Posted on 12/15/2010 12:31:51 PM PST by ScottinVA
Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley.
The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
I wouldn't waste time.
You don't want to be "the last white farmer in Zimbabwe".
RE: “We were touring the Monterey peninsula a few years ago and I took my wife to Nepenthe because I remembered it from the Elizabeth Taylor movie many years ago. I remarked to my wife that we were sitting higher above sea level than the highest point in Louisiana, about 11 miles from our place near Driskill “Mountain”, and it turned out that the lady at the next table had relatives buried on Driskill Mountain and went to their annual reunion there . . . small world.”
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Yes, small world — I think that movie was The Sandpiper... — I love Nepenthe — a lot more ‘upscale’ than it was ‘back in the day.’ And all those ‘upscale’ former hippies are consummate capitalists now, even if they do vote ‘left.’
RE: “Beware! Cambria is a notorious center for art galleries and gift shops. Run away!”
*****
heh heh........ that’s what I was thinking — but seriously, I’m from L.A. and love to stop in Cambria before driving north on Highway One to Big Sur and Carmel.....
I hope that other poster brings his wife to CA — we’re not ALL leftist idiots, not by a longshot.
Far too many would laugh and say, "It serves those fruits and nuts in California right." Or, "Good, let it sink into the ocean." Or, "Let's give it back to Mexico, ha ha ha!" What they fail to realize is that as California goes, so goes the nation.
RE: “.....when in God’s name will the toilet finally stop swirling and make that tell-tale gurgling noise already?
Sheesh.. it’s excruciating.”
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All the CA haters on FR make me laugh — you remind me of a friend’s teenager, from Ohio, who was taken to visit Las Vegas one year on a family vacation — her reaction to the amazing display of lights at night on the Strip was to yawn and announce that “It looks just like downtown Akron...”
We get it - you hate the state, hate the residents — so don’t visit!
This professor was careful to not “make any moral judgments” which leads me to believe he is a liberal whining because their agenda has taken something out of his life. He has a farm in an area that was taken over by Mexicans. Liberals only want to affect other people and take other people’s money.
As easterners we work and stay in Oregon and California (N) routinely, and interact with the working, and admittedly predominantly white, population. My impression, developed over about seven years, is this:
There are many like you in California, honest conservative Americans who believe in productivity and enterprise, along with the conscious middle class values of family, community, and individual assumption of responsibility, eschewing the greed of the Hollywood types, and understanding (deeply) the significance of these postures with respect to individual freedom and dignity.
BUT that is no longer the majority of the voting population, as illustrated by Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown, Feinstein, etc. In complex systems there is frequently a threshold of positive feedback (negative results in this case) where the system becomes unstable and disintegrates, and CA may indeed be there.
In OR, and maybe WA, but little experience there, I see the situation as profoundly different. There are truly many genuinely honest conservative (in the sense cited above) people in OR, probably a majority, but they are really really naive. That is, in their isolated and geographically precious womb they still think of the US government as the fuzzy mother and apple pie entity it appeared to be in decades past. (When those of us with any savvy at all know that we are dealing now with a ruthless, ugly meg-evil, ala Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and a genuinely criminal bunch of Senators.) Re-election of Patty Murray (WA), just a stupid female in tennis shoes supports this naivete view.
In our vision, California really has transformed into a majority of what we call structural leftists. That is, people who really are blinded into, and actively pursue, government dependence, without any consciousness or recognition at all of the deep ramifications of individual responsibility, i.e. freedom. (Jaynes, incidentally, analyzed such mindless populations as "Bicamerals.")
Unfortunately you are right, even here on FR, there are those who will just generalize the plight of CA across its constituency. I know for a fact there are many there who do understand the situation, but again it may be beyond correction. Hopefully that is not the case for America in general.
Of course good luck in getting the "Republican Party DC establishment" to face any analysis or courage which would correct us. Carly Fiorina was supported because it was just "cool" in CA to have a woman.
Johnny Suntrade
I’m not a “Claifornia hater” - - as a matter of fact I’ve been there three times and thought it was the most beautiful place I ever saw. During a couple of Twenty-Nine Palms deployments I got to spend several weeks sleeping out in the middle of the Mojave. Under all those stars... just wow!
And up north at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport we scaled the Sierra Nevadas where we rolled out our sleeping bags near mountain creeks, woke up covered in snow in June, and I thought I died and went to heaven. Magnificent doesn’t even begin to describe that place.
No, I don’t hate California. I pity the state, and what the people there are doing to it through their collective electoral malice. I know there are a whole lot of good conservatives in California, but apparently not enough to save it. My hope is that a full-blown bankruptcy and federal takeover under Republican congressional oversight might offer a rebirth. I only wonder how many people there, with the way they vote, truly deserve a second chance.
It’s not just the atheists, welfare grandmothers, union pinky rings, abortion enthusiasts, condom-throwers, Boy Scout-hating lesbians, hand-wringing college professors, Hollywood drunks, illegal aliens, and the rest of the America-hating parasites, losers, and goofballs who comprise the Democrat party “base” who elect the likes of Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown - - they couldn’t do it alone. It’s also a whole lot of working, taxpaying Americans who should know better. It is they who are your real problem.
FRegards, and best of luck to you,
LH
Cambria is a nice place to vacation, and a short drive to Paso Robles...the temperatures can be 30-40 degrees different (100 degrees in Paso and 60 degrees in Cambria) but it is pretty...Hearst Castle is also nearby.
Why would you want to give a bunch of California Socialists your vacation dollars when there are many Conservative locales that are equally interesting to tour?
This is like complaining about the liberal MSM and then subscribing to your local liberal newspaper.
Only liberals could create an apartheid society in America and they don’t seem to mind it exists.
Not at all.
I understand you point, but despite all of the Marxist Madness (trust me, I am writing you from a desk in San Francisco now), there are parts of this state that are beautiful and second-to-none.
I live here because my job is here and my wife is a native Californian. Otherwise, I would move.
I lived for many, many years in SF and yes there are a lot of fabulous places to visit in California.
That being said, it was a Californian named Ronald Reagan who bankrupted a communist regime called the USSR.
Until California faces bankruptcy the communists currently running the state will not relent.
Thus my point that conservatives should take positive action and not buy California Municipal Bonds nor spend their vacation dollars in California.
Isn't Diversity wonderful! Diversity is so wonderful that it's better than anything else!
I’d love to know how California “allowed” reconquista. Every single piece of the dam that broke that resulted in this catastrophe — guarding the border, residency requirements, work document enforcement, the awarding of birthright citizenship — is claimed by the UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT as their sole purview. It doesn’t matter whom we elect governor.
By an overwhelming majority, Californians passed Prop. 187 in 1994 to take away medical care, access to schools and other welfare and social services from illegal aliens. It was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. President Bush endorsed the ruling. So the Feds said in effect that citizenship Does. Not. Matter. So what would you have had California do? Take up arms?
And I wouldn’t reference the Arizona law if I were you to make your point. Even if it is wending its way through the appeals process, the reconquista crowd gets their way, because it can’t be enforced while they fight it out. Arizona is just like California: you don’t have to be an American citizen to live and work there, and the ONLY people charged by the Constitution with doing something about it have utterly abrogated their responsibility and abandoned us.
And as far as “quarantining” us... your economic ignorance is breathtaking. If you don’t, as you say, care about your fellow Americans, fine. Think with your wallet. We are the richest state in the union — the entire country benefits from our agriculture, minerals, manufacturing — the ninth biggest economy in the WORLD — and you would just build a wall. I’m glad you’re not in charge, and I’m REALLY glad you’re not a Californian.
I’d love to know your state, so the next time you experience a hurricane/tornado/fire/terrorist attack, I can wish you the best of luck.
Eventually, we’ll need to send the 1st Marine Division to clean up fascist California. Okay, add the 101st Airborne, too.
This illegal eco-fascist state of California cannot be allowed to continue its existence in America. Either we subsume ourselves to Marxist slavery or be rid of it. I vote the latter.
>Excellent turn of the phrase.<
The author nailed it, didn’t he?
>It’s not just the atheists, welfare grandmothers, union pinky rings, abortion enthusiasts, condom-throwers, Boy Scout-hating lesbians, hand-wringing college professors, Hollywood drunks, illegal aliens, and the rest of the America-hating parasites, losers, and goofballs who comprise the Democrat party “base” who elect the likes of Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown - - they couldn’t do it alone. It’s also a whole lot of working, taxpaying Americans who should know better. It is they who are your real problem.<
Agreed.
“And why isn’t your impulse to help us rather than deride us?”
I’m calling for the 1st Marine Division to line up shoulder-to-shoulder, march north from Camp Pendleton and clean up your state. No derision on my part. I’m offering a solution.
If that’s too extreme, wait till we take back the presidency and congress in 2012 - which we will - and send in a division of federal auditors, lawyers and armed federal agents to arrest every California eco-fascist and ship them one-way to North Korea.
You choose. Either way works.
I’m all for both, and I’m not the only one, election results notwithstanding.
You know, it wasn’t that long ago that the Northern states drew a line in the sand for the Southern states. They said, “We’re not having this,” vis-a-vis secession and slavery, and they were willing to fight a war to preserve the union.
If the course of California is to be changed — if it is to remain an American state and not a colony of Mexico — I believe it will come from the rest of the American states, who have a vital stake in the outcome, whether they know it or not, despite all the yammering about “quarantine.” We can’t fix it without the Feds — and that means support from the other 49 states.
(And semper fi!, if a non-marine is allowed to say it. If not, apologies.)
Jerry will plunge, while Babs and Diane will stomp.
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