True. Though the author veers close to that himself... Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 3, 2017, at 14:27, Chris Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hypocrisy, when coupled with sanctimoniousness, grates people like few other > human transgressions > > Great line. > > From: BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2017 10:27 AM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: [RC] The other California > > > > NRO seems to be another site that deliberately has set out to ruin > its previously functional format -for reasons unknown except to say > that visual illiteracy is a virtue for a certain class of the literati. > Graphics considerations? Who needs to worry about graphics > when you can spoil your content with bad graphics? > > Anyway, if you don't need to copy and paste, the article has a nice enough > format. And the article is very, very good. > > The trouble is that it does not explain, not nearly, why 2/3rds of the > population > of the state votes Democratic. > > BR > > ---------------------------------------- > > NRO > > > It's Still a Mad, Mad California > > > by VICTOR DAVIS HANSON January 3, 2017 > > > Coastal elites set rules for others, exempt themselves, and tolerate rampant > lawlessness from illegal aliens. One reason for the emergence of outsider > Donald Trump is the old outrage that elites seldom experience the > consequences of their own ideologically driven agendas. > > Hypocrisy, when coupled with sanctimoniousness, grates people like few other > human transgressions: Barack Obama opposing charter schools for the inner > city as he puts his own children in Washington’s toniest prep schools, or Bay > Area greens suing to stop contracted irrigation water from Sierra reservoirs, > even as they count on the Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy project to deliver > crystal-clear mountain water to their San Francisco taps. The American > progressive elite relies on its influence, education, money, and cultural > privilege to exempt itself from the bad schools, unassimilated immigrant > communities, dangerous neighborhoods, crime waves, and general impoverishment > that are so often the logical consequences of its own policies — consequences > for others, that is. > > Abstract idealism on behalf of the distant is a powerful psychological > narcotic that allows caring progressives to dull the guilt they feel about > their own privilege and riches. Nowhere is this paradox truer than in > California, a dysfunctional natural paradise in which a group of coastal and > governing magnificoes virtue-signal from the world’s most exclusive and > beautiful enclaves. > > The state is currently experiencing another perfect storm of increased crime, > decreased incarceration, still ongoing illegal immigration, and record > poverty. All that is energized by a strapped middle class that is still > fleeing the overregulated and overtaxed state, while the arriving poor take > their places in hopes of generous entitlements, jobs servicing the elite, and > government employment. > > Pebble Beach or La Jolla is as far from Madera or Mendota as Mars is from > Earth. The elite coastal strip appreciates California’s bifurcated two-class > reality, at least in the way that the lords of the Middle Ages treasured > their era’s fossilized divisions. Manoralism ensured that peasants remained > obedient, dependent, and useful serfs; meanwhile, the masters praised their > supposedly enlightened feudal system even as they sought exemptions for their > sins from the medieval Church. And without a middle class, the masters had no > fear that uncouth others would want their own scaled-down versions of castles > and moats. > > Go to a U-Haul trailer franchise in the state. The rental-trailer-return > rates of going into California are a fraction of those going out. Surely > never in civilization’s history have so many been so willing to leave a > natural paradise. Yet collate that fact with the skyrocketing cost of > high-demand housing along a 400-mile coastal corridor. The apparent paradox > is no paradox: Frustrated Californians of the interior of the state without > money and who cannot afford to move to the coastal communities of Santa > Monica or Santa Barbara (the entire middle class of the non-coast) are > leaving for low-tax refuges out of state — in “if I cannot afford the coast, > then on to Idaho” fashion. > > The state’s economy and housing are moribund in places like Stockton and > Tulare, the stagnation being the logical result of the policies of the > governing class that would never live there. Meanwhile, the coastal creed is > that Facebook, Apple, Hollywood, and Stanford will virtually feed us, 3-D > print our gas, or discover apps to provide wood and stone for our homes. > > Crime rates are going up again in California, sometimes dramatically so. In > Los Angeles, various sorts of robberies, assaults, and homicide rose between > 5 and 10 percent over 2015; since 2014, violent crime has skyrocketed by 38 > percent. This May, California’s association of police chiefs complained that > since the passage of Proposition 47 — which reclassified supposedly > “nonserious” crimes as misdemeanors and kept hundreds of thousands of > convicted criminals out of jail — crime rates in population centers of more > than 100,000 have increased more than 15 percent. California governor Jerry > Brown has let out more parolees — including over 2,000 serving life sentences > — than any recent governor. > > How does that translate to the streets far distant from Brentwood or > Atherton? Let me narrate a recent two-week period in navigating the outlands > of Fresno County. A few days ago my neighbor down the road asked whether I > had put any outgoing mail in our town’s drive-by blue federal mailbox, > adjacent to the downtown Post Office. I had. And he had, too —to have it > delivered a few hours later to his home in scraps, with the checks missing, > by a good Samaritan. She had collected the torn envelopes with his return > address scattered along the street. I’m still waiting to see whether my own > bills got collected before the thieves struck the box. > > Most of us in rural California go into town to mail our letters, because our > rural boxes have been vandalized by gangs so frequently that it is suicidal > to mail anything from home. Most of us in rural California go into town to > mail our letters, because our rural boxes have been vandalized by gangs so > frequently that it is suicidal to mail anything from home. (Many of us now > have armored, bullet-proof locked boxes for incoming mail). On the same day > last week, when I was driving outside our farm, I saw a commercial van > stopped on the side of the road on the family property, with the logo of a > furniture- and carpet-cleaner company emblazoned on the side. The driver was > methodically pumping out the day’s effluvia into the orchard. When I > approached him, he assured me in broken English that there was “no problem — > all organic.” When I insisted he stop the pumping, given that the waste water > smelled of solvents, he politely replied, “Okay, already, I’m almost done.” > When it looked as if things might further deteriorate, the nice-enough > polluter agreed to stop. > > In the interior of green California, it is considered rude or worse to ask > otherwise pleasant people not to pump out their solvent water on the side of > the road. Down the road, I saw the morning’s new trash littered on the > roadway — open bags of diapers and junk mail. Apparently California’s new > postmodern law barring incorrect plastic grocery bags (and indeed barring > free paper grocery bags) has not yet cleaned up our premodern roadsides. > > Remember: California knows it dare not enforce laws against trash-throwing > in rural California; that’s too politically incorrect and would be impossible > to enforce anyway. Instead, it charges shoppers for their bags. In > California, the neglect of the felony requires the rigid prosecution of the > misdemeanor. I was in my truck — and suddenly I felt blessed that I was lucky > enough to have it. Last summer it was stolen from a restaurant parking lot in > Fresno when my son borrowed it to go to dinner. The truck was found four days > later, still operable but with the ignition console torn apart and the > interior ruined, amid the stench of trash, marijuana butts, beer bottles, > waste, and paper plates still full of stale rice. > > During this same recent 14-day period, my wife stopped at her office condo in > Fresno to print out a document. She left the garage door open to the driveway > for ten minutes. Ten minutes is a lifetime in the calculus of California > thievery. Her relatively new hybrid bicycle was immediately stolen by a > fleet-footed thief. I noted to her that recent parolees often walk around the > streets until they can afford to buy or manage to steal a car — and therefore > for a time like bikes like hers. That same week, her bank notified her that > her credit card was canceled — after numerous charges at fast-food franchises > showed up in Texas. Cardinal rule in California: Be careful in paying for > anything with a credit card, because the number is often stolen and sold off. > Cardinal rule in California: Be careful in paying for anything with a credit > card, because the number is often stolen and sold off. I thought things had > been getting better until these awful two weeks. > > One-third of a mile down my rural street, in the last 24 months, at least the > swat team crashed a drug/prostitution/fencing operation hidden in a persimmon > orchard. The house across the street from that operation was later surrounded > by law enforcement to root out gang members. Forest fires started by > undocumented-alien pot growers were down in the nearby Sierra. I hadn’t lost > copper wire from a pump in two years. I once also thought the proof of > American civilization was predicated on three assumptions: One could > confidently mail a letter in a federal postal box on the street; one in > extremis could find safe, excellent care in an emergency room; and one could > visit a local DMV office to easily clear up a state error. None are any > longer true. > > I’ll never put another letter in a U.S. postal box, unless I’m in places like > Carmel or Atherton that are in the Other California. Two years ago, I was > delivered by ambulance to a local emergency room after a severe bike > accident; on fully waking up, I saw a uniformed police officer standing next > to my bed to protect fellow ER patients from the patient in the next cubicle > — a felon who had punched his fist through a car window in a failed burglary > attempt and who was now being visited by his gang-member relatives. > > Not long ago, the DMV did not send me the necessary license sticker. Online > reservations were booked up. So I made the mistake of visiting the local > regional office without an appointment, where I first got my license 47 years > ago — the office then was a model of efficiency and professionalism. A > half-century later, a line hundreds of feet long snaked out the door. The > office is designated as a DMV center for licensing illegal aliens. The entire > office, in the linguistic and operational sense, is recalibrated to assist > those who are here illegally and to make it difficult if not impossible for > citizens to use it as we did in the past. After 20 minutes, when the line had > hardly moved, I left. What makes the law-abiding leave California is not just > the sanctimoniousness, the high taxes, or the criminality. It is always the > insult added to injury. > > We suffer not only from the highest basket of income, sales, and gas taxes in > the nation, but also from nearly the worst schools and infrastructure. We > have the costliest entitlements and the most entitled. We have the largest > number of billionaires and the largest number of impoverished, both in real > numbers and as a percentage of the state population. California crime > likewise reflects the California paradox of two states: a coastal elite and > everyone else. California is the most contentious, overregulated, and > postmodern state in the Union, and also the most feral and 19th-century. > > On my rural street are two residences not far apart. In one, shacks dot the > lot. There are dozens of port-a-potties, wrecked cars, and unlicensed and > unvaccinated dogs — all untouched by the huge tentacles of the state’s > regulatory octopus. Nearby, another owner is being regulated to death, as he > tries to rebuild a small burned house: His well, after 30 years, is suddenly > discovered by the state to be in violation, under a new regulation governing > the allowed distance between his well and his leach line; so he drills > another costly well. Then his neighbor’s agricultural well is suddenly > discovered by the state regulators to be too close as well, so he breaks up > sections of his expensive new leach line. After a new septic system was built > by a licensed contractor and a new well was drilled by a licensed > well-driller, he has after a year — $40,000 poorer — still not been permitted > to even start to rebuild his 900-square-foot house. > > From her nest in Rancho Mirage, a desert oasis created by costly water > transfers, outgoing senator Barbara Boxer rails about water transfers. In the > former case, the owner of port-a-potties and shacks clearly cannot pay and > belongs to an exempt class of the Other. The latter owner is a rare > law-abiding Californian, and so he has a regulatory target on his back — > because he is someone of the vanishing middle class who can and will do and > pay as ordered. He is an endangered species whose revenue-raising torment is > necessary to exempt others from the same ordeal. > > In feral California, we suffer not just from too many and too few > applications of the law, but from the unequal enforcement of it. When the > state has one-fourth of its population born in another country, dozens of > sanctuary cities exempt from federal law, and millions residing here > illegally, it makes politicized cost-benefit choices. Feral California out > here is a live-and-let-live place, a libertarian’s dream (or nightmare). The > staggering costs for its illegality are made up by the shrinking few who nod > as they always have and follow the law in all its now-scary manifestations. > > > The rich on the coast tune out. From her nest in Rancho Mirage, a desert > oasis created by costly water transfers, outgoing senator Barbara Boxer rails > about water transfers. When Jerry Brown leaves his governorship, he will not > live in Bakersfield but probably in hip Grass Valley. High crime, the flight > of small businesses, and water shortages cannot bound the fences of Nancy > Pelosi’s Palladian villa or the security barriers and walls of Mark > Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley billionaires — who press for more > regulation, and for more compassion for the oppressed, but always from a > distance and always from the medieval assumption that their money and > privilege exempt them from the consequences of their idealism. There is no > such thing as an open border for a neighbor of Mr. Zuckerberg or of Ms. > Pelosi. A final window into the California pathology: Most of the most > strident Californians who decry Trump’s various proposed walls insist on them > for their own residences. > > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- > -- > Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community > <[email protected]> > Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism > Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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