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.
- Steely Dan, "My Old School"
The earth is rumbling. Perhaps the day is not far off.
I always sang it as “Avondale”. LAFB at the time.
Not soon enough will the golden handcuffs be gone and so will we.
LA SUCKS
other than the weather
The gay bay is also commie lib
But it’s BEAUTIFUL and many folks here are really nice
We have redwood forests. Foggy misty hills. Gorgeous seascapes
I’m surrounded on three sides by incredible mountains
loma alta. Mt Tamal país. White hill
We don’t lock our doors
My kids have been able to cruise town since age 6 alone
We have NICE folks here and nobody even cares about politics
My WATER district has SEVEN reservoirs that are 60-200000 acre feet and are always full (mmwd the oldest in CA)
SF. liberal hell hole
LA IS A TOTAL COMLLETE HELL HOLE WHERE EVERYTHING IS FAKE AND THERE NO NATURE
Lo
I hate California and cannot wait to leave this commie cesspool behind. One of these days retirement will save me.
My inlaws just sold their house in Thousand Oaks, CA...in 3 days. 800k for a 1200 sq ft house. Now they will retire in CDA, Idaho area. Recent gun grabs and single payer were straws that broke their back.
Nope. Arkansas is full. Chiggers, copperheads, cotton mouth snakes, ticks, kudzu, rednecks, and the Clintons....nothing good here.
Yep. On the positive side, they're right there near the coast. Makes it easier to drive them into the sea.
The San Andreas may do it for us.
Very good. We left CA in 2006... Reading this, I remember sitting so many evenings and so many hours in the ‘70’s discussing the state of “everything” with neighbors at the kitchen tables over coffee. It dawned on me just now that we weren’t complaining about CA as much as we were complaining about the state of the country. Coming out of the sixties, where were we going? Were the hippies we saw parading in the streets, while others burned down cities going to be the ones in charge in a few years? We had no idea.
By the time we were ready to leave - retire - things had reached the point of no return as we saw it. So sad as I truly did love CA and I wasn’t even a native. My husband was but I had moved there when I was 21 from NY State. Had no desire to go back there...
If it weren’t for being too old to ever consider returning, I would in a heart beat if not for that...when as the author said it gets turned around. The county we lived in for years (OC) went for Hillary in 2012 and that was unbelievable.
OR? Its as far Left as CA and throughly Democrat-dominated.
The Pacific Coast states all share similar demographics and are called the Left Coast, for good reason.
One of our younger adult relatives moved to and lived in the Portland, Oregone area for 28 years. He is an independent and basically does not care for either major party.
He said that Portland even 20 years ago had become basically a Godless Hate America communist outpost. So, he came back here about 12 years ago and has done very well job wise and financially.
Most of his friends, former bosses and other good workers like himself have left Portland and other liberal Oregon cities. The first two summers, he went back to Portland to visit. As noted, his friends had started leaving Portland.
On his last trip back to Portland, 10 summers ago a bum broke into the back of his Bronco and was sleeping there. The Portland police refused to come out and told him not to hurt nor disturb the bum. He left that day and returned and hasn’t been back.
The one good thing about Oregone was the ability to carry a concealed weapon. He has told us that probably saved him several times as people tried to confront him and take his bike away. He had a job where he worked until about 1 am. Even the so called nice areas became high risk areas at that time.
Nope. The commie libs keep expanding their Evil Empire. Now I know how the Indians felt when they were pushed onto the reservations white men did not want. I was planning to move from Sacramento to Virginia Beach in 2 years, but now the Commonwealth of Virginia has gone solidly commie lib after years of flooding it with immigrants.
If 5 million conservatives would move to Virginia with me, we could save it.
I know that will never happen. Now I am looking at Mt. Pleasant SC, Orange Beach AL, and Farragut TN as possible retirement cities. Iam still considering how to avoid the crime in North Myrtle Beach.
Hard to get a feel for the area you’re talking about. Where - in any town/city, CA or otherwise - can kids as young as 6 cruise alone around town? Where you don’t lock your doors?
The Border was drawn in 1891 and by that time there had grown up a unique border culture by a melding of what had been isolates with intermarriage.
That is what we used to be. Hybrid vigor built Tucson. Not just Anglos although they became part of the mix.
Then came the Sixties and Tucson and the whole area fell prey to MECHA and La Raza forces which divide and conquer.
And now? Adios that vigorous and joyful culture. Hello hatred and revisionist history and ignorant Leftists.
There are some great towns in upstate New York-—many VERY conservative———perhaps this will help.
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/new-york/
.
SoCal born and raised. Not a better place to be a kid. Left for Oregon in 1986 - southern Oregon Coast. Left for Texas in 2001 and recently moved to Arkansas. There are still decent places for a conservative to live, but Cali is lost.
I was born in Cali, and spent close to half a century there. i had enough of the rot and liberal craziness in 2005, and moved to Texas.
I haven’t been home sick a single day, because my California was gone long before I left.
Illegals are not buying the 1-3 million $ homes in Northern California.
The buyers are Chicomcapitalists/, Euro Trash, Former LA/Follywood thugs, Nyers and people from Houston.
I lived in San Francisco for work, from 2000 to 2008. Here is how it would go getting new parks in the city.
Worers tax themselves for a beautiful new park, or courtyard, or strip of green space with either swings and gyms for kids, or fountains and statues for adults.
The day a new ark ould open, the homeless would start setting up tents or sleeping bags. Within weeks, there would be so many homeless scattering needles and litter and defecating everywhere that the hard orking taxpayers who funded the new places were sickened to use them while they were afraid to let teir children use them.
I saw this first hand over and over again. A complete waste of millions in taxes.
What a disaster.
WTH?
Do we just run until there is no where to go and the genocide begins?
I don’t understand the virtue of surrender.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.