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Victor Davis Hanson: How California’s Paradise Become our Purgatory
American Greatness ^ | 20 Jun, 2024 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 06/20/2024 5:05:55 AM PDT by MtnClimber

How and why did California end up as a warning to Western civilization of what might be in store for anyone who followed its nihilism?

California has become a test case of the suicide of the West. Never before has such a state, so rich in natural resources and endowed with such a bountiful human inheritance, self-destructed so rapidly.

How and why did California so utterly consume its unmatched natural and ancestral inheritance and end up as a warning to Western civilization of what might be in store for anyone who followed its nihilism?

The symptoms of the state’s suicide are indisputable.

Governor Gavin Newsom enjoyed a recent $98 billion budget surplus—gifted from multibillion-dollar federal COVID-19 subsidies, the highest income and gas taxes in the nation, and among the country’s steepest sales and property taxes.

Yet in a year, he turned it into a growing $45 billion budget deficit.

At a time of an over-regulated, overtaxed, and sputtering economy, Newsom spent lavishly on new entitlements, illegal immigrants, and untried and inefficient green projects.

Newsom was endowed with two of the wettest years in recent California history. Yet he and radical environmentalists squandered the water bounty—as snowmelts and runoff long designated for agricultural irrigation were drained from aqueducts and reservoirs to flow out to sea.

Newsom transferred millions of dollars designated by a voter referendum to build dams and aqueducts for water storage and instead blew up four historic dams on the Klamath River. For decades, these now-destroyed scenic lakes provided clean, green hydroelectric power, irrigation storage, flood control, and recreation.

California hosts one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients. Over a fifth of the population lives below the property line. Nearly half the nation’s homeless sleep on the streets of its major cities.

The state’s downtowns are dirty, dangerous, and...

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: vdh; victordavishanson
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To: MtnClimber

Yes and the same results ensue.

California has become a test case of the suicide of the West.


21 posted on 06/20/2024 6:59:13 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: MtnClimber

California has not had a decent Governor since Pete Wilson.


22 posted on 06/20/2024 7:02:58 AM PDT by vaskypilot
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To: Bodega
I lived in Sah Francisco, just when the GAY crap was blooming. It was a GORGEOUS city!! ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS! But went back a few years ago, and UGH! DOUBLE UGH!! HORRIBLE!

I also lived outside of LA.....went back a few years ago also, and it was DISGUSTING!!

HAWAII was DISGUSTING with ALL THE HOMELESS TENT CITIES EVERYWHERE!!

Wherever Democrats are in charge, they RUIN and DESTROY IT! EVERYWHERE AND EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH IS RUINED!

23 posted on 06/20/2024 7:03:04 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: vaskypilot

Wilson was a true rino, a liberal Republican with one really odd strength for someone like him, he was good on immigration.


24 posted on 06/20/2024 8:22:08 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: MtnClimber

Bttt.

5.56mm


25 posted on 06/20/2024 8:26:59 AM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho have got to go. )
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To: ansel12
Most of the governors, senators, assembly and state senators who were republican were rinos all up and down the line to the dog catcher. The CA republican party eventually convinced enough voters to vote otherwise, and succeeded in getting rid of most of them.

Unfortunately, they were all replaced with rats.

26 posted on 06/20/2024 8:37:49 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma deuce)
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To: MtnClimber

California sucks.

CA is doomed.

I left in 2022 and never looked back. Like the line goes from Saving Private Ryan, “Let it burn.”


27 posted on 06/20/2024 8:42:30 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (America -- July 4, 1776 to November 3, 2020 -- R.I.P.)
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To: going hot

I use California versus Texas as an example of how social conservatism is required for conservatism.

California was largely republican but they were social liberals, Texas was democrat but they were social conservatives, when the hard left made its big push the Texans weren’t suited for it and rejected it but when the hard left hit California there was no serious conservatives to resist, the rinos were fairly easily to overcome.


28 posted on 06/20/2024 8:57:21 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: ansel12
I believe it is much simpler than that.

The bay area and LA basin is where the population is.

CA sends out ballots to every registered voter.

Only 50% participate in voting.

There is a shit load of ballots out there floating around.

In those two areas with more than half of the CA population, it is easy to "sway" the votes "properly".

On every election light, watching on the SOS web page, early votes lean conservative, and then the vote dump from those two areas overwhelms the total.

It is entrenched, and not even considered a cheat, simply the way things are.

It is supported up and down by the media, which itself is infiltrated and 98% rat infested.

The republican party cannnot even argue against the jungle primary! They allow rats to dictate how their primary is to be ran.

How toothless is that?

29 posted on 06/20/2024 9:08:33 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma deuce)
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To: going hot

I was speaking of how it got to this, the California republicans were mostly social liberal rinos and so they were no match for the left that started running over them in the 70s, and in fact being social liberals they were largely not in much disagreement with the left on much of the foundational destruction of California.
Texas being social conservative had a powerful and determined reaction to the hard left democrat party, they fought for the school books and the schools, and fought everywhere they could, and it has largely worked.


30 posted on 06/20/2024 9:52:35 AM PDT by ansel12 ((NATO warrior under Reagan, and RA under Nixon, bemoaning the pro-Russians from Vietnam to Ukraine.))
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To: ansel12
On that note, the conservative voting block in CA is pining for someone, anyone, who would risk a bloody nose in the arena.

Witness the current race for senate.

A lying cheating outright criminal pencil neck who will say and do anything to win, vs a complacent, no feather ruffling "nice guy" thinking he has a chance, not willing to go on the offensive and call out the opponant for what he is.

Conservatives need to find someone willing to go all in, and not just call the bet.

31 posted on 06/20/2024 10:02:24 AM PDT by going hot (Happiness is a Momma deuce)
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To: Pete Dovgan

Excellent analysis there, Pete. Thank you for exposing the battle lines very clearly.


32 posted on 06/20/2024 3:03:19 PM PDT by poconopundit (MAGA isn’t a slogan it’s a matter of Americas survival.)
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To: MtnClimber

Purgatory has become a cliche catch phrase. Like karma.

Does not exist in Protestant, nondenominational Christian, Islam, Hinduism or other religions. Hindus could argue a future worse or better life is similar, though. Christians believe in one chance at one life and that’s it.

It is a Catholic term for a way for souls to be cleaned and reformed (purged of sin and evil) since no evil is allowed in heaven.
Good news is all souls who are in Purgatory will later go to heaven.

Thus if California were Purgatory the torment there for good conservative people among the filthy sinning Dems would be on the way to something better.

It isn’t.


33 posted on 06/21/2024 10:53:31 AM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.)
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To: going hot

And that “nice guy”, following CA GOP tradition, runs his campaign just aggressive enough to get in the top-two for the November election, then disappear.


34 posted on 06/21/2024 11:21:05 AM PDT by San Joaquin
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To: MtnClimber

I am a native Californian since 1956.

If you could have seen this state as the 60s dawned you would have compared to a biblical paradise.

And this native Californian was determined to stay and fight. But now my heart is broken and I have no fight remaining.

I’m moving to Reno.


35 posted on 06/21/2024 12:18:18 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Presbyterian Reporter; All

“I only have to use one word: DEMOCRATS”

Don’t let the farmers off the hook.

They continue to rape this state.

A textbook case of over farming, the soils will be dead in another 50 years.


36 posted on 06/21/2024 12:21:24 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: 5th MEB; 6ppc; agondonter; Alberta's Child; Alouette; AndyJackson; Aria; artichokegrower; ...
Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list

Governor Gavin Newsom enjoyed a recent $98 billion budget surplus—gifted from multibillion-dollar federal COVID-19 subsidies, the highest income and gas taxes in the nation, and among the country’s steepest sales and property taxes.

Yet in a year, he turned it into a growing $45 billion budget deficit.

And this is the man who wants to be selected as our next resident in DC?

FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR

Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall

American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness

His website: Victor Davis Hanson

Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.

As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.

Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience.

37 posted on 06/23/2024 10:01:10 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: MtnClimber; texas booster; metmom; Liz
" California has become a test case of the suicide of the West.
Never before has such a state, so rich in natural resources and endowed with such a bountiful human inheritance, self-destructed so rapidly."

How true !

38 posted on 06/23/2024 10:13:34 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt
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