Not all Californians are of the same philosophical disposition. But the countervailing opinions are simply too few and too scattered to effectively shield against the emotional tide that has swept the state, and has boiled over into neighboring states as this brand of madness gets exported and propagated with the emigrants who can no longer stand to live next to the disagreeable results of their own earlier excesses.
Once upon a time, being a hippy or bohemian was just “quaint”, but then they started believing in their own nonsense concocted while under the influence of mind-altering drugs. Logic and rational discussion succumbed to the volume that can be emitted from the most powerful bullhorn. If ever there were a place where people could “define deviancy down”, California certainly filled the vacancy in that slot.
I spent a year out in California in 1973-1974, but I would not recognize the place today. Sacramento has outstripped San Francisco as a hotbed of liberal excesses, if only because that is where the “decision-makers” congregate in greatest number. They feed on each other’s fantasies about what would make an “ideal” place for the free exercise of hedonism and lassitude, and pass legislation accordingly.
Which is a shame. California, of all the states in the nation, was blessed with more natural riches and greater potential than any other state, in climate, geography, and availability of opportunity, the last of which is being crushed at every turn, by taxation, regulation, and a state government that has become a common scold. And a spendthrift to boot, just all the things that lead to divorce if between a heterosexual couple.
But even there, heterosexuality seems to be on the verge of being outlawed in California, as same-sex couples are being granted more and more “rights” they always had, but now are written into law in direct contradiction to much of the moral code this nation lived with for over 200 years.
“Cast Out Your Old Tired Ethics”, or COYOTE, seems to be the new state motto. Quite a fall from the Bear Flag Republic.
Very well stated.