Nowhere is there a better example of the collective effort than in California. Politics don’t matter here; both Republicans and Democrats embrace statism, high taxes, and growing entitlements.
So — we have the highest gasoline taxes, highest income taxes, highest sales taxes and collect enormous amounts of revenue to pay the highest-compensated and most numerous state employees in the nation to allot these revenues for others. We have the largest number of illegal aliens, and offer the most generous state subsidies for health, welfare, and education and legal aid. We pay more per prison convict than anywhere else, and have more of them per capita as well.
State Worker Paradise
If one is a teacher, a public nurse, or a state bureaucrat, and stays close to home, life is not too bad. Two tenured teachers at midlife can easily make together $160,000 with summers off — far more than the owner of a brake shop or a farmer of 40 acres of trees — and without worry over burdensome regulations or the daily need to drive down the 99 for a living, or to fly out of LAX for business, or to depend on the local CSU to provide literate, skilled employees. Life is therefore pretty good, at least so far.
But if you are a private company, dealing with high taxes, all sorts of regulations, a crumbling infrastructure (take a 300-mile drive from Gilroy south on 101; spend a day at LAX, or try finding a convenient east-west route out of California in the winter), and poorly educated employees, the experiment in egalitarianism has failed.
Answer? The best job in California is a state one; the worst a private-sector one. Result? 3,500 flee per week with capital, education, and know-how; 2,500 arrive with far less capital and training.
The state is billions in the hole; the public employee unions are furious that there is no “they” left to fork up more money.
And the big companies are gearing up to leave as well. Agriculture is under assault by affluent green state-employed professors, biologists, lawyers, and park officials. Prison union employees, prison administrators, lawyers etc. are all haranguing each other over shrinking funds. Los Angeles is a mess — broke, subpar schools, a place where grandees arrive for the work day and leave asap at 5. San Francisco survives by its natural beauty that snags tens of millions of tourist dollars; without it, it would devolve into Lima or Cairo.
On the National Scene
This California model is important because Obama is adopting it as a blueprint on a national scale. If he wins (and don’t count him out), life really would be more patterned on an equality of result. New payroll, income, state, local, and health care surcharge taxes would hit those over $200K with about a 70% take of one’s income. The public sector employees double in number, unionize, and demand ever more from “them.” Cap-and-trade charges raise monthly utility bills 20%. Things like SUVs, Winnebagos, and private jet travel are taxed out of reach — except for a guardian class that uses public moneys for a rarefied lifestyle of governance and enforcement (sort of like the jets parked on the tarmac at Copenhagen or Barack’s night out on the Big Apple).
We would all want a job at the DMV but would never want to go there for any service — a model for health care to come. In short, the poor get a little better off, the better-off a lot worse, and America becomes a sort of collective lower middle class at about a 1950s lifestyle, praised and congratulated for ending “poverty.”
And On to the World
Hugo Chavez was greeted as a rock star at Copenhagen, despite his anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, violent and corrupt rule. The climate change conference doesn’t seem to be just about climate change, but rather is degenerating into a call for universal socialism, with money going from West to the South.
America’s model, we see now at Copenhagen, can be expanded globally as well. The “poor” nations (many fabulously wealthy, like Zimbabwe, in natural resources) demand money from the wealthy West to even the playing-field under the guise of carbon-offset penance.
The West taxes its populace to hand over trillions to those without as many polluting cars and industries — on the socialist belief that impoverishment in Latin America and Africa is due to oppression, neo-colonialism, and economic imperialism rather than endemic corruption, tribalism, ethnic and religious strife, gender apartheid, the lack of legal protection for property and the individual, and statist bureaucracies. “They,” not “we,” did it to “us.”
(Never mentioned is the corollary of the Copenhagen shake-down: wealthy countries produce the steel, plastics, and information-based knowledge that poor countries use: paying a Zimbabwe billions for using less carbon would be as asinine as charging them billions for R&D full costs for the cars, industries, pharmaceuticals, eyeglasses, and technology their people use, but have not invented, fabricated, and in most cases maintained and repaired.)
The Great Chain of Socialism
In other words, we are seeing a strange era in which the once last bastion of capitalism, the free-market US, is trying to emulate the California model—and in turn the world wishes to follow what the Obama administration is trying to do in America.
Note well: California depends on “them” producing real wealth in food, fiber, manufacturing, oil, gas, timber, construction, and high-technology. In turn, the US depends on 50 states doing the same to provide for the expansive regulatory and administrative federal class, and the world relies on the US economy to provide the growth and capital to redistribute. (e.g., We can’t all be the Obamas, Valerie Jarretts, David Axelrods, Rahm Emanuels, Van Jones, Timothy Geithners, etc. who have made good livings as advocates, regulators, bureaucrats, legislators, etc. without having to worry about meeting a payroll).
The Unsung?
In truth, in some ways, the world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.
The whole system from California to Copenhagen will keep on working as long as the productive classes feel there are still incentives to jump out of bed at 5AM. When they don’t, the power is cut off to thousands of gears and cogs — and the world looks more like Ecuador or Somalia than the U.S.
Dr. Hanson, if only the population of CA could see the truth of your description! And in the future the whole USA. In many ways CA has been a role model for the world and it remains so today…a negative role model. Thanks for your insightful work.
When I moved to Florida from California in 1978, I was amazed to find that the Florida DMV could issue driver’s licenses on the spot. Something that the California DMV is still unable to
do 30 years later as far as I know. When I moved to Arizona from California in 1998, I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only could the Arizona MVD issues licenses on the spot, the licenses didn’t expire until you were aged 60 (now 65). Clearly the problems with the California DMV (and California state government) go back a long way.
If this Obamacare passes, don’t be surprised to see a great number of doctors taking early retirement.
Obamacare could provide the “Atlas Shrugged” moment depicted by Ayn Rand; a “strike” of the producers.
When Pres. Obama flat out said doctors did surgery to make money (without regard to actual illness) and then was wildly off by the amount paid for surgery, doctors really took offense.
When Barack was playing hoops at Columbia and Harvard, the future docs were grinding it out in the library and lab.
And why don’t Nigeria, Zimbawa and the rest of the Third World use their own natural resources (oil and diamonds) to fund the green agenda?
Dr Hanson. You are the Cicero of our time. Your example of California is an apt one. I’m reminded of the very effective ‘This is your brain…..this is your brain on drugs” ads of a few years ago.
I’d love to see a similar set of ads along the lines of “This is your state (showing idyllic scenes from the past)” compared to “This is your state under lockstep Democratic control (showing bankrupt businesses, lines of pseople at the DMV, run down neighborhoods, failing schools, etc)”.
It’s not a conincidence that every major urban area in the country is failing and that every one of them is under unchallenged Democratic Party control.
VDH touches on it and in my view it is a *HUGE* factor in our current economic disaster: the uncertainty overhang.
Right now business has no idea what future tax rates will be and what new taxes will exist. And this has been going on for almost a year.
The economy runs on confidence and right now the economy gives Pres. Obama a vote of no confidence (and lower than his B plus).
The problem with a ‘same result’ goal is…who decides what the result should be?
Greetings:
One aspect of my Christianity that I have always struggled with is the parable of The Prodigal Son”. The wastrel son returns to the family homestead and get his “equality of result” from his RINO father. Sweet Jesus.
I live in Houston, Texas and am always surprised by the poor service of apparently most states’ DMV offices. It only took me about three minutes to update my driver’s license online a few years ago. The last time I visited an actual DMV office to register a recently purchased car—I was in and out within thirty minutes. Previous to that experience, it took me all of five minutes to update my driver’s license. And this included the taking my photograph. Oh well, I live in a red state. We are God’s special people.
The next governor of California runs perhaps a 25% chance of being assassinated. Anyone seeking this job must be a very brave individual. Imagine a 49-year-old prison guard ready to retire next year with a $90,000 annual pension. The new governor must tell this fat and sassy government employee that they must wait until turning 65 years of age—and receive only $35,000 annually! Nope, it ain’t gonna be pretty.
We Texans also don’t want the foolish and immature Californians to put their hand in our wallets. Nobody told these people to behave like a bunch of spoiled teenagers. They made their bed—and now should sleep in it. The state of California has done so much damage to the rest of the country. We owe them nothing.
Bulls-eye, as always.
As a Californian, (with OK retirement,) I fantasize that I might run for office & make the case for realistic government policies to pull us away from the brink. Then, I read/hear the popular sentiments of Californians, & know that we are beyond help.
To those of you in other states, expect the Fed Government to find a way to “help” us. Your assistance is appreciated, I guess.
Doc, love you dearly, but if you think State workers have the best jobs, then take 20% of you estimated income for 2009 and donate it to the State. You will have a better idea of what it has been like for California employees for the past year, if not the past several years.
I find the pseudo fearmongering on the left even more offensive. Not passing Obamacare will “bankrupt” the country is the latest – never in my years have I heard a politician say something so disingenuous and outright stupid.
Who is John Galt?
As a fifth (or is it 6th?) generation California farmer, this must absolutely break your heart.
I really wish Dr. Hanson would run for office. He is exactly the type of person we need running this country. Common sense these days is simply not that common anymore…
A worthy analysis Dr. Hanson. Indeed, one can sum up the difference in political philosophy in several ways. Liberals believe in equality of outcome; conservatives believe in equality of opportunity. Liberals believe in big government, conservatives in small. Perhaps the discussion might benefit from the perspective of human nature.
Socialism fails, and always will fail because above all else, it ignores, denies, and tries to mold and suppress human nature. As you’ve pointed out so well, California is a socialist’s wet dream, yet it continues to fail, catastrophically fail, because the statists running the asylum believe that they can ignore human nature, so great is their wisdom and so pure is their philosophy. Thus does spending money to save money become rational. Thus is the solution to drastically declining tax revenues drastically increased taxes. Thus can prosperity be realized by suppressing the most prosperous and innovative. Thus does environmentalism take precedence over human prosperity, even survival, and thus to those who can afford it, flee from the socialist paradise to rational states run by adults who understand what actually motivates human beings and thus, how they can prosper and live in peace.
We should keep in mind that the difference between smiley face, benign socialists and blood thirsty communists is merely a matter of degree. Their philosophies are identical; their only real argument is on the means required to achieve their ends and the timetable. Given enough power, they will inevitably become corrupt. Given absolute power, they will see nothing wrong with the commission of any atrocity to realize the all-important goals that only they are smart enough to envision and achieve, for after all, who else can establish a worker’s paradise, heaven on Earth?. As you’ve pointed out, however, eventually, work that will never allow the hardest working to earn anything more than the laziest is work that merely keeps people busy, and “they” who can be taxed to support everyone else, just aren’t present in sufficient numbers to support everyone else–they never were. But of course, statists can’t admit that their faith is false, so they must always double down in the denial of human nature, and descend into ever more economic lunacy, repression and savagery. History reveals this progression, over and over, in countless lands and languages.
We are approaching some dangerous lines in America, lines that have never before been approached. Socialist experiments like California and Massachusetts can exist without massive social upset because people can vote with their feet and flee these worker’s paradises. Until recently, the prosperity of the rest of the nation has allowed the statists to avoid the inevitable consequences of their idiotic, stuck in the 60′s beliefs. But the bills are coming due, and it is entirely possible for entire states to go bankrupt, with California not inching, but racing toward bankruptcy. The danger is that the entire nation might go socialist. In that case, only the very rich will be able to flee the worker’s paradise, taking all of the means of creating wealth and innovation with them, leaving the rest of us to the tender ministrations of such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Political figures are now proposing laws and bureaucracies that could very well drive Americans into outright rebellion. Those who see themselves as the best and brightest so ignore and misunderstand human nature that they fail to realize that Americans are not Europeans. Seeing America descending into a 1970′s eastern European communist ghetto, a significant portion of the population, and much of the armed forces, will choose to fight. Americans will endure a great deal of abuse, but will eventually fight back, and Americans are very, very good at doing just that. When Americans see the state taking 70% of their income, imprisoning them for refusing to buy mandated insurance, releasing jihadists into American communities, engaging in massive, systemic vote fraud, killing their family members by denying them medical care, they’ll come for those politicians and bureaucrats who so smugly claim to know what’s good for the little man. We’re not there yet, but we’re on the way.
Statists would do well to understand that there are some lines no man dare cross. But that would require an understanding of human nature, wouldn’t it?
Amen.
“Answer? The best job in California is a state one; the worst a private-sector one. Result? 3,500 flee per week with capital, education, and know-how; 2,500 arrive with far less capital and training.”
The problem Dr. Hanson, in my experience, is that they flee alright but they carry their political poison with them and infect every other state that they settle in. I wish that the lefties in California would go all the way and seeing their prize work horses running out of the barn, would turn the whole state into East Berlin and wall it off. Same thing applies for Massachusetts by the way.
Sorry if I am being a little harsh here but my observations of escapees from the “Pacific Paradise” and the “People’s Republic of the East Coast” have been less than complimentary, yourself Dr. Hanson, excluded.
California is not a State. It’s two countries put together. Running two countries is not a feasible act. Once you separate the two countries, the finances will work. Politicians are scared advocating this geopolitical idea, until people grasp the basics. Too XXI century?
3. Cornhead:
“If this Obamacare passes, don’t be surprised to see a great number of doctors taking early retirement.”
Only REAL doctors rise to the occasion. All others are failures who picked the wrong profession and have made money.
8. David Thomson:
“The state of California has done so much damage to the rest of the country. We owe them nothing.”
Nobody forced you to copy California, whatever you said you copied.
Amazing piece, Prof. Hanson. It’s featured in my ClimateGate/Copenhagen roundup
http://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/climategatecopenhagen-roundup-dec-18-california-dreaming-edition/
even though it only tangentially touches on ClimateGate.
Prof. Hanson,
Outstanding as always.
I am interested in the extension of your argument. Most/many Americans see plainly the folly of California policies leading to a brain & capital drain. However in my experience, most do not understand that there is nothing sacred about the borders of our great nation. Just as businesses leave the toxic anti business climate in California for other states, businesses can leave the USA for more freindly environments.
Moving a multi national company HO to a country with more business (and tax) freindly policies is not terribly difficult to do. Leave a subsidiary behind to cater for the USA market but the bulk of investment and income is offshore. Taxes are paid on USA profits by the subsidiary but the tax base on international business is lost forever. So are the jobs. If our government continues down the path it is currently on, I look for a steady exodus similar to what is happening in California.
It has already begun. The strength and size of the exodus will be determined by our political “leaders” in that bizarre environment called Washington DC.
The UK will provide a good window into what will happen. A huge new tax on “fat cats” is already creating a flood of hedge funds and other finance houses leaving for Switzerland or tax havens in Europe. Tata is closing a steel plant in the UK (1700 jobs lost) and transferring production to India – reaping £100s of millions in carbon credit profits in so doing. The unintended consequences of idotic socialist policies do not hit overnight – but they do hit and are pretty permanent in their nature.
We are a nation of laws, believe it or not, and we now have an administration that is practically lawless. When the public screams for or against a Bill in Congress it falls on deaf ears, there is something very wrong. When our Congress gets itself involved in football I am dumbfounded. A health Bill that’s over two thousand pages and its benefits are delayed four years is wrong too. How can we stop this insanity? Congress makes the laws and breaks the laws and they are out of control and the pubic suffers for their crimes and they are certainly crimes.
Minerva: You have a lot of nerve. Try being a private citizen who has to work a real, productive job or run a real, productive business. Most State jobs are not productive. Those jobs are pure political patronage jobs; those jobs main function is to buy votes and lock in collectivist policies at the local and state level. They are part of the Democrat political machine and in fact one of the major drivers of it.
If the entire set of “services” supplied by the state were supplied by private industry, as they are suppose to be and as the Constitution insists, it would require about one quarter of the people to deliver them as the State uses. If these current state employees where held to the same performance standards as employees in the private sector are, they would be shown the door inside a month.
Pity the poor State working? What a joke. If it is so tough being a state then employee quit and get another jobs. That is what the rest of us do.
How ridiculous that you ask us to feel sorry for the lot of State employees.
The posters would do well to view and then listen carefully to Colonel West’s explosive video clip now circulating online.
Go to WorldNetDaily and see it at one of the top stories today. It will BLOW you away, and it should serve as a blueprint to beating the statists back before it is too late.
Google Colonel West + 2010 Florida and see for yourselves-unbelievable.
Unless government unions are immediated dissolved then the virus which is CA is going to spread! Government Unions, illegal aliens and environmentalism are the biggest reason CA has gone in the tank.
@15 Mike
That has to be one of the very best comments I have seen here, or anywhere for that matter. Very well said!
RE: 7. 11B40:
“One aspect of my Christianity that I have always struggled with is the parable of The Prodigal Son”. The wastrel son returns to the family homestead and get his “equality of result” from his RINO father. Sweet Jesus.”
You are mistaken. The prodigal son received nothing other than a warm welcome and a fatted calf. Quite understandable in that situation. The other son retained his inheritance, therefore there was no “equality of result”. Once the welcome party and forgiving was over, it was up to the prodigal son to begin his life anew.
The same tax the rich and entitle the poor is what brought the Roman Empire to it’s knees. There is nothing new here, we just haven’t had to go through the experience for a while.
yup that’s the headlines in California.
California fleas kill state dog.
Earlier this year we were in 1933 Germany.
On New Year’s Day we shall enter “Brazil” 1986.
You who continue to “jump out of bed at 5 a.m.” as Victor puts it, only serve to accelerate the decline.
Go Galt now.
The Prodigal son does *not* get an equal result. He gets a welcoming celebration. However, he has already spent his inheritance on wine, women, and song. The faithful brother remains heir to the father’s estate.
#8 fellow Texan, I too see the glass half full. The solidarity of the non political conservative right is inspiring and transfiguring the traditional go along to get along republicans. Other than those pesky property taxes, which actually went down this year, I to find state services to be efficient and easily maneuvered. The silver lining in all this is energy and we have more than plenty, that is the engine of democracy coupled with the best work force in the world. The eventual success is a systematic layoff of federal workers that neuter the most conspicuous agencies EPA, OSHA, Education, HHS, etc. Of course it’s for debt reduction not to free up industry from oppressive restrictions.
Left Californa 20 years ago and now in Texas. I’m frustrated that through federal aid my tax dollars go to subsidize California’s profligate government. I don’t think California will revive in our life time. It’s sad when you think of what it had and what it could be, but the citizens made their choices and apparently are happy with them or they would vote other than as they do. Those motivated for more need to seek another place to live. I’m concerned about whether in 20 years I will need to write those same sentiments about the U.S.
Yes, whatever you say . . .
The california model that President Obama was trying so desperately to impose in Copenhagen has been thwarted by the Chinese. They were willing to negotiate “carbon intensity” and associated reductions, but they were not even willing to sit at the table to discuss the reduction methods being pushed by Obama, Pelosi and Shummer. They literally refused to even sit at the table and discuss it with other national leaders. The “Tax and Cap” strategy is a non starter with the Chinese.
Obama has been to Copenhagen twice this year and got his backside handed to him both times.
He is incredible to his international contemporaries and can only be viewed as impotent. International leaders have taken his measure and have decided he ain’t that bright and has the spine of a jelly fish. He is easy to push around. He commits his credibility and that of his nation to treaty efforts that have no hope of success. He ignores reality. What a pathetic state of affairs.
Our nation will face an international crisis in the next year or so brought about exclusively by the weakness of our President.
When it comes right down to it, all that Harvard and Columbia education ain’t worth a warm bucket of spit in the rough and tumble world of international relations. It is about to get a whole lot rougher for President Obama and the United States of America. What a pity. And completely avoidable.
Elections have consequences.
The Ubiquitous Pan-Orthodox Rebellion
By Robert Winkler Burke
Copyright 12/18/09
The rigid-righteous,
Shall have their day,
Ossified: themselves,
In every way.
They have rebelled,
Against every known Western Enlightenment good,
Comes perfect storm,
For the most perfect: anti-whatever’s-good brood!
This great harlot,
Shall have her denouement,
Her great lovers,
Shall wonder: where good went!
But the woe-begotten orthodox,
Of ancient, time-tested way,
Shall survive: in each compartment,
They have managed In That Day.
From religion to reason,
Is what you think and do true?
If so, friend of God’s love,
Your life will go well for you!
From family to finances,
Have you honored ancient gold?
Then happiness is yours,
As things begin to unfold.
Our biggest cosmic forces,
Cannot, in the end, ever be denied,
Those in true love’s truth: live!
While fury stalks profound haters that lied!
The Ubiquitous Pan-Orthodox Rebellion,
Shall soon implode, morph-toxic or bust,
Big picture seers of truth: safe in safe truth!
The rigid-wrong: dust in foulest dust!
Believe what you want,
And what you ought,
Live with your thoughts,
And what you’ve bought!
We cannot escape,
Our recompense,
Pray to God yours is,
Uncommon sense!
How to be a disciple in safe shelter,
Of the truest compartments of ameliorative good?
Hearken unto correction and rebuke,
From prophets vilified for speaking: what they should!
Mike @ #15.
You are spot on. VDH describes the disease and you allude to the prognosis. Ultimately this all ends violently. Deny this if you will, lament such an outcome as uncivilized (it is) but each day the ultimate consequence becomes more certain–history assures us. We have already crossed the line you mention. It will begin with civil disobedience, will move on to assassination, and finally to outright rebellion and civil war. A sad state of affairs to be sure but, I fear, almost a certainty. You can decry this eventuality but an intelligent individual would not bet against it. And such eventualities though painful are certainly cleansing.
And we can see that the liberals are completely blind to the fact that socialism is failed concept, a concept that has no great hope for the future unless one is a politician and then only for their own personal advancement.
“When it comes right down to it, all that Harvard and Columbia education ain’t worth a warm bucket of spit in the rough and tumble world of international relations.”
Things were bad enough when Bill Buckley wrote, God and Man at Yale, in 1951. But it is much worse today. Affirmative action policies instituted some 40 years ago have significantly lowed the academic standards of the Ivy Leagues. This is most assuredly how Barack Obama acquired his Harvard credentials. These people normally lack the historical knowledge to even begin to understand “the rough and tumble world of international relations.” They just haven’t done much serious reading and studying. Their professors provide them with inflated grades—as long as they do not dissent from leftist dogma. I should also add that affirmative action grading did not merely inflate the grades of minorities. The white majority students also jumped onto the freebie bandwagon.
Chavez:
“He stressed that he would not accept that some countries prepared a text for a climate deal and just “slipped [it] under the door” to be signed by the others. He said he had heard of the existence of such a text, but “we don’t know the paper” and then continued by accusing the conference of “a real lack of transparency””.
http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=3058
I am wondering if he is confused with the health care bill which is supposed to be delivered on XMAS eve. That bill is not transparent either and is going to be delivered “under the Doors” of Senators as XMAS gift. That means this year gift to American is “Socialism”.
Is it possible that even stupid and backward Chavez now realizes how Chicago Gangs work in DC? Marxists-style shoving their agenda down to American throats by force and with the help of left-over Marxists media.
Dr. Hanson,
I agree. For years, I have pointed out in friendly discussions that socialism, like pacificism, cannot exist in and of its own accord. Both philosophies are parasitic and can only exist within a culture that practices the very lifetyle that each refutes.
The world can never become totally pacifistic because there will always be one human being who wishes to get ahead; everyone else will then become an easy victim. Likewise, the world can never be exclusively socialistic because, in Margaret Thatcher’s eloquent observation, you then “run out of other peoples’ money.”
@ 11B40: Robert F. is right. When the prodigal returned, the father told the older brother, “All I have is yours.” In other words, the younger son had spent his inheritance and it was gone. All the would get in the future was home cooking.
How is it possible, Dr. Hanson? Have you not read Francis Fukuyama? I thought the Great Debate was over. Schluß. Конец. Fin.
“The whole system from California to Copenhagen will keep on working as long as the productive classes feel there are still incentives to jump out of bed at 5AM. When they don’t, the power is cut off to thousands of gears and cogs — and the world looks more like Ecuador or Somalia than the U.S.”
Sometimes I feel that we should just “shrug” get on with it. Lets get on with the reformation.
There is an interesting theory that we are reliving the history of ancien regime France when the state centralized everything in Versailles. Peggy Noonan has commented on the absence of foreclosure signs in the DC suburbs. Federal government jobs are expanding and their pay is increasing. There is no recession in Washington. Eventually, and it may be sooner than we think, nothing outside Washington will work.
Then comes the revolution.
Comment #8:
“The state of California has done so much damage to the rest of the country. We owe them nothing.”
Response #18:
Nobody forced you to copy California, whatever you said you copied.
Correct #18, therefore we owe you nothing.
Well argued as usual Victor but Americans really need to stop demonising socialism. Right up at the top of your rightly beloved constitution are the words “All men are created equal” (or something close, you have to excuse my Britishness) and that idea is the foundation of all socialism. When the founding fathers decided to declare independence they were rejecting the notion that one’s place in society was ordained by God. The child of an aristocrat, no matter how depraved or amoral was always an aristocrat and thus able to exercise certain privileges. A child of low born parents however would always be low born no matter how intellectually brilliant or morally virtuous was always scum.
The Labour government in the UK and Obama’s Democrat administration are not socialist, you used statism which is not a bad term for government by control freakery but my favourite, coined as far as I know by an old Labour Party warhorse who joined the party in its reforming heyday and is now in his nineties is managerialism.
These people are not leaders, they’re clerks. What they offer is leadership by box ticking and bean counting. Hence the failure of Copenhagen to even understand the problems let alone propose a solution
11B40: Adding to what others said about the prodigal: His poor choices had caused him to envy pig feed. The prodigal had repented and was planning to beg his father to be a hired hand.
The lesson here is that God (the father in the story) has SUPERNATURAL (not human) love and can forgive. This makes it more likely that the repentant prodigal will return to respectable living.
There is no application of this story to unrepentant wastrels.
Mike @15 is spot on as is Mike D @36. Watch this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vySq13JnnQA
Please take care with the facts. California suffers greatly from the pathologies you identify, but it does not have the most prison convicts per capita of any US state. The first other state I checked was Texas, at Pew Charitable Trusts (http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewcenteronthestatesorg/Fact_Sheets/PSPP_1in31_factsheets_FINAL_WEB.pdf). Pew’s research tells me that our fair Golden State imprisons 171,500, and that the Lone Star State imprisons 159,016. That is 93% of the prisoners, but the overall population of Texas is only 66% that of California. We do spend over 3x as much per prisoner, so we know the prison guards’ union is getting its money’s worth. Just that the rest of us are not.
Something thing to keep in mind about the parable of the prodigal son is that Jesus is using it to describe the kingdom of God, not only as a teachable moment about how to handle a rebellious son. Jesus is saying that the prodigal son (sinners and apostates) will be welcomed home and treated as well as the older brother (pious belivers, Pharisees) by the father (God) when they repent and return.
Mike D # 36-I agree. Communists have gained power after 5 decades of brainwashing and propaganda. The media no longer is objective. The judges are no longer impartial. Civic orginaztions, taught to be temperate and non-political, no longer are effective. Communists never cede power willingly. Look at Chavez today, or better yet Nicaragua and Hondouras. By the way Mike K(#44) you are very correct-at the end of 2008 there were 30,000 fed jobs paying more than 150k/yr. by Nov 09, that number stood at 67,000. Now you want to know where your “tarp” and “stimulus” money went? It was to buy loyalty to a COMMUNIST governemnt. Just curiuos, id bet a lot that MOST of those job s went to minorities or even illegal aliens. Just like what Saddam Hussien did in Iraq, used the Sunni minority against the Shia majority. Unlike most, memmbers of this chat room are the thinkers who refused to be brainwashed. I also hope we are all well armed. I have a feeling we will need it.
Surprise!!! Elect a racist, black man from Chicago who was raised as a muslim, and whose friends are socilists and communists, and what do you get. Barack Mugabe!!!!!!
The Danegeld, reconstituted.
VDH:
“Nowhere is there a better example of the collective effort than in California. Politics don’t matter here; both Republicans and Democrats embrace statism, high taxes, and growing entitlements.” Collective effort failure. Many states are close behind California.
It is evident that a significant portion of the world’s governments ( read about Copenhagen) and citizens are living without a conscience since they have no problem being parasites or stealing from others as much as they can get away with. Even their misbegotten philosophy supports their actions and beliefs. They have no problem standing up in public speaking an already exposed lie after another exposed lie. There is nothing telling them in their hearts that they ere. There is no one who can convict them of their sin. This has not been true on a global basis in history since the great flood. So it is an historic time that was predicted 2000 years ago by Paul:
“That you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for {it will not come} unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains {will do so} until he is taken out of the way.”
So the “he who now restrains” is the conscience that God had given man and are we not the temple of God? Now with no conscience to convict of sin the “son of destruction” (the liar) has arisen in the place of God in the heart of many in this world.
This of course leads to destruction, and we have living amongst us on this planet those who are “hell bent on destruction”.
There is a purpose for all of this of course and here it is: “Then that wicked one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the brightness of His coming;”
This is the hope that all people of conscience have in these darkening days ahead. The hope that these evil socialist, leftist, non productive parasites and antisemites are being draw out for their own eternal distruction and the world shall not travel this way again.
Those without conscience are being drawn out on the world stage so that we can all witness God glorifying Himself in the destruction of the wicked.
It’s getting more and more appealing to just give up and move from a private sector job where I make money when I work to a public sector job where I would get 13 paid vacation days, 13 paid holidays, 13 sick days, more insurance than I could ever use, a 7% match to my 1.5% defined-contibution plan, a defined-benefit plan, rounds and rounds of referals or write-ups before I could ever get fired, free use of a public vehicle, and on and on. I am ready to leave the confiscatees and change sides to the confiscators. Where can I sign up? Who’s coming with me? And who will we confiscate from when all the other confiscatees join us on the other side? Oh well, I’m sure we’ll figure that all out once we get there. I guess I should just stop thinking about the future and live in the here and now, as they say.
I think the divide runs along the lines of Thomas Sowell’s conflict of visions. Those with the political upper hand today believe ordinary citizens are either weak or wicked, and must be regulated into proper behavior. To the elites, we are like children who need adult protection and supervision. (The elites, of course, can only conceive of themselves in the adult role.)
This is not entirely a partisan issue, and can be traced back to the last administration – as anyone who has spent time in an airport can attest. It’s just gone on steroids with the current crowd.
See “The regulated citizen”:
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/the-regulated-citizen/
mikemcdaniel,
You are almost worth reading for your style alone, your style being the sinew to your most muscular reasoning. Lagniappe to Dr. Hansen’s essay, or more accurately, a reasonable progression. Statists and Marxists (Why won’t that vampire stay dead? Where is the silver stake?) be warned.
Petulant Pirate
I have to laugh at the folks complaining about their states’ DMVs. Let me tell you about Hawaii. When you move to Hawaii and bring your vehicle, you must have a Hawaii inspection sticker to register it. Well, guess what: you can’t pass an inspection with a registration. So you have to actually go to an inspection station and have them fail your inspection for lack of a registration, take the failure notice to the DMV to get a temporary, go back to the inspection station to pass with the temporary registration, and then go BACK to the DMV with the inspection pass notice and finally register your car. Needless to say, Hawaii is the bluest of blue states: strangling taxes, hostile to business, with the largest employer by far being the State.
Sorry. “Without a registration”.
The so=called socialists are just using that word to describe their desires for a political system that is really not pure socialism. The same way the so=called communists do not really run communist societies.
They are people who believe they should be a ruling class with dictatorial control over all aspects of the economy and society and that they personally should receive the bulk of of whatever wealth is produced. Like Lenin’s (I think it was Lenin) “new party” of rulers who control everything for their own benefit.
This is really little different from the old fiefdoms and monarchies and the present day dictators who rule the masses with iron hands.
It could be a little too soon to rejoice, but the first SOVIET of the new world order, in Copenhagen, is closing its “works” without a final document and without any binding agreement.
Have the subversives subverted themselves ?
Has Al Gore dis-invented the man-made global warming ?
We don’t yet know.
These nihilists look more miserable every day.
Re: The comment about the parable of the “Prodigal Son” from above. The prodigal son was welcomed back to the house by the father and they threw a party to celebrate that he was back. The other son still stood to inherit everything the father had. In other words, that parable isn’t about equality of result.
Wow, Vivo really came back with his hard hitting “Yes, whatever you say . . .” As much as I agree with MikeMcDonald #15 and VDH. Vivo’s argument keeps pulling me back towards the wonderful world of socialism. Vivo, how about using this argumanet next.. “Whateverrr!” That always seems to work so well with college students.
44. Mike et al.
Bad economies have been great for federal government workers in the US all the way back to FDR. And probably before that. The federal government simply does not cut back in total spending.
And when they do reduce funding of one program or another you can bet that program is distant from the District Of Columbia.
The present economic mess continues the pattern.
During the Depression most state and local governments did cut workers. And they avoided debt if at all possible. Also, it was common to cut the wages for those who were retained.
Nothing like that is being done in most places yet. The usual course is to cut benefits to everyone else, borrow, and beg in Washington. The work force stays about the same or rises.
I believe CA has more state workers today, after two years of rapid economic decline, than they have ever had. But I haven’t seen counts lately. There was a report about that three or four months back.
I think any state that has to declare bankruptcy should lose its state status and revert to territory status, since it obviously isn’t mature enough to act responsibly. Of course, Washington would appoint the territorial governor, taking control away from the children, and the senators and congresscritters would be out of work. After the state’s fiscal house is in order and it has been shown over a period of time that it has its act together, it can re-apply for statehood.
California’s solution may have to come from without.
The Obama policies are so incredibly absurd and lacking any common sense. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that all this is being done on purpose, perhaps working on the Cloward-Piven philsophy of destroying an economic system in order to rebuild it in your own (socialist) fashion.
As a native and current Californian, I agree with many of the posters here, but find myself (unfortunately?) suprised to be agreeing with VIVO this time…but he didn’t actually go far enough!
California is TWO STATES, not just the 2 countries he refers to…
Yes, it is a bilingual (even multi-lingual) mess, but even more so:
It is a NORTH and SOUTH Cal (big difference…unfortunately, the capital and the purse strings are in the north)
It is an East and West California (unfortunately, more politically and financially well-connected people are in the liberal “west”)
It is a HAVE and HAVE NOT California (unfortunately, with the majority stuck in the middle and squeezed to death!)
It is a FAR RIGHT and FAR LEFT California (unfortunately, with the crippling result of an ineffective legislature tilted to the left!)
It is a PUBLIC and PRIVATE California (unfortunately, with the public sector and it’s public-emplyee and teacher unions winning the battle 90% of the time…cudos to Brian #24 hitting that!)
Funny thing though…with all it’s problems and issues…I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the country…
Did I mention it’s 80 degrees outside today, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky???
Hello Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Washington DC…
How’s that wind chill today???
California has a lot of issues, but even with all the problems, the quality of life is not all that bad.
I wouldn’t want Dr. Hanson’s article to paint such a bleak picture (pointing out examples that could be found in just about ANY state)
that the rest of the country thinks we are going to hell in a hand basket…
We’re not. No, we’re NOT like Michigan, NOT like Ohio, NOT even like disappearing small-town middle America…
Things are tough, but they’re tough everywhere.
Just take Dr. Hanson’s advice for what it is, but know the issues here are not like ANYWHERE else in the country (see above)…most states have NOTHING to compare it to, and most likely will never see the same issues come to bear on their people.
Anyway…I’ve rambled long enough.
Enjoy the ROSE PARADE and National Championship from the Rose Bowl this year after shoveling the snow from your driveway! I’ll be sipping my ice tea and watching it from my front porch!
VDH: Please elaborate on the Guardian Class. They’re the “liar” wing of the statist party. (The other wing being the lied-to.) The Liar wing is actually very ambitious. In fact, they are capable of making it in the productive class but have discovered a much more lucrative business. Once in power they need to move very quickly to deny rights so that by the time the “lied-to” realize their “brothers” are really elite task masters, it’s too late.
‘We would all want a job at the DMV but would never want to go there for any service — a model for health care to come. In short, the poor get a little better off, the better-off a lot worse, and America becomes a sort of collective lower middle class at about a 1950s lifestyle, praised and congratulated for ending “poverty.”’
With so many historical examples of government policies (USSR, Red China, Cuba, North Korea, Myanamar) designed to promote perfect equality that provided only equality of misery, it is hard to believe there are still people who think it could work. But hope springs eternal in the utopian mind.
The protestors in Copenhagen bring back nightmares of days in Berkeley in the 60s. I was a Navy Aviation recruiter who was subjected to as much hate and rage as could be brought to bear without doing phuysical harm. I had thought maybe those foolish, idealistic students would grow up and get a life, but see that their trendy hatred of capitalism is alive and well.
It’s probably true that many of California’s ills can be traced back to those 60s days of rage and unrest committed in the name of peace, love, and tolerance. Even then the schools seemed to have a lot of left wing professors who indoctrinated rather than educated. It’s a shame. It was once a great state.
VDH:
“State Worker Paradise”
This is the economic model employed by the modern Greeks — and you recently experienced it in person (you blogged here about your trip to the Mediterranean). What has happened to the Greek economy? A slew of socialist governments have recently led to the greatest loss of confidence in the Greek government and economy in generations.
Socioeconomic systems that support obese governments seem to have tragic results. These grave consequences of socialist and communist governments are far more predictable and certain than the “climate change” catastrophes that Obama and his followers sermonize.
Great read Dr. Hanson.
34. Samizdat:
June 1st 2009
Geithner told Beijing that he still supports a strong US dollar, and insisted that the trillions of dollars of Chinese investments would not be unduly damaged by the economic crisis.
Speaking at Peking University, Mr Geithner said:
“Chinese assets
are very safe.”
The Chinese laughed!
Now Obama gives a Tax and Cap speech at Copenhagen and the Chinese laugh.
I wonder if our National, Medicare, Medicaid,
Pelosi-Reid Health care will make them smile.
I don’t know the answer,
but I tell my grandchildren they need to learn to speak Chinese and consider investing in a Chinese restaurant chain.
It gets worse every day. But let’s do something about it rather than complain about it. Incumbents must be reoved from office. There will be elections in less than a year. Let’s act!
“I really wish Dr. Hanson would run for office. He is exactly the type of person we need running this country. Common sense these days is simply not that common anymore…”
Better yet, Californian’s love their celebrity governors. Borrow Gordon Ramsey from Her Majesty and install him as Governor of the Great State of California. Let us all feast on the new reality series “Hell’s Capitol”.
vivo
Must you just make some sort of comment however inane or what? Socialism is not the answer and it seems you think it is but please do not leave a crappy comment that does not add to the topic even though I know that you are just a troll leaving crappy comments along the way of this site.
Please present real discussion for once, I for one usually go right past any thing you have to offer as it is WRONG!
I don’t think the Statist side is fairly illustrated by the article. The extremes of two views it speaks of, both idealic, is unfair to the Left, actually. To say a floor cleaner will make the same as a brain surgeon is so contrived it would only persuade the very simple. I think the idea is to decrease profits from the uber wealthy until trickle down economics is an actual reality. Although, the Liberal’s end in trickle down economics is fascism.
I understand the type of argument the article uses – basically, if nobody has indicated the line not to cross then you cross it – I know, because I use it. And even then you will say that you’ve only come to the logical conclusions from the premises of the Left. Albeit, I agree that the idea of Statism is flawed, because it is based on the supposed goodness of the poor, let alone the demonization of individual wealth and property, and also, eventually, Gaia(earth) worhsip… dependence, oligarchy, amorality, immorality, loss of rights, etc.
The Bible tells us about Israel, that they were not chosen because they were the most righteous nation, but because they were the least evil. This tells me that even the poor and lowly are corrupt to God, however it could still go our way. I say our, because obviously I’m one of them.
It is my speculation that evil exists on all economic levels in the same ratio, as, affecting your own child negatively is equivalent to how many dejected workers? There is a balance to life; so, the right solution in the end, (or the end of the middle), will be a mixture of the parts of ideas that actually work. And this is what we actually have. And the right first step is to really crack down on corruption in power. So easy, I know.
I’ve thought the same thing myself…the United States in late 2009 is like France in 1788. A large country, run into the ground by a small hereditary ruling class (see how many Congressmen had parents who held elected office).
A year later, the Revolution.
Maybe I’ll go into the rent-a-guilliotine business.
It is hard to imagine how, having regained political parity and even political majority, we will succeed in restoring impartial, or at least honest mainstream media and academia, dethroning the Leftist lords of Hollywood, and defeating the street-level radicals without some kind of civil strife.
But there may be a way: it’s called exposure and humiliation. A way has to be found to show America, in a compelling, irrefutable manner the socialist chain that joins the Jacobins of the French Revolution, to Marx and his various acolytes (including Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the Vietcong, the Khmer Rouge, The Shining Path, Fidel Castro etc.) to the Frankfurt School, Saul Alinksy, the 60′s radicals, and finally to Barack Obama and his legion of Czars, cronies, thugs and bag-men. And also to graphically demonstrate how the statist policies he’s trying to bind the nation with have been tried before, and always lead to catastrophic economic decline at best, and millions of dead, or languishing in political prisons at worst. Glen Beck has done a lot in this respect, but we need to find a way to broadcast it to the whole nation. Any thoughts?
It might not be enough, but it’s worth a shot if it prevents civil war.
Run California the way Bush ran the U.S.A.
great essay
if there was a noble prize for common sense you might have gotten it with this.
…sorry didn’t mean to insult you with the nobel prize thing.
@76
This is a goal to be sought, until found. Immediate thoughts…
It does appear to be a 2-step: to see, over the labor, the ‘fruit’.
I would guess many stumble, and avert, at the sight of the peak, not seeing the fertile fields beyond, both spiritual, material, and, importantly, scale. This likely falls from a nature of ‘path of least resistance’ coupled with a lack of foresight. Which is of course human, but not evolved. We are (should be) taught to consider others.
To see without experience (I suppose what we want to ‘teach’) would, I guess, require De(in)duction overpower emotion if only for a time. Education (true critical analysis)…
In my ignorance I wonder if there any known, thinking, ex-capitalists.
7. 11B40:
If the Prodigal had welfare payments and a free lunch he would have never come to his senses. He realized it would be better to become a servant as one of his fathers household servants and seek his father’s forgiveness than to die a proud and stubborn death. When he returned with a humble spirit and his father longing for his son to return is the most important aspect of God’s amazing love and forgiveness of being our own boss in life. The real evil person in this story is the older brother who had his father’s blessing but had no concept of humility and grace. The younger son still was subject to his older brother and had to be submissive to him the rest of his life.
I don’t disagree with some of the analysis here, in particular as relates to California. But who is actually arguing that CA is some success story? And whatever damage to the US economy climate-change agreements are going to cause, it’s hard to see how the current economic crisis had its genesis in overpaid public sector employees. In fact, I’d say that the source is probably overpaid _private_ sector employees, the very rich people who are supposedly our salvation, if only we grant them low marginal tax rates.
There’s no question that socialism is not desirable, especially as practiced by Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe. I just think there’s a lot more going on here.
California has a lot of problems. I’ve lived here all my life, and things seem to have gotten worse and worse over time. The cause isn’t one individual thing, or event, it’s a combination of things that all drive in one direction. The state’s public employees are a large part of the problem; they are very well-paid, and spend a lot of time complaining about how bad things are for them. DMV workers in California recently staged a “sick-out” because the state took away one of their paid holidays–Columbus Day. LA Times columnist Steve Lopez (the reporter from the movie “The Soloist”–no conservative, he) just wrote a column about how the Department of Water and Power in LA is handing out bonuses and raises in the midst of a budget crisis, because of how powerful their Union is.
There are other problems and culprits. Some years ago, a judge ruled that when a California municipal employee (either state or local) retires, he or she gets their salary *plus* bonuses and overtime. The state’s rules, prior to that, allowed them to collect pensions based on their *base* pay. Why the judge concluded this to be wrong, and how he based it legally, I have no idea. The state, however, reacted by simply pouring more money into the pockets of these people, in the hopes that they would continue to vote for the proper people.
And so it goes. The private sector gets taxed, the public sector gets the money, and everyone hopefully is happy. The weird thing is that at the higher income levels, you find a lot of people who are Obama supporters. If you drive through Beverly Hills, you saw lots of Obama signs on front lawns. A few of these people are government employees of one sort or another (state university professors, retired city controllers or mayors, etc.) but most of them are going to be in the private sector. Wealth in California is different from other places: a million dollars here doesn’t go that far. So you have to wonder, why do these wealthy people think their taxes are too low?
It’s my conclusion that most people, when they vote to “tax the rich”, imagine that they’re voting to raise someone else’s taxes. I’d be willing to bet that the average resident of Beverly Hills, or most anyplace else, would try to categorize themselves as upper-middle-class, instead of wealthy…if they didn’t just try rationalize themselves into the middle-middle class. My joke is that Bill Gates thinks that a rich guy is someone who makes more money than he does.
My question has always been, What does the state worker think is going to happen? None of them seem to understand that if everyone in the state takes money out of the system, and no one puts any money in, things will not work. Something’s gotta give, and the unions are determined that it won’t be them. They’re whining like crazy right now because of the current furloughs and etc. that Schwarzenneger imposed; they’ve recently gone to court to challenge the furloughs, and last I heard there was a TRO keeping the state from enforcing them.
Meanwhile, the number of state employees getting more than $100,000 annually in pensions has topped 10,000. The winner is a former city official from Vernon, California who double- and triple-dipped with gusto, who takes home just short of $500,000 a year. We owe him, and the rest of them that money until they individually die. My guess is that if we now try to change things like retirement age, pension benefits, etc., a judge would probably require the state to pay whatever the union wants. The union of course has no remorse: they care little, if anything, for the greater good or the welfare of the state. They care only about their workers, and their job is to maximize their pay and benefits, at everyone’s else’s expense, as much as possible. Funny how they get a pass, while everyone hates the clowns on Wall Street.
“I wouldn’t want Dr. Hanson’s article to paint such a bleak picture (pointing out examples that could be found in just about ANY state)
that the rest of the country thinks we are going to hell in a hand basket…”
Are you smoking some of that strange stuff they now legally sell in Los Angeles? You are obviously living in a fantasyland. That may very well explain why so many childishly immature Californians behaved indifferently while their state was falling apart. Texas and most other red states are not experiencing any of the financial difficulties similar to those of California! Nothing even remotely close. Texas even has extra money in its state budget. California is in a deep crisis—and it’s your problem—and nobody else’s. Allow me to be blunt. Don’t you dare go to Obama and have him try to steal our money! It is totally up to you to act like an adult and take care of your own self-inflicted troubles.
RE: “sick-out”
Any wise governor would fire them all on the spot, especially with this unemployment. Any months severence is worth it, in the long run, for it is fixed. We should not think sacrifice won’t be required.
Plus, I could find people tomorrow on my street corner to fill all those jobs. And no, they are no longer all ‘illegal’.
Next question?
pay public employees more cash salary and let them save for their own retirement. this is cheaper and we could recruit better quality.
If they pass the health care bill, I will have lost the ultimate market for my services as a surgeon. Then the Bush tax cuts will be reversed after 2011.
I have given serious thought to “Going Galt”, and I can certainly see myself closing my private practice with all it’s demands. I could then get employed by a leviathon health system. I’ve also been looking at leaving the country. It is hard to transfer a medical license, but it can be done. My forefathers signed up for the idea of America, and with that gone there is little to keep me here. I suspect the same it true for many of you on this page.
They seem to want it to break, don’t you think? Everything, all of it. They are pushing it towards calamity ON PURPOSE.
82. btgog:
Good post and, in my opinion, a good explanation of the prodigal parable. The only thing I disagree with is that the elder brother was evil. He was just expressing a very human reaction to the father’s decision. The father had to let him know that he did not approve of the prodigal’s sin but rejoiced in his redemption. In other words God says to us, “my ways are not your ways”.
The Rapes of Graft
I came to California after living for 50 years in the suburbs of Chicago. The politics in Chicago/Cook County are comprised of a rather noxious blend of Tammany Hall thuggery and corruption at the end of a billy club, complete with ward “bosses”, and “patronage” hiring that ensured Chicago/Cook County would be run in perpetuity by a bunch of officious intermeddling middle manager types of low brow intellect and protruding brow, half-evolved, enforcers.
This was fodder for Royko for decades, but it was half-laughable, comedic tragedy, until…the noxious blend added the techno-hug-a-thug Lakefront Liberal contingent, and then the Workers’ Party Daily “tear down the system from the inside” rats and roaches.
These groups used to fight each other tooth and toenail, with the Tammany Hall “Boss Tweed” types winning consistently, but always having to swat away at the Hug-A-Thug and Angela Davis (read, Danny) types.
For those of you not familiar with Chicago politics (or Royko), think of a coalition of Mussolini meets Jimmy Carter meets Michael Moore.
And begets…Keith Olbermann.
So, I loaded up the family and we moved to California, leaving behind the crazy politics of Chicago, so singularly stenchy and the swirling snow storms…you don’t have to shovel sunshine!
My work as a business owner and executive was national and not geographic specific in nature, we had extended family here and we plunked down in the middle of all them, so’s they could visit whenever they liked.
What we found was a jarring surprise. The difference between Chicago’s political stench and California’s political stench, was…California didn’t have Mussolini. All the corruption and graft…only the trains didn’t run on time. Nothing works.
At least the Boss Tweed types in Chicago left enough money to actually hand out favors to the voters, for more votes. In California, they ran out of bribe money.
You have the Daily Workers party types trying to tear down a system…that’s already torn down. The hug-a-thug types (Pelosi et al) who use “compassion” and “concern” for the “downtrodden”…to beat entrepreneurs to death over the head with guilt-trip laced billy clubs…are hardly distinguishable from the Workers Daily types…nicer hair cuts and cleaner shoes aside.
The DMV doesn’t work, the school system in many places resembles a trailer park, they are selling off national forests and monuments like a crack addict at a pawn shop and the immigration policy is basically to reject anything not written in a foreign language.
At least in Chicago, the de’s, dem and do’s ward hacks were TRYING to speak the native language. Press one for “do’s guys”.
California was a place for suspended disbelief and I don’t mean at Disneyland. It has the feel of a tarot session with a faith healer.
So, from ward heeler to faith healer politics, it has been a long journey…to get to pretty much the same place. Politicians suck.
Mike@15,
I enjoyed your articulate comment. I always enjoy our host’s clarity. However, in neither is there a prescription for fixing the problem. And soon there’ll be no fixin, absent revolt. 2010 looks to be too late.
This morning I watched the Senate majority pat themselves on the back for passage of healthcare reform, while the minority called it a travesty and outragious. And, this with a clear majority of the citizenry against funding abortion and free healthcare for illegals. No one called it fraudulent, criminal, or sabotage, or seditious, or treasonous. Intentionally bankrupting the US economy in wartime? Tell me there’s no law against that on the books.
Unless this is called out a felony that will be prosecuted for at least grand larceny, then the productive class has no chance. Where is the threat of retribution?
IOW, here’s the promise that secures my vote and begins to scare the sh** out of the elites – of all parties.
If I’m elected, I pledge my first job will be to order the justice department to indict every Congressional who voted to pass ANY bill without reading it, along with every staffmember in any way involved in formulating/writing/promoting it.
If found guilty, they lose all gov’t salary and benefits (including pensions), have their property seized as reparations and be forever barred from gov’t work, including consulting and lobbying.
Yeah, sounds extreme; 3500+ perps in the dock and no lawmaking goin on for a coupla years. So? I can’t even imagine any new law we need right now, can you?
But just imagine the “whistleblowing” by staff who need to cut a deal. We’ll learn about all the payoffs from interest groups nationally and internationally. We’ll learn why they preclude US from exploiting our natural resources. We’ll learn enough to put many away for life. Let’s get all the dirty laundry prepared for the Wash DC campaign.
BTW, I’d also promise to re-instate waterboarding and expand Gitmo to house this cabal of traitorous thieves – right in there amongst their fellow-traveling terrorists.
Or, we’re just kulaks.
Dear Dr. Hanson,
Outstanding article, as usual also the type of knowledge and clarity I have enjoyed in your writings for years.
I have one minor issue and that is warning readers that your readers abour states becoming like Lima.
My wife and I moved to Lima full time as soon as we knew that Obama was the Demorats nominee and we feared what was to come when he was elected.
My wife is Peruvian and we lived and worked in the US for over 10 years while spending 3 to 4 months per year in Lima. I can assure you that Lima and Peru are a much better land to live in these days than the U.S. which I love completely but love our Lord more and Peru is a religious country.
Kindest regards and we would love to host you if you would like to get to know the real Peru. Dennis & Pilar Reardon
@88 DrE
You bring up the point that none of those who wish to push this socialist agenda upon us consider…that is if you so drastically change America to where it is no longer America, those of us that actually produce and pay for all these “programs” will leave.
It will begin with the companys, they will take their executives, entrepreneurs will take their capital and knowledge, engineers, architects and the like will follow the work, and so on. Isn’t this exactly what is happening in California? Even the motion picture industry is leaving. Wait until this phenomenon is taken nationwide.
What will be left are groups of people standing around waiting for a handout. That’s when the real fun will begin as they feed on their own until some outside source comes in to take over the whole lot. Don’t think it can happen? Read up on what happened to every great civilization throughout history.
The truly sad part about all this is that all these “programs” being touted to “help” those in need are what is keeping them down. That is why we see one welfare become a way of life, and see generation after generation of welfare recipients.
My apologies for typos and misspellings. I’m watching the Texas/NC basketball game and failed at proofreading.
Mike 2:
The parable is a parable helping us understand how to repent of being the boss of our life. The oldest son is evil because he is an example of the mindset of those who think in terms of “equality of outcome”. I don’t care how you feel about it I’m going to live as I please.” “It’s not fair my father never provided a party for me.” Their part of the subset who desire the benefits you have to sacrifice so I can have. Rather than “equality of responsibility” whereby I’m responsible for words, actions, attitudes, and decisions that I make and you are responsible for the words, actions, attitudes, and decisions that you make.
#26 Robert F wrote:
You are mistaken. The prodigal son received nothing other than a warm welcome and a fatted calf. Quite understandable in that situation. The other son retained his inheritance, therefore there was no “equality of result”. Once the welcome party and forgiving was over, it was up to the prodigal son to begin his life anew.
Right, but the other son joined a tea party demonstration anyway. He hated the idea of his prodigal brother getting anything. He promised himself that e would never vote for another liberal…ever!
“vivo
Must you just make some sort of comment however inane or what?”
There is a very good possibility that this individual is being well paid for their efforts. Media Matters reportedly employs around seventy activists. A number are even paid a six figure annual income. Think about it for a moment. What in hell do these left-wing whack jobs do all day? Seventy employees! Good size local media outlets don’t employ that many folks. They are also the progeny of Antonio Gramsci. George Soros and their other funders know that this is a splendid way of capturing the culture.
I definitely get the impression that a number of these leftist commenters are constantly referring to written out “talking points” and feel compelled to say something regardless of how inane it may sound. They may indeed have bosses who demand so many posted comments in a given day.
The whole issue with climate change and health care are making wise and judicious decisions with personal responsibility and accountability to God and one another. No government can give me a right to health and good weather. God tweaks the temperature to his likely not mans. It is given to us or taken from us by God’s universal laws based on cause and effect. Joseph couldn’t have planned for a severe drought no matter how he wished for it for his release from prison. God has intended purpose for whatever He allows. I enjoy Dr. Hanson’s wisdom and insight into such matters.
Dr E, I hope you aren’t planning on going to Canada, or Norway, or Sweden. or Denmark, or Finland, or Holland, or Switzerland or any of those other European countries (you know, those horrid socialist countries) that are ALWAYS at the top of the list regarding healthcare, education, happiness with lifestyle, diet, and longevity, because they don’t want you, or your ilk who have put your bank account so far ahead of your notion of public service.
if capitalism is so great why is the economy so terrible and why did the debt climb so high under G W Bush? if we didn’t need socialism we would not have it, but we have it, and a form of capitalism here, in Europe and most of the world, we need both things together, otherwise society would completely fall apart.
One thing that’s happening that’s been sort-of alluded to is the “class warfare” tactic of the pro-socialists. We seem to have a great divide (and great incivility) developing, not between rich and poor, but between conservatives and liberals. I think we’re getting close to believing “the other side” is behaving in bad faith.
The America we grew up in worked because we had a shared ethos and part of that was the assumption of good faith / honorable intentions until proved otherwise. Have you read Bill Whittle’s commentary that starts off with Game Theory (specifically, The Prisoner’s Dilemma)?
If not, check out
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2007/05/
The most successful short-term strategy is Screw The Other Guy (betray your opponent), while the best long-term strategy is Tit-For-Tat (do to your opponent what he did to you last time). He extrapolates the results to cultures, and explains that America’s success is due to our culture’s assumption of good faith, cooperation, and reciprocal benefits in our daily transactions (what we called “playing fair” in my youth). He cautions that if there are enough “opponents” who don’t “play fair”, society will reach a tipping point and we’ll reconfigure to Screw The Other Guy — distrust will rule and assumptions of goodwill will vanish. (Screw The Other Guy is culturally very stable –think Mexico or the Middle East– but it’s difficult to flip a whole society back from the idea that “ruthless cheaters win” to “play fair and everybody benefits.)
I apologize that this is somewhat off-topic as regards Mr. Hanson’s post, but the increasing hostility and intransigence I see in politics makes me wonder if this Administration’s constant disregard for citizens’ concerns will finally trigger the cultural crisis that Alinsky and Marxists seek to provoke. I worry that in the “New Socialist America”, playing fair will no longer be viewed as a successful strategy, while those willing to “screw the other guy” will become society’s winners.
63. TriGeek:
“Wow, Vivo really came back with his hard hitting “Yes, whatever you say . . .””
Sorry to confuse you. One of my posts got deleted, so I wrote that phrase just in frustration. I didn’t mean anything, I didn’t kmow what else to write.
67. Dave II:
” agreeing with VIVO this time…but he didn’t actually go far enough!
California is TWO STATES, not just the 2 countries he refers to…”
Thank you for expanding my shortened idea, you explained it very well.
74. Steve DeMarcus:
“I for one usually go right past any thing you have to offer as it is WRONG!”
Steve, right; vivo, wrong.
What’s new?
88. DrE:
“If they pass the health care bill, I will have lost the ultimate market for my services as a surgeon.”
Maybe this is called “justice”?
MoWo understands. For a decade now, while the private sector was running up to the bubble burst, California STATE employees (do not conflate with Federal and local public employees) did not have pay raises or cost of living adjustments except for the prison guards. Several Governors during that time said it was made up to California STATE workers by the pensions. They were ignored then and are resented now, especially over the yet to be received pensions, even if the present pay cut is increased to over 20%. Now those in the private sector are suffering too, but also want the same services provided and laws enforced, in fewer work days (some still do the job, despite being “locked out”). Compromise then, as MoWo, suggested:
“pay public employees more cash salary and let them save for their own retirement. this is cheaper and we could recruit better quality.”
#67
“Funny thing though…with all it’s problems and issues…I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the country…
Did I mention it’s 80 degrees outside today, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky???”
Yeah I once thought that as well. Lived in CA for 36 years. I finally got fed up with the unions running everything, environmentalist closing down the deserts throwing the price of energy through the roof, water rationing, energy rationing, ever higher taxes, schools falling apart.
BTW, it’s 70 in Houston, clear blue skies, and my kids attend a brand new school with all the amenities and technologies available. Grass is green and the water is flowing. And people have jobs. My only regret is I still own a home in that state.
DaveII (67) said:
“I wouldn’t want Dr. Hanson’s article to paint such a bleak picture (pointing out examples that could be found in just about ANY state)that the rest of the country thinks we are going to hell in a hand basket…”
But Dave, that was the whole point of Dr. Hanson’s article: California IS going to hell in a handbasket! And other states ignore it at their own peril. Sleepers, awake!
In the meantime, enjoy the sun, the cloudless skies (except for the smog),the Rose Parade and sip away on your iced tea as long as the water holds out.
Party on, dude!
Very well said. I cannot understand why the Obama administration is taking us down this path except that it will put them and their supporters in the most privileged group after the “transformation.” I’m finishing reading George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” and it’s as if the book were written in the last few months instead of the mid-40′s. One character, Napoleon the pig, says: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”