum production, and a cutting-edge aerospace industry, supported by an exceptionally well-educated population, were among the engines driving a dynamic, world-class economy.
All that is gone. Squandered in a decades-long orgy of infantile, myopic self-indulgence. As the California economy grinds to a halt under the weigh of ideologically driven punitive Leftist regulation, anti-growth, anti-business, anti-energy, radical environmental, multi-cultural, omni-activism, and confiscatory tax, license and fee assessment rates, the State’s ability to recover its footing is crumbling apace with its neglected infrastructure.
One must ask–no, demand to know–how it has come to this. How is it that the tax revenue (based on an average rate by comparative standards of the day, and raised from a population base one-half the present size) that once propelled California to its pinnacle in the 1960s is, today, insufficient even with massive and unsustainable borrowing, to begin to stabilize (let alone support) the State’s most basic public obligations?
They who have presided over this unconscionable disaster must be called to account, and their ideological nonsense thoroughly exposed and appropriately discredited. The dustbin of history impatiently awaits them.
“Good schools, excellent education, all-race student body (with no discrimination that I ever saw), drive-in movies, surfing, beach parties, part-time jobs, customized cars, compulsory phy. ed. classes every day, discipline in the classroom (and the halls), etc. etc.”
That’s the California I grew up with in the 60′s and 70′s. I left in ’95 because even I – an indoctrinated prog – could see the insanity. The further east I went the more people I ran into that had this thing called “common sense!” Wow! What a concept! I’ve never gone back and greatly fear the insanity I see creeping into the rest of the the country – bleeding FROM California! Egad!
“In what seems like a lifetime ago, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the nation. California is what a truly progressive government transformation looks like.”
In the 1970s, there was a Daily News headline when New York City was almost bankrupt. It said, “Ford to New York: Drop Dead.” This was a reference to president Gerald Ford, who at that time refused to bail out New York out of its financial troubles and told it that New York was on its own.
Well, here we are in 2010 and I doubt we will see a headline, “Obama to California: Drop Dead.” This is what Obama wanted all along, to have the states totally dependent on the Federal Government for everything, from health insurance to energy resources (through Cap and Trade). And what has all of this government micromanaging done to California? It has killed the most successful state in the union. California really does look like Mexico City now and, with Jerry Brown as governor, do you really, really, think this is going to change? Please, Brown is going to come begging to Washington in a heartbeat. He knows he has no way out of this progressive sink hole California has gotten itself into and he needs Federal money to keep it afloat.
And guess what? Brown will get it, too. Obama will never let California go under (making all of his progressive arguments look foolish if a progressive state like California goes bankrupt). Obama will be happy to bail it out, making all of the Mexicans in that state even more dependent on the Federal Government and insuring that they vote Democratic for generations to come. What’s not to love?
Problem is, Barry, the funding has to be approved by a new, conservative, Congress. Most Republicans have already written off California in the 2012 election. After all, if Carly Fiorina couldn’t beat someone like Barbar Boxer, then you know a Republican will never get elected in that state. So why bother? Let them go under, let them be upset, leave them to their own devices. They got themselves into this mess, let them get themselves out of it. They’re not going to vote Republican anyway, so let them live in their Progressive Paradise.
So what should Congress do for California? “Conservative Congress to California: Drop Dead.”
Libertyship,
What makes you think that Obama will go through Congress? He will find a way around them?
And if the GOP Congress refused a bailout, the leftist media, not only here but around the world, would run stories 24/7 about how the evil racist GOP Congress is starving and murdering Mexican babies.
Hell, the Obama junta would probably sponsor a UNSC resolution denouncing his own Congress – and then vote for it.
How can the Republicans ultimately resist 4 BILLION PEOPLE denouncing them?
I think Obama and the Democrats fear a backlash if they get too eager to bail out California. The same kind that they experienced during the town hall meetings when trying to pass Obamacare. And they paid during the last election. Too many voters will be wondering why they should pay for California’s excesses.
Bernanke won’t do it, lest Congress dismantle the Fed, and if Obama tries to write checks without Congressional approval, the checks will bounce and he’ll be impeached.
He will be impeached for any one of a myriad of other reasons, all of which are already a matter of the lurid public record of his failed presidency.
The reason the Congress can resist the 4 billion people accusing them of genocide is that only a comparative handful of those people vote–and they have voted for, and will continue to vote for, the principles that say to the failed progressive politicians that they must be willing to accept the consequences for their actions. California is a deplorable mess; the thing that I have always observed, however, is that social phenomena that have their genesis in CA inexorably make their way eastward. We must resist that with all our conservative might.
One thing to fear is the liberal flight. They are like locusts that consume all the resources of a place and then they move on to the next fertile area – bringing their politics with them – in order to consume the resources there. Repeat (ad nauseum) then rinse.
Many of the California problems can be traced back to Jerry Brown and his Demoncrats during his first stint as governor. Now that he and the Demoncrats have achieved total victory over common sence and crital thinking it seems to me poetic justice will soon be unfolding as the folks who caused to problems are the ones who have the task of correcting the problems, which of course they are not capable of doing because they really don’t know how. Watch and observe as the unions demands and the financial realities clash this state into total oblivion.
Be afraid my fellow Americans, be vey afraid, learn, observe, don’t let your state commit the suicide my state is committing. ….
Ain’t Karma a &itch!
Thanks for this warning. California’s self-implosion is sad for anyone who saw the California of old….Unfortunately, the progressives in Washington are imposing the same policies on the other states. Too bad the media haven’t provided a documentary on the downfall; of course, the progressive media would never shed light on the results of socialism/environmentalism run amok….
Yet, what we are witnessing in California isn’t the final chapter of this drama. The state still has electricity. After years of war on energy, how long before the power plants die of old age? When people no longer have reliable power, what happens then? It takes years of lead-time between the decision to build a power plant and the delivery of power. Unfortunately, our Washington elitist government focused on Utopia is determined to impose the same on the rest of the country. The old saying, “As California goes, so goes the nation”, seems an apt warning.
What is happening in Europe and the U.S. is baffling to anyone with common sense. Why would any culture choose to destroy itself?
Actually, Emmaliza, California does not have electricity. Half of the power for the LA Dept of Water and Power comes from coal plants in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. Southern California Edison owns half of the Four Corners coal plant. The Californians have recently voted to keep their goal of reducing carbon dioxide production to 1990 levels by year 2020. What they’ll actually do is export their carbon dioxide production to other states. There is a reason Arizona’s first oil refinery is being equipped to produce gasoline to California’s formula and it is the same reason the refinery isn’t being built in California.
“When people no longer have reliable power, what happens then?…”
The Audobons and the Sierra Club, tree huggers, tofu snots, bark humpers, suburau drives Prius pontificators will get their wish. A people free environment that’s for…THE BIRDS!
The illegals will set up road side shops selling their bleached bones for lunch and dinner. With refried beans of course.
And yet California voters, just voted for another liberal/socialist to run the state further into the ground.
The good life is now reserved for the rich Democrats who continue to successfully demonize the rich. Is there not some kind of disconnect here in the minds of California voters? Or, is all that is left in the state those on the public dole, everyone else having fled BACK to Texas. God help us if they try to turn our state into yours.
The young don’t even know what they missed. You can talk and write about it, but they can’t just go take a BB gun and hop on their bikes and ride out to the field wander around in the woods. There are rules against everything.
You can’t have a BB gun. You need a helmet. The woods are posted, so the owner will be protected against lawsuits. Where are the parents, CPS are going to take the kids…
You are in a prison without walls and vote for more.
Unfortunately for the two or so conservatives in the state, Victor Hanson and his wife, pehaps we should just let it get flushed down the drain. Actually VH has some great insight as to why this place has been degraded so badly. Yes to rampant unmanaged immigration for which the FEDS also have blood on their hands. Yes to liberals and neo communists socialists, big unions. Also yes to the dip shit hollywood types who are clueless brain dead supporters of the system. Yes to the sheltered tenured academic classes who sit around with their dope smoking friends and potray the evils of capitalism.
It is time for these people to live in the shit hole they have created for themselves sans assistance from the rest of America. What else can we do?Until the addict has hit bottom and admits his problem, there is nothing that can be done.
“Also yes to the dip shit hollywood types who are clueless brain dead supporters of the system…”
Ahhhhhh…yes……”and she had fun, fun, fun till her Daddy took the T-Bills away”…
The dispshiters will just move on to say Austin where they’ll be welcomed with open arms to begin the destruction anew.
Waiting in line at the Tarzana post office, I used to admire the old photos of the West Valley full of orange trees. Those were the days.
These articles remind me of my professor of psychology who had the habit during summer vacation to set his alarm clock to wake him up at 2 am, so he could enjoy the feeling going back to sleep.
It was a delight to leave California a decade ago – I still enjoy the feeling immensely.
The border fence (and land mines), should it ever be build, ought to follow the eastern and northern border of Mexifornia.
California truly is the canary in the coal mine and if the proglodytes get their way America will become just like California.
I still find it difficult to believe that the state with the 8th largest economy in the world is competing with the likes of Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia for last place in pubic education.
California, you deserve EVERYTHING you are currently experiencing politically, socially and economically. And your future looks even dimmer than one of those new mercury filled light bulbs the government is making you purchase.
‘Proglodyte’ is genius.
Thanks Khan, but I didn’t come up with proglodyte. Clarice Feldman who is a contributor at AmericanThinker.com used the term in one of her articles and she gave credit to one of her friends for bringing the word to her attention. However, I, too, thought it was genius and have used it since.
Man…the best they can hope for is the San Andreas doing what’s it supposed to do…crack, split, rumble and devour the entire state. Think of the property values in Arizona and Nevada with a news Pacific shoreline!
But….FEMA will come to the rescue? Of what? Ferries back to the wasteland of Mexico?
Yep, CA is in a horrible mess. My grandparents arrived in 1927 from OK & spent the next 40 yrs. working on the Southern Pacific RR. They lived less than one block from Tracy High School & did not start locking their doors until 1980! Never had a problem. Today, the city is full of gangs, dopers & a stopover point for druggies from the Bay Area to rob out banks & then happily drive away on I-5. The town is full of illegal aliens that once worked on farms or local restaurants. The city is so broke that they now charge you $500 if you call 911! Closed stores are the rule from Merced to Sacramento & the abandoned houses are common. But the jackasses that run the state continue to happily spend us into oblivion, pay outrageous pensions for state employees, & want more & more illegal aliens to flood our state as they grind productive people & firms into dust. CA went from a nice state to a socialist hellhole basketcase run by nutjob democrats & RINO republicans. It truly has turned into a 3rd world country.
More proof ( that’s not needed ) that “multi cultural-ism” and diversity is a bullshit and suicidal. Viva Santa Ana…Viva Los Lobos….Viva Taco Bell.
Viva…..3rd world infusion into a once great, late state of productivity, pride and accomplishments.
Hey La Raza….now that YOU own it….what are ya gonna do with it now that’s it’s one big turd….just like you left behind?
I am…delighted that it’s California first that will inflame the passions of all Americans to lock the country down.
All of which makes the remaining States call for a Constitutional Convention so the Federal Government does not bail out CA and continue, even with the GOP “leadership”, the spiral downward. Unless we can get 38 States to convene a Convention, make it permanent and reign in the Federales the nation is doomed to the slow death of CA.
The choices will be stark: either join the “what’s in it for me tax sucking folks” or simply find another country. Actually, being captured by UFOs could be a blessing.
Born and raised in California it was a wonderful place to grow up and flurish. But that was many years ago. A few years ago I left as the property and all taxes went through the roof. I have watched the political agenda of the state change radically over the last 20 or so year, what a shame. Over that period of time the Marxists, Progressive,Liberal, Socialists, Communists have taken control of that beautiful state and is reducing it to a third world POS. This is what the left does. The state is lost and will be looking for the US taxpayer to bail it out. Wont happen. Bankruptcy is on the way and the only way to resolve the financial issues there. Fire the Government there renegotiate the socialist union contracts and defund most of the programs there which have caused the financial downfall.
With all this mess around them the elect Moonbeam to quicken the pace to BK land. Welcome to your making Californian’s.
Tim, I share your sentiment.
Being 35, I too grew up in California for more than 1/2 that time, a majority in Concord, CA (East Bay area).
In the 80′s my friends and I would ride our bicycles EVERYWHERE. We’d take the BART train into the city for 49ers/Giants/Athletics (my first professional sports game I attended was the Oakland Raiders, before their moving to L.A.).
I played little league baseball, soccer, track, Cub & Boy Scouts, camping trips, hiking trips to Mt. Diablo, etc.,
Heck, I remember Concord being nominated ‘the best city nationwide to live in’ sometime in the late 80′s. And for all intents and purposes, it was.
I’d gotten stationed a few years later in nearby Fairfield/Vacaville area and was excited to see the city from my youth. Wow..
The city, and nearby cities as well are adorned with graffitti, decrepit businesses I frequented as a kid, many having shuttered doors.
I’d read the police blotters online and was disappointed to see the reasoning behind its demise.
Growing up there, ‘diversity’ was abundant BEFORE the term diversity was forced down everyone’s throats. My best friends being Black, White, Asian-Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Philipino etc., and we didn’t think ANYTHING of it. Whereas ALL of us came from good, 2 parent households, we did our homework before going out ‘to play’, had sleepovers at one another’s homes. Your typical friendship actions.
A glaringly obvious reason to its slide was the illegal aliens, and their 14th Amendment abusing children taking the city, heck the state down many notches to say the least.
Call me what you will, it’s reality.
California once boasted of having a very respectable public education system in the 80′s. Today, it ranks 48th nationally in test scores (Arizona and Nevada being 47th and 49th.. coincidence?). You can imagine the aftermath attached to these under-performing miscreants and their low I.Q.’d illegal parent(s).
The Santa Barbara Valley used to have LEGAL citizens in the fields, vineyards until ~mid 90′s (lived in Goleta ’06-’08 for school and have many LEGAL American friends of Mexican ancestry there), with company provided medical insurance, accrued vacation time, competitive wages. These same owners though 86′d these same loyal workers for the lower paying, ask no questions illegals.
It’s truly astounding, and sad to see this once impressive state knowingly, ACCEPTINGLY, slide into collectivism, zombie-like stasis.
With Babs, Feinstein, Pelosi and Moonbeam back at the helm.. oy vey! I can only imagine..
Thank you for your thoughts, Paul.
Tim, one last observation.
I’m thoroughly disgusted in this and previous administrations, Congress, Senators alike saying the ‘immigration system is broken’. B S.
ENFORCE the laws on the books AND don’t hogtie Arizona’s legal, overwhelming support for their immigration bill that OBAMA chose to get the Justice/Federal courts involved with.
The only ‘broken’ or ‘failing’ system is the 13% approval rating Congress, the not much better Senate and our appeasing, self-serving, thin skinned man-child as CiC whereas ALL blatantly ignore our forefather’s laws.
Benedict Arnold’s – every last one of ‘em.
I’d like to see any state that now knows what has happened to California…secede from the Union in order to kick the illegals out …reign in crime…stop the flow of red ink and force congress to redefine the 14th Amendment.
What better example do we need than California? Retards that have proven they’re 49th in education by re-electing a bird brain, dipshit, hippie, flower power, peace love and a holdover turd from the time California began to flush itself down the toilet.
California is sick….hell….give it to Mexico….nothing more can be done to save it. Without a shot being fired ( except by the gangbangers and illegals ) a huge swath of America has been conquered by an invading force or welfare recipients and grifters.
It wasn’t conquered or invaded. It was ceded by traitors!
“Inspiration for this piece comes from Victor Davis Hanson’s National Review article, “Two Californias.””
I started to read Hanson’s article but didn’t finish it. I liked yours better, I read the whole thing – nice job.
“Neo-Bolshevik state lawmakers beholden to radical special interests joined hands with a neutered opposition party to fleece the world’s 8th largest economy, and my state reminds us of the moral destruction that the entitlement mentality and unfettered entitlements create.”
Right. Blame politicians. But who elected them?
Democracy is the best form of government because, unlike other worse forms of government, under democracy most people get what they deserve.
True enough. But the other nifty thing about Democracy is that you get a second or third or fourth, etc. chance to get it right if ya wanna.
Not so sure Californians ‘wanna’, YET.
P.S. When California, Illinois, New York (Christy may yet save New Jersey) and their unions hold their slimy hands out I think the congressfolk in D.C. who think they can vote to save them with our pocketbooks will find themselves voted out of the gravy train called D.C. Or there is always the 2nd Amendment if it comes to that. That could work.
“Or there is always the 2nd Amendment if it comes to that.”
Nice rhetoric, but that will NEVER happen. We are too civilized – too soft. We are beaten.
As the last of the hard-working middle class leaves the state, maybe the Brown and Obama administrations can come up with some kind of exit tax. One more Obama appointment to the SCOTUS ought to make it constitutional.
I left San Diego in 1983. CA as pretty sweet back then.
I shall cherish those memories and dearly miss what California once was.
Democracy has functioned exactly as intended: the people of California have the governments and laws for which they voted again and again over the course of 50 years. People no longer wish to be free or prosperous. They wish to moralize and (self-) flagellate. Their wishes have been granted.
The next decade in California will be an interesting one. I’ll be waiting to see if my fellow Californians get to the point where their mellow has been so utterly harshed (thanks #5 E. Fluvius Maximus) that they wake up and try to revolt. All you have to do is read the comments to articles on the DREAM Act on CA news sites to see there’s a disconnect between what the government wants, what the liberal pundits want, what the rich Democrats in the state want, what the media wants and what the people want. Whether they have the cajones to stand up for themselves remains to be seen.
I’d like to think so, EM, but California did elect Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. They — er, that is, we — also approved a clean energy initiative that will raise gas prices an estimated 30-80% (that would be between $4.16 and $5.76 using today’s prices as a base). I don’t think anyone’s eyes will open. My upper-middle-class neighbors love Obama and Brown. When life gets hard, they’ll blame the greedy oil companies and vote Democrat harder than ever.
It is sad to watch a beautiful part of the country fall to social and economic Marxism and it’s insanity. Multiculturalism worked for the soicalists to isolate immigrants so that the only way of life they knew was the life of poverty they fled to come to Moneyland.
America is nothing but a money machine when a foreigner is isolated from it’s culture and ideology of freedom which made their quest for economic opportunity possible. Regressives have drilled multiculturalism’s isolated, foreign tribes with the lie that freedom is oppression and “white”; something to be overcome for the “progress” of Marxist economic and social “justice.” They won.
And a note to the author. America did not become what it was with the bread and circuses of California’s social Marxist freak show and although you have been reared by socialists to think social breakdown and amorality is glorious tolerance and diversity, it is actually what greased the skids for socialism’s total power. The American culture that freedom produced, is not a circus with a diversity of self destructive freak shows. Liberalism’s freak show competition in California was simply a divide and conquer political stragegy aimed at weakening the vote of the American-Americans and it worked.
Lily, you said – “America did not become what it was with the bread and circuses of California’s social Marxist freak show and although you have been reared by socialists to think social breakdown and amorality is glorious tolerance and diversity, it is actually what greased the skids for socialism’s total power.”
Like I said in the piece, CA is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of the nation in this respect. I was raised by God-fearing, American-loving wonderful parents so I resoundly rejected the socialist/post-modern/morally relative credo that sprung up and then took over my state.
And how will the rest of America avoid a Mexifornian future? Been to Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas lately? And don’t forget North Carolina! Yes, North Carolina. It’s happening there which means it can and most likely will happen everywhere. Heck, our elites want it and when have they ever been overruled?
We can avoid Mexifornia by expelling the Mexicans, any time we decide to do it. First, we need a third-party dedicated to advancing the interests of Americans. The Dems are the party of non-Americans, and the GOP is the party fighting to get the non-American vote. No hope there.
Our problems stem from the coastal urban areas. If you look at a county by county map of voter results, you will see that west of I-5 people vote socialist/progressive, east of I-5 vote conservative. There are some pockets near Carmel and Orange county that vote conservative, but not many.
The poison spreading through this state comes straight from the Bay Area. Being the home of Nancy Pelosi, this should be a surprise to no one. And now we have Moonbeam from Oakland ready to dig us deeper. This is getting very depressing. We can look forward to higher taxes and more onerous regulation of business driving out productivity as well as an increase in illegal immigration to drive up the welfare rolls. This is a recipe for disaster.
@EricR: Those of us living east of I-5 have got a surprise for any one wanting to annex OUR California…
“Unions bursting with greed, leech off a state in need”–Barry Soetero
oh wait, maybe not.
Welcome to Aztlan and the Age of Copper where they’ll soon be spending large parts of their budget to reverse engineer an air conditioner.
People who fled from Mexico to Mexico’s newest state are already fleeing that new state and it’s shanty towns, urban crime and taxes to pay for Latino unexceptionalism.
Brazil celebrated their 500th anniversary a few years back. That’s plenty of time to step up to the plate if one can step up to the plate. It reminds me of Orson Welles comment about a “cuckoo clock” in “The Third Man” but I don’t even think they ever got that far. Ironically Brazil, the most progressive state in Latin America and an economic powerhouse, doesn’t really run to the US but this is mostly logistical. If that ever changes, expect a steady stream from their shanty towns too. I can already see the shining lights of Vidigal/Rio and Ciudad Bolivar/Bogota on California hilltops.
Ummmm, liberals, kind of a suicide pact political party isn’t it. The race will be which is extinguished first, America or the Dems. I’m betting America since in a sense it no longer really exists unless you consider taxpayer funded sex changes and Mexican illegals marching down our nation’s streets waving Mexican flags “Leave It To Beaver”.
California is about to run up against some very harsh fiscal realities.
I think that the freebies to illegals are about to run out (and hopefully no bailout from Congress). This may prove to be our salvation.
From destruction, rebirth.
You put your finger on the problem. The reason there has been such an enormous influx of Mexicans and other Central and South Americans is that we have financially rewarded their decision to come here. Health care is provided, education is provided, welfare is provided, and employment is readily available. On top of which, so-called birthright citizenship is an enormously valuable gift bestowed on illegals as though the 14th Amendment was meant to apply to massive illegal immigration in the 20th and 21st centuries, a phenomenon that could not possibly have been in the contemplation of those who ratified that amendment. The “inability” to prevent illegals from being treated as “persons” stems from a similarly dishonest interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
Individuals have no personal boundaries are easy prey to people who have no scruples. Yet we both did away with our national boundaries and added positive inducements in the process. Thomas Paine would understand our moral failing which the vaporous liberal fixation on “compassion” attempts to conceal: “There is a bastard kind of generosity, which, by being extended to all men, is as fatal to society, on one hand, as the want of true generosity is on the other.”
If there is one place in the world that should be impossible to screw up, California is it. How do you wreck a place with ideal climate, location that makes it a center of trade, and staggering natural resources wealth? Politicians, and the people who elected them, found a way!
Kind of ironic that the author’s grandparents left “economically downtrodden Texas” for CA. Now people are leaving economically downtrodden CA, with its 22% unemployment, for Texas, where they can still find jobs.
ricpic:
Whenever the people outsmart them.
The simple solution is to start a wave of white immigration to California using churches.
It will accomplish two things: Scare the democrats into doing something about immigration and bypass the political correctness, pointing out how racist the actual intentions are of those advocating open borders.
3rd gen SoCal, my kids are 4th. Was born in ’51. Paternal Grandmother born on a dairy farm now part of Pasedena. Think my creds stand up to anybody.
My state no longer is. The writing has been on the wall far too long. As soon as I am able to split, I will, hating what my State has become.
But hating more what liberal politicians have done to force me to leave.
I’m 3rd generation too. Don’t wait till you can “afford” it. I came to Virginia with nothing in my pocket and I’m a homeowner now. The rest of the country isn’t as insane as California is. They (CA) make it almost impossible to succeed there anymore. The rest of the country makes it easy if you WANT to succeed.
What a well written essay!
I am one of the hard working middle class that left in 05 after 53 years. I moved to the coastal area in the “Live Free Or Die state”. SF born and mid peninsula raised, educated and raised a family. I started to see the decline around 92 and knew then, the stage was set for “critical mass”. For the last 5 years I have going back on business 6 times a year and each time I visited it appeared more and more foreign. Ten years ago, I had a friend who worked in a finance capacity with a Sacramento government job, predict BK in 6 to 10 years. Reasons, illegals ( approx 300k per anchor 0 – 18), state pension funds ( retired UCD campus cop retiring after 20 years @ 90K plus the full car wash) and one other unspoken reason. The unspoken reason is the legal immigrants, come here and sponsor their retired folks over. The retired folks must prove to be financially supporting but end up moving in with their kids and the kids file and collect state support and SSI to take care of the folks.
Most of the CA voters who continue to vote the way they do, do so because they have bought the Hype “hook line and sinker”.They really believe everyone in the flyover country are idiots and we Californians are the chosen ones. Tim is correct in stating “entitlement mentality”.
Case in point, I have an acquaintance that balked when I said, you guys keep doing what your doing but don’t ask for a bailout for your Malibu lifestyle. His response, that is mean, what if you need help from some weather event!
Thanks for the compliment, George. I am certain that millions of us will be sharing stories of our CA experience into decline as we settle into states that represent the new California Dream.
(Virginia comes to mind).
Tim, please do come to Virginia. The beaches are warm and beautiful, the budget is balanced, and there’s growth and opportunity in just about any field. After all, the place was founded by venture capitalists, and more than 400 years later we still admire people who want to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Indeed, Dave. I visited Virginia for the first time in 2006, south of Richmond. I returned this year and loved it only more. As my ancestors headed west, I will be heading east in search of a better life!
Jefferson told his European friends that it was worth crossing the Atlantic to see for themselves.
Oh yes! Virginia is WONDERFUL! We are so very blessed here. Our only fear is that same influx of socialists from “The Peoples Republic Of Mary-Land” who are escaping the sinkhole they’ve created there.
We could use more conservatives here! We are slowly, but surely driving the socialists out of even hard core places in Northern Virginia!
Had the Constitution been preserved it would indeed be possible to drive out, or discourage entry by, fools and parasites in the individual laboratories that the states were. Now, it’s not possible for discriminating policies to be implemented. Restrict welfare eligibility to long-time state residents? Restriction on constitutional “right to travel”! Ancillary state apprehension of illegals? Preempted (debatable) by federal law!
We all have to wear the one-size-fits-all straitjacket that five Supreme Court justices measure up for us now.
My wife and I live in Arizona. We’ve visited CA on many occasions SD, SF,LAX,Monterey,Palm Springs etc. I worked a sales territory that included CA briefly in’95. My last visit was ’06 (LAX) on business. First visit was ’83 for a convention in Anaheim. Never couuld I imagine the current state of affairs.
Tim’s warning to the rest of us is timely. We must secure the border, deport or normalize illegals, adapt conservative financial habits, elect officials who speak the truth, end welfare as we know it, make our states business-friendly, develop new export markets and dis-elect Obama in 2012. We can do it !!!!!!!!
I moved here in 1978. I thought I had moved to the land of mild and honey. There was a job on every corner. Now, I have been laid off for 6 months. I am giving my landlord 30 days notice tomorrow. I am packing all and going back to Tx. I love the Sierra but I need to eat.
I left CA in ’94. The writing was on the wall was already obvious to anyone paying attention. Richard Riordan and Pete Wilson were the last gasps of sanity. The politicaly correct were on the rise everywhere else in the state. Liberalism was the trendy thing.
Meanwhile businesses were already starting to flee. The affluent LA coastal neighborhood behind our apartment seemed to have a car with Utah or Nevada plates in every driveway. Some were retirees, some were successful professionals, and some were business owners. These people already had one foot out of the state.
What has ensued was pretty predictable.
Beth, have you forgotten Moonbeam’s back in town(cue Thin Lizzy please)?
Take a look at Brown’s M O. I guarantee Brown will go out of his way to hire a recent college graduate who just happens to be an illegal alien.
You may think it sounds kooky or crazy.. but that’s the epitome of Moonbeam. he gets MORE liberal and stranger with age!
Gen X didn’t learn or doesn’t care and Gen Y’ers are in for a rude awakening.
Get some popcorn, find a good seat and enjoy the show..
You might be surprised. Many of the younger generation are NOT enamored of illegals because (1) they have gone to school with them and been treated like Mexicans treat everyone who isn’t Mexican (they are very racist), (2) they are seeing the lack of entry level jobs/low skill jobs and the blatant racism they face in that job market, and (3) they are not happy about paying for illegals when they do land a job.
Moonbeam can hire an illegal alien if he likes. However, the simple fact is that THERE ISN’T ANY MORE MONEY. He’s got some very unpleasant choices ahead of him: raise taxes? If he gets rid of Prop 13, there goes the California housing market which is already teetering on the edge. People like myself with excellent credit who would normally NEVER think of defaulting will begin to explore our options. Higher income/sales taxes will also hit the economy, and our unemployment rate will jump to Great Depression levels (we are almost there). More fees on business? Texas will be jumping for joy as businesses leave in droves! More people will join the underground economy, giving a big fat middle finger to Sacramento.
And everyone who is NOT from California, please help us out. DO NOT support a direct or indirect bailout of this state. Let us take our bitter medicine, let taxes skyrocket, let the businesses fail, let the housing prices crash, let the unemployment rate go up up up, let Californians finally get hit with the cold water of fiscal reality!
It’s going to be ugly, and it is going to affect my family directly. I really don’t see any other option, however, things have gone too far.
None of this would have been necessary had the federal government done its job and protected our borders.
Arnold could have done his job of protecting the border, too. He chose not too. And this was before the maniacs would have called for his racist head. He wanted those people there.
While some cities in California may be the most extreme example on the West coast, I think that over the almost 70 years I have been alive I have witnessed a gradual and accelerating decline and coarsening of life in general here in the U.S., and also in the cities that I have observed and lived in.
In particular I refer to the city of my birth, Philadelphia, where I spent my first 18 years and where I have witnessed its steady deterioration on each visit back over the last several decades—58 years of unbroken Democratic rule to be exact, with the current Democratic mayor appropriately named “Nutter.”
City and suburban neighborhoods where I lived that were thriving and well-kept lower and middle middle class neighborhoods in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s have since degenerated into crime ridden ghettos full of neglected, boarded up, or burnt out row homes, roamed by “wolf packs” of teenagers up to no good. The once crowded, busy, thriving commercial center of my youth is now a trash strewn ghost of its former self, all major stores fled, lots of boarded up, vacant storefronts, and the remaining stores selling cheap electronics, flashy junk jewelry, wigs and big momma clothes, with the odd drug treatment center with its barbed wire-topped, chain link fencing thrown in. Moreover, a train trip from this suburb into center city takes you through what appears to be a dilapidated urban war zone and the empty, broken-windowed, razor wire surrounded hulks of countless once functioning businesses, factories, and warehouses.
However, it is in Center City Philadelphia that the deterioration is most easily seen in one concentrated area. All the major center city department stores gone and their huge buildings largely empty, few of what used to be a wealth of specialty shops selling high quality, expensive goods still in business, all the former crowds of well dressed, up scale shoppers apparently fled to the suburbs, and now crowds of a different sort, of mostly grungy and gray-faced, un-prosperous looking shoppers milling about in front of more stores selling cheap goods, beggars on many street corners, and street people pushing their stolen shopping carts along muttering to themselves–all within easy sight of City Hall, and police—police everywhere; it is an infuriating and saddening spectacle to witness just how far down this once prosperous and vital city has sunken.
Seth, If you think 58 years of one party rule in Philadelphia is bad, look at the miserable shape Baltimore is in as well as the remainder of the state of Maryland. The Democrats have controlled the state government in Maryland since 1860. No kidding. For 150 years now. If my memory serves me well, I think in the 20th century they had two Republican governors with one of them being Spiro Agnew. And we all know what happened to good ol’ Spiro.
“58 years of unbroken Democratic rule “
Not to forget…Newark, Camden. Trenton, Jersey ( Jihad ) City where they stood on the west side of the Hudson River cheering as the towers fell down…LA, San Francisco, Memphis, Greensboro and the trophy for the greatest fall and biggest prize for underachievement, the biggest sewer in America ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇDETROITˇˇˇˇˇˇ!!
What do they all have in common? Yep….Dems. The true terrorists of America.
Tim, I share the same history except I am older than you and witnessed even more being lost. Thank you for stating what needed to be stated.
Thank you for reading.
My parents took me to California in 1958. I lived there continuously until 2001. What a transformation in that time–and the rest of America, while not as extreme, went through much the same disaster.
It’s sad watching a society die.
So many criticisms of having Brown back. It’s worse than that!! Think down ticket and welcome
1. Gavin Newsom-your new Lt Gov
2. Kamala Harris-your new AG
Add a sprinkling of mucho liberalismo in the state legislature and my prediction of sleeping in dumpster with Chinese food being dumped on the state may come sooner than later.
The subhead is wrong. American HAS taken note. Just yesterday, the Open Borders cabal, which represents almost all of the political and media elite, was dealt another body blow as the Senate failed to ram the DREAM Act down our throats. So the biggest victim of illegal immigration likely won’t be replaced in that category. People are telling their MoC’s and senators not to bail out California. Most Americans don’t even want to vacation, let alone move there, any longer.
America has noticed. And given California’s votes in the most recent election, America is ready to cede that state back to Mexico and wash its hands of it.
One other point. This excellent essay is written by someone who has witnessed the decline on a daily basis. Those of us who have been away from California and have visited for the first time in ten or more years are astonished by the economic and cultural decimation.
I visited San Francisco for the first time since the mid-nineties this summer. I have previosly described that city as the most beautiful in the United States. It no longer is. I’m not talking about the homeless plague and so forth, either. It literally looked like someone had taken a bucket of dirt and dumped it on San Francisco. While he is a typical liberal, even Mayor Newsome is worried about the city’s decline. I am afraid it is emblematic of the entirety of the state. I was away from Los Angeles for about 10 years and returned several years back. It had started to decline even then but it was astonishing how quickly it unraveled.
I take no joy in writing any of this or reading this excellent essay, but the truth is the truth. It is tragedy laced with comedy.
Once Again: People get exactly the government they deserve.
I drove from my home in the Central Valley to the Los Gatos area yesterday and the first thing you notice all along the way is how beautiful California is. That may be the salvation. People (tourists) will keep coming. I hope.
Exactly! The People always get the government they deserve.
Thanks Tim, for writing this article. I am a bit older than you, and couldn’t agree more.
I will be 80 in February. I was out of the country during part of my adult life. We had a business in Europe back in the 70′s and 80′s, and when we finally retired at the end of 1989,
back we came to southern California where I was a native. We had raised our children in southern Calif. and moved to Europe when they got out of high school. So long story short, when we came back here in 1989 we went through a terrible cultural shock. It took some time to adjust. If we weren’t so ancient we would probably move away from my beloved California.
Your article needed to be written, Tim.
Thank you for your story, very moving!
Tim,
Your family history and your SoCal childhood sound a lot like mine.
It’s a real shame what’s happened to this state since we were kids.
Greetings Mr Daniel,
I have written extensively on the deterioration of large parts of SoCal thru my blog and on other sites. You may encounter me on twitter, where i provide linkups to my blogsite. Having traveled all over SoCal as a delivery driver from 1997 to 2008 i have been to every hood and region in SoCal and am well aware of the demographics and geographic makeup of SoCal, and esp the LA, OC, and IE countys
Here is one account of the deterioation of the San fernando Valley:
If U break down the demographics/layout of the formerly tidy middle class enclave called the San Fernando Valley(LA) the eastern half, basically the section east of San Diego Freeway, is predominantly latino, mainly recent immigrants. The northeast SFV ((Sun Valley, Pacoima, San Fernando, Sylmar, ect.) is an extremely impoverished gritty old industrial section of LA populated mainly by recent immigrants/illegals. Parts of van nuys, North Hollywood, Panorama city, Mission hills, burbank, are or becoming extremely ghettiosh, with decaying slummish apt districts packed with illegals and their attendant gangs.
These immigrant ghetto apt slum districts spread out to west of the 405 and well into Canoga park, Reseda, Winnetka, Northridge,ect. The apt ghetto districts are especially evident as you exit the 405 and go east/west along Sherman Way or Roscoe blvd. basically east and central portions of the valley are now one gigantic black hole of ghettish latino immigrant slums. Only the extreme foothill areas of Sherman oaks, Encino, Woodland hills, and the far west valley areas west of Topanga blvd, are still largely middle class tidy white districts but the lowland flat parts of the valley has become one vast unrelieved latino immigrant ghetto.
This is the result of 25-30 years of relentless invasion of south of border illegal immigrants into SoCal/LA. Many of the ghettos in the valley are as bad or worse than the nastiest sewer pockets of tijuana.
The portrait of the east San Fernando Valley as one gigantic latino immigrant slum district can be easily reproduced in hundreds of other regions/localities throughout SoCal.
http://californiaisathirdworldcesspool.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the information, I’ll check out your site and link!
His generalizations are a bit much. I live in that area east of the 405 and in the flatlands. It’s a bit more complicated than he writes. Not sure if he lives works and plays in the SFV, but I do and with associations to local business groups might be a bit more informed.
That still doesn’t mean that the city is in good shape. It isn’t and it truly should be in BK.
LA has serious problems and is headed toward a permanent Detroit status till US makes long term fundamental changes in the problems of outsourcing all manufacturing & high tech jobs, and stops importing cheap illegal immigrant labor. Otherwise LA wil permanently cement itself as a third world bifurcated city with a hugh labor/service plebian population making average $10 an hr, and a small wealthy oligarchy clinging to their villas and enclaves in a narrow beach front strip and in the hollywood hills.
Very few outside those actualy living in LA really know the extent of the impoverished spread of third world ghettos, which are 80% of the city and 60% of the county. Entire formerly middle class suburbs such as large parts of the SFV have simply declined into slovenly untidy decrepit slumburgs. An entire 10 X 15 mile section of south central LA( 150 sq miles),is so transformed into one gigantic 3rd worlds ghetto that u can drive thru it entirely and find not a single person who speaks english as a first language.
City hall cannot nor will not halt this process of overall de-gentrification which has accelerated last 2 years in the current economic and real estate meltdown. CH and mayor are useles entities. LA is headed toward Detriot-type permanant urban decay as the last shreads of manufacturing have left this city. The last RE bubble only resulted in more ugly housing/commercial additions now pockmarking the city as foreclosed blighted structures.
This is not the valley which has been portrayed in the song ‘valley girl’ or in TV and movies depicting a serene mid-upper class enclave of wide ranch-type homes nestled in lush surroundings. In last 25-30 years an unrelentless invasion of CA by illegals, mainly from south of border, has transformed the once idyllic SFV into one gigantic third world ramshackle slovenly slumville, as bad as anything u can find in south- central or dwtn LA.
If you want to read more about the deterioration of the SFV please follow the link:
http://californiaisathirdworldcesspool.blogspot.com/2010/01/transformation-of-former-los-angeles.html
LA mts becoming dangerous to hike in due to explosion of drug-cartel pot farms
I have a personal interest in these stories of pot growing in the CA mountains as i have hiked and backpacked in a lot of those mts, though much of my trips in the local LA/SoCal ranges was way back in the 70s’, and most of my Sierra jaunts were done in the 90′s.
Back in the 70′s i hiked all over the San Gabriel and San Berdoo Mt ranges and often in remote areas deep in those mts. Back then then there were no large scale pot farms anywhere or i would have stumbled upon them, and likely would have been nabbed and shot.
Back then the local mts were safe and free of Mex/cartel pot farms, LA/Socal was a mostly clean region with few immigrants and few slums, no freeway graffiti, a land of clean tidy suburbs, and CA schools and Gov’t were still top notch. U could hike in safety all over the local mts and only had to worry about ticks,, sunburn, tree snags, blisters and not worry about stumbling upon a trip wired pot farm guarded by armed Michocan gangsta/thugs who could cut u down deep in the mts and make u dissappear without a trace.
That was LA back then, now it is much more dangerous to hike into the hills unless u stick to a few popular crowded trails and don’t stray off the beaten path.
Tim,
You’re article left me choked up, as did Victor Hanson’s earlier assessment of the once golden state.
My father made his exodus from Pennsylvania, to California back in 1948, after serving his country as a marine scout-sniper during bloody WW2 battles of Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Cape Gloucester, et al.. His first contact with the once promised land was in San Diego, upon his return from “hell in the pacific.” I remember him describing the water pressure from the base showers, in a way only an escapee from a totalitarian society would describe something as simple as a florist shop, or grocery store; something we take for granted:. “M’boy, the pressurized water which covered my body could only be from a free society.” I’ll never forget those words. Today, as my father approaches his 88th year, he is saddened to see the state of affairs of the land he once loved. A life-long Democrat, he recently registered as a Republican; a move I’m sure tore at the very fibers of his existence, as he now sees a different Democrat party; a party that has destroyed his dream. A party he once believed enabled him to open up path to a better life. As he now says, “these bastards today are not Democrats… not the Democrats I once knew.”
Yes Tim, the “progressives” are about nothing more than destroying dreams; dreams that great men like my father went through hell and back so his children could achieve their goals and dreams; dreams that could manifest themselves in ways few places could. My beloved golden state was a once a place, of abundant ideas and prosperity; a place which empowered the great dreamers, thinkers and doers of the world. Sadly the golden state is no longer gold. It has instead, turned into a fast decaying grayness, approaching that of a land far removed from anything we from a former paradise once knew. Today, what I have is the memory of my dad’s award winning smile, and dreamy eyes, as he once described to the land he fell in love with, over sixty years ago.
Since moving to California I have learned what consequences are in store for the rest of America. Having grown up outside of Philadelphia, I have seen the deterioration in Philly as described by Seth. California is going down and there is no reason for it but the corruption and malfeasance of the bureaucracy.
I don’t get the socialism, as the gov. is a republican & most of the financial downfall, like Enron, that bilked tax payers of so many billions, gov. Gray got the boot, were buddies of the Bush family. Those “family values” in Orange County are very white racist, homophobic “values.” There have always been immigrant communities in the areas he mentions, since I was a little girl fifty years ago. California was part of Mexico and those communities predate the founding of the USA. That stupid assed marijuana idea was pure capitalism. Major military industrial complex contractors still operate out of there. The only socialism I see is socialism for corporations, paid for by working stiffs’ taxes. He wants a California that never was! And he hates Mexicans, for some reason, even though white people stole their land from them. If he doesn’t like California, maybe he needs to move to whiter, KKK-riddled, fundamentalist xian Indiana and stop whining.
“The only socialism I see is socialism for corporations”
35 million people in this country are getting food stamps. That’s over 10% of the population of this country hooked up on just ONE of the endless wealth redistribution programs run by federal, state and local govts in the United States.
And, of course, food stamps are a drop in the bucket compared to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid which accounts for about 40% of all federal spending.
And, then there’s housing programs, unemployment, AFDC, etc., etc., etc. All in all the Feds are going to spend about 3.8 TRILLION dollars this year. And, that’s just the federal govt!
Government has grown so big in America, that almost 45% of our GDP is accounted for by government spending (100 years ago it was less than 10%, btw). How much of the economy does the government have to control before we start calling it socialism?
If you don’t see socialism, it’s because you have your eyes wide shut.
And, btw, corporations don’t recieve food stamps or Social Security benefits or Medicare/Medicaid benfits.
Rogi, You are entitled to your opinion, but not to your own facts. Wow, your comment has to be one of the most imbicilic comments I have read on this thread. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I have spent 2 years of my life all over Latin America. It is not racist to want to have America not like Latin America. Large numbers of Latinos equals this and not “Leave It To Beaver” and jet propulsion labs. People all over Latin America laugh at their broken “nations” but here it is not allowed to do so in favor of some will-o-the-wisp idea that we are in fact all equal. We’re not. Some people are smart and some dumb. Latin America has had many more decades of existences than the U.S. and has produced exactly nothing but failure and copycat societies. I don’t want that in America. They bring nothing to the table and take away quite a bit. This is not racism but the reality of how people are.
You have no more corporations. You have chased them all away. California was never populated by Mexicans. The rancheros called CA a failed barren state. We bought CA – we did not steal it. In fact, paid Mexico and Russia each 12 million for the state.
The only white racists there are is probably you. While growing up in the state we were multi-culti before mutli-culti was cool — and no one noticed, because you see, we were all just people back then.
Oh – and PS – Arnold is no republican. Anyone married to a Kennedy is a socialist through and through!
thanks for waiting until the second “sentence” to play the race card
Yes I remember the days when my grandparents came out to California. It was ideal, a real gold mine. My family started with a pawn shop where we could charge 10% interest per month. We loved the blood sucking. Then we got into real estate. First thing we did was block busting. We’d move a black family into a Jewish neighborhood. That would cause real estate values to go down. We would buy the houses from the Jews at rock bottom prices and sell them to colored folks at top of the market prices. It was beautiful. Before long my family got into the porn business. What a gold mine. That was until it went mainstream. We had to switch our business to provide housing for illegals. We’d get 20 to a room and they’d have to sleep in shifts. It was grand until the municipalities started providing free housing to them. We are back to pawn shops again, that’s how bad things have gotten here in California. We did open a smoke shop where we sell all the legal hallucinogenic products allowed. Because of the legalized pot industry in this state, we a just barely making a living off of it. We are thinking of getting into selling fake IDs to illegals along with social security numbers. We hear there’s a good living in it. In the mean time, my cousin has started a fake clinic where he can mass produce 1000′s Workmen’s Comp. cases. This is still a golden State, opportunities abound. It’s just a matter of your imagination and creativity
I left Calif in 1983 after going thru a bad couple of years in the recession of 1980. The hostile business climate got much worse when I went back as a re-born business in ’93. Just returned from a visit in Nov and couldn’t find a Hotel in Sacto my last night. Turns out they don’t allow signs to tell travelers where to get off for lodging, fuel or food. So I took an hour and a half to find a Days Inn that should have taken fifteen minutes. Here within sight of the Capitol is a perfect metaphor for the antipathy toward business. Their pristine skyline is more important than the tax revenue from heads in beds. It’s hard to feel sorry for a state that now appears poised to lose the first Intel chip plant in thirty years to Arizona becaue it has gotten too expensive to build in Calif.
california has been sliding downhill for a lot longer than a mere 30 or so years. in the ’20′s through the ’50′s, more or less, it really **was** paradise, and everybody who lived there knew it. the exact date it all started to go to hell is a matter of debate: the ’65 riots? altamont? sooner? later?
but by 1977, don henley, at least, could see it. in one of the songs on ‘hotel california’ – i forget which one; it’s been 33 frickin’ years now – he sings of the once-golden state: “call a place a paradise, kiss it goodbye.”
the death throes will be interesting, and bloody, i believe. and it’ll spread: all the californians who’ve moved to washington, & oregon, & idaho, nevada, montana, colorado, etc etc are all the same. they all say. “thank God i got out of that nuthatch”, and then they proceed to vote for the same kind of suicidal idiots they elected back home. what’s the historical analogy? the fall of rome? expulsion from the garden? something like that….
I’m a native too and can say the blame is politicians, the State’s court system and too many bad lawyers who are contributing to the problem. They need to get the hell out.
California is a state that got raped.
I think California and the nation have experienced similar changes. Is there any place in the US or maybe on the planet that is better than it was before? And how many who have exited California discovered the anxiety and frustration they felt here had followed them? Yes, it’s bad here, but how much of that bad is exasperated in our own minds?
Ultimately, I’d like to see an end to representation in government and we the people vote directly on issues, instead of electing a stooge to vote for us but screws it up instead. Sure, I’d like to see the House and Senate dissolved and have the President serve mostly as a vote counter for the people and implementer of what the people say.
However, seeing that a representative government will likely be intact for a while and will screw things up as usual, I think each individual needs to rely less on government and be more innovative in their approaches toward survival, and perhaps even experience a bit of contentment.
You need to read your Greek history. The absolute worst form of government ever invented is direct democracy (mobocracy). You think plebiscites in CA (where they just elected Brown Governor) would have good results? Of course people would vote to lower taxes on themselves while increasing spending on themselves.
The only good to come out of it would be a faster and more complete collapse. Maybe they would vote to secede from the Union – that would be great for the rest of us.
Venezuela, Cuba or NK sound like a good place for you to live in. Comrade.
My family and I have been looking for a place to settle upon my pending retirement from the military. California WAS high on the list, as it is close to family up north, and we have some good friends in Sacramento. However, after some research, we would fork out about 50% of my pension to the state for taxes(state, local, property & sales taxes). Combine that with the soaring cost of higher education, we have a no-win situation in CA. We are now looking at TX, NM, FL and possibly Illinois.
I never gave it any thought at all, but in looking around and doing a little research about just which party it was that was governing all the deteriorating major cites here in the U.S., I was amazed to find out—it should have been obvious if I had paid any attention at all—that basically all of the major cities in the U.S. have been run by Democratic administrations that have been solidly entrenched and in power for many decades—as I discovered, in Philadelphia for an astonishing 58 straight years–and it is they, and especially the voters who elected them –time after time—who bear the responsibility for the massive deterioration that has occurred.
It is almost as if—in our major cities but nationally as well–we are sliding back into a medieval social structure—many cities are starting to look as shabby and are apparently sliding into becoming as dangerous as those we see in Hollywood recreations of Medieval life, or is it a form of the chaotic, lawless Dark Ages we are headed for, in modern terms something like the dystopian society depicted in the science fiction film “Blade Runner?
A society in which there is a small, controlling Left wing bureaucratic ruling class/kleptocracy/aristocracy doling out benefits to the mass of people—increasingly more like surfs beneath them, surfs whose work supports not so much the surfs themselves as it supports the priorities of that ruling class, which takes through taxes an increasing percentage of their earnings, which governs and channels us serfs into certain behaviors through laws and especially regulations (which the ruling class is essentially immune to and able to evade), and which makes all the important decisions for the benefit of that bureaucratic ruling class/kleptocracy/aristocracy under the guise of “taking care” of the people i.e. their subjects, and in this scenario the sense of menace, the lawlessness and chaos the city’s “underclass,” including illegal immigrants—reliable Democratic voters all–brings to the situation allows government to assure its stay in office, and to amass and exert even more power and control, as the “govmint” supposedly attempts to deal with the “humanitarian,” “educational,” “law enforcement,” “medical” and “budgetary” problems caused by the presence of the ever larger underclass.
Moreover, it is no accident that under Obama & Co. it is planned that there will be an increase from the currently very high 33% to an astonishing 50% of citizens who will pay no federal income tax and who, moreover, through “tax credits” i.e. disguised federal welfare checks, will be reimbursed for any state taxes they have to pay i.e. they will have to pay no state taxes either, and voila a permanent, dependent, underclass. Now how do you think that these voters—mostly non-working, and depending on a government check each month to live on—will tend to vote, and who will—in reality—have control over their lives?
Camo in Turkey:
Stay away from Illinois. They take in half as much in taxes as they pay out in benefits, and are overdue for a crash (just like California).
Following along my line of thought above about our major cities answers a question abut our country as a whole that has puzzled me. Why, despite all the evidence of massive job losses and unemployment, why in the face of calls for government to take urgent steps to get our economy moving again to create jobs, did Obama & Co. and the Democratic Congress ignore all those myriad calls, the obvious situation in front of them and the obvious solutions at hand and, instead, focused on, and rammed through an utterly failed and totally phony “Stimulus,” rammed through Health Care Reform, Bank Reforms, and try to ram through the DREAM ACT, and Cap and Trade?
I guess that I am not as cynical in my old age as I need to be, because I was examining things starting from the basic assumption that our leaders in the Federal government were relatively disinterestedly and honestly trying to fix our economic problems for the benefit of us citizens; silly me.
Baldly and harshly stated, the answer to my question is that an economy on the mend creates more jobs and more independent people making their own decisions about their lives–who could vote Democratic and for more revenue, power and control given to government, but who could also (and were more likely to) vote Republican and for less government, less revenue and power and control to be given to government–but a deeply depressed economy and massive unemployment creates more dependence on government aid and benefits—more surfs, and gives government that much more control over each of these surfs lives, and predisposes those recipients of government aid to keep in power the Democrats who are doling out that aid, and to vote to keep that aid coming, deepening that dependence even further. So, too, each and every piece of the legislation that so preoccupied Obama and Co. and the Democratic Congress tried to either insure more Democratic voters i.e. millions of grateful illegal aliens given citizenship by the DREAM Act, or to increase the power and control of the ruling bureaucratic class tenfold via their new control and regulation of Energy, Health Care, and Banking—with the added benefit of making many of the key players–like Al Gore– billionaires in the process.
So, it was not about doing what was obviously necessary, not about taking any of the immediate, common sense steps to help the United States, its economy, or its citizenry recover and our economy grow again, it was about more deeply entrenching, about increasing the power and control, and further enriching the Leftist ruling class/federal bureaucracy/kleptocracy that has grown up in this country and has parasitized it, and is slowly eating it alive.
In the 60s I lived both in Mexico and in California. There was a profound difference. Now there is none. California is on it’s death bed with Gerry Brown giving Last Rites. Some things need to die. But self-destruction is the saddest. Thank Sacramento.
Cuba on the pacific. This is a cautionary tale for patriots.
Great stuff LCR. We are about the same age. I could have written this having grown up in Ventura. My parents still live in the house they bought in 1980. Unfortunately their neighborhood has not retained it’s charm and dignity as many So Cal neighborhoods haven’t. I’m now in the suburbs of the bay area. The scene is a little different but the problems are ultimately the same. It is sad to see. Good people are leaving California in droves while others stay and fundamentally transform it into an unrecognizeable place. It makes me wonder what California will look like for my childrens generation.
Thanks, Lisa (or Lilac?). Ventura was very similar to the area of San Diego that I grew up in as well, I visited the place quite a few times as I had family there years ago.
It has been proven from who Californians just elected as Governor… that State is well and truely doomed! Glad I got out!
I was born and raised in California. What this writer claims is true. The large Mexican prison population and its concomitant prison industry (unions) drains the California budget, Mexican prisoners have created an enormous national security problem regarding huge criminal enterprises, crime ridden Mexican neighborhoods necessitate a growing police state surveillance apparatus, and last but not least worst is yet to come- has generated a unbelievable social problem consisting of a massive generation of disaffected soon-to-be citizens courtesy of the Democrats. What to do? Build two border walls and everything will take care of itself.
Thanks, James. Amazing that I didn’t even get to the issue of illegals in CA prisons but you are totally correct.
Speaking as a 94 year old lady who was born in Long Bech, CA, I spent about 1/2 my long life in “I love you California” which is now a disappointing state; gone to the dogs for sure. Perhaps it can regain its prior loveliness. That is my prayer. Now I live in Bandon-by-the Sea in Oregon.
“a full-time custodial position with benefits.”
State Worker? Pension? Union? If yes….well…if no…never mind.
Can we just give California and/or its debt back to Mexico?
All who voted against pot legalization just shot themselves in the foot.
Reading this article and the other one that was referenced, and reading many of the comments, it seems there is some history and nostalgia, but really no solution, or the attempt to instill thoughts about possible rectification.
Although many commenters condemn the results of November’s election, it probably would be the same condemnation had all the opponents won instead. So perhaps for many gripers on this thread, leaving California is the only viable alternative, and many of us who stay welcome your departure.
Conversely, those who stay and who continue to complain, what is it that keeps you here? You might say you are stuck, but there’s always a way to become unstuck and leave.
The DREAM Act lost in the Senate. But how many of you have befriended, worked with, or contracted personnel knowingly or unknowingly who are recipients of or who could benefit from the DREAM Act? It’s easy to despise people, and there are many evil illegal immigrants, but not all are evil or living off handouts.
Do you want to take the good with the bad, or ship out everybody, including your friends and colleagues? What are you doing to help ship them back, especially you say Brown et al, won’t do it. You would have hated Whitman, too, so there’s no way to please anybody, it seems.
So please leave to rid the state of your discontent, and take the nostalgia with you. And those who stay should fight for whatever they believe in to help change the course.
All the pot problems (violence, blah blah) directly stem from its being illegal. Duh
I completely share Tim Daniels’ grief, having lived here all my lift too, but disagree as to the cause. Charm got it right in the very first post that the real fault lies with the people of California. Others are correct that the public employee unions “own” the state and dominate its politics, but that is only because the public agrees with them, as shown by the experience of other states such as New Jersey. New Jersey is worse in every way than California, but elected a Republican governor last year who is telling it like it is. Christie wouldn’t have a chance in California, and the reason is that California voters aren’t ready to hear his message.
The people of California truly believe they can vote themselves into Paradise without having to pay a price for it. Things will keep getting worse until the people of California no longer believe in fairy tales. That day will come sometime, but it certainly hasn’t yet.
Sorry, but I don’t share all this grief about the failures of Californians. You all made this bed for yourselves and I think, if you have your way, we will all have to sleep in it. The sooner you all stop whining about your plight, the better off you will be. Just my opinion, but I also remember those good old days when the rest of us had to put up with the noxious California superiority complex.
My father’s family moved to San Diego in 1917 from the midwest. From poor beginnings some became close to wealthy via real estate. All the brothers enlisted in WWII and ended up flying either fighters or bombers. All survived, though one had four carriers shot out from under him. After the war we lost an uncle in the then secret Air Force missions against the Soviet Union. Dad made the Air Force a career, bringing Mom and I back to San Diego after retirement. My high school didn’t have gangs, no real drug issues. Yeh.. the kids in the yearbook looked 98% like me. First year at SDSU cost me $120 a semester…including parking permit. Books were $5-10. Paid my way by working nights in a supermarket. No loans, no grants. Picked up a few degrees and a couple languages. A Sunday morning interview at the Federal building recruited me into a job with initials. I spent the next few decades helping stop communists in places that we weren’t in. When I got too old to climb volcanoes I came home, added some teaching credentials. Schools in San Diego had changed. A VP tried to fire the teacher next door because he put a 2 ft. Christmas tree on his desk. A VP, on having her first meeting with me..about computers.. started by informing me she was a lesbian with a partner. Don’t worry lady, you are 5’5″ and 190 lbs. Homework..no one did it. Every year they dumb down the curriculum. Self esteem is more important. Parents want their kids in special ed. It’s a free ride. I kept up outside activities, including writing under a couple alias. A principal caught wind, called me into his office and demanded to know if I was Jewish. By then everyone was required to teach to the “Standards”. I finally called it a day, took Jerry’s advice and moved up to one of the last free areas of California. My community hasn’t had a serious crime in ten years. A couple of attempts, but we handle it. Will that civil war happen? Probably. The Mexicans by themselves won’t win. Too many of us have the weapons and training. But we prepare on the assumption that the Tyrant will back them. Will the government stage another Oklahoma City to justify a crackdown? But even with the NATO troops and Fema camps, we are looking at many Lexingtons, many Concords. Jefferson was all too prophetic.
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