Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Joel Kotkin, writing in Forbes on Nov. 15, and reproduced in "Notable and Quotable" in the Wall Street Journal today:
In the future, historians may likely mark the 2010 midterm elections as the end of the California era and the beginning of the Texas one. In one stunning stroke, amid a national conservative tide, California voters essentially ratified a political and regulatory regime that has left much of the state unemployed and many others looking for the exits. . . .
This state of crisis is likely to become the norm for the Golden State. In contrast to other hard-hit states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada, which all opted for pro-business, fiscally responsible candidates, California voters decisively handed virtually total power to a motley coalition of Democratic-machine politicians, public employee unions, green activists and rent-seeking special interests....
Every word of that sounds just and true, and more's the woe.
Rob Long, John Yoo, G. A. Dean, Mark Lewis, my fellow Californians all, what are we to do?
- Comment (26)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Aug '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
What to do with the "Lyndsey Lohan of states"? Consider the salutary effects of letting it bottom out.
All the 'kind' and 'empathetic' solutions have been employed to no effect.
Look how Robert Downey Jr. has come around. There's nothing like a few months in stir to wake a dude, or dudess, up. He's better than ever and making great movies.
Nov '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
I would like all of the California Conservatives to come to Washington. State I mean. We are close, so close, to turning the tide up here. Give up the Golden State for the Evergreen State.
Jun '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
You're inviting a flood of dozens.
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
True enough. But also a lot easier to say if you're not trying to raise a family, as I am, in California. (Could you at least feel my pain?)
Nov '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Peter Robinson
True enough. But also a lot easier to say if you're not trying to raise a family, as I am, in California. (Could you at least feel my pain?) · Nov 20 at 11:38am
Peter, I know a middle aged Russian man who was raised in the former Soviet Union. He lived for a while in California, and his brother is still there. He told me that the school systems in California are worse than the schools he was in growing up. I can't imagine what it must be like. It's tough enough in a conservative little town like Lynden, WA to raise kids above the influence (of Liberalism, I mean, not drugs). My oldest is going doing his junior and senior years of high school in the community college. The stuff he comes home with is outrageous. I feel your pain.
Oct '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
The question is, what would a Californian bankruptcy due to the overall US economy? Would it drag it down, or would creativity, Silicon valley and entrepreneurship merely move elsewhere, say to Texas or Nevada? Pennslyvania is undergoing an energy boom due to the Marcellus shale's 100-year supply of natural gas, and it has cheap real estate. If it lowered its high taxes, those assets plus its access to the Atlantic via Philadelphia on the Delaware river could make it very attractive.
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Peter, as a sixth-generation Californian, I do feel your pain. Alas, I fear that Joel Kotkin is exactly correct, and I believe what he is describing is really a death spiral. Though I can, in theory, imagine solutions, I can see no actual good end.
Ken, I'd come in a heart beat.....if your weather wasn't so lousy.
Paules, though it feels like you've got the numbers about right, in fact, it is really only SF and LA and their surrounds that are the problem. The rest of the state is pretty red. We're just way out numbered.
Nov '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Ken, I'd come in a heart beat.....if your weather wasn't so lousy.
· Nov 20 at 12:30pm
Tom - I have no idea what you are talking about..... ;-)
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
The solution is relatoivelty simple. Draw a line from Oceanside up to San Bernardino, then follow along I-5 all the way up to the Oregon border. The left of the line is California, the right side is Freedomia. Most of the money will be on the left side, but in 10 years, Freedomia will have sucked up all the entrepreneurial people and most of the businesses.
And elected two rational senators.
Nov '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Duane Oyen: The solution is relatoivelty simple. Draw a line from Oceanside up to San Bernardino, then follow along I-5 all the way up to the Oregon border. The left of the line is California, the right side is Freedomia. Most of the money will be on the left side, but in 10 years, Freedomia will have sucked up all the entrepreneurial people and most of the businesses.
And elected two rational senators. · Nov 20 at 12:49pm
Duane, why stop at the Oregon border? Why not go to the Canadian border? Everything on the left would be California, and on the right, Freedomia. Well, maybe we'd have to do something a little different with the names. My point is, if you are going to force the liberal components of California to secede, I want you to take King County with it....
Nov '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
The best thing that could happen to California would be a massive dust bowl in Texas. Encourage the displaced Texans to migrate to California. The new motto would be don't mess with Texafornia. If the PC crowd tried to shut the border, we could use their own pro-illegal immigration argument against them.
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Duane Oyen: The solution is relatoivelty simple. Draw a line from Oceanside up to San Bernardino, then follow along I-5 all the way up to the Oregon border. The left of the line is California, the right side is Freedomia. Most of the money will be on the left side, but in 10 years, Freedomia will have sucked up all the entrepreneurial people and most of the businesses.
And elected two rational senators. · Nov 20 at 12:49pm
Great idea!! But, when you draw the boundaries for Freedomia throw in Napa and Sonoma Counties.
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Ken Owsley My point is, if you are going to force the liberal components of California to secede, I want you to take King County with it.... · Nov 20 at 1:24pm
We could certainly cede King County to British Columbia. We could demand Alberta in exchange!
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
"motley coalition of Democratic-machine politicians, public employee unions, green activists and rent-seeking special interests...."
Sounds like here in Illinois (only without the green activists)
Jul '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Blasphemy!
A dust bowl would never send a Texan out of the State. It would only challenge Our entrepreneurial Spirit.
If We eat ribs after having fallen on the ground, a little dust wouldn't hurt nothin'.
I propose an I.D. check at Our border for any more californians coming Here though. Man, there's a lot.
Jul '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
"... an I.D. check..."
I should say for Conservative credentials.
Oct '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Sorry Peter:
20 years ago we escaped Mexifornia and immigrated to Colorado Springs. Sadly, so many left and right coast fools migrated to Denver that we are rapidly developing all the pathologies of Mexifornia. People of the liberal bent are simply fools, and once they have urinated all over the paradise they have, they look for unpolluted places like Colorado to defecate on. We have Ritter now turning into Hickenlooper to look forward to. There is no escape. We can only defeat, read; destroy, them.
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
I write from Provo, Utah -- where I have been attending a conference entitled Constitutionalism at Risk? sponsored by the John Adams Center at Brigham Young University. One thing that you could do is move to Utah -- where most people seem sane. Alternatively, you could hunker down and try to survive the storm. Illinois is paying more interest than Mexico to market its bonds. California will get there, and soon no one will buy its bonds. Then, the governor and the legislature will have to face the music -- and politically that will be an interesting time.
May '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Combining states is unconstitutional. Really.
Oct '10
Re: Alas and Wailaway for the Golden State
Peter,
Lift your eyes to the hills from whence your help comes (Psalm 121); and "never, never, never give up!"
Edited on Nov 20, 2010 at 10:27pm