Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
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Posted on 02/17/2005 5:43:50 AM PST by Tolik
California's weather is nearly ideal. The soil is the nation's richest. There is a 1,000-mile coastline and endowments of fishing, timber, petroleum and water. In less than a century, our ancestors created Hollywood and Silicon Valley, as well as booming agribusiness, tourism and trade. A futuristic freeway system, world-class higher education and forward-looking bipartisan government promised that the 21st century would be even better for the action-state.
Not quite so. Our generation has squandered these natural and inherited riches. If utilities used to be the envy of the country, some are nearly bankrupt — while power outages and sky-high rates depress consumers.....
Until recently, the state had not opened a University of California in almost 40 years — and currently spends 10 times more to incarcerate its illegal aliens than on the new underfunded Merced campus.....
..…What is the problem? California's soft utopian dreams outdistanced hard reality. In a metaphorical sense, we were homeowners who haggled over the sheen on our beautiful wood floors, but had no inkling of the rotting foundation out of sight beneath the house.
..…Open borders in theory sound magnanimous, but few at ground zero are willing to do the old successful calculus of legality, English immersion or integration — not when it is easier to pontificate about multiculturalism and the need for cheap labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at cweb.jewishworldreview.com ...
Let me know if you want in or out
"The sleep of reason breeds monsters."
Often it takes an outsider like AHHHNOLD to see the problems clearly. Great article (as usual) by Hanson.
BTTT
There was a case from around here where the local police picked up a van of illegals and took them the the INS facility to turn them over for deportation. The INS personnel said their facility was full.
Thus the decisions are made that shape our Nation in this century.
Bi-coastal elitism warning, alas. Guess he never heard of "the Corn Belt."
Not quite so. Our generation has squandered these natural and inherited riches. If utilities used to be the envy of the country, some are nearly bankrupt — while power outages and sky-high rates depress consumers.....
Hate speech! Hate speech!
It is really petty of Mr. Hanson to neglect the positive side of California's descent... errrr. transformation into a kinder, gentler state.
California used to plan its infrastructure for future generations, for its grandchildren and great-grandchildren, because it was the wise thing to do. No more. Now we plan for the clapper rail and harvest mouse, after all how can we claim humanity if we fail to go look for endangered pests to save?
We reward the helpless, the idle, the drug-addled. We punish achievement. The welfare culture, breeding generations of the idle, now have credit cards. Credit cards! What other state... hell, what other nation can make that claim?
We jail farmers for running over rats with their tractors and pay five times the price for "organically" grown produce.
We pile on fees and taxes on new homes to provide services because we found a better use for ordinary taxes which used to provide services: gay parades, memorial groves for the suicidal lifestyle of perverts.
We are a kinder, gentler state; we may not achieve as much as we used to, but we feel better about ourselves. Or at least those of us who haven't left yet do.
Let's not quibble and deny reality in order to soothe our hurt feelings.
If the corn belt could grow everything as easily as California can, it wouldn't need to be simple the "cornbelt".
All the more clearly to see the historical cultural crime going on in California. The gifts of God, suppressed for the benefit of moral midgets.
Thanks for the ping.
Born in Monterey Park 57 years ago. Raised in El Monte. Yep, I remember L.A. before the freeways.
I've seen California degenerate into a "Blade Runner" society. A multicultural unfriendly miasma where fear, hate and 'I got mine' are the rule.
Ain't no utopia here.
Prof. Hanson is a winegrower, actually, and is therefore reasonably familiar with agriculture. He is probably speaking in a specific sense from the perspective of growing grapevines.
the problem's the california patio lizards who take but do not give.
stretch: The Old Geezer here.
Two cents worth: Yeah, but the liberals get it both ways. They get the votes BUT also get the labor part of the illegals. They only pretend to be poor and normal. They use the illegal labor probably more so than the conservaatives..... SEE TYSON CHICKENS... tHE cLLINTON
ADMINISTRATION nannies... tHEY GET IT ALL
Just cut off the Colorado River supply and it can go back to being desert.
Yes. I remember the hard pan in my California back yard. Hard to dig below a foot deep. Nothing compared to the deep rich soil of the plains states! But the climate more than makes up for any lack in soil quality.
Hanson is a third generation farmer. He wrote a book on the demise of the family farm.
Yeah - the soil in Iowa is the darkest, richest soil I've ever seen.
You do know what 'comparative advantage' is, right?
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