Posted on 04/19/2015 6:43:42 AM PDT by amnestynone
California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work. As the mounting panic surrounding the drought suggests, the Golden State, once renowned for meeting human and geographic challenges, is losing its ability to cope with crises. As a result, the great American land of opportunity is devolving into something that resembles feudalism, a society dominated by rich and poor, with little opportunity for upward mobility for the state’s middle- and working classes.
The water situation reflects this breakdown in the starkest way. Everyone who follows California knew it was inevitable we would suffer a long-term drought. Most of the state—including the Bay Area as well as greater Los Angeles—is semi-arid, and could barely support more than a tiny fraction of its current population. California’s response to aridity has always been primarily an engineering one that followed the old Roman model of siphoning water from the high country to service cities and farms.
Desalinization...will happen at some point..if we survive that long...
It’s a bit of a mis-statement to say “losing its ability to cope with crises” when the truth is that progressive governance has created the crises.
California has met the future, and it really doesn’t work.
The hard truth is that Utopia is unsustainable, a concept that too many in California love to scold the rest of us about.
Socialism is the fraudulent idea that we will individually and collectively be better off spiritually and economically when we live at the expense of each other. To that end, we must allow others to take our income and wealth from us, just as we take it from them. The fundamental structure of this violates the Ten Commandments that forbid lies, coveting and theft.
From a secular standpoint, none other than Vaclav Havel showed in his essay The Power of the Powerless [1] that socialism induces a moral corruption in every interaction people have, when truth itself must be suppressed to sustain the political ideals that elites are attempting to force society to adopt in their lives. This stirring essay tells us what living hell life in a socialist Utopia really is.
The economist Ludwig von Mises showed in 1920 [2,3] that since a socialist economy destroys price information via government intrusion, the myriad of participants in the economy are unable to make a fully rational calculation about true profit and loss. Any economic activity that operates at a loss cannot be “sustainable”, a concept the left loves to scold us about, yet cannot really grasp.
Taking another approach, the Nobel economist F.A. Hayek showed that a national economy had such an immense myriad of dynamic economic relationships that no single committee or bureaucracy, no matter how smart or how well staffed, could possibly know enough to direct prices or production levels. His Nobel Lecture [4] was entitled The Pretence of Knowledge. Hayek had previously used this idea as the basis for a very thorough article [5] on the subject, “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”
Some American (and Canadian) elites seek to make their countries more like Europe, but the costs of socialism make it morally, socially and economically unsustainable. We see this in the socialist vanguard of Greece and how utterly impoverished socialism is making their economy. We are headed in that direction.
[1] Václav Havel: The Power of the Powerless
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=clanky&val=72_aj_clanky.html&typ=HTML
http://bit.ly/4bqmRu
[2] Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth by Ludwig von Mises
http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf
[3] Why a Socialist Economy is “Impossible” by Joseph T. Salerno
http://mises.org/econcalc/POST.asp
[4] The Pretense of Knowledge
http://mises.org/daily/3229
[5] “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review, XXXV, No. 4; September, 1945, pp. 519–30.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=92
http://bit.ly/wne9GU
Well hey, look at other great Democrat success stories like Detroit and Chicago. Or Chevy Chase’s pronouncement of Cuba is a good example of how you can have socialism and capitalism and do very well. Shouldn’t Governor Moonbeam be part of this as well? (joke).
The one big concern I have is for those citizens who live outside the infested urban areas who suffer at the hands of these zealots who control the state.
In my opinion, there is such a thing as taking enjoyment of good weather, lifestyle too far, especially when you have lost control over your destiny and freedom. It is best to just leave. Lock, stock and barrel and never look back.
As for the others, I really don’t care about them.
those who remain often do so due to friends and family.. just as in nazi Germany
Could be. However, we have benefit of hindsight in the case of Nazi Germany, don’t we?
The problem is they then migrate to other states and bring their “progressive” attitudes with them and begin to destroy the new states they move to. Caifornication exists here and it is terribly hard to cure it seems.
Probably won’t happen too fast in CA. The environmentalists will have concerns over the effect of dumping the salt back into the ocean on marine life (maybe a good point), so committees will be formed and studies will be funded. Years later, each side of the issue will take their lobbying points gathered from the studies to the politicians, where usually money wins out. If it did get approved then they have to go through the judicial process, as the loser will most likely file a suit......
Very good article.
Especially the definition of what the national GOPe has become:
“But the business leadership often seems to be more concerned with how to adjust the status quo to serve privileged large businesses, including some in agriculture, than boosting the overall economy.”
Your post summed up: When Children Govern
I believe the problem is that America is constantly sending ever more jobs to China.
Both parties are 100% participating in this.
The GOP, is every bit as bad as the democrats. Our trade deficit with China is at an all-time high last year, and is getting even worse this year.
Nobody is looking out for America’s future anymore.
Nobody.
All it would take is five or six major desal plants and the thorium reactors to power them and the whole problem goes away. This is a man-made calamity all the way, basically the wretched work of Malthusians and greentards.
its called becoming Mexico
Yes, I have seen this.
CA will soon look like scenes from “Mad Max” or worse.
This is what happens under one party, democrat governance.
It may take until the entire state of California becomes like Death Valley, at which point they’ll say the heck with the EPA and all their threats.
And .. states around CA are having some Boom .. in some cities. Basically, non-liberals.
What’s left .. seniors who cannot make a move; and/or illegals. Mark Levin said, “You can’t have tyranny until you destroy the middle class.”
This formula is TYRANNY..!!!!!!
Thanks, I bookmarked his site.
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