Yeah, right. Is that your Foreign Policy initiative on Israel and the Palestinians, too? Or perhaps you're Neville Chamberlain reincarnate?
Liberalism infects the greatest piece of geography in the Lower 48 and you have the unadulterated panty-waisteness to advocate abandoning it to the Statist dogs?? Have you lost your freakin' MIND?!
Look, cards on the table, here; Californian Liberalism has done a great deal to make places like Idaho look REALLY appealing. Lets face it, you're not going to get disturbed by the drive-by thumpa-thump of rap crap or blaring-drunk-out-the-window mariachi music sitting on your front porch 5 miles outside, say, Idaho City.
OTOH, you're also not going to have real estate where the bare dirt is worth $1,000,000 per acre. Nor are you going to have a regular guy's 9-5 that pays $85 Large.
There are alotta nice-sounding reasons to get the heck out of California, but it really is true that, once you're gone, you all but can't come back. The economic windfall you get leaving becomes the economic barrier to your return. Worse, since the majority of that "windfall" represents the value of your appreciating assets that you cashed in on the way out, you've now got to try and find something in your new locale that performs as well, or you'll be continuously losing the differential between appreciation here, and appreciation there.
I can sell my little house on it 8300sq. ft. lot for, say, half a mil. And I could take that money and buy a newer 4 & 2 on 5 acres in or near Boise. But, guess what? Even though I've successfully reinvested my value, I'll be on the short end in terms of long-range appreciation. And -- news flash -- liberlism is happily percolating away in the Idaho State Legislature, so there'll be all the same junk to fight there, as there is here, it just won't be quite so far along.
So, why go to all the trouble to pack up and leave, go through all of the fiscal gyrations necessary to preserve the long-term value of your invested capital, just to end up fighting the same breed of liberlism that you were fighting before? When you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, leaving makes alot less sense. Not that it makes NO sense, but it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Fine. Stay. You’ll get what you deserve. Flash: Kali is already a liberal cesspool. Good luck with that.
You make some good points, but I made the decision to leave Cali in late 2005.
Part of it was a layoff in 2003. The bloom was off the rose for me in the Silicon Valley at that point. And I was disheartened by the takeover of the CA GOP by the celebrity RINO worshippers- I was a McClintock guy.
I’d been priced out of the Bay Area housing market anyway- at least here in AZ I have a chance to afford a place of my own. I’m looking to buy within the next year.
On the other hand, I do sometimes wonder if I limited my chances for future advancement by leaving the Silicon Valley but I really do like the freedom Arizona offers its citizens and although they are not perfect I’m much happier with John McCain and John Kyl as my Senators then Boxer and Feinstein.
And the gate is not permanently barred for my return to CA, the company I work for is located in CA and I still have lots of business contacts there.