California über unter alles
Posted By Russ Emerson on February 17, 2009 at 4:38 pm
At Hot Air: California grinds to a halt.
This was, of course, entirely predictable. Inevitable, even — if not this year, then next, or the next. And under normal circumstances, I’d say fine, let them sink.
The downside, though, is that my entire family and many of my friends are still there. As are several million other normal productive Americans.
For years, I’ve cajoled my family members to get out while the getting is good. I can understand their reluctance, though. My mom has a lifetime’s worth of friends there. My brother’s business is there. I’m not entirely sure why my sister stays…. And of course we’re natives — unlike the vast majority of those who have done their utmost to entirely screw up the state.
It used to be such a great place. I loved growing up there. No longer. It is as if God had lifted the country up at the East Coast and all the human detritus rolled down and stopped in California.
If only the debris had gone another couple of hundred miles… out into the Pacific. That’d be one way of making sure the hippies had a bath.
As things stand now, though, I expect some very bad things will be happening in California. Confiscatory taxes on producers, property taxes on assets other than real estate, confiscation of personal assets on departure from the state (either by taxing real estate sales, or the death tax, or both) and so on, starting with the (for now) failed attempt by legislators to increase the tax burden by $14.4 billion — most of it going to feed the ravenous entitlements beast… and, it should be mentioned, the state’s overgenerous underfunded employee pension funds, as Instapundit points out from time to time.
Add into the mix unchecked illegal immigration and voter fraud on a level that would make the late Richard Daley green with envy, and I have a bad feeling we’re going to be seeing California turning into North Venezuela… or worse, West Zimbabwe.
Not too long ago, Victor Davis Hanson noted:
California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries — and squandered that gift within a generation.
Sad, but as true as anything ever was.
Things are going to get ugly in California. The only question is, how ugly?
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