There was a time when California produced fine, handsome, upstanding, modest gentlemen such as myself.
Now?
Posted on 05/01/2015 10:23:11 AM PDT by pinochet
There was a time when Californians were the most envied people in America and around the world. California was taken away from Mexico in 1848, and the new Anglo-Saxon owners of California aggressively promoted an Anglo-Saxon civilizational identity for the state. From 1848 to 1948, there was an economic expansion that was unmatched in American history. From 1948-1988, California had become the most successful Anglo-Saxon Civilization in history. This was California's Golden Age. Wages and standards of living were higher than the rest of America. Mexican-Americans who were descended from the Mexicans who lived in California in 1848, were highly assimilated and part of California's Anglo-Saxon culture.
People in other parts of America dreamed of one day re-locating to California. The rest of America seemed to be like third world countries when compared to California. California also had the most right-wing small government Republicans in America, the Orange County Republicans. The people of the state were the most hostile to taxation of any people in America.
Hollywood was anti-communist in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. The Hollywood studios followed a moral code, that permitted Catholics to have oversight on the moral content of films. The University of California Berkeley was the only spot of left-wing activism in a right-wing state.
What happened to California? Multi-culturalism happened. Californians forgot that they were an Anglo-Saxon civilization, that required immigrants to assimilate into the Anglo-Saxon cultural norms of the state.
No. Next question?9
Trend-setting, yes. Civilized standards, not so much.
They might be refugees from failed policies, but they are hellbent on inflicting them on the rest of the country—and doing a good job at it too.
There was a time when California produced fine, handsome, upstanding, modest gentlemen such as myself.
Now?
Anyone under mid-fifties or so has no idea what you’re talking about. California has been down the wrong road for a long time.
Yes.
“During the 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles was a bastion of Anglo Protestantism, reflecting the values of Midwestern parishioners who had been carried to the Southland on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Well into the 1970s, Protestant denominational leaders enjoyed comfortable, influential ties with the city is still-strong “downtown business
establishment,” which itself was largely Protestant.
The Immigration Act of 1965, however, created the condition for a radically different religious future for the City of Angels-a future that would anoint Roman Catholicism as the area’s dominant religious group. Today Roman Catholicism is the single largest faith tradition in Los Angeles County, with 294 parishes and 3,631,368 adherents.
Among Christians, 71% are Catholics. Between 1980 and 1997, Roman Catholicism experienced a 36% growth.”
Born in Sacramento in 1946 my how times have changed apologies to all surrounding states
We tossed J Brown in early 80’s elected him gov again in 2000’s need I say more?
I thought California declared its independence from Mexico (only to be grabbed by the US the next day).
Yup. Lotsa my Nebraska relatives came on SP to LA starting in 1880s.
Largest WASP city on the planet in 1945, even up to 1960.
Then the invasion started....
Like Mexico was "taken away" from Spain or like Spain was "taken away" from Al-Andalus? Hardly. The people living in Mexican province of California left and formed the California Republic.
The average American voter is so pathetically ignorant that they cannot compare the economy of California to that of Texas and vote accordingly at the national level. I heard a statistic back in 2010 that 1,500 folks a day were moving to Texas for jobs.
I agree, Naomie! And I say it as a 5th generation California native.
New York and the Eastern Seaboard have always "set civilized standards for the rest of America." San Francisco has always been, since the Gold Rush, and remains today, only remotely civilized for Eastern sensibilities -- why do you think Pelosi is in SF? Los Angeles and So Cal are positively barbarian, barefoot barbarian!
Harrrummph!
The worst thing that ever happened to this country.
The legislation that was non-survivable, the guaranteed death blow.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s.
In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin.
After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
California also lead the way as far back as the mid-century in terms of “universal education” (Obama’s dream of free tuition), environmental wackiness, a regulatory climate for business, and plenty of other idiocy when it still elected Republican representatives. Whitey (both GOP and Dems) brought Big Brother to Cali long before mass illegal immigration. Let’s also not forget how much Cali was dependent on Uncle Sugar for the defense industry.
As a multigenerational native of California, I mark its decline to the mid ‘60s when east coast draft dodgers, looking for a low cost education (excuse to stay out of Viet Nam) poured in. They found that if they could manage to live there one year and declare that they were state residents they could enroll in the state colleges and universities for less than $75 per semester.
Of course they didn’t stay in school. They took to the streets and caused trouble with endless demands, sit ins, protests, dope smoking, and demonstrations. I lived in Berkeley at the time and we were treated to the Free Speech Movement, the Filthy Speech Movement, bra burnings, etc.
Endless undermining of our culture which had been pretty squeaky clean before the influx.
I can remember when CA had the most dynamic economy in the entire nation. I moved to Long Beach in 1985 to go to college from out of state. First thing I recall seeing in Long Beach were oil wells all over the place. Money was rolling into City coffers from oil royalties. Such revenues flowing in gave Long Beach the resources to purchase the Queen Mary and to expand its harbor complex to one of the largest in the world. I also remember a huge aero-space industry operating in Long Beach and throughout much of Southern CA employing hundreds of thousands of people in high paying jobs. President Reagan was in office back then and one of his highest priorities was rebuilding and modernizing our military. RR was also a fervent advocate of free trade and that benefitted our harbors and export industries including our massive agricultural industry in the Central Valley, not to mention Silicon Valley. When I moved here back then, I was working my way through college, and in less than one week living in the state, I secured two part time jobs. That was the type of economy we had here. Anyone who wanted a job could fine. L.A. too, had the finest police department of any large city in the country, which has been in steep decline since Daryl Gates left as chief of the LAPD. True, we always had a sizable contingent of radical left Dems in our state legislature, but they were always kept in check by GOP governors including RR, Deukmejian, and Wilson. We did have a thriving economy. We did have discipline in Sacramento, we did have a pro-business environment. Those were the golden days of CA I remember.
I remember those days. I was stationed in San Diego in the 1980’s. I remember thinking that I would like to live there. I remember going to a gun store and buying an AK-47, three 30 round magazines and 500 rounds of ammunition for $350, and walking out with it the same day. That was before California went nuts. No way would I live there today.
*** refugees from socialist policies in California are running to Colorado,***
And the most popular bumper sticker in Colorado forty years ago was DON’T CALIFORNICATE COLORADO!
Well, now it has been.
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