You have commented 375 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Home Front: Culture Wars
California Dreaming Nightmare
2011-04-12
California in the Balance.

We calibrate California’s decline by its myriad of paradoxes. The nation’s highest bundle of gas, sales, and income taxes cannot close the nation’s largest annual deficit at $25 billion. Test scores are at the country’s near bottom; teachers’ salaries at the very top. Scores of the affluent are leaving each week; scores of the indigent are arriving. The nation’s most richly endowed state is also the most regulated; the most liberal of our residents are also the most ready to practice apartheid in their Bel Air or Palo Alto enclaves.

We now see highway patrolmen and city police, in the manner of South American law enforcement, out in force. Everywhere they are monitoring, watching, ticketing — no warnings, no margins of error — desperate to earn traffic fines that might feed the state that feeds them. I could go on. But you get the picture that we are living on the fumes of a rich state that our forefathers brilliantly exploited, and now there is not much energy left in the fading exhaust to keep us going.
Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC

#23  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Leigh   2011-04-12 18:30  

#22  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2011-04-12 18:05  

#21  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Valentine   2011-04-12 17:56  

#20  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: crosspatch   2011-04-12 16:01  

#19  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: crosspatch   2011-04-12 16:00  

#18  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Jefferson   2011-04-12 15:50  

#17  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: lotp   2011-04-12 15:45  

#16  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-04-12 14:54  

#15  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2011-04-12 14:10  

#14  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: GolfBravoUSMC   2011-04-12 14:09  

#13  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Procopius2k   2011-04-12 14:00  

#12  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2011-04-12 13:45  

#11  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Secret Asian Man (at large)   2011-04-12 13:44  

#10  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: retired LEO   2011-04-12 13:42  

#9  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Beavis   2011-04-12 13:42  

#8  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Cyber Sarge    2011-04-12 13:19  

#7  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-04-12 13:11  

#6  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Beavis   2011-04-12 12:12  

#5  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-04-12 12:04  

#4  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-04-12 12:02  

#3  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2011-04-12 11:48  

#2  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Procopius2k   2011-04-12 11:33  

#1  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2011-04-12 11:24  

00:00