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Why I’ll Be Leaving California
I grew up in California, left for nearly a decade before moving back a few years ago. I can tell you from experience: there’s plenty to dislike about California. However, it’s the smarmy, self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude that will finally motivate me to leave California.
In the above article, Joe Ferullo asks that those who left California for Texas return. He states that Texas laws on voting security, firearms, abortion, minimum wage, and critical race theory violate the mission statements of the tech companies that have vacated the sunshine state. Of course, Hewlett-Packard must defend late-term abortions. How could they make laptops otherwise?
When I finally leave California, it won’t be that my wife and I pay six figures in state income tax. It won’t be that despite (or because of) paying all that money to the government, we still can’t afford to buy a house. It won’t be that, as doctors, we make less in California than we would make elsewhere in the country.
It’ll be due to our smug neighbors tell us we are lucky to pay insane rent for a house with a leaking roof and a rodent infestation (we actually got a good deal considering the alternatives). It’ll be to escape the “tenant advocates” who don’t understand why draconian rent control and tenant protections drive up rents. It’ll be the NIMBY homeowners who refuse to allow new construction, perpetuating discrimination and a housing shortage while proudly displaying a “Black Lives Matter” sign in their all-white neighborhood.
It won’t be the human feces on my front doorstep. It won’t be the aggressive homeless who assault my wife and expose themselves to my daughter. It won’t be piles of syringes next to the drooling addict passed out at my office door.
It’ll be the self-righteous public health officers that insist they care about the homeless, the drug addicts, and the mentally impaired while refusing to actually provide any meaningful treatment or housing. It’ll be the shrill leftists insisting we confiscate private property and redistribute even more to the poor.
I won’t leave because private school is the only option for my kid. I’ll be leaving because of the sanctimonious school board that is more interested in renaming schools than re-opening them. I’ll move because our Governor lies to us about the differences in public and private school rates of in-person teaching.
I’m no economist, but I’ve read enough Hayek, Friedman, and Sowell to understand why the cost of living is so damn high in California. That won’t be why I leave, though. I’ll leave because the Marxists smugly tell me about class struggle and greed.
I’ll leave because they openly state that they will eat me first.
Published in Culture
My sister and her husband are already set to move to Tennessee, from Oregon, the only remaining question is “this year or next year?”
Average annual snow fall in Prescott is only 10 inches a year, while Flagstaff is ten times that. Prescott got rid of its only snowplow years ago to save money as the snow melts quickly. (In Flagstaff, the snow plows are put to a lot of work, with 12 hour shifts.)
I am hoping to get to AZ this year, but the way your government is running things it looks doubtful.
Jump the border illegally. The Federal government will roll out the red carpet for you.
My advice, skip AZ. Go to Tennessee, or Florida, or Texas…
Unless you mean just a visit, I suppose. In that case you only need to wait until the heat eases. If you’re “not allowed” to visit AZ in July/August, they actually did you a favor.
Unless you’re coming from Cuba.
If you are Cuban and come through the Mexican border it’s all good.
In the best-ever-interview-of-anyone-for-all-time, Mark Steyn makes the same suggestion to would-be Dutch immigrants. 15 years ago.
https://www.adrive.com/public/DS9Nut/NARN%2012-02-06%20NARN%201%20Hour%202%20Mark%20Steyn.mp3
I have never been to a dessert before. So I figure doing it once was worth doing.
I’ve been to a dessert far too often. That’s why I weigh as much as I do.
Texas has deserts as much as Arizona does, especially in West Texas, where you would be sneaking across the border to get your red-carpet welcome from the current misadministration.
I have never been to a dessert before. So I figure doing it once was worth doing.
Hey, Doc C, they are in need of doctors in South Dakota too. We liked it there last September. You do need to remember to join the Conservative Migration group too. We are still contemplating moving out of WA once hubby gets his mouth reconstruction done.
Or come to Flagstaff, and I will take you to lunch. We sit at 7,000 feet, and our high temperature is usually within a few degrees of Phoenix’s low temperature for the day.
If anyone in California is considering Ohio, Kentucky, or Indiana; please let all your friends know they would absolutely hate living in any of these states. In fact, I am pretty certain all three have bills currently in their respective legislatures outlawing kale and yoga.
What about avocado toast?
What the hell? Did hubby say Y’all are staying in WA and You socked Him in the mouth?
Last I heard, it was all about playing squash.
My favorite dessert is the one I’m having right now: Guinness Extra Stout.
Nope. He has some serious abnormalities from childhood that are being corrected with orthodontia and surgery. It will take at least another year.
Bret Weinstein had a most fascinating podcast a few years ago about evolutionary orthodontics. I’ll try and find a link.
But Arizona has the iconic and majestic Saguaro Cactus, and Texas has scrub bushes. Arizona also has the Grand Canyon, and if you are coming from the Canada, I recommend that you first visit the North Rim which has only 10% of the people of the crowded South Rim.
Well, that is one thing we will be doing in private. I have assured all of our neighbors we didn’t leave CA to turn TN into CA. I won’t insist that local restaurants offer CA dishes as it can be a gateway to progressive politics unless carefully controlled.
Thank you!
There can be other gateways. Fancy/ethnic restaurants, “foodie” grocery stores, fancy wine stores, maybe even Costco…
It doesn’t require places that sell already-made avocado toast; having places that sell the INGREDIENTS for avocado toast, could be the “thin entering wedge.”
Your offer was part of what made a flight to vegas turn into a road trip across America.
Thanks
I think this is confusing correlation and causation. Big cities in the U.S. are almost always ruled by Democrats. There are all sorts of things that are typically only found in large cities, such as a large number of ethnic restaurants, Jaguar dealerships, convention centers, large libraries, and international airports. That doesn’t mean that going to a convention or driving a Jaguar is going to nudge you into voting Democratic. Eating gourmet/ethnic/exotic food is not going to transform one into a progressive.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/118735a7-efa7-43fb-8413-71b9930c5134#PRLwSfSY.copy
Is it the urban lifestyle that is causing all this present confusion about who is/what defines and distinguishes a man from a woman?
Not by attending a convention in a big city, but if you LIVE IN the big city – because you want to be CLOSE TO those things, have them easily available, etc – you’re going to be living in a Democrat-run city. Which is what many people are starting to realize they want to avoid. My point is that if you want to avoid living in a Democrat-run city, the Jaguar dealership, ethnic restaurants, convention centers, etc, are not going to be nearby. Time to buckle up and get used to that. Or admit to yourself, and to everyone else, that those things are more important to you than liberty.
I wonder if your reasons are the same ones that prompted Andrew Klavan to flee the state?