Posted on 11/08/2010 11:54:22 PM PST by freespirited
OK, riddle fans, here's a toughie: What's the difference between California voters and the passengers on the Titanic?
The passengers on the Titanic didn't vote to hit the iceberg.
Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is almost incredible is that it has voted to sink.
On Election Day, 2010 Californians voted Democrats into every statewide position (one is still undecided). This is the party that singlehandedly has brought one of the world's greatest economies to near ruin. There may well be historical parallels to what Californians did -- but I cannot think of any.
A listener called my radio show two days after the elections to tell me that his business is booming -- thanks to Californians. His occupation? He's a real estate agent in Phoenix, Ariz.
The middle class has begun to leave California. It is, of course, impossible for most members of such a large group to leave a state; few people leave their family, their friends, their job and their home except under the most dramatic circumstances. But this fact makes all the more noteworthy the exodus from California that has been taking place.
You have to wonder how many businesses and individuals would leave California if their friends and family could also leave, if they could find a comparable job elsewhere and if they could sell their homes without losing money. What you don't have to wonder about is who would stay under those conditions. The state of California would eventually be left largely with those groups who voted Democrat in this election: rich liberals (such as those who live in Nancy Pelosi's Marin County, in the bay area and in West Los Angeles); state and municipal workers (who vote Democrat in as direct a pay-for-vote scheme as a law-based society allows); those who rely on state and city governments for entitlements; and those Latinos who either fall into the last category or who unfortunately identify the Republican Party with anti-Latino sentiments because it opposes illegal immigration.
Those who believe in individual responsibility, the free market and personal liberty are a minority in California. We greet each other as Americans would greet each other meeting in a foreign country.
We watch as one of the greatest places in the world -- with its extraordinary natural beauty, almost uniquely beautiful weather and agricultural abundance -- wastes all of this as a result of having become a left-wing experiment. What is particularly saddening is to see a state whose success was achieved because it was a Mecca for the adventurous in spirit do everything possible to crush that spirit and drive away those who have it.
There is a silver lining here: clarity. Americans living elsewhere need not elect liberal Democrats to know what will happen if they do. They only need to look at California if they want to see what happens to a state governed by the left (and, for that matter, they can look at Texas to see what happens to a state's finances when governed by the right).
The left and its teachers unions have ruined public education in California. The left and its public service unions have saddled the state with $500 billion in unfunded pension liability. California's left-governed cities have set themselves up as "sanctuary cities" for those who have come into America illegally. And the left passes more and more rules governing the behavior of California citizens. Two examples: San Francisco just banned McDonald Happy Meals because they come with a toy and therefore entice children to eat fattening food; and the Democratic legislature has made it illegal for a California employer -- even in a retail operation -- to ask a male employee who comes to work wearing a dress to wear men's clothing while at work.
And to render the Titanic analogy even more accurate, Californians voted to retain a law that was described by George Will as one "that preposterously aims to cool the planet by requiring a 30 percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2020."
That law will ensure that California taxes energy use more than any other state. That, in turn, is guaranteed to increase unemployment and the cost of living in the state -- one more reason businesses and productive individuals are leaving, but rarely moving, into California.
Environmentalist true believers have free reign in California. They have convinced a majority of the state's voters to believe the increasingly absurd notion that human carbon dioxide emission is heating up the planet to temperatures so high that humanity and the earth will suffer cataclysmic consequences.
To return to our Titanic metaphor, the great difference between that ill-fated ship's crew and California's crew (its voters and the California Democratic Party) is that the Titanic's crew did everything possible to avoid hitting the iceberg; California's crew did everything possible to hit it. Perhaps they believe global warming will melt it before they get there.
They say the bassoon is the clown of the orchestra.
California is now the clown of the USA.
We won’t be laughing when he passes his hat.
They’re moving to other states and bringing their big government liberal philosophy with them. :(
The most sad part of California is that nobody is learning from it.
Bump to read tomorrow.
More clowns for your metaphor:
States whose debt liability per capita is worse than California’s: Rhode Island, Illinois, Washington, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Hawaii,Massachusetts, Connecticut (the last 4 states listed have more than 2X the per capita debt as CA)
States whose pension liability per capita is worse than California’s: Minnesota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Hawaii, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Alaska, Ohio, Rhode Island (the last 4 being 35%-55% greater than CA)
States whose Gross State Product ($Bil) per capita is less than California: All of them!
Source: Forbes, Global Debt Crisis
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/44/debt-10_Global-Debt-Crisis_Rank.html
CA is a donor state - keeping less of it’s tax dollars paid than 42 other states. CA subsidizes states. Feds won’t lower CA’s tax obligation to allow it to stop subsidizing other states even as we sink in debt.
Feds refuse to guard CA borders, illegal aliens flood the zone, Arnold S. petitions US government to allow CA to lower it’s medical subsidies to levels comparable to other states as it can’t possibly afford them now with economic hard times. Feds refuse to let CA reduce medical subsidies to poor.
I voted against Obama in ‘08 and lost. I voted straight Republican in CA’s Nov election and I lost. I’ve encountered so many Freepers by now who a) commiserate with me on the ‘08 election and b) say I ‘deserve what I get’ for the Nov. election
Yes, too many libs, including some who come from other states just to make us miserable (like Boxer and Pelosi for example - they weren’t born in CA) flock to CA and we Repubs are out numbered here - but I don’t see giving up and letting Soros have his own state. But in the last week, I am surprised at the number of posts I’ve read on threads similar to this that are completely unaware of the debts in other states but have an almost personal glee in posting things like “I can’t wait till they fail!” or “Can’t wait until CA’s big earthquake drops it into the ocean” etc. Just thought I would post this in case the usual sentiment shows up again.
So true.
I've lived in Portland and Seattle for the last 15 years.
They are overrun with Hard Left, white, California emigres.
They are hell-bent to do to Oregon and Washington what they have already done to California.
As an ex-Californian, I would just like to say that contrary to what you may have heard, there IS life east of Interstate 5. Also real people, real communities, real jobs, and real weather. Just leave.
I still love the California I grew up in, but it's not there any more.
Oh, I don’t wish you ill there in the Cereal State.
Hordes upon hordes of welfare recipients (including lots of illegales) along with a slave driving Uncle Sam has to have a lot to do with California’s problems. But if it has one hole in its boat courtesy Uncle Sam, it sure doesn’t have to drill a second one. Is it envious of Illinois’ “per capita” statistics, to put it crudely?
California will try to rectify its anomalous situation by trying to force the rest of the country into the same economic straits that California has gleefully entered. Of course, Washington is on about that project even now.
I strolled the Berkeley hills suburbs a few days before
the election.
There was a profusion of liberal campaign posters on front lawns.
These are upper middle class people with homes and mortgages.
I am led to believe that at least in California, nature must take its course and the people have to have their noses literally rubbed into the very worst imaginable consequences of voting liberals into office before they are convinced that something is amiss and change their thoughts and actions.
Presumably they will start to get an early taste of what it will eventually be like when the cities run out of funding to provide adequate police protection, they triage protection to the suburbs, and the perps begin to move in.
:-(
Thank you for this.
Some of us are here and not laughing, ready to fight for our state.
Glad all the laughter wasn’t shared by the patriots who fought the Revolution. We don’t give up. We’re Americans. In CA we are overrun by illegals and bleeding hearts but it’s not our fault, and our ideas are the better ones.
One of the main reasons why the feds won’t take action against illegals is because of the number of liberal representatives that CA sends to the Congress to pollute it. Because of its sheer size, California skews federal elections. Ergo, your circular reasoning that CA is being victimized by the feds doesn’t convince me.
Why are Californians sending disproportionate income taxes to DC? Because they support the graduated income tax that nails states with high cost of living. Again, no sympathy from me. They are their own worst enemies.
Another big difference: The Titanic had life boats.
There are some who say CA is ‘polluting’ other states like Oregon and WA. (Uh...Oregon smoked that dream before we did) but that shouldn’t be possible, right? You who live in these states will just magically stop unions and the Dem habit of cultivating dependency and you’ll do it without our massive flood of uneducated illegal aliens (25% of CA’s are foreign born). In short - if CA were a toxin then it probably would not have given the world Reagan nor would any other state be subject to it -why they would just ‘stop’ invasion. Just like we all stopped Obama from winning the elections?
I guess that’s circular reasoning for you - ‘we’ complain about having Obama as POTUS and what the Dems wrought in congress but ‘we’ voted them right in so ‘we’ get what we deserve! We made our beds with Obama, we should lie in it without complaint! We’re finally getting what we ‘earned’ so we should prudently plan to buried under debt and lose quality of life and invite the whole world to applaud our demise because ‘we’ voted the Dems in!
I wasn’t asking for sympathy but I was a little surprised by the superiority and condemnation coming from one who is also living under Obama. It took Obamacare for enough Obamabots to draw away from the ‘dream’. It may be the collapse of CA (taking 13% of US Gross State Product with it)that will flip enough voters unless Repubs flee and give the Soros the entire state as a command post.
The author states - “There may well be historical parallels to what Californians did — but I cannot think of any.”
____________________________
The author and our nation would do well to study the fall of Rome. Outside of lead poisoning, almost all of the contributing forces are paralleled by our government and people today.
“One of the main reasons why the feds won’t take action against illegals is because of the number of liberal representatives that CA sends to the Congress to pollute it. Because of its sheer size, California skews federal elections. Ergo, your circular reasoning that CA is being victimized by the feds doesn’t convince me.”
Well now, how would that explain Arizona’s battle to insist the Feds enforce the border and not pay the way of illegals? You mean the Feds would help us battle illegal immigration but would legislate against Arizona? Last I heard, Obama was threatening to sue AZ because that state isn’t lying down like the Dems insist they do. The Dems want to flood the US with illegals and cultivate them as dependent citizens ‘fearful’ of repubs. Let’s just say that if illegals were expected to support Repubs - there’s be heavy artillery parked along our southern border facing south, trained on the banks of the Rio Grande. NNnoooo...what the Dems want is Amnesty so they can sign those potential voters up!
California and the Titanic do have have one thing in common: a presumption of arrogant invulnerability.
I don’t personally know a conservative who feels CA is invulnerable but perhaps you are referring to liberals? My liberal collegeaus always thought that jack booted republicans were lying in wait to destroy the entire country.
Maybe there are conservative strong holds of hubris but the conservatives I know have been struggling to speak up and educate (when they couldn’t be fired for it) in a vain effort to halt a steady downward slide to unions/koolaid drinkers and are not optimistic. I wonder if the Sacto type still think money will flow to the state after businesses have left? Ah there is a core of people who believe, like STuart Smalley, that if they are ‘green’ enough and ‘egalitarian’ enough and ‘morally superior’ enough that they would, gosh darn it, be worth it. It’s 1:40 here so I am probably overlooking the obvious - please excuse me.
My parents always thought the other shoe was about to drop but they were repubs. Oh and our Silicon Valley thought that they could manufacture wealth from the wealth conveyor belt forever. Yes - there are, regardless of party perhaps, who saw people getting rich were sure that CA was the place that would ‘deliver’ (real estate flipping etc) most quickly.
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