Posted on 03/05/2018 8:12:01 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It finally happened. After 22 years in Los Angeles -- 13 on its West Side -- I threw half my life into boxes, the other half into dumpsters, and returned to my native Arizona. It wasn't a decision I had been pondering for very long. After the first of the year I began to kick the idea around rather casually, then a few things fell into place quite unexpectedly and, by the middle of January, getting out seemed like the only logical thing to do.
Emotionally, it was a different story. I love California. More specifically, I love Los Angeles. There have been many people I've known both in and out of the entertainment industry who seemed to be working on an exit plan as soon as they arrived in L.A. They were regret-free when they did get out, which was usually sooner rather than later.
My time in California may have begun solely because I was an entertainer. However, I had always been politically active too and my years there saw my most intense activism. Alas, I was perhaps focusing too much on national issues when I should have been throwing some effort behind keeping my home state from rushing headlong off of a progressive cliff.
Some of my efforts were actually spent at home. While so many conservatives in California were longing to get to more politically friendly states, I was relentlessly advocating for staying and fighting. States that were already electing conservatives and/or Republicans didn't need more conservatives there, I maintained. It was the places in America that were becoming liberal wastelands that were in need of some opposition voices.
It was a pitch that could have been applied to any number of states, but I meant it for California. I don't care what the libs do to the likes of New York, Chicago, or the Pacific Northwest. Let the progressive loons have cities and states that are already cold, wet and miserable.
But, as I often asked audiences, why should we let them have a place as glorious as California?
Apparently, no one was listening.
When the Democrats gained a super-majority stranglehold on the California legislature, they didn't waste any time letting their far-left freak flag fly. As soon as some bills were floated, then passed, people began asking me in private and in public interviews about the legislative madness issuing forth from Sacramento.
I thought most of it was boilerplate liberal lunacy that wouldn't stand up to any strict legal scrutiny, which made me shrug it off.
Last summer, however, the extent of the lunacy started to really come into focus and made it more difficult to keep at arm's length.
The far-left progressive Democrats in the California Assembly went to war with their still quite left "moderate" Democratic colleagues for not being fully on board with a single-payer health care bill that was problematic, to say the least.
This escalated quickly, which led to an effort to recall Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, who, by the way, is progressive.
Not progressive enough though, it would seem.
Rendon is a proponent of single-payer health care. His only objection to the bill in question was its funding, which was practically nonexistent.
Now firmly in the grip of the super majority, California politics had devolved into an ideological battle between the far left and people who think Fidel Castro was too conservative.
Forget hoping that moderate Republicans would have a voice in Sacramento, the moderate Democrats didn't even have a chance.
Conservatives? Yeah...no.
It was at this point that I began to wonder if the two progressive factions had pulled California's political center so far to the left that it could never be brought back to a sane place on the spectrum. In years past, I would dream of a day when control of the state would return to the adults and there would be a huge correction.
The legislative madness of 2017 was bad enough, but the state hit full "hold my beer" mode in 2018.
One Democratic legislator actually proposed fining wait staff in restaurants for offering plastic straws to customers. Ian Calderon, the legislator behind this, isn't some newbie back-bencher who is trying to make a name for himself, he is currently the assembly's majority leader.
The only people who aren't rich who seem to be moving to California from other parts of the United States are young, idealistic people who want to be in the entertainment industry. They usually get jobs in bars and restaurants when they arrive.
The Democrats now want to make their lives more miserable.
That idea is the kind of thing that makes people from other parts of America see all of California as a literal lunatic fringe of the continental U.S. It's too insane to worry about because it probably won't ever come to be.
More problematic is the open hostility that the Democrats running California have for things like the rule of law and lower taxes. You know, things that sane, rational free people enjoy.
It was when the state's attorney general said he would prosecute hard-working citizens who were providing jobs if they obeyed the law that I began to take a serious look at how far away from me California had drifted.
We'd never been a good fit politically. I used to live in Maxine Waters' district. I went from there to Henry Waxman's. My senators were Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who was then succeeded by Kamala Harris.
Put very mildly, I wasn't feeling very well represented in this country that is supposed to be a representative republic.
It was then that I began to ponder a return to the desert.
As many have pointed out, the politics in my hometown (Tucson) aren't much better than California's, which is true. However, the governor here is great and, with any luck, we will be getting an upgrade from Jeff Flake soon. Also, it's easier to fight for some change in a medium-size city than in the most populous state in the union.
Most importantly, I don't feel fire-breathing hatred from the state capital.
It's quite refreshing.
I still love you, California, but you're hanging around with some really awful people.
Call me when they're gone.
-PJ
This is interesting. I, too, am throwing in the towel and intending to bring my conservative status to the southland. I’ve had it with NY and NJ - one of which I’ve loved my whole life. But I have no representation and NYC is going over the edge now.
But I'm afraid California is gone. The far far left is now kicking out the far left. I don't see any change in direction until there is a massive reckoning. Read anything by Victor Davis Hanson to get some real and frightening information on the state of the state.
Yep and I am afraid that will need martial law
Just leaving it to the leftist propagandists and their useful idiots.
This is how civilization dies.
my neice went to San Francisco last summer, I asked her about it, once, and she said the city was beautiful, but the streets were filled with homeless and mentally ill lunatics. wont go into details, but it was pretty bad
she said she would never go back
Well... they are in open rebellion.
All this adds cost to the stuff that WE who don't live in California are stuck with. Whenever I open a string of Christmas lights and see the five labels on them I think "damned California, now I have to cut these all off and try not to nick the insulation."
Like it or not, what they do affects us. And since they simply ignore federal laws they don't like, it's not really a two way street.
Plenty of beach in Arizona. 70% of the state is made out of sand, and it doesnt smell like low tide.
Seems cyclical. "Anglos", as you say, build a nice place to live. Others with different values move in, often by government mandate (section 8, low income rules housing, whatever). The anglos go, the neighborhood turns to poop. Years later some forward thinking people snap up the real estate at dirt cheap prices and rebuild the neighborhood back to what it was. And the cycle begins anew with calls of "racist gentrification" and the like starting in right away.
Such a refreshing article that does not play into the California is turning us leftist crap. The ones that are leaving California are the Conservatives, the stary eyed imports that are pouring in to Hollywood are all leftists, but the real immigration is welfare cheats from Mexico.
California is a disaster just Like Detroit and Chichago. The only difference is the God hating leftists took out a whole state this time not just a prosperous city. The Progressives may hate God, but they sure know nice places to live. Every time you build up a place with good Conservative values they come in like a blood sucking cloud of mosquitoes. If the climate is great, or the place has a real culture of its own, it will be swarmed, dissected and eaten alive.
Nothing a Progressive likes more than turning someones success story into a meal ticket.
Honestly, if they come from California, the odds are they are more conservative than you are at their core. Just shell shocked and weary no doubt. Takes a while to adjust to a new culture, even from a bad one.
Wait until Spanish is the official language then everything will be OK.
Kansas is flat and boring. Only one county voted for The Cankle and its clean across the state from me. Metro areas (all 3 or 4 of them) are still conservative except Lawrence, Topeka and the ever exploding KC. You would probly find a breath of fresher air in Wichita (relatively speaking) than anyplace in Cali, but I prefer the elbow room of Western Kansas. If you dont see the signs you cant tell you are in Colorado till you get closer to I-25.
Alls I do all day is re-load ammo, shoot some and clean my guns. ‘Cept today , the wind is topping 50mph before noon. (so I am stuck here with my other addiction.)
After 36 years in Claremont, CA now home in Mississippi...so thankful to be out of there!
After 36 years in Claremont, CA now home in Mississippi...so thankful to be out of there!
This is in store for all of America when the illegal aliens start voting everywhere.
What exactly does CAGOP do except ask for money?
That’s a cool post. I did some work for google in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
That’s as close as I come. It was called “Vandelay Industries”.
I sit here today with my cope. Charlotte, NC
Dear Lord, please make Arizona invisible to CA refugees...
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