EXITING CALIFORNIA! -- Invasion Of The Fleeing Golden Staters!

ICONOCLAST ^ | by Lin Anderson

[Apolitical]

ICONOCLAST EXCLUSIVE!!

EXITING CALIFORNIA!
-- Invasion Of The Fleeing Golden Staters!



Bye, Bye, California; Nevada, Here They Come!

by Lin Anderson

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the traditional American immigration pattern -- East to West, for those of you who slept through "U.S. Demographic History" that day -- seems no longer to be operative here in the 21st century.

For the record, also inoperative are common sense and the Detroit Tigers.

"Go West, young man, and grow up with the country," wrote Horace Greeley back there in 1865 in an editorial in the New York Tribune. Modern-day researchers have, however, found that the same exact words were penned 14 years earlier by a Mr. John Soule in a Terre Haute, Indiana, newspaper. It must be gratifying for former New York "journalist" Jayson Blair to serenely contemplate that in his tenure with the New York Times, he was in fact just carrying on a longstanding Empire State tradition established by Horace Greeley.

No matter its provenance -- as they say pretty much hourly around the New York Times these days -- the quote has long been a linchp in in the annals of the western United States, even though the odds are pretty good that Greeley was drunker than a convention of Dean Martin impersonators when he plagiarized it.

According to an article by Haya El Nasser, in a recent very colorful edition of USA Today, the Census Bureau has determined that today's immigration patterns are from West to East -- more specifically from California to anyplace distraught Californians can think of to flee to.

"Most of the people leaving California," the USA Today piece notes, "are going to other Western states such as Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado." And most of the most of them are going to Nevada. Or, as writer Haya El Nasser hilariously phrases it, "Nevada was the biggest beneficiary" of these refugees from Gray Davis's Worker's Paradise.

Lucky us.

The bureau estimates that some 200,000 Californians made tracks to Nevada in the late 1990s, hoping to escape such happy Golden State features as "earthquakes, race riots, economic downturns, a wave of foreign immigration and skyrocketing housing prices." While we haven't had the earthquakes or race riots yet, we seem of late to be quite well represented by the other items on the list, so I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before some unpopular court verdict or other causes the ground to start shaking and the good china to come hurtling off the shelves.

It's not exactly a stunning revelation that a sizeable chunk of the Golden State's population is scurrying over the border and into our hearts. We're handy, after all. Right next door, you might say. In the line of fire, certainly.

Nevada is also attractive by virtue of our having no state income tax; but, per capita, we have just as many nutball legislators as the Californians are used to. I'd say that would make the immigrants feel right at home, but their goal always seems to be something along the lines of making our home feel an awf ul lot like their former home.

It has been a recurring theme of mine -- for at least the past four years or so-- that, as Nevada has become more and more a Haven for the Disaffected Soul (particularly the Disaffected Soul from our neighbor to the West), we have found many of our own cherished Silver State traditions relentlessly assailed. As the folks from Fresno, the beings from Bakersfield and the peeps from Pomona have arrived, so, predictably, have the demands for smoke-free casinos, smog inspection stations, vegetarian menu alternatives and draconian zoning ordinances.

It's as if these refugees had risked their very lives fleeing the Nazis and then suddenly decided upon reflection that maybe they liked that whole crazy "we VILL rule da VORLD" concept after all.

I was a Californian long ago, and have many acquaintances who presently live -- if you call that living -- Over There. I also lived in Seattle back when the California license plates started showing up in unsuspecting neighborhoods with alarming frequency, so I know how this thing works -- or, more to the point -- doesn't work.

I had a conversation with a Seattle-based friend of mine awhile back during which we reminisced about the California invasion. He noted with some degree of cynicism that the hordes which had poured into the city during the 1980s and 1990s were, as the new century dawned, rapidly tiring of the area and were even now pointing their fuel-efficient vehicles south, toward Oregon.

If you've scanned the news out of Oregon lately, you know they arrived there safely.

I fear the upcoming recall election will find even more of our neighbors dropping next door to borrow a cup of sanity. With Gray Davis "alternatives" including Arnold Schwarzenegger ("The Governator"), Arianna Huffington, tiny Gary Coleman ("Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Davis?"), and big blob Larry Flynt already on the goofy ballot -- which may includ e the names of dozens of candidates by the time voters finally trudge wearily to the polls in October -- men, women and children from Redding to Riverside are likely even now nibbling low-calorie things like their fingernails and planning a daring escape to a more hospitable climate such as, for example, us...Nevada!

What's to be done? ...............

[kstewskis]

Sorry, I haven't logged on in a couple of nights. Also sorry to hear that it's the liberals invading you! Why are they able to 'take over' everything? Are we just being too nice, or wimpy?? LOL!

A little of both perhaps? ;o>

Naw, AZ is "convenient" to California (right next door), so we get "outnumbered" by them. If they can stand the heat here (it was 116 degrees in Phoenix on Sunday), they can stand anything.

AZ is also attractive to NY'ers, and Chicagoans. So between the three "entities" encroaching upon the state, I think the "locals" (as well as those who've moved to the state and actually "assimilated" into the conservative norm here) need to circle the wagons and stake their ground.

[potlatch]

Wonder why the liberals are leaving California, seems perfect for them out there! Guess it's getting too expensive for them. The time is neigh when we conservatives are going to have to stand up for what we believe!! I'm half Polish, just wondered about your name!?

[kstewskis]

The time is neigh when we conservatives are going to have to stand up for what we believe!!

You got that right! You don't know what you have until you lose it.

I'm half Polish, just wondered about your name

LOL! Well, my grandmother was Polish...but the handle comes from my nickname..."Stew"....and the fact that I ski!

[potlatch]

FUNNY, is this 'deja vous'?? I think I wrote to you once before asking the same thing, LOL!!

[Age of Reason]

Texas is over 22 million (85% of which live in metropolitan areas) and not even close to having a state income tax.

As I said, with increasing population density, comes more liberal thinking.

And if population growth from immigration does not cease, Texas will soon have an income tax.

This is only the beginning:

State Legislator (Texas) Proposes State Income Tax

[oldtimer]

I love and live in Texas.

Getting ready to buy some property in British Columbia - seriously this is the truth.

Will probably run out of gas before the hildabeast runs and possibly wins in 2008.

Too many illegals plus American's with their hands in the cookie jar now.

[Texas_Dawg]

Haha. 1 Democratic Senator proposing an income tax is Texas being close to that tax. Whatever. You really don't know very much about Texas.

[Age of Reason]

You really don't know very much about Texas.

If that is your best defense, then many of those things you profess to be against will happen.

Not despite of how people like you think--but because of it.

[Age of Reason]

More crowding means more conflict, more rules governing use of land--even in your precious Texas, which is changing: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008997/posts

Texas was once sparsely populated, which experience instilled in Texans an independant kind of thinking.

Increasing crowding from population growth is slowly inspiring a different--a liberal--kind of thinking in Texas . . .

And throughout America.

[Texas_Dawg]

Do you have a point? Is the sky always falling?