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Victor Davis Hanson on California: The picture is bleak
American Thinker ^ | 12/10/2015 | Carol Brown

Posted on 12/10/2015 7:37:43 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Victor Davis Hanson, whose family has lived in California for generations, has written a new book. Jarrett Stepman of Breitbart reviewed The Decline and Fall of California: From Decadence to Destruction, where Hanson paints a stark picture of California’s decline from a state that exemplified the American dream to one crushed under the weight of its utopian vision.

…Clearly modeled on famous British historian Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hanson’s book makes it clear that the increasingly dystopian California has been the author of its own decline. A half-century of bad policy and failed ideology has reduced the Golden State to a shell of its former glory.

Hanson -- a college professor, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and an expert in the classics -- is a product of many generations of Californians who made their home in the state’s mostly agricultural central valley. Few come closer to Thomas Jefferson’s idealized philosopher-farmer than Hanson, who is highly educated in history, warfare, and philosophy, yet runs a working farm like his forefathers.

Unfortunately, Hanson’s prognosis for California is bleak-- especially for conservatives and middle-class Americans. “The old blue/red war for California is over,” Hanson writes. “Conservatives lost. Liberals won-- by a combination of flooding the state with government-supplied stuff, and welcoming millions in while showing the exit to others.”….

…The Republican Party’s power in the state is relegated to a few holdouts from the less populated, red interior. Most of the California GOP’s leadership embraces the most watered-down “me-too” liberalism. The feeble resistance to the left’s big government designs mostly comes from moderate Democrats if it comes at all. It is clear that Hanson is mostly attempting to warn fellow Americans


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


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; decline; future; hanson; vdh
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1 posted on 12/10/2015 7:37:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Facts:

1) Except in the very odd/exceptional election year of 1964, the Dems haven’t cracked 50% of the whites in a Presidential election since 1932
.
2) Once the ‘64 election was over, the Dems understood that they would never win another Presidential election again unless the Republicans REALLY screwed up...or unless they changed the electorate in a dramatic way.

3) The Dems, courtesy of Bobby Kennedy who wrote the law, and Teddy Kennedy who pushed it in the Senate, passed the 1965 Immigration Act. That law dramatically reduced immigration from our then-traditional large sources of immigrants - England, Ireland, Holland, Germany, etc. - and replaced them with vast numbers of Turd Worlders...whom everyone knows vote around 80% for Dems, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, as new immigrants have traditionally done.

4) As a result of the ‘65 Act, and due to the Dem’s outright lying in ‘86 regarding an effective (or any) fence, there are now probably 30 - 40 million illegals in this nation. Note that the (probably low-ball) figure in 2005 was 11 million...we have 2-3 million come in every year, so simple math says that the number is actually somewhere between 31 and 41 million). If any substantial portion of these people ever become citizens, then the Dems will have accomplished a complete shift of the electorate, and will be virtually invincible on the national level. Every state will become like California, both politically and economically - which is to say, overwhelming Dem and broke. But at least if you don’t like California now, you can leave for a better place without much trouble - where are you going to go if EVERY state is like that?

5) Every Republican, and every Conservative voter MUST UNDERSTAND that if such a state of affairs comes to be, NO OTHER ISSUE WILL MATTER AT ALL, because we will ALWAYS AND FOREVER lose on those issues. Immigration is THE issue of this election, and this election is as critical as the 1860 election was - and for the same reason, because it will determine whether this nation continues on as it has existed in the past, or becomes a new and unrecognizable entity that simply occupies the same geographic territory.

Please wake up, and help others to do so by sending them this post (or recommending “Adios America” to them). It really is THAT important.


2 posted on 12/10/2015 7:40:10 AM PST by Ultima
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To: SeekAndFind

Started and ended with Jerry Brown.


3 posted on 12/10/2015 7:41:18 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I hear the weather is nice.


4 posted on 12/10/2015 7:42:50 AM PST by 556x45
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To: Ultima

It’s sad really. I was born and raised in Southern California, lived there until about 18 months ago when I finally moved. I had very mixed feelings, but the state is like an old friend who is on life support, they are not going to get better or make a turn around.


5 posted on 12/10/2015 7:45:38 AM PST by luckodeirish (The Land of the Free-Because of the Brave!!!!!!!)
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To: 556x45

Yes it is, but there is no water.


6 posted on 12/10/2015 7:46:47 AM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: SeekAndFind

I fled the state in `88. I know many very good doctors, lawyers, engineers and other entrepreneurs who have also fled the state. I returned home to Ohio but most that I know are now in Texas.


7 posted on 12/10/2015 7:47:42 AM PST by Buckeye Battle Cry (Hillary - Ethically sleazy and politically stupid)
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To: luckodeirish

Been here my whole life. 55 years and I can’t wait to move to AZ or Nevada.


8 posted on 12/10/2015 7:48:29 AM PST by US_MilitaryRules (The last suit you wear has no pockets!)
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To: A CA Guy

We suffer a drought due to Jerry Brown who decided when leaving his office the first time to give all our water rights away.
Also brought unions into state emolument leading U.S. down the road to ruin and bonds.
Unions use millions to sell us voting in bonds which are 40 year increases in our property taxes. For decades they have sold us the lines “for the teacher, schools and police”.
Bonds pass then they rob the school and police budget to increase the general budget and use bonds to replace the money.
Have done this little dog and pony show thirty times over with bonds since I’ve been politically aware and still voters don’t catch on.

Soon I look for them to say vote bonds and get stuff gratis.


9 posted on 12/10/2015 7:49:19 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: SeekAndFind

California (the Bay Area, in particular) was a great place to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s. I left there in 1976 when I joined the military and never moved back. And I never will.


10 posted on 12/10/2015 7:49:35 AM PST by ScottinVA (If you're not enraged...why?)
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To: US_MilitaryRules

Obamacare takes 4% of your house values and California maybe some when you go.


11 posted on 12/10/2015 7:50:36 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: US_MilitaryRules
Been here my whole life. 55 years

You seriously deserve an award for trying to make a go of it in that state. I tell my family members that as well. They too have lived there all their lives.

12 posted on 12/10/2015 7:51:00 AM PST by ScottinVA (If you're not enraged...why?)
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To: US_MilitaryRules

I am caring for my elderly mom in CA. as soon as she is no longer with me I am going to the GREAT state of Texas!!! My VERY first day in Texas will apply for a CC permit!!!! CAN’T WAIT !!!!!!!


13 posted on 12/10/2015 7:58:16 AM PST by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: US_MilitaryRules

RE: Been here my whole life. 55 years

Can’t blame you, when it comes to good weather, no state other than Hawaii beats California.

THAT is something people will always consider.


14 posted on 12/10/2015 8:04:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

VDH is a great read.


15 posted on 12/10/2015 8:21:25 AM PST by KC Burke (Ceterum censeo Islam esse delendam)
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To: A CA Guy

Actually, it was the SLOW AND PAINFUL CREEP OF THE LIBERAL AGENDA. That’s what it always is. Each Governor did their part to make it happen.

Over 4 million conservatives have left the state. Probably because so many of the military installations were pared down and that caused a lot of those military families to move back home - away from CA.

That’s my best guess.

However, there are a lot of seniors here who are stuck and cannot move.


16 posted on 12/10/2015 8:22:20 AM PST by CyberAnt ("The fields are white unto Harvest")
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To: SeekAndFind

From over 10 years ago!!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1377367/posts


17 posted on 12/10/2015 8:30:31 AM PST by Allen In Texas Hill Country
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To: SeekAndFind

Ha! I left that craphole for Utah in 1982 and have never looked back. I still visit because of family. It just gets worse and worse every year.


18 posted on 12/10/2015 8:38:33 AM PST by Seruzawa (All those memories will be lost,in time, like tears in rain.)
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To: Ultima
Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope...my most liberal friend - herself an immigrant - told me just yesterday that we must place a moratorium on all immigration and “clean up the mess”.
19 posted on 12/10/2015 8:44:55 AM PST by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob 'urban yutes' and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)
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To: Kit cat
... I am going to the GREAT state of Texas!!!

Now hold on a minute... we haven't voted to let you in yet. </s

20 posted on 12/10/2015 9:26:27 AM PST by ken in texas
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