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This is a different kind of thread. Instead of focusing on just one news story, I'm going to link several from various news sources that describe how truly screwed up California really is, so much so I doubt anyone can save the state. I borrow heavily from Jim Geraghty at National Review for a lot of this.
The state, indisputably, is now far around the bend, in a vicious cycle of instituting progressive ideas and then reacting with shock and horror to those ideas.
First, there are unbelievable water restrictions in effect because of the perpetually ongoing drought -- a drought that is primarily caused by the EPA's insistence that fish are more important than people. Perhaps the state's new slogan could be "brown is the new green."
It is, very much, an engineered drought, not an entirely natural phenomenon, but reflective of poor planning of the past generation of California political leaders -- who are, in fact, still the current generation of California political leaders
Despite the enormous problems with the drought, environmentalists are opposing reopening desalinization plants because of the carbon footprint. One was built in the 1990s and has been just sitting there, unused, because it wasn’t cost-efficient enough and there hadn’t been enough need.
There’s been another new round of tax hikes. Yet construction continues on a much-delayed high-speed rail project that will never have enough riders to make financial sense.
The state is offering driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants -- and is shocked to learn the demand was way higher than their projections.
The California cities are attempting to ban fireplaces, plastic bags are banned, when Fresno banned permanent markers, San Francisco makes armed self-defense legally impossible, and campus speech codes are militantly enforced, can anyone plausibly expect California's long-term survival?
I don't see how. The question is really, "What happens to it when it dies?"
The state, indisputably, is now far around the bend, in a vicious cycle of instituting progressive ideas and then reacting with shock and horror to those ideas.
First, there are unbelievable water restrictions in effect because of the perpetually ongoing drought -- a drought that is primarily caused by the EPA's insistence that fish are more important than people. Perhaps the state's new slogan could be "brown is the new green."
It is, very much, an engineered drought, not an entirely natural phenomenon, but reflective of poor planning of the past generation of California political leaders -- who are, in fact, still the current generation of California political leaders
Despite the enormous problems with the drought, environmentalists are opposing reopening desalinization plants because of the carbon footprint. One was built in the 1990s and has been just sitting there, unused, because it wasn’t cost-efficient enough and there hadn’t been enough need.
There’s been another new round of tax hikes. Yet construction continues on a much-delayed high-speed rail project that will never have enough riders to make financial sense.
The state is offering driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants -- and is shocked to learn the demand was way higher than their projections.
The California cities are attempting to ban fireplaces, plastic bags are banned, when Fresno banned permanent markers, San Francisco makes armed self-defense legally impossible, and campus speech codes are militantly enforced, can anyone plausibly expect California's long-term survival?
I don't see how. The question is really, "What happens to it when it dies?"
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