Posted on 05/12/2003 7:20:14 AM PDT by boris
Sacramento's fiscal woes damage quality of life and public optimism.
By D.J. Waldie
Like a bulldozed hillside above Los Angeles waiting for more tract houses, optimism in California is starting to erode. We don't know exactly what's happening, only that we're finally at the end of a year of public dissimulation about the readiness of the state's $35-billion budget shortfall to consume large parts of the way of life that we've wished into existence since 1945. Our California — imperfect, heedless and lovely — is our home, and it's beginning to feel awfully neglected.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Waldie is correct that Californians "wished into existence" many of the "services" he now claims are vital.
Alexander Fraser Tyler, in "Cycle of Democracy" (1770), said: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury." We are now witnessing the ultimate outcome of this sobering truth.
For the vast majority of us who must actually work for a living--and provide value for consumers, customers, or stock-holders, it is risible to read Waldie's complaints.
It is my fervent hope that whatever sinecure he holds is eliminated so that he may actually work for a living, rather than snorting up public funds with the other, um, porkers.
--Boris
Therein lies the problem. The term "vast" is being diluted by too many that don't have to work or are so undereducated that they are working-poor and pay no taxes.
But, an unintended consequence was that the public employees had a perfect excuse to cover every case of laziness, stupidity, or dishonsety, "that's a result of the budget cuts." The public employees are GROSSLY overpaid and underworked. Many have other jobs (pizza shop, delivery service, internet sites, etc.), related, in general, with what they are supposed to be doing for the state or what they did before they got a state job.
Even in good times, most state employees work about a 45-65% rate and aren't concerned with errors (it is someone elses "job" to catch and correct). No politician, especially a leftist, would EVER go after the public employees' unions.
California is a beautiful playground. This encourages a child-like attitude and a sense of irresponsibility, and it's easy to be blinded by denial.
When those blinded by denial are forced to see reality, it can be horrible.
Let's hope that they begin to see reality before it's too late.
I first saw that word used in Ann Coulter's book "Slander". Big named publishers like to give liberals multi-million dollar advances for books that don't sell well (like Al Gore's books and Hillary's $8 million advance.) Many conversative books sell very well, but consistenly no big advances are given to successful conservative writers. Conservatives have to prove themselves over and over again. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)
Hence big name book publishers provide sinecure for liberals.
Sorry I digreed.
That's exactly why both our state and federal founders did not choose a democracy as our form of government.
The California legislature moved back toward democracy in 1998, destroying the safeguards of our republician system along the way, when they redistricted the state and empowered a single issue mob.
It is ironic that two out of the three forms of democracy in California, the initiative and referendum processes, are frequently nullified by the courts while these same courts seldom even raise their collective eyebrows when California's republican protections incoporated into it's local elections are abriged by the elected governance.
Go figure!
Try these:
eleemosynary
oblate (not the shape)
gormless
BTW, there are a couple of 'made up' words I find charming:
arachibutyrophobia, the morbid fear of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth;
aibohphobia, the morbid fear of palindromes, which is also the only diagnosis to cause the condition it purports to diagnose.
--Boris
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