Free Republic

Sometimes you read something that might make you exclaim, "Just plain... nuts." Such was probably the case when most normal people saw a column by Joe Mathews published in the Ventura County Star on Thursday, "California should abolish parenthood, in the name of equity."

If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children. ... Fathers and mothers with greater wealth and education are more likely to transfer these advantages to their children, compounding privilege over generations. As a result, children of less advantaged parents face an uphill struggle, social mobility has stalled, and democracy has been corrupted. .. My solution — making raising your own children illegal — is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: the rich and poor should trade kids, and homeowners might swap...

If California is ever going to achieve true equity, the state must require parents to give away their children. Today’s Californians often hold up equity — the goal of a just society completely free from bias — as our greatest value. Gov. Gavin Newsom makes decisions through “an equity lens.” Institutions from dance ensembles to tech companies have publicly pledged themselves to equity...

The county sheriff is the problem child among California elected officials. No office is less accountable or more reliable in producing scandal.

A fine new report from the Public Policy Institute of California updates what we know about the state's political geography. For decades, the political divide in California was between the Democratic north and the Republican south. But in recent times, analysts have talked about a blue Democratic coast vs. the red Republican inland. PPIC's new report concludes that the coast vs. inland explanation isn't exactly right. When you dig deeply into the numbers, the state's real political divide puts the two former rivals -- Los Angeles County and the Bay Area -- on one side of the partisan divide, and...

Sure, California's economy has seen better days, our budget is a mess, and we've been wondering whether the federal government might help us out with our cash flow. But the barbs sent our way by politicians and commentators in Washington are getting to be a bit much. Democrats suggest that we're all selfish folks who refuse to tax ourselves enough to support our spending. (They should talk.) Republicans say the entire state is addicted to over-spending. (They should talk, too -- see the rising deficits of the Bush era.) Such commentary has been offered with heaping plates of schadenfreude, as...

How bad did things get between Der Governator and his fellow Republicans? Schwarzenegger’s biographer, Joe Mathews, reports that he recently considered dropping out of the party altogether. It’s the latest blast in a long-running war. A few months ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a few close associates discussed whether he should leave the Republican Party, according to two people familiar with the conversation. His friend Mike Bloomberg, the New York mayor, had become an independent. Maybe Schwarzenegger should, too. But the governor and his people quickly concluded that Californians already saw him as independent of the Republican Party. So what would...