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You Hate Us, You Really Hate Us!
For the first few years I lived in Los Angeles, I mostly got the “come home” pleas from family and friends, which makes sense. After living here 12 years, however, not only am I getting pressure to get out by them, but the ever-increasing expenses and traffic, stupid laws, homeless encampments, and the rest of the country laughing at us have caused me depression and disdain for this place. I can’t say I blame them for laughing, but I do want to address some of these things to show how it really is.
- It’s expensive: It’s no secret that gas and rent in California are always higher, but in January 2009, gas dropped here to $1.75/gal. and our rent for a large one-bedroom including utilities was $950/mo. Today, gas is around $3.65/gal. (an increase of over 108%!) and our old apartment now rents for $1,545 (almost 63%!). The national averages on increase are about 78% and 16%, respectively.
- Everything’s Illegal Except for Things That Should Be: I am sure you all know about the ridiculous “bag ban” and “straw ban” out here. It’s supposedly to save the environment, but I call BS. They didn’t outlaw plastic shopping bags, they just made thicker ones and charged 10¢ for them. It hasn’t changed anything, except create another tax. I still see bags (among other trash) everywhere. As for the straws, well that’s just plain silly, and I am certain the same thing will happen. However, living on the street or in cars here is not illegal. My neighborhood used to be safe to walk in, but in the last year or two, there are beat-up RVs parked up and down my street, a vacant parcel of land across from a park is full of trash and tents, and the sidewalks of downtown Los Angeles have been completely overtaken by tents and tarps. Mayor Garcetti’s solution is to tax us more and build new housing — the plans show luxury apartment complexes that are way nicer than mine (I don’t have in-unit laundry or a dishwasher). Now, that’d be great if the homeless were off the streets, but what percentage do you think are actually going to take advantage of this program? Since law enforcement cannot do anything about it, a large portion of these new homes will likely remain vacant.
So, things have gotten bad. I would like to stay because there really are great things here: many National Parks, beaches, beautiful weather, job opportunities, incredible music venues, amazing food, etc.
What really gets to me, though, is the mentality. On one hand, I have to deal with Liberals who are either completely oblivious to how this government is failing us, or their rude commentary (see my older post on that here). On the other hand, the rest of the country is either laughing at us or wishing “the big one” would sink us into the ocean.
Liberal, ridiculous, lazy, dangerous … please don’t think we are all like this.
Many who live out here, particularly in Los Angeles, are from “the outside.” My husband and I are both from upstate NY. We also lived in Atlanta and I lived in rural PA during college. We have similar ideologies and are right there with the rest of you, in that we think our government leaders are extremely oblivious and dangerous.
We haven’t bought into Hollywood elitism, and we think they’re just as nuts, not to mention the abuse that has run rampant in the industry is disgusting and heartbreaking. It has been very difficult for us to find peers or friends who agree with us politically, so it can either be quite lonely, or we need to be extra mindful of what we say or do to “fit in” or try to ignore/change the subject completely (which is also hard because liberals tend to make politics constantly part of all conversations these days). Thankfully, there are a few of us peppered around the area. Further, most of the state is rural and even places like San Diego and Orange County are not so extreme.
So, will we move out of California? Hopefully yes, but relocating is not an easy feat, either. In the meantime, I’ll just try to make the best of things and enjoy what it does have to offer, while still trying to be myself.
Published in General
Leave ASAP. The long term prospects are dim. Income and unemployment insurance is what, 12%? What is the sales tax, 9%? Property taxes are also high unless you’ve owned your home a long time. Electricity is probably double what it should be. What do you get for all that tax money? A government that cannot protect people or build infrastructure. No new roads. No new water systems (and those are vital to sustainability as L.A. is dependent on external water supplies). You do get spending on transportation projects, but if they ever do come online, they will only be vast money sinks and ineffective. Pro tip: the national parks are just as convenient from Arizona and Nevada.
This is so true. Liberals, even when they know you are politically opposite of them, just cannot shut up. They seem to have nothing else to talk about. It is so refreshing to spend time with a fellow conservative. My sister lives in L.A. She is extremely politically active on the left. Our conversations are normally quite short in order to stay relatively amiable.
If you know anything about concrete, you could come to work for the company I work for (sorry, grammarians). We’re all right wing nut jobs.
I feel your pain, living as I do a few miles outside the wacky city of Seattle. Same crazy governance as LA, with a police force whose leaders are all about avoiding confrontations with lawlessness (the rank and file continue bravely to protect and serve but are hamstrung by political correctness), a council more concerned about plastic straws than hypodermic needles strewn about, the increasing gang homicides, and all the rest. Meanwhile, the wacko mayor trots off to the southern border to protest Trump. Gack. Three or four counties here have sufficient lefty voters to overwhelm the rest of the state, giving us one-party government for the past several decades.
Unfortunately, relocating is not a viable option for me. My one and only way to earn a living is to maintain a part-time law practice at 70, so I am not about to move, have to take another bar exam, and start all over again. Plus my only close family (married daughter, one grandson) are here. If I moved, I’d hardly ever see any of them, and I’d hate to miss his growing up.
So, I’ll rely on Ricochet among other things for sustenance in this wilderness of crazy. I appreciate your post because it is good to know one is not alone.
We have considered the Pacific Northwest (so beautiful up there!), but you’re right it’s all the same politically up and down this coast. And shoot, if I weren’t changing careers I’d tell you I’m a cracker-jack legal assistant. ;)
It is harder when family is involved – we have the luxury that our family is all back east, so in that regard, nothing is keeping us.
Every time I see others here, and the very few I meet personally that are like-minded, it’s a breath of fresh air.
Wasn’t intended to be so much of a complaint as just a reminder that even though it’s not great right now, and it upsets me, I’m also very lucky to be here for said weather and beautiful landscapes, and should enjoy it while I can.
All of this is correct, and there will be a time… it’s just really hard to up and move when you’re in a position relocating could jeopardize your career, which is where my husband is right now. We are trying to build a timeline for our “escape plan,” though.
As for NPS, yep Grand Canyon is so close to AZ, and we are dying to do the Big 5 in Utah soon!
Randy, this is a phrase up with which most of us sticklers would gladly put.
That grammatical rule you refer to was a stupid, made-up one (as H. L. Mencken pointed out) and we should all ignore it just as you did.
As for me and a whole lot of other non-Californians:
If we want to see California turn around, and become a leading force for political good instead of a leading force for political evil, we must stop thinking and expressing such foolish, futile, and malicious thoughts.
Instead we must engage with every American in a respectful way, explaining clearly and kindly how conservative ideas work, and those of progressivism simply don’t work.
This would be so great if we had a civil discourse. I feel like both sides have gone so off-the-rails that either we don’t want to listen to each other, or we just talk over each other in very defensive ways. I’d like to think the majority on both sides feels the way you do, but it just seems impossible in recent years. I keep racking my brain to come up with ways to bring both sides to the table, but within our government and for us civilians, it seems futile.
Perhaps we need a cultural exchange program. We send our people to the coasts en masse, they send theirs to the midwest and we see what happens.
One’s experience of California is strongly dependent on precise location. This applies to all aspects of climate: meteorological, cultural, and political. Travel a short distance and all can change dramatically. As Victor Davis Hanson points out, his experiences at his farm (Central Valley) versus the Hoover Institution are dramatically different. Likewise, downtown LA is much hotter and has a much higher density of
bumshomeless than the beach towns (People’s Republic of Santa Monica excepted).Circling back to Professor Hanson, he notes that the reason California continues down the road to perdition is that those who can afford to isolate themselves from the consequences of bad governance do so. For them, the causes for concern are somewhat longer term: California is a one-party state on its way to becoming a failed state because of fiscal and structural problems.
If you cannot remove yourself from the effects of leftism, including the homeless camps and a somewhat higher cost of living, get out as soon as possible. If you can avoid those things, make a long-term plan to get out because the consequences of wing-nutty progressivism (redundant) will eventually made themselves felt. You’ll miss the pleasant (meteorological) climate, the beaches, and the mountains but there will be compensating rewards elsewhere.
In the meantime, get together with some of the LA Ricochetti and enjoy the good company.
The utility PG & E, that provides our power up north are involved in lawsuits due to fires that were allegedly started due to downed power lines. If those lawsuits resolve in the plaintiffs favor, our utility bills will go sky high, as everyone knows that any fines and settlement monies will have to come from the rate payers.
I think there has to be some lawsuits like that in LA area as well.
I would leave for a whole host of reasons, but the one that sticks out the most? You can’t own the guns you want to, and you can’t carry concealed.
Well, you can, but you have to jump through so many hoops, they might as well pass an outright ban. Still, the idea that a bunch of panty-waist liberal politicians who don’t think I have the God-given right (or even the government-given right) to protect myself and my family from harm is reason enough to move somewhere that will let me own and carry a weapon . . .
Good luck with that!!
WFB Jr. would agree with you on that.
I was born in California, but left quite a while ago. I now live in Indiana.
I don’t want California to sink into the ocean. But I interested in the idea of CalExit, where the other 49 states and California agree to go their separate ways.
I say go ahead and let the Lefties have their own political playground and in exchange the rest of us don’t have to be involved with their failed socialist experiments.
I’m sorry the idea isn’t catching on.
I believe there are, regarding the major gas leak up in the Porter Ranch area a year or so ago that (thankfully) did not ignite or otherwise do damage.
Do you have job openings? Are all of your operations in Knoxville or do you have offices in other cities around the state?
You made my day.
We have an office in Nashville. But we work all over the southeast. The company’s too big to be supported by just the work in Knoxville.
The Federal government, i.e. U.S. Tax Payer, is what the California progressives are depending on to make up the spending short-falls. Therefore, they can not support nor afford a CalExit. This is why the California state and local municipal governments don’t seem so concern about people/businesses leaving, and the subsequent drop in state taxable revenue. The rest of us are going to pick that tab up. I don’t hate California, I was born there, but it does chap by a$$ when I think about it.
This is not true everywhere in California. Carry permits are at the discretion of county sheriffs, thus vary widely. While it is well-nigh impossible to get a permit in LA County, I’m told it is trivial in Kern county. This is also likely true in Fresno County where VDH lives; you’d have to ask him. My gun-nut friend also informs me that carry permits are valid throughout the state, hence Kern County permits work in LA.
This is a perfect illustration of the point I made above, namely that the California experience is not uniform throughout the state – not by a long shot. So, in honor of Kern County (county seat: Bakersfield), here’s a little Merle Haggard with the Bakersfield sound.
California’s divide is very similar to the Upstate/Downstate divide New York has had in its politics since the Civil War era. The difference here is the divide is for the most part between the coastal and inland areas, the imbalance in population between the two developed far more quickly than in New York (where population stayed in relative equilibrium until the 1970s), and the north-south size of California blocks many people off from viable alternatives for their businesses.
If you have to be on the Pacific Coast for your businesses, either due to Asian trade or simply a connection to the Pacific itself, you’re stuck, other than moving north to Oregon or Washington, where regulatory rules and taxes are almost equally severe. New York City discovered back in the early 70s that it could only plunder businesses for taxes while offering declining services/quality of life for so long before the companies packed up for other nearby East Coast states. California’s 800-miles of coastline makes a workaround far more difficult, and likely will allow it to maintain the hubris that it can do anything it likes without pushback for a longer time before economic reality sets in.
Until then, due to the population imbalance between the coastal and inland areas, expect the rules and regulations to tilt more and more towards the coastal majorities, since they care more about their like-minded types 3,000 miles away in the Northeast Corridor than they do the people not even 300 miles away in their own state.
My wife and I moved to the foothills a couple years ago. My neighbors lean much further rightward then those we “enjoyed” in the bay area. While overall the neighbors are much friendlier we are sadly struggling with a next door neighbor that is an out-and-out jerk.
As you say, the liberals are very comfortable with their views, never hesitating to share them loudly even at work, since they just assume that we are all in agreement.
Anyway, I feel somewhat inoculated from the failed aspects of the government but time will tell, if the failure is pervasive enough I’m sure it will hit us as well.
The thing that most amazes me is how despite some absolutely nutty policies, the tech sector drives enough growth and innovation that we somehow manage to stave off the consequences of bad policy. In my weaker moments I sometimes I wonder if I have it all wrong and the progs are right.
So, how’s California doing?
Erin, I wouldn’t leave just yet.
As an old fart who has lived in California his whole life I know there is still room for optimism and hope for the future. Like I am hoping for a new constitutionally oriented Supreme Court that might start enforcing the Constitution. Of course I’m an optimist. Since most of California’s problems start right where our one party state abuses people’s Constitutional rights all over the place, there is great room for immediate improvement here if only our rights were enforced and respected , particularly property rights.
Californians, even going back to the Indians, were always free spirits and were always full of what some might think as crazy ideas. But that’s part of the charm of the place, besides the weather, the beaches, all the fun things to do, it’s entrepreneurial spirit and the feeling that anything is possible here.
I am still hoping that with that constitutional attitude adjustment from the judiciary, California will return to the ideals of it’s golden age that made a cheap place to live, a great place to raise kids, a place with great, not shoddy infrastructure, and a place that was the envy of the world.
Depends who you ask or where you are. VDH spends a bunch of his time in the valley and things are pretty bleak there. I’m in the Foothills and it is much rosier here. Got to the Bay Area and it is thriving. How’s California doing? I don’t really know, but it certainly isn’t the dystopia that I hear of from many outside the state.
For all I know it’s a house of cards…but I guess my point is, it never seems to fall.
So the youtube videos of miles long homeless tent encampments are faked? And the stories of feces and needles polluting the streets of San Francisco?
What do you consider a dystopia?
There are certainly parts of SF that would qualify as Dystopia, I spend two days a week there are while I haven’t seen the needles, I have seen the homeless dropping twosies in the street. That city really is a tale of two cities.
But that is kind of my point, yes there are some ugly pockets, but most of the state seems to be doing quite well and really…is that any different than anywhere else? I’ve been to a great many of our states, they’ve all got their bleak spots.
All states have their good and bad spots economically. The question is what do the people in power do about the bad areas?
If you go to New York, the economically struggling Southern Tier upstate has geological formations in the Utica and Macellus shale that are similar to oil-and-gas producing shale formations in Pennsylvania, Texas, North Dakota and other states where drilling’s taking place. But Andrew Cuomo banned fracking in the state to placate his NYC area environmentalist supporters — NYC’s doing good right now, and the people down there and the governor don’t care if the upstate area dries up and dies. They’d prefer to virtue signal than to give upstate residents and landowners a chance to make money off the oil and gas industry.
In California, it’s literally a matter of the poorer inland areas drying up and dying — in order to virtue signal their environmentalism, the coastal elites and the politicians they support haven’t built a new water storage project in the state in decades, and have been getting their water for the growing population by taking it from farmers in the Central Valley, as VDH has often noted. That’s not just not caring about the people in the poorer parts of the state — that’s progressive Californians enacting policies designed to make the poor areas poorer so they can feel good about themselves.