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| Regulated for Regulators |
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”"--Robert Heinlein
"The Oroville Dam disaster is just a taste of what's to come under the incompetent Democrat oligarchy. CA, you elected them. It's on you."--Kurt Schlichter
Dr. Hanson tells his family's California story:
21st Century California Reverts Back to the Wild West
"The theme of his some 86 years was the notion of progress -- that a mostly uninhabited desert (the landscape of jackrabbits, rattlesnakes, tumbleweed, and Jimsonweed), through the marvels of irrigation, the growth of small agrarian towns, and the rule of and respect for statutes, had bloomed, with steady material and ethical progress, into what he told me was “heaven on earth.”
I was the beneficiary (born in 1953) of the work of past generations. In my early youth of the 1950s and 1960, I can’t recall that we locked the house or perhaps even had a house key. We still used a shared open telephone line (my great-grandfather had strung it up with redwood poles and vineyard 12 gauge wire on glass insulators). It was also certainly a multiracial and intermarried upbringing, as Portuguese, Armenian, Japanese, Mexican-American, and Punjabi farmers both collaborated and competed with one another on their 40-80 acre vineyard homesteads.
That entire world, of course, is gone, a victim of wealth, affluence, consolidation and corporatization of agriculture, globalization, high-tech appurtenances, the postmodern ethos that followed the 1960s, and massive influxes of illegal immigrants. What I regret most, however, is the disappearance of the rule of law. In some ways, we have returned to the pre-civilized days of the 19th century. When I walk or ride a bicycle in rural areas, I expect that the dogs that rush out from rented-out homes and trailers are neither licensed nor vaccinated—and that fact is of no concern to authorities. ...
Every old rural farmhouse in these environs can be characterized by three traits: a) the house is a rental and not connected with the corporate fields around it; b) there are two to three families, in illegal fashion, living in ramshackle trailers and sheds on the property; c) the authorities don’t dare enforce zoning or health laws, on the grounds that enforcement is a bad investment of their limited time and budget.
If I find a dead dog dumped on the alleyway (as I have three or four times over the last 12 months), with a rope around his neck and his insides exposed from dog fighting, I bury him and pass on calling the animal-control people. In fairness to them, what would they do, run an investigation into rural dog fighting—in a state in which felons are routinely released from prisons and jails, and sanctuary cities offer amnesties? I suppose a Queensland with his face ripped off is small potatoes. (Does multiculturalism trump the ASPCA or PETA?)
Nor do I ever contact the state EPA or the county when monthly I collect baby carriages, car seats, tires, used paint cans, old Christmas trees, mattresses, and dirty diapers dumped on the side of the road—despite occasional junk mail signifying the address of the polluter. About 50 pounds of coils of old worn-out drip hoses are out in front of my house today, a huge pile of plastic junk dumped as if my roadside was a free waste site. ... How can such a green state that refuses to sell plastic bags at the coastal grocery markets prove indifferent to the spoliation of its rural hinterland?
The lawlessness is characterized by two facts: One, there are so many residing here illegally from Mexico and Central America that the system is overwhelmed; and, two, ideologically law enforcement has become a political, not a legal issue. As best as I can decipher, it works on the following principle. California has the highest bundle of gas, income, and sales taxes in the country, but borders on chronic insolvency. Social programs, subsidized health care, law enforcement, and crises in public education claim most of the budget, and the result is that the overtaxed state’s roads, reservoirs and once landmark water transfer systems are under-capitalized and dysfunctional. Various agencies operate on a fee basis -- informally of course and denied vehemently when asked.
Take traffic tickets. A broken California a few years ago jacked up the fines as a way to raise revenue (the majority of residents do not pay income taxes; the top 1% pays half of all state income tax revenue: the best and worst place to be an income taxpayer). Yet those who are most likely to be punished for unsafe driving or defective vehicles are often precisely newcomers without capital, without legality, and without familiarity with U.S. driving laws, and who would not or could not pay their fines. Suspending licenses as a result of unpaid fees soon became a political issue, with all the hallmarks of the modern social state. As a result, for a while longer, you can have up to 80% of your fines reduced, but only if you make less than a state-specified income. The law assumes the following: A state or local official understands that if he were to pull over an illegal alien, for example, he would waste his agency’s precious time and money writing tickets that either would not be paid or would be amnestied. Far better to target a soccer mom, who most certainly will pay promptly and help to pay state employee salaries and pensions.
California is hyper-lawful and lawless, completely free and without freedom, a condition entirely predicated on one’s sense of income and dutifulness. If one picks and chooses legal compliance, claims grievance, and earns ideological sympathy on the basis of race and class, then the law is negotiable; otherwise, he is a ripe target for bureaucracies and agencies to monitor every aspect of his life—on the principle that because millions now do not pay traffic fines and income taxes, file proper and legal names, and obey bureaucratic summonses, a few thousands must to the nth degree.
We are back to the Wild West circa 1890; and all the iPhones, apps, and Teslas cannot change that fact.
But with one key difference: In 1900, lawlessness in California was a result of the natural wild and the frontier;
Today it is a symptom of civilized wild and ideology.
Historically, the latter is far more dangerous than the former." .......
That's Jerry Brown's Golden Statism: From 'Iowa with Beaches' to Tijuana with Taxes. We don't blame Democrats for the weather--although they blame us fot it. But they are responsible for the policies they do control.
Today it is a symptom of civilized wild and ideology.
Historically, the latter is far more dangerous than the former." .......
That's Jerry Brown's Golden Statism: From 'Iowa with Beaches' to Tijuana with Taxes. We don't blame Democrats for the weather--although they blame us fot it. But they are responsible for the policies they do control.
When Gov. Reagan handed California over to the care of Jerry Brown in 1975,
it was a solidly-run, forward-looking state.
"Unhindered by party lines, one of the great engineering feats of all time, the California Water Project, is nearing completion. We have continued to add to our network of modern high speed highways and freeways and with every added mile we have saved the lives of our citizens. While traffic fatality rates climb in the rest of the nation, ours continues to decline. With the entire nation plagued by runaway crime rates and bulging prisons, our major California cities report a reduction in crimes of violence.
Our rehabilitation policies and improved parole system are attracting nationwide attention. Fewer parolees are being returned to prison than at any time in our history and our prison population is lower than at any time since 1963. Since the tax increase of 1967, more than 40 pieces of legislation have been passed easing the tax burden. More than 5 percent of the annual budget is money returned directly to the homeowner. The cost of actually administering state government has increased less than the increase in inflation alone. At the start of the fiscal year, there were fewer full-time employees than there were four years ago. In the decade which we embark upon today, the average family income will go from a little over $13,000 to more than $18,000 per year. If all 20 million of us wanted to live elsewhere, we would find 100 people willing to trade places with each one of us." .......
All that gone now, just like the Breach. The Oroville Dam is the direct result of all the Democrat policies that Dr. Hanson named--even if Oroville itself is Trump Country. And we're praying for you.
"Trade places"? Here's Hunter S. Thompson in Woody Creek, "exchanging gunfire with a newly arrived resident in a dispute having something to do with livestock. “If this son of a bitch wants to bitch about his cows over here and shoot at me, well… it’s our country. It’s not theirs. It’s not a bunch of used car dealers from southern California.”" He may have gone mad, but he wasn't crazy.
Californians now flee to Flyover States in a kind of "Grapes of Wrath/Wrath of Grapes" reversal: the Dust Bowl Okies went to California, and now Californians escape to Oklahoma and other western states.
Unfortunately, some of them don't connect their exodus to their Democratic voting patterns which sent them into exile, chalking it up to the aforementioned "bad luck" instead. As in Colorado, the Brown contagion is then spread:
* The Environmental Extremism: Democrats vehemently forbade dam-building for decades, the water storage that they need today. They refused to let farmers use water in favor of the Delta Smelt. And in their cult-like zombie credulity, they just "knew" that Global Warming would keep the reservoirs empty forever.
* The Massive Profligate Spending: Whether Gov. Brown's Bullet Train Monomania, or zillions spent on foreigners or the lush salaries and benefits for government employees, often for make-work jobs; all these took scarce funds away from the real needs of Californians--like dam maintenance.
But at least the regularly-scheduled State University riots are punctual.
200,000 people are homeless tonight because of these Democrat policies. They weren't kidding when they said they wanted more refugees.
"We have the wolf by the ear and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose," said Jefferson--no wonder Gov. Brown demands the right to endlessly mint new voters; the old ones are catching on.
When they're not swimming--or fleeing-- for their lives.
Whether you're Amb. Chris Stevens, who was left to die on the vine, or SEAL Ryan Owens, whose mission was leaked to the enemy by O-moles to hurt Trump and help the Ayatollah, or just citizen Kate Steinle out for a walk with her dad on the San Francisco pier, Oroville is learning what others already found out:
Dam or no dam, it's dangerous to live Downstream from Democrats.
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| "Flood? What flood?" |
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