Dronism
California is a rich state — as the world found out the last century. It has the best farmland in the world, much of it watered by gravity-fed irrigation from the Sierra. Its timber acreage is vast. There is a lot of natural gas and oil still in the southern interior and off the coast. Silicon Valley, tourism, Hollywood, defense, and Napa Valley all contribute to natural wealth.
The problem is that we have created a strange drone mindset that manifests itself in two ways. Among elites there is almost a “Don’t touch or disturb that!” mantra. The law of the hothouse orchid reigns. Once our grubby ancestors created our infrastructure, we wish sometimes to ridicule and — use — it, less often to leave anything better behind for anyone else.
Fish, not people
We want all the dividends of industrial society, but an 18th century wilderness at the same time. So the in-the-know people demand cheap, plentiful, and tasty food, but worry more about a three-inch fish than the farmers and farm workers who keep us alive one more day — and so divert fresh water out into the bay to keep the delta smelt alive. (Oh, I know the Gorist logic: the smelt is a canary in the mine; when he can’t get enough oxygen, then we won’t be able to drink soon.” Sorry, I suggest that communities whose treated sewage goes into the bay begin using some sort of organic toilets rather than the old flush models.)
To drive through downtown Santa Barbara is to count the amazing variety of Volvo, Mercedes, Lexus, and BMW SUVs — and wonder where the gasoline comes from, as off-shore drilling declines. You get the picture — our top echelons have become quite prissy. The redwood deck is beloved, not the falling coast redwood tree; kitchen granite counters are de rigueur, not the blasting at the top of the granite mountain; the Prius is a badge of honor, not the chemical plant that makes its batteries; we now like stainless steel frigs, but hate steel’s coke, and iron ore, and electricity lines; arugula is tasty, not the canal that brings water 400 miles to irrigate it; I support teacher unions and -studies courses in the public schools, but not with my Ivy-League bound children.
And on the other hand…
At the other end of the social spectrum, the underclass seems to be growing. I don’t expect to see much cash at mega-supermarkets in my area. Food stamps — and yet expensive food — are the norm. The school systems of California’s major cities are broken; the wealthy praise them and flee, and the poor complain about their inadequacy, but insist on the sort of identity “pride” politics curriculum and staffing that ensure the inadequacy.
Don’t mention parental responsibility; that’s either Neanderthal or racist. When I see gang bangers in San Jose or Fresno, I think two things: they like DVDs, nice cars, drugs, and the cult of male violence, but when they get hurt they show up at the emergency room and demand 21st century medical care from the nerds they so often intimidate on the street. Is a Stanford-trained emergency doctor potential prey on Saturday night at the stop light, or a few hours later in surgery a godsend?
It is taboo to ask our failing youth a simple question, “What exactly have you done the last month to ensure your birthright to the world’s most sophisticated lifestyle propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility?”
It other words, our elite is becoming more elite and refined, while our non-elite is becoming more rough around the edges. But they share a disturbing commonality: both expect something that they are not willing to invest in.
Both Ways
The well-off like nice cars, tasteful homes, good food, and appropriate vacations — but not the oil, gas, coal, nuclear energy, transmission lines, timber, cement, farmland, water pumps, etc., that bring that to them. In California we like to leave old pot-holed roads up to the Sierra as proof of our environmentalism (cheaper too), and then clog them when we wish in politically-incorrect fashion to have a picnic in the mountains. You see, the mindset of the elite Bay Area denizen is to keep California pristine, rough even, for that one day a year in the wild experience, even as it turns out most green suburbanites actually like to go the lake or beach, and get in their carbon-emitting cars on congested roads to get there.
Confirmation:
If you ask the young Californiators if the know their rights, you can get a resounding affirmation.
If you aks them what are their obligations, you will be lucky to get a blank stare.
the time for talk is over, we need to pass this health care bill it will save cost and create 4 million jobs, the stimulus will create an additional 4 million green jobs, we need radically transform our economy to create a new sustainable economy that will produce green jobs and……..
the Chinese don’t need to build up a great Military, they just have to sit, smile and wait
California is the canary.
Thank you Professor for the new insights.
And yesterday’s City Journal article on big battle was very interesting.
“California is the canary.”
All outsiders should study California as a warning. I don’t believe the situation can be salvaged. In no way, shape, or form, do I sense the willingness to make the hard choices. Is there any genuine effort to approve offshore oil drilling? Nope, not that I can tell. The crazy environmentalists still have the final say. The next governor will be lucky to slightly trim the budget. The radical surgery that is required will not likely occur. The majority of the citizenry seems to be relying on pure luck. That’s not going to get it done. The state is also getting bluer. Red and purple state voters are leaving by the thousands every month.
After reading this essay I felt compelled to applaud.
Thanks, Dr. Hanson. Well before the last paragraph I was thinking: Eloi, meet your Morlocks.
VDH: a corollary to the admirably sly reference to warm water discharges (presumably from a power-generating source) it was precisley that which saved hundreds of manatee in Florida this past very-cold-for -Fla. winter; yes! coal fired electric gen. plants discharging warm water…Poseidon, finding relief at the hands of man.Drill baby drill-with the leading edge tech. of the West-do we really want the oil for the Third world? No, the Left should take a junket to the bight off Nigeria to view the spoilage of their cretinous thinking( or wander on down to Tampico or Veracruz, Mexico or Don Hugo’s paradisical Lake Maracaibo-dead ,btw).Not enlightened and certainly, criminal toward our benighted brethren in less fortunate societies world wide.How enlightened but, hey! how do you like my ever-so pose at Ed Begley’s Hypocritical Bar&Grill.Park yer Pry-ass over there Mr.Kool.
Is California too big to fail? Was the Roman Empire too big to fail? Failure is healthy. What reader of this comment thread hasn’t failed at something during his lifetime and learned thereby? My personal failures are legion, but I’m a better man for each and every one of them. In the teaching biz we call it “learning.”
PJTV pundit, Bill Whittle, says that when you subsidize failure, you just get more of the same. Spot on. I reckon the most glaring example is AFDC. Nice sentiment, bad public policy. Subsidized social welfare means generational dependency. More of the same only now manifest in spades. “Racissst!,” hiss the trolls. To which I say, “bugger off.”
California must be allowed to fail. It would be immoral to do otherwise. Failure is cheaper during spring planting than it is at harvest time. Failure just gets more expensive the further you push it down the road. I think I speak for most (adult) Americans when I say that I would rather take the bitter medicine today than suffer the sickness tomorrow.
Wow. I’m speechless.
VDH, what is your endgame? A historian with a penchant for current commentary? Morph into a polotician and bring sense to the psychodelic pantomime? Rip up your grapes and plant arugula? Blow it all of and teach scuba diving in Cozumel?
What I see makes no sense, and will bankrupt us and our kids.
Looking forward to more of your insights…
Excellent points, again. Thanks for clear and convincing advice. If we can just send most of the professional politicians home after November we might stand a chance.
Dr. Hanson it is quite evident that contemporary liberalism is a mental disorder. How can a rational person see how John Kerry ,Nancy Pelosi etc. live their own self indulgent lives but expect we peons to accept their call for us to lower our standard of living for a fantasy world they create in their minds? It is beyond hubris,it is insanity.
VDH, there is a song from an album in my youth that describes what I’m feeling these days. Shawn Phillips was the artist. We seem to be living in:
Times Of A Madman, Trials Of A Thief
Times of a madman and trials of a thief
Appalling decisions of squalling belief
Stark and Rangel, reconciliation, AGW
Basking in bedrooms that hookers bequeath and they search for pleasure
Constant confusion calamities’ plight
Doubtless it doubles the devil’s delight
Easy as dying away from the light and they’re dead in leisure
John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, rampant drug use
Footing the future as part of the bill
God is within you and works through your will
Hating to stay there and watch while you kill all your sons and daughters
Multi-trillion dollar deficits, constant attack on Christianity and organized religion, easy abortions
Imminent idols absurdly enchant
Justification to rave and to rant
Knighting is over we’ve learned how to plant and we’ll change things gently
Genuflection before “the one”, Keith Olbermann, Dylan Ratigan, Kos Kidz, Alinsky style “boiling the frog”
Love is the lotus of white baby blue
Man and his woman collapse when it’s true
Never some try it ’cause they’re scared of you but the fire is raging
Tea Party resistance, salt of the earth folks scaring the “educated class” by organizing
Open your mind and your heart to be still
Peace is the endlessly crest of the hill
Quietly shattering and soft as a quill then it stays forever
It is time to wake up and become aware of the “frog being boiled one degree at a time”.
Reality’s frozen in art and your heart
Simply believe it and then you can start
Truth is the answer and not just a part yet the word’s been spoken
Academia, entertainment and our information stream have been corrupted. We are being fed a steady stream of distorted messages and have been robbed of the truth, and facts and “news”, upon which we need to make decisions to self-govern this land of ours.
Unity struggles on this speck of dust
Valiantly scraping the fast forming rust
World is as beauty it’s under the crust in its formless phases
We cannot stand as a people, when patriotism is under attack as being “wrong”. We are losing our place in the world and we are turning our backs on our allies. Israel, UK, no longer can depend on us and we no longer can depend on many of our own countrymen.
Xenophobes revel in ignorant fear
You are belittled when this is too near
Zoning’s absurd and it shouldn’t be here for we all are living
Gerrymandering districts so that one party can dominate the vote, the reckless epithets of racism, the whole denigration of the South and white people being “evil”.
VDH, indeed there is fatigue setting in and indeed their is dronism. Such is the plight of those who are living in Times of a Madman and Trials of a Thief. Who will lead us out of this and can it be overcome?
I have spent the past 37 years turning around deeply troubled operations, starting from retail stores to divisions to companies and subsidiaries – all over the world. Over the last couple of decades they have been companies with one foot in the grave.
The most important and essential element to beginning the turn around process is an organizational recognition of the magnitude of the situation, which in turn leads to the sense of crisis required to accept and support fundamental change. Without this recognition and crisis mentality, it is virtually impossible to get the acceptance and support of/for the fundamental changes required to turn the organization (or state) around and drive it towards its potential.
One gets the feeling that NJ has this understanding and sense. Hence the austerity program Christie is putting into place has broad public (if not politico) acceptance. I think his chances of success are much better than even.
I think that a sense of fiscal and liberty crisis is at the core of the Tea Party movement as well – and is driving remedial change – and running over traditionally unthinkable barriers to change: Brown, Christie etc.
Nothing I read or hear lends me to think that California has anything close to the same understanding – and so regardless of who the next Governor is, there is unlikely to be fundamental change sufficient to turn it around.
Your article gets to the core of the mindset that keeps the populace oblivious to the impending disaster. If that does not change, the current trend line will not either. The fact that two years in a row the state has issued IOUs,and yet we still have Delta Smelt, no drilling etc etc illustrates the magnitude of the disconnect.
I’m afraid it will take a financial implosion to create the conditions required for a return to sanity. That day would appear to be not that far away.
If the state wakes up, it is rich enough to dig it’s way out and return to prosperity relatively quickly (less than a decade). If it does not, Argentina is the model with much similarity to California. A place with abundant riches that has driven itself to being a perpetual fiscal basket case.
I hope Prof. Hanson that you do not have a lot of money invested in institutions with large exposure to California debt. if you do, you might want to change the portfolio.
I am glad your daughter came through the earthquake well. I have many freinds there as well from my years there. The dynamic society of Chile – with an infrastructure strong enough to largely withstand an earthquake 500 times stronger than Haiti’s – stands in stark contrast to it’s next door neighbor Argentina. Chile has little of the super abundant natural resources that Argentina has – but through the character of the people have built a much, much more economicly vibrant society. California and Texas?
Thank you again Professor Hanson. I see new insights by you every time I read your work. Keep up the good work. Whenever a town, city, state or the federal government takes more power we the people lose it. One bright thing is that citizens of the U.S. are not the decendents of sugarplums. Enough of us are now alert and alarmed at the statist in control of government and will make the changes necessary to stop them. ’10-’12 will be watershed elections and RINO’s will not be the ones who gain ascendancy.
You put the hypocrisy of the enviro-nuts in a nutshell. All the amenities of the 21st century for them while they can contemplate an 18th century landscape that, in many cases, they will never visit, but the masses can whistle for the necessities of modern day life such as gasoline and vegetables because that would upset a pristine balance that exists only in their minds.
h, that Dr. H would feel the tug of political service and leap into the breach to help to stop, or at least slow the madness. . . .As an individual, I think about all I can do is raise my kids to do right-no matter what-, teach them to be real American citizens, try to influence their friends to do the same ( as many of them seem to have parents that frankly, don’t (or can’t) ” give a damn”, and remain involved in the political process myself. Teach your kids to be as self-reliant as possible, with their eyes wide open to the crap going on around them. Teach them useful skills( and no, that doesn’t mean the latest “apps” or computer crap) like shooting, basic plumbing, carpentry, etc.Teach them respect for the elderly,disabled, and those who have served our country. Help them to learn that sometimes, you have to take the hit if you are going to do the right thing. Surely I am not the only one who is doing this?!
Never better said. Thanks again for sayin’ it like it is.
The detatchment from reality that our “elites” and “intellectuals” are suffering from has become dangerous.
I thought Michigan was the canary. How many canaries are we willing to sacrifice for Socialist Utopian fantasies? Someone call PETA!
Dr. Alexander Hartdegen
Time Traveler
Later the siren sounds and the Eloi walk in a hypnotized trance into dark caves to be eaten by the Morlocks.
After the siren goes off, the Morlocks have already picked several thousand yummy Eloi morsels for their plates.
Eloi in charge-
“There is nothing to fear, it is all clear”
Dr. Alexander Hartdegen-(Hanson)
Time Traveler
“All clear?
Eloi in charge-
Yes, it’s over, it’s in the past…”
Dr. Alexander Hartdegen-(Hanson)
“You didn’t listen…you didn’t learn anything…”
Californians are sitting on two plates,
one plate will shake them,
the other plate,
complacency will eat them.
com·pla·cency (kəm plā′sən sē)
noun
quiet satisfaction; contentment; often, specif., self-satisfaction, or smugness
also complacence com·pla′·cence (-səns)
To sum up government policy in colloquial language: Git-yer-ass-to-wurk, Citizen. Pay taxes. You have to pay for all that free money we voted for yourselves.
VDH wordsmiths my thoughts perfectly as he usually does.
The descent into Mad Max territory will not be stopped by anyone.
But VDH is the Cicero of our time, chronicling our fall.
There is hope. If you don’t believe me, take a long, hard look at Detroit, one of the most desperate cities in this country. In the morass of corruption, poverty and despair, three people stand out: Kym Worthy, Wayne County Prosecutor; Dave Bing, Mayor; and Robert Bobb, tough-minded reformer of public education.
It has been pointed out somewhere else, that if collapse comes, then only the gang bangers are prepared for it–by temperament and experience, by organization and by armament.
In the mid 80′s I was designing and building co-generation, waste-to-fuel and other energy plants in California (my home state). At that California had not built a major plant in 20 years. At that time energy producers told the state that sometime in, oh, say 2005 or so, California would have a major power issue.
Instead the state still has not sited a new major plant and has driven small alternate producers out of business…I now live in Virginia and will never go back.
And no, wind, solar, wave and geothermal, all of which I have designed and built, will NOT do the job.
Good luck to the not so golden state.
I was blessed with the opportunity to live in the Santa Ynez Valley for two years and left with the deeply held belief that most of the people living in California don’t deserve it. They don’t understand it, they don’t act as wise custodians of it and they don’t love it.
Can’t argue with the logic or the conclusions. It is most unlikely that the situation will change any time soon. It is quite funny listening to the educational establishment and student body in sunny California railing against austerity measures forced upon them by an inept and and irresponsible government who routinely lavished benefits upon the least productive, economically, while punishing the most productive members of society with crippling taxes, regulations, and restrictions. The student body may be on to something. Every day they are out protesting in the streets reduces the costs of their beloved houses of learning a bit. And these are the really smart kids. Well, perhaps a global warming inspired category 9 quake will solve the problem. One can always hope.
TO: VANDENBERG, POST #2
You’re a joke, and a “seminar’ poster. You are a Democratic stooge who posted here as part of Obama’s plan to “saturate” conservative talk shows and blogs, so as to make the public think that more Americans favor his disasterous health plan than really do. This article by Hanson is about you. You would steal from me to pay for someone else’s benefits? Douche, all of you.
This piece would make an excellent article for a reading comprehension test. It would not only test reading ability, it would also present a valuable lesson.
What is hard to understand is how we continue to produce such excellent soldiers, sailors, marines, etc. One supposes it is the present voluntary nature of the services. Still, you can’t make Audie Murphys out of mutts. The must still be remnants of the traditional American character out there, thank God.
Not going to happen – our Morlocks believe they know it all and that they deserve it all. A personal sense of responsibility is rare and not encouraged by our politicians or Democrats or TV culture. I believe our civilization will have to deteriorate more before there will be a chance for the values that built it to become predominant again; this will not happen in our lifetimes. With the bailouts, union supports and health care bill we continue down the path away from those values.
California rocks! At least Californians are not clinging to their guns and Jesus!! They deserve to live well.
I hope california (US)fails soon so we can pick up the pieces and begin again. There are a whole lot of people sitting on their hands watching the idiot box when they could be figuring out how to grow food or something. This is our main problem.
“What reader of this comment thread hasn’t failed at something during his lifetime and learned thereby?”
You seem to be confusing individuals with groups. California is suffering from a dominant group mentality. The majority of its citizens are committed to politically correct doctrines of one sort or another. They are unlikely to change their ways. The key issue revealing the collapse may very well be off shore drilling. It convincingly shows how crazy these people are—and how unwilling they are to listen to reason. The odds are against California surviving its present crisis.
An excellent post, Dr. Hanson. What we’ve lost is respect: for our country and each other.
I don’t want to put words into other peoples mouth but I believe David Thomson is correct. California will become a third world state sooner than later. It is becoming bluer by the day. Maybe it’s time to give it back to Mexico,along with Oregon and Washington.
“We all want the dividends . . . ”
Indeed . . .
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/03/palin-at-oscar-gift-suite_n_485101.html
I love the question to youth. I think it can be tweaked for adults, and be quite appropriate as well:
“What have you done this week to deserve your place in the world’s most sophisticated lifestyle propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility?”
I might have print that out and display it somewhere.
Many thanks, Dr. Hanson. This is an excellent article.
“Was” is the key word. Michigan is now a failed state, the canary that is “resting” (to use the Monty Python terminology). California is well on its way to joining Michigan, followed by New York and (perhaps) Florida and Texas.
And the refugees fleeing the collapse of these states? Many of them have not learned anything, and once established in still-functioning states work hard to “enlighten” the local yokels about the need for 100% government control of their miserable, reactionary lives. Thus, the cancer spreads.
36 Skeezix you snarky, irrelevant twit:
Palin gave her goody bag to Haiti relief.
How many of your Hollywood libtards did that?
#39: I think TX will outlast CA, MI, FL, NJ, NY easily, and likely NV, IL, MA, RI, ME as well. Coastal states are nearly failed-states at this point, due to leechf–kiness and/or stupidity. TX has its share of leechf–ks, but the host is still relatively strong and folks for the most part still have their freedoms.
TX is in my short list of relocation choices, along with SD, WY, and possibly eastern MT. NV will likely run out of water in the next 20 years, unless they build a pipeline to the great lakes and/or MI/MO rivers.
How i love your clarity VDH. Wish more in Ca. would read or listen to you. Have family out there, long term Ca. history. Gdad missed being a 49er by 1 month. The state is in pitiful disrepair and the ‘glasshouse’ bunch have no clue as long as they have their elite status. The selfishness and ignorance displayed by these people will be their own downfall.So sad to see such a great state with a rich history slide into bankruptcy and economic crisis. Glad my grandfather never saw what happened to his state.
Sorry all you Cali’s, you’ve got a ticket to ride the train to hell and it won’t stop until it crashes or reaches it’s destination.(Jerry Brown, come on you fools) The whole left coast ain’t far behind. The good news is that after all of the tarring and feathering is over you still have something to work with. East coasters not so much.
Those driving the train are convinced that once it crashes they can rebuild according to their ideals. It won’t happen that way. They think they are gods that they can speak and command and it will be done. Events won’t turn their way and they will find themselves fleeing the hangmans noose only to be gunned down in the streets by the thugs they ignored.
One can’t make a deal with the devil and survive, but this knowledge was to be aquired in bible class but since they did away with those they are unprepared for the days ahead.
Ah those nasty consequences. Well, we hear it all the time,”you get what you pay for” May God preserve your immortal souls, your flesh dosen’t have a snow balls chance in Hell.
The prepared do have a chance but don’t forget to learn from history or you’ll repeat it again.
One of the successes of the American Republic has been to institutionalize methods of removing and changing our elites without bloodshed (the Civil War being a terrible exception.)
In France and England, they cut off their heads. In Bohemia, they defenestrated them (threw them out of windows).
The elites running the State of California have been able to redistrict themselves into electoral safety and built gated communities to ensure their physical and social distance from the hoi polloi.
As Dr. Hansen notes, they have also trained the lower orders to respond with Pavlovian certainty to emotional appeals and gratis grants.
Fortunately, there comes a point when reality intrudes on even the most idyllic fantasies and we’re not far from it. The longer we delay, the worst the eventual pain will be.
As to the Doctor’s advice:
“The nuclear plant designer should talk of carbon footprints, warm water discharges for sustainable aquaculture, and reusable nuclear waste —emphasize talking green, even though in fact much of this is absolutely true.”
I’m a nuclear plant designer and the hypocrisy of such a course grates. We are really all about making cheap, reliable and clean electricity – FOR SALE! My argument to my nuclear industry colleagues has been to AVOID the AGW argument altogether. I predicted that the scam would be uncovered and this would taint us for decades.
I think my advice was true and has been vindicated.
California is the canary.
Yeah, soon as that canary starts chirping for water from outside its cage it’ll be time to break its neck.
Berkeley, students, riots, reality.
Ave atque vale Californ-i-a. Or, perhaps more appropriate, adios amigos. Either way, the oh so enlightened denizens of sunny California must reap waht they have sown. Take a long hit on your bong, cycle down to the coast, and watch the whales copulate. Plant some arugala. Breath in, breath out. But under no circumstances attempt to do anything productive or worthwhile.
When the subject of off-shore drilling in California come up a few years ago, Sen. Boxer responded that Californians are against it.
Well, “us” Californians may be against drilling off their coast; however, by the number of vehicles that daily clog our expressways, I say we well enjoy and appreciate oil that is drilled off-shore somewhere else.
Amid all this, the CA Senate Majority Leader’s pet project is…a public registry for animal abusers. (The pun was inadvertent but I’ll leave it in.)
To be funded with a new, “small” tax on pet food.
Bipartisan interest in such issues is growing in the CA legislature.
****************
The camel has collapsed. As it writhes with a broken back, they continue adding straws.
There is hope – but it lies in a course that will be as painful as it is transformative. My beloved State requires a man on horseback unlike any seen in American political life. To whom will the future belong?
Another brillant analysis by Professor Hanson. Liberalism gone wild is destroying California.
This seems to be the fate of any place that goes in for identity-group politics.
For my part, I told my kids the story of The Little Red Hen almost every night from the time they were old enough to understand. When they pull stunts like cutting class or staying out after curfew (yeah, kids will do this occasionally), I still remind them of it while passing sentence on the misdeed.
How is it that animals have become more important than people?
Fish, deer and moose don’t vote.
The “Green” movement is based on so many false premises. God created animals to serve Man; not the other way around.
The Greens and Dems refuse to drill in ANWR. Result? Higher gas prices and fewer American jobs. We send money to OPEC. OPEC sends money to terrorists. *Smart, Ivy League smart.*
In Nebraska and Iowa hundreds of people are injured every year because we have too many deer. Nebraska alone has 325,000. If all the deer in Nebraska lived in one city, it would be the second largest city in NE.
Finally, the government is taking some action to thin the herd.
My favorite green comment? When “Sully’s” jet hit the bird flock and landed in the Hudson river, an NPR emailer wrote that the jet hit the birds. It was Man’s fault! We need to get out of the way and let the birds rule the skys.
Only the WSJ reported on the danger of birds and jets.
The Green movement needs to be attacked and rolled back.
California is bankrupt. They are trying to get the 49 other states to pay their bills. Well; I don’t mind paying, I mean the economy of Cal is critical to the economy of the United States as a whole. What should the people of Cal pay for the bail out?
Oil, just for starters, Cal is sitting on a very large ocean of oil. They will not drill for this oil, preferring to just borrow the money they need but, not to pay it back. It is time to pay the piper and Cal must give up its vast resources (Drill, Dig and Farm) if they want bail money.
Yes skeeziks, ignore the entire article and throw excrement.
California is what you want the US to be.
California is bankrupt.
You are blind.
“underclass seems to be growing”
Well, you are onto something. It doesn’t seem right that the democrats get both the well to do people you describe and the hard working underclass to support them….
The well to do types are too smug to learn but we should reach out to the working underclass and let them know it’s the people above keeping them poor… not ‘the rich’… if we allowed ‘normal’ economic development there would be more work, it would pay better, and the cost of living would go down for everyone (ie, examples: if we had cheaper electric and more water for California farming…).. actually, expensive energy hits the price of almost everything….
I am observing the mayhem from several states away in Colorado. Relative safety, albeit we now have Liberal Democrats [redundant, I know; there no longer being any such creature as a conservative or moderate Democrat left in existence] running the Executive and Legislative Branches. Their response to the slowdown has been to raise taxes on businesses, on food, and on the private cars; while freezing the pay of lower level state employees and hiring more and giving pay raises to the upper management that more than eats up any savings from the freezes. That and trying to functionally repeal our Taxpayers Bill of Rights from the state constitution. “California, here we come.”
In any case, I note that #23 Prologue seems to think that Detroit can make a comeback. From my observation, that is not in the cards. They have all the faults of California, hardwired in, with the added problem of explicitly racially motivated politics that has refused economic development specifically because some of the jobs would go to whites. The Detroit city government and especially their city council seems to take Zimbabwe as its economic model.
Dr. Hanson, are you serious about the reason that they shut down irrigation water for the Delta freaking Smelt? I had assumed that it was because stream flows were too low and their habitat was shrinking. I am not an engineer, and I gladly defer to any who would comment, but up here in the mountains, falling water oxygenates itself fairly readily. If that was a problem, a re-working of the watercourses in the lower end before it gets to the Delta with a series of small waterfalls for <part of the stream flow would seem to be a far more reasonable solution than shutting down a major chunk of the nation’s food production.
Another point that comes to mind. If California collapses, there are going to be a lot fewer lawns, fountains and the like in the LA area. Colorado is required under the Interstate Compact to deliver more water downstream than we actually have in some years, primarily to southern California. Maybe we will be able to keep some of that to use in our own agriculture, and let <Baja Mexifornia return to its native desert. After all, it was the natural state before man intervened.
Indeed, as California reaches the end-stage of its life, it probably would behoove other states to consider ahead of time what they can do to limit their losses and perhaps even make gains from the process.
Subotai Bahadur
Born and raised in California 69 years, this state is so screwed up, would leave it in a heartbeat but the weather is the best in the country so I stay. Elitist environmental socialists have been in control for fifty years, just look at California and you can see what Demoncrats in power can do and actually feel good about doing it. Be afraid, be very afraid.
47. Dan:
“Well, “us” Californians may be against drilling off their coast”
Funny you mention it. Since we always play around with statewide bans on these things, I wonder how many people who actually live by / see te coast are really against it… I grew up in an area with off shore platforms and no on I knew really cared they were there. In some areas, it’s people from outside that care more about it.
The things are so far off shore they look pretty small from the coast…
When California fails, as it surely will, it will scream for the rest of the country to send massive amounts of money so they can continue to live their unsupportable lifestyle. With their large congressional delegation, they’ll push hard for endless flows of revenue lest government employees have to suffer hardship.
We must say no. California is like the alcoholic getting government money to support his drinking habits. He won’t stop until he dies or hits rock bottom and decides he must change his ways.
“California is bankrupt. They are trying to get the 49 other states to pay their bills. Well; I don’t mind paying, I mean the economy of Cal is critical to the economy of the United States as a whole.”
You are unwittingly comparable to the parent who increases the allowance to their spoiled teenager who goes through money like a drunken sailor. It is best for everyone that the many municipal governments in California go bankrupt. This will help the overall state to start over with a clean slate. The economy of California cannot significantly improve without undergoing the cleansing experience provided by a bankruptcy court.
California is the metaphorical Babylon of the scriptures. California was the land of opportunity but now it grinds its heel on the face of the poor. Not the lazy poor but the poor that wants to move ahead.
VDH
“Natural gas and oil producers need to say they are really building solar and wind plants, then all public law suits and concerns over a messy access road, a rare desert lizard, or a fragile cactus will disappear. ”
Nope. They dont even want solar.
The party of Marx is only about CONTROL. They want everyone to go back to subsistence farming as long as we dont actually farm the land – and if so, well I’m sure they have a “population control plan” in their lil bag o stalinist tricks. And they call us regressives…
The Progressive’s and Marxists have made California a leech that will drag the rest of the country down to its own level of insolvency and ruin. Politics have killed the “Golden State” and people and companies are leaving in droves. 134 thousand college educated people left last year and were replaced by illiterate, untrained and un-trainable illegals who slipped over the border to vote in our election illegally. Some of Silicon Valleys largest companies are leaving to be replaced by welfare recipients. The state legislature is still passing money bills even though there is no money and they are making sure the most productive land in the world is getting no water killing a $36 Billion Dollar agribusiness while we have to buy vegetables from Mexico and China now. California has reached the tipping point and has fallen over the edge and won’t come back; its a loser now and now the equivalent of a banana republic.
40. Bohemond:
“Palin gave her goody bag to Haiti relief.”
Actually, no she didn’t . . .
“The Times also indicated that Palin was supposed to donate $1,700 along with all of her gift items to the Red Cross, which is currently helping with relief efforts in Haiti and Chile. But E! Online insists, “we can assure you she did not give up any of her swag.”
Looks like the hillbilly shopping binge that started on the campaign trail is still strong. Saaaaalute!
As for, “How many of your Hollywood libtards did that?” Why don’t you ask Sean Penn, oh wait, he wasn’t there. He’s in Haiti helping rescue quake victims.
Face it, Palin is a complete fraud. And you have no standing.
@James #28,
I’m pretty sure #2 vandenburgh was being sardonic. China doesn’t need a military because we buy into the blather that vandenburgh quotes.
Reading this fine piece I thought of Argentina as well. A nation with high literacy, loads of natural resources, etc., that has fallen from first-world status and slowly circles the drain hole.
“” …. one (aught) be able to recite the Pythagorean Theory … “”
Um … dear Doctor, might that better say, “Theorem?”
11. pedrosito: Doctor Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, is the author of ‘The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness’ — and may be visited at: http://www.libertymind.com
James @ 28: He was being sarcastic — note his last line, which implied that the programs he “suggested” would destroy us before the Chinese (or anyone else) had to lift a finger.
We got a preview of coming attractions when California cut off the state SS supplement to the guy who moved to Nevada and he took his shotgun to the SS office. The things that will work aren’t politically acceptable and the things that are politically acceptable won’t work. And all those tourists are gonna read about things like armed resturant takover robberies and quit coming. Then the stuff is really going to hit the fan.
*sigh*
I live in California. And you know what? EVERYONE THAT LIVES HERE AGREES THAT THE PLACE HAS PROBLEMS.
I’m tired of seeing all these blog posts and comments about how “Californians just keep buying without paying” and “Californians need to wake up” and “Californians don’t understand budgets”, “Californians are silly”, “Californians are too PC”, “California’s just Fruits Nuts and Flakes LAWLS!”
The problem is politicians who aren’t willing to sign their names onto a big stinky failure. These mopes spent the last twenty years giving the service unions everything they wanted, because that was easier than calling the strike bluff and dealing with the public pain. Nobody is willing to take any heat, and now we’ve got absolutely insane pension plans which we’re told are Not Up For Renegotiation.
California isn’t cutting teachers because the citizens aren’t willing to pay for teachers. California is cutting teachers because the citizens aren’t willing to pay for a 48-year-old retired firefighter to get a $200,000 sick-time payout followed by a $140,000-a-year pension for the rest of his life.
The only glimmer of hope I see is the recent SCOTUS ruling gutting McCain/Feingold that now allows groups beside the unions to run political ads.
The Governator (before becoming the girly-man) put three initiatives on the ballot that could have made a difference but were destroyed by months of union ads and millions of dollars from the Teachers Union dues. (Remember, fully half the California budget must go to what is laughingly called “education” and a lot of that half goes to union dues.)
Perhaps people can be persuaded to vote down foolish indebtedness and bankrupting social programs.
Like I said, it’s only a glimmer of hope. Tryin’ to stay positive so I don’t off myself in a blue funk….
Dronism
2. vandenberg: Chinese Military
The Chinese are already waging
economic war against the US,
and following Sun Tsu’s advice:
Wait until the Golden Goose follows
the trail of grain into the cage
prepared for it.
4. David Thomson:
Canary yellow Ferrari California
Actually, Ferrari is selling a
Green model, for the PC Bad Trip
to The Hotel California. :)
Not to worry, President Palin
will declare Marshal Law when
the Rape/Loot/Burn cycle starts,
and jump-start Reconstruction by
dictating a new, business-friendly
state Constitution for the duration
of the emergency; When Ca. is back
in the Black, the workers of the state’s miraculous Economic Resurrection will
make it permanent; 1st in the nation,
again.
13. Steve MacDonald: Turn, Turn, Turn
My favorite instance was the Japanese
teaching the Germans how to build an
automobile, efficiently; The Porsche
Boxster at half the original price.
@ 35. pedrosito: Give Ca. back to Mexico
Hell, no: Sell it to the Chinese; They
will make their new province pay its way.
See also two Oaths: Pauper’s and Fealty.
@ 41. Dr. Kenneth Noisewater: Tx/Ca
Everything is bigger in Texas. :)
Just today Baylor received an Anon.
donation of $200M, the state has a
multi-billion dollar Rainy-Day Fund,
and the Governor is mentioning the
10th Amendment in his re-election
ads.
@ 52. Cornhead: Animals/People ?!?
The Loony Liberal Left feels that
animals _are_ People; That is one
of the diagnostic symptoms of their
madness.
@ 53. Dennis: Paying the Piper
In this case, a Judge imposing a
recovery regime on a failed state
(states cannot go bankrupt);
Wonder how much power such a Judge
has to re-write the laws of the state ?
13. Steve MacDonald
You reminded me of a time when I was reading books about Michael Milkin. He got a bad rap for greed from the book Den Of Thieves. But somebody else wrote a book defending him.
It seems he took companies that were basket cases and returned them to their original profit making concepts. He was castigated for chopping comglomerates up and making a profit from other’s misfortune of being connected to losing parts of the big whole.
If only CA could define it’s profit centers, grow them, and eliminate the parts that drag. Unfortunately that would mean to fight union people who are organized and illegals who send billions out of the country.
But that might return the state to the original concept and the beacon of promise it was.
1. R. Richard Schweitzer said
“If you ask the young Californiators if the know their rights, you can get a resounding affirmation.
If you ask them what are their obligations, you will be lucky to get a blank stare.”
Sir;
This is one of the best two-lined summation of today’s problems I have read in a long time. I would only submit a minor change so as to apply it on a national level by removing the words “young Californiatiors” and insert in it’s place the words “today’s American youth”
This is truly the whole crux of the entitlement mentality. That is to say “I want what’s mine, give it to me!” without ever contemplating as to how it is to be produced or that it should even be earned.
1. R. Richard Schweitzer said
“If you ask the young Californiators if the know their rights, you can get a resounding affirmation.
If you aks them what are their obligations, you will be lucky to get a blank stare”
Sir;
This is one of the best two-lined summations of today’s problems I have read in quite a long time.
I would only suggest that this could be taken to a national scale by removing the words “young Californiators” and inserting the words “today’s American youth”, and you will have hit the ball out of the park.
This is indeed the crux of our problems. This entitlement mentality, that says” I want mine, and you MUST give it to me” permeates our society. I recognizes no racial, ethnic, or religious boundries. As Dr. Hanson pointed out there are two groups that profess this belief. The well to do, and the not so well to do. (Perhaps, they were once called the haves and the have nots). Either way, both feel they are somehow derserving of all things, without giving any thought as to how those things are to be produced, or even worse, that they should be earned.
Imagine what will happen to Cali when all the hard-working middle class decide they had enough and move out. What Californian got is the worst possible thing – positive feedback. As normal people leave, the State becomes more left-wing and produces less – and so it raises taxes. And then more normal people leave, and the State becomes even more left-wing.
The most important thing to contain the left-wing crowd in California. Maybe we should sell it to Mexico?
Califonia is the new Detroit, gutted by it’s own hand.
So,skeezer, Sean Penn is helping out in Haiti, like he was in New Orleans, after Katrina, with a camera crew, and staged rescues? Palin, though I am not a fan of her, has more integrity in her little finger, than Penn does in his whole body. Wake up , you tool!!
36. skeeziks:
“We all want the dividends . . .
Once again, the party of Marx is unable to respond to or refute the topic at hand and attempts to smear someone else.
Can you please explain how you understand
- a person patronizing a “celebrity gift suite”
to be the same thing as
- leeches like you perpetuating slavery ala “the rich much pay their fair share” to perpetuate “from each each according to their ability, to each according to their need”.
Oh yea,
From the story “But she also left a check for charity, organizers say.”
Reminds me of a few years ago when people in San Diego were up in arms over the helicopters at Camp Pendleton. Of course they insisted that the supported the Marines – who mean lots of jobs for the area – and they didn’t want them to leave, but could they please just train without making all that noise!
Best line in the whole piece-
“CDs should have one 30 second airing of a part of the Constitution before “Kill the Bitch” lyrics begin.”
Professor H, I love California, having sworn I would never live there, then doing it for 3 years in the late 90′s (during the boom).
Being a silicon valley worker, I always felt it would have been a blast to have lived in the valley in the 60′s when companies (Intel, National, et al) were founded on a cocktail napkin at happy hour, and the developments were orchards and farms. Too bad we have ruined it.
What’s that kind of nuclear weapon that just kills the people but leaves everything standing? Neutron bomb?????
“I love the question to youth. I think it can be tweaked for adults, and be quite appropriate as well:
“What have you done this week to deserve your place in the world’s most sophisticated lifestyle propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility?”
I might have print that out and display it somewhere.”
You’re comment sounded familiar so I searched around and found what was causing deja vu- “Jews, what have you done this week to deserve your place in the the highly developed Third Reich propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility, as opposed to the barren deserts of your ancient homeland?”
Eloi & Morlock? Bonus points for literary reference Mr. Hanson!
California is sinking faster and faster as the years roll by. Just like a boat taking on water the rate of decline is only increasing as we take on more water. Luckily I’m at the edge of the boat and can jump out when I need to, and I really do need to. :(
People wonder why my home town (Needles) wanted to be taken off of California and added to either Arizona or Nevada. Sheesh…
Skeezix…
Yours as well as the liberal establishment’s obsession with Sarah Palin is unhealthy. Seek help.
#4 is correct. Calif is a lost cause and to make matters worse, Jerry Brown is running for Governor again. Many of the problems Calif is facing today are a direct result of bad legislation signed into law by Brown in the 70`s when he was known as Gov. Moonbeam. No examples offered. Look them up yourself……
“You would steal from me to pay for someone else’s benefits”
Why don’t you pick your own lettuce, change your own bedpan, pay for your own schools, drive on mud rutted roads and fight and go pick your own fights overseas all by yourself? The spoiled self righteous, greedy Baby Boomers from both ends of the spectrum VDH talks about are the ones who have created this mess. As California goes, so goes the nation. Move to your gated communities in Arizona and Nevada. Sorry — Prop 13 won’t follow you out of state.
Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.
this was a most refreshing and inspiring article i have read in a long while!!!!
Disconnect, myopia, and incongruent – prevalent themes.
And the likes of skeeziks, known commonly in French Canada as Jacques Asse.
What kind of debate can occur u der the dominant circumstances, with the likes of Jacques!?
The evidence is in – none. There is no conversation, common goal, nor shared beliefs.
Ultimately it seems, the objective needs to be to package the notions and insights, expressed so well by Dr. H, and get as many on board as possible, and win back the leadership position in the political bodies of the country.
Maybe the situation is too far gone, the damage deep and long term, but there still remains only one solution and that is to get to work.
Innovation is the random and unknown variable, but it does exist, and always happens. The work en route will produce some answers and improvements.
CALIFORNIA’s NATIONAL ANTHEM
Oh ,We Are California, and you’re the USA;
So never mind the things we do, just mind the things we say.
You must foot the bills for all the ills we hatch inside our borders;
‘ Cause We Are California, and it’s us that gives the orders.
Oh , We Are California, we are very hard to please;
You must give us all new houses, but you mustn’t cut down trees.
When temperatures are soaring and Summer’s on the boil,
You must feed our air-conditioning, but you mustn’t drill for oil.
It’s only good ecology, it’s only just and fair
That you pay high pump prices, ‘cause we pollute our air.
But when it’s time for us to pay, you owe us all a waiver;
‘Cause We Are California, and you’re here to do us favors.
Oh, We Are California, and the s*** has hit the fan
‘Cause we flat-out refused to think, anticipate, or plan.
Hot tubs, Jet skis, and SUV’s, and Hollywood bright lights
Have drained the generators and strained refineries tight.
Just never mind- it’s your job now, to try with all your might,
To give us gas and power- at the price we think is right.
And meantime we’ll just blame you all, and sit here in the dark;
‘Cause We Are California, and we can’t tell bite from bark.
Oh, We Are California, and it’s fair as fair can be,
That you give us loans and price supports, free programs, grants and fees,
And rivers of cheap water, so we’ll turn around and grow
The crops you could get cheaper, and as fast, from Mexico.
And when we’ve sucked the nation dry, from sea to shining sea,
We still cry “you must help us balance OUR economy!”
Oh, We Are California, you can’t give us too much rope
You must subsidize our junkies while we legalize their dope.
We ‘re proud to say each one of us does just as he/she pleases,
And it’s up to you to cure us when we give ourselves diseases.
We politicize the classrooms till they turn out only fools,
And hi-tech industries despair of California’s schools.
To get the trained employees that they need from day to day,
They have to go recruiting in Manila and Bombay.
Ten million foreign workers break the law by coming here;
But we dare not prevent them, for there’s one thing very clear:
If we didn’t have the labor that beyond the borders lurk,
We’d starve, for California has forgotten how to work.
Oh We Are California, we delight to burn our boats,
We know you’ll have to save us, for those big electoral votes.
Why should we act responsibly, and make ourselves feel blue,
When we’ve found the way to have our neighbor’s cake, and eat it too?
Our politics is pure showbiz, you know we’ll never learn
Not to press the cheap advantage, not to punish those who earn
So never mind that one day there’ll be nowhere we can turn
Hooray For California, where we fiddle as we burn!
#83 Gozer – Gods, you live in Needles? I lived in Newberry Springs for a few years. bad as that was…. (shudder) Needles, formerly known as Gozer, before the Destroyer came and killed the Gozerians.
#70 Density Duck – No, they don’t all agree, else you would have thrown the bums out long ago. Most are too clueless, or they are in on it. They sell their votes. Once that mentality is entrenched, a land is doomed. CA is doomed. There is no path to recovery, because there is no will to recovery. They will merely riot and loot, and demand their “rights”.
I hope you own many guns and much ammo… and good neighbors. You will need them. Read up on Argentina, then prepare accordingly.
Ah, skeeziks, thanks for mentioning my favorite hollywood celeb , the inimicable sean penn. So he’s in Haiti now, helping the quake victims, eh? Did he remember to bring his shotgun? You remember, the the weapon he was waving about while floating in a dinghy amidst the flotsam and jetsam during his mission mercy to flood ravaged New Orleans. What a terrific picture. Sean might even run into John Edwards there. John is back into the dating game, you know.
Californians have deficated on their own plates. Like Fidel and others, they should be forced to eat it, not share it with me.
We used to call this entitlement mentality “pride” and “covetousness.” It’s a moral and an attitude problem.
81. “Kills people but leaves everything standing,” was communist hype. While the explosive power of a neutron bomb is small compared to a thermonuclear weapon, it still packs a kiloton of TNT equivalent. If you set one off in the middle of a city, you’ll level a few square blocks.
79. CJ:
You just can’t stand the fact that Palin is a fraud and a greedy opportunitst. This has nothing to do with political ideology. It has to do with a diva and her entourage sweeping in to a charity event and picking it clean. Nowhere does it say anything about her leaving a check for charity. (“From the article . .” Really? where in the article does it say that?)
This is what conservatives do, they feel so aggrieved, they’re so outraged after listening to rodeo clowns and drug addicts tell them what to think that they mimic the knowing lies of the right wing machine. Conservatives feel entitled to outright lie in defense of . . . pick one . . . patriotism, the flag, the Founding Fathers.
You have no standing . . . and neither does Palin and her brood to nowhere.
You don’t have to like Hegel to see that the Weltgeist is sharpening the knives at the slaughter-bench of history, courtesy of the willful blindness and sloth of too many of us in America; but what will be preserved when the present dialectic of expecting much while producing little is sublated is scary to imagine.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2011235123_bruce03.html
Another example of government crushing farmers.
How many of the “gangbangers” and their companions are from fatherless homes? These are the consequences of the welfare laws which penalize women with husbands, as well as the hedonism of sexual behavior, where sex as fun instead of the means to reproduction, is glorified.
you know, we are all someone else.
I am one of those who lived in CA for years – worked as an engineer, paid my taxes, etc, etc. Over time I got more and more confused when I saw people around me who seemed to be able to afford many material items I believed I couldn’t afford…and I’m supposedly a well-paid professional. Then as the taxes kept rising and the services deteriorating, I realized the destructive sense of entitlement that had descended on the place. Marry that with the VDH described cognitive dissonance of the elite, and I and my husband cheerily waved goodbye to the state in our rear-view mirror. It’s sad as CA was the dream state for so many years….I guess too much popularity is a detriment in the end.
How did it come to pass that the supposedly “Greatest Generation” gave birth to the demonstrably Worst Generation in American history…? The Boomers in their limitless arrogance have effectively dismantled or neutralized most of the great institutions on which this nation is built — we no longer have heroes, but celebrate “anti-heroes” and degenerates. We’ve slimed most of our Great Men dragging them through the mud of the post-modern pig stye… We’ve installed radical feminized social programs into our schools and in the process vilified and criminalized the modern male of the species — simultaneously our family unit has imploded, and the barbarians are storming the borders.
One generation risked their very skins and saved the world. Their children risked nothing of themselves, but pledged our greatest treasures and legacies in the casino of social engineering and utopian “justice”, only to lose it all.
Skeezics, spoke like a true Hero of the Soviet Union. Well, comrade, if we’re we’re short on rodeo clowns, there’s always Joe Biden. For lite entertainment, we have The Anointed One, Obama-san, and his troupe of trained seals: The feckless, and likely soon be ex- Attorney General (2nd lieutenant more apropos) Eric Holder, the always effervescent Harry Reid, and of course, that straight shooter Nancy Pelosi. The circus constituting the current administration, in terms of foreign and domestic acumen, concsists of such a large number of clowns, it would require five rings, rather than the traditional three, to properly display them. And, of course, their the freak show including the amazing Sean Penn, deep thinker Danny Glover, Harry Dayo Belafonte, Alec Baldwin, and an endless chorus line celebrity intellects prancing and braying in synch. Sounds like you’re runnng a bit scaared Skizzoo
California was founded by those who braved the true dangers of going west – and this spirit created a land of plenty.
Unfortunately, they were soon replaced with people who felt they deserved to live in a Peter Pan society where children never need to grow up.
Going to be a rude awakening when dad stops paying the bills for the little darlings on the coast.
I read the other day that environmentalist in California have filed an injunction against coastal power plants. Power plants tend to get hot and need to get cooled down. I lot of them happen to be near the ocean. The Pacific ocean water is cold. There is a lot of it. So the plants just pump in the ocean water to cool the plants, and then discharge the warmer water back into the ocean. It seems like a pretty cheap and efficient solution to a problem. Well the environmentalists can’t have that. See, sea life gets sucked into the plant with the water. The power companies thought of this and they put up mesh to keep the fish and other life from getting sucked into the plant. So what’s the problem? Microorganisms. Seriously. Fish eggs and plankton are getting killed.
So they want the plants to shut down until they figure out another way to cool themselves. Because of MICROORGANISMS. This the point at which you know a civilization has truly lost it–when they are willing to sacrifice themselves for microorganisms. I thought it was bad enough they wouldn’t let companies build GREEN solar plants in the desert because it might inconvenience some turtles. Turtles. If it means cheaper electricity I’d be happy to buy a terrarium and keep one of them at my house. But plankton?! There is just no winning with these people. But this all begs the question of why they continue to plague the world (and the rest of us) by continuing to waste oh so precious resources and spewing CO2 into the air.
What CA needs is more adults or at least people willing to begin acting like adults. People who can live with delayed gratification, value self-sufficiency, and make difficult decisions responsibly. People who understand how an economy works.
Instead, we have too many who are simply content to let their mommy-daddy surrogate, the state, spend us into oblivion delivering benefits unpaid for while keeping the fiction alive that the rich and corporations will actually foot the bill.
We’ve got state employees who don’t think they’re obligated to share the pain of the people paying their ever-increasing salaries and extravagant benefits. Lawmakers who believe that continuously raising tax rates doesn’t ultimately drive down tax receipts and who see no hypocrisy in writing exemptions to the tax code for their rich, liberal friends. It can only be that these democrats have feathered their nests sufficiently to adopt an “apres moi, le deluge” attitude and future generations be damned. It’s shameful.
The saying known Stein’s law states (lol), “If a trend cannot continue, it will stop.” It seems this is the unspoken corollary in Prof. Hanson’s article. Stein’s law also gives us the date at which all of this will come to an end–when events become so bad that the economic and social system fail on their own weight, then they will change. Until then, you’re just whistling dixie.
Why no mention of the unheard of 70% refusal to raise taxes at the last election? Despite the pressure of unions, the media, the Dems and the Gov. I mean it swept every county, including Marin Co. As a Californian I have to hope it wasn’t a fluke. The voters clearly said no more spending — statewide, libs and conservatives. The leadership heard nothing, of course, but maybe the next election will go a little way to fix that.
BOO
In short, they want the garden but not the hoeing.
Well..what do you know..for once a logical, sensible statement that isn’t a slanted political hit piece…I agree. Just finished writing to a lady columnist whose husband just got laid off from the city of San Francisco. Told her that 30 years of inflation economics (brought on by government legislation), combined with a selfish “me generation”, plus a government that wants to “legislate happiness” without fiscal responsibility, has caused this all to happen. The hard work, honesty, integrity, sacrifice and devotion to family of past generations is gone, and we are going to pay the price for it. As Winston Churchill once said: “This may not be the beginning of the end, but it is most certainly the end of the beginning !”. (Thanks to Hoover Institution for the selection).
RSG
California is in trouble. Returning home form a recent meeting in the Bay Area, I shared an airport van with a various group of Californians, all professionals or business people. It was 4:00AM and as we traveled to and fro to pick up various passengers, somehow the topic of conversation turned to the sad state of Californian affairs. I was absolutely astounded as each and every California resident in the van mentioned that they were actively seeking to move elsewhere, citing the state’s intractable social and economic problems and the failure of political leadership to address them. If these fellow passengers were representative of California’s productive class, the state has no future.
.Not enlightened and certainly, criminal toward our benighted brethren in less fortunate societies world wide.How enlightened but, hey! how do you like my ever-so pose at Ed Begley’s Hypocritical Bar&Grill.Park yer Pry-ass over there Mr.Kool.
104. TQ:
“There is just no winning with these people.”
That’s the whole point. Because reality hurts, they are self-destructing. And they want to drag the rest of us down with them.
I left California about 10 years ago because of the problems mentioned. I have three children and I wanted them to grow up without continually being threatened. I wanted them to have an innocent, care-free childhood that is so important to becoming a caring, mature adult.
The problem that the article does not mention is the corruption of the political class in California. I will not state the specifics of what I actually saw, but corruption is widespread.
It is simple, really. California is in trouble because it is being governed by criminals.
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