Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Big Idea: California Is So Over
thedailybeast.com ^ | 04/19/15 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 04/19/2015 6:43:42 AM PDT by amnestynone

California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes.

The water situation reflects this breakdown in the starkest way. Everyone who follows California knew it was inevitable we would suffer a long-term drought. Most of the state—including the Bay Area as well as greater Los Angeles—is semi-arid, and could barely support more than a tiny fraction of its current population. California’s response to aridity has always been primarily an engineering one that followed the old Roman model of siphoning water from the high country to service cities and farms.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; governormoonbeam; jerrybrown; moonbeam
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-69 next last
To: amnestynone

I moved to California in 1978. Indeed, the author has accurately and clearly describes the situation here. Victor Davis Hanson also writes persuasively about how the greens have created the two-tier feudal system here. He is from Selma, CA, a now impoverished farming town now completely overrun by illegals and crime.

You can’t have a successful state that quadruples in population over 50 years but builds almost no new infrastructure and warmly welcomes illegals as well as welfare deadbeats from all over the nation.


21 posted on 04/19/2015 7:16:06 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not, no explanation is possible)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

It’s because of the incestuous relationship between the DEMOCRATIC party in California, the liberals, socialists and the communists, and these “GLOBAL WARMING” idiots. Oh, the Lame Stream Media is helping this along, because they are part of the scam. The ordinary citizen doesn’t have a chance. The only option the ordinary citizen has is to leave the state.


22 posted on 04/19/2015 7:19:23 AM PDT by gingerbread
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

California has been mugged by liberalism. Let’s hope they will move to the right.


23 posted on 04/19/2015 7:24:35 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (WSC: The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat

Good post - thanks for the links.


24 posted on 04/19/2015 7:26:07 AM PDT by aquila48
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone
But this can't be. I thought liberalism and big government worked?

Obviously, the right people aren't in charge.

25 posted on 04/19/2015 7:27:40 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (ANYBODY BUT FRICKING JEB AND HILLARY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

Joel Kotkin? The guy who wrote glowing articles about the New Los Angeles back in the 90’s, how massive numbers of Mexicans would remake LA into a glittering multi-cultural salsa paradise?

That Joel Kotkin? Now he says there never was enough water and we all knew it?

Don’t recall him saying a damn thing about it.

Soon he’ll be denying he ever said anything nice about The Sacred Hispanic Masses.


26 posted on 04/19/2015 7:27:48 AM PDT by Regulator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gaffer

They are not zealots. They are power-mad oligarchs who desire to dominate—by controlling water, food, and, ultimately, *you*—


27 posted on 04/19/2015 7:29:37 AM PDT by Mamzelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Regulator
25 years before he was elected President RoanldReagan was a lib Democrat. Apparently Joel Kotkin has changed his stripes too.his site www.newgeography is really a wonderful site with a lot of information written by many perceptive writers. try it!
28 posted on 04/19/2015 7:31:34 AM PDT by amnestynone (A big government conservative is just a corporatist who is not paying enough taxes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat

Thanks for the links.


29 posted on 04/19/2015 7:33:50 AM PDT by Nevadan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Mamzelle

Semantics. Words sometimes get in the way because of quibbling. Evil is still evil.


30 posted on 04/19/2015 7:34:40 AM PDT by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: ProtectOurFreedom
I moved to California in 1978. Indeed, the author has accurately and clearly describes the situation here. Victor Davis Hanson also writes persuasively about how the greens have created the two-tier feudal system here. He is from Selma, CA, a now impoverished farming town now completely overrun by illegals and crime.

I was born and raised just 5 miles from Selma. Lived most of my adult life in CA.

Last year we left for good. We just couldn't afford to retire in Cali. We go back to the Central Valley a few times a year to visit and it makes me very sad to see what's happened to the land. I'm glad my dad didn't have to try and farm through this mess!

31 posted on 04/19/2015 7:35:42 AM PDT by CAluvdubya (<------- has now left CA for NV, where God and guns have not been outlawed! "The Miracle of America")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat
The fundamental structure of this violates the Ten Commandments that forbid lies, coveting and theft.

Good comments.

One might easily observe socialism violates all of the Ten Commandments and Biblical principles (such as listed in Proverbs) and be even more comprehensive than the above listing.

Socialism is a system which subverts Natural Law, subverts that which is best and worthy in human nature, and encourages and rewards the worst.

32 posted on 04/19/2015 7:40:29 AM PDT by Gritty (It's obvious to me 'racism' is 99% fake and hatred of religion is 98% real - Jonah Goldberg)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

I note that he now makes the points that many of us were making against him back in the day.

That was the time of “oh don’t worry, tens of millions of Mexicans will be great - think of the cheap babysitting!”

So it’s nice to see him grow up. But....the damage is done.

And it’s also nice to see that he noticed Tucson uses things like Xeriscaping to cope with low rainfall. I used to get a lot of blank stares when I said things like that when I moved from Arizona to California 30 years ago.


33 posted on 04/19/2015 7:41:46 AM PDT by Regulator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat; amnestynone

I live in the bay area - I have a rain gauge in the back yard and this year it registered 26 inches (from October to now), which is double the normal. Most of it came in 4 separate rain storms and they were warm thus they didn’t produce as much snow accumulation as we normally get. Still the precipitation was there and should have been captured by the system of reservoirs along the Sierra foothills.

I have a suspicion that this crisis is being hyped as part of the push toward “climate change” laws that will be coming later this year (the Pope will be part of it). Governor moonbeam is a rabid advocate of that, so it is totally in his interest to make the problem seem much worse than it is.


34 posted on 04/19/2015 7:44:41 AM PDT by aquila48
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat

Something important to recognize: socialism is driven by population density. Limiting the amount of freshwater is highly effective at limiting its growth. California doesn’t need desalination, it needs less people moving into the high density coastal cities.


35 posted on 04/19/2015 7:46:07 AM PDT by Reeses (A journey of a thousand miles begins with a government pat down.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

The left, progressives, liberals, whatever you want to call them, have destroyed California. It’s just a damn shame. And they have learned nothing from it.


36 posted on 04/19/2015 7:51:15 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Let us now try liberty)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone
What would be the result if Right-of-Center billionaires put their money at the grass roots level in the socialist paradise instead of supporting failed attempts by RINO GOP presidential candidates? Educate the hoi polloi, show the inevitable results of Greenie policies, expose the corruption of union politics and move local government to the right.
37 posted on 04/19/2015 7:54:59 AM PDT by I am Richard Brandon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: amnestynone

democrats


38 posted on 04/19/2015 8:05:57 AM PDT by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: theBuckwheat
obel economist F.A. Hayek showed that a national economy had such an immense myriad of dynamic economic relationships that no single committee or bureaucracy, no matter how smart or how well staffed, could possibly know enough to direct prices or production levels.

Basic theorem of Cybernetics.....the controlling system must be at least as complex as the system being controlled.

39 posted on 04/19/2015 8:09:34 AM PDT by spokeshave (He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: I am Richard Brandon

“What would be the result if Right-of-Center billionaires put their money at the grass roots level”

They are to busy, “working with the Democrats to get things done.”

Notice how the only conservative reforms that get done put money into their pocket?


40 posted on 04/19/2015 8:10:38 AM PDT by amnestynone (A big government conservative is just a corporatist who is not paying enough taxes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-69 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson