Posted on 11/17/2004 5:30:18 PM PST by 45Auto
I know a lot of people who are stuck in the 1960’s. They look back at that time of free love, Jimi Hendrix, and the socialist utopia. They long for the socialist utopia they thought was possible then, not thinking that their view of this socialist utopia was somewhat colored by the chemicals that altered their thought patterns in those days. The only problem with these people, who see the long-haired, peacenik of 1968 as the ideal citizen, is that they are now the Democrat majority in the state legislature.
Most people don’t know this, but I actually used to think like them. While the drugs of the 60’s were not a part of my experience, I used to think that the ideal social order was based on the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” Indeed, in those idyllic years, I conceived of an end to hunger and poverty in the coming United States socialist paradise. Boy was I stupid.
Unfortunately for my colleagues in the state legislature, they cling to this monumental misconception. Their solution to every problem that people face is another government program, and another tax on the rich. They just know that they can help you raise your kids, run your business, protect your job, clean up your neighborhood, and spend your money better than you. It’s like they provide you with your own personal bureaucrat finance director. When they had their way between 1999 and 2003, during the Davis years, they bankrupted the state.
I became a conservative because the principles of family, faith, free enterprise, and individual liberty are the principles of a solid social organization. The only new and good ideas for solving our social problems are coming from those who rely on these principles for their policy recommendations.
Take, for instance, the concept of a faith-based social service system. A government-run welfare system relies on the unwilling giver (who contributes to the bureaucracy through taxes), and the ungrateful recipient (we even call welfare payments “entitlements”), whereas the church relies on willing givers and grateful recipients. In the volunteer system, people actually like each other. In the government system, people are always competing for the politician’s attention. Which do you think is better for society?
The conservative-movement thinkers emphasize a parent-based education system, an entrepreneurial-based tax system, a freedom-based social system, and a community-based government. The liberty-based system is win/win, with the individual choosing whether he or she wins or loses.
The leftists (or liberals) rely on a top/down, government-enforced social system. The end result: big government, high taxes, less individual liberty, and ultimately failure. It is a system that is based on a win/lose philosophy, with the politicians picking the winners and losers. Of course, the winners are usually those who help the politicians stay in power.
The rest of the country is finally realizing that the socialist utopia is a failed model. It simply won’t work. They are voting in larger and larger numbers of those candidates who don’t reject faith, who believe in individual liberty, and who want to cut taxes and reduce the size of government (even if they are not always perfect at pursuing that model).
California, on the other hand, is sticking to the drug-induced “wouldn’t it be great” euphoria of my youth. This last election has preserved the control of the forces of socialism in the California Legislature. Unions, trial lawyers, and the socialist environmentalists have retained control of the levers of power in both houses of the legislature, and they are set to do war with the Governor, who is trying to change the direction of the state.
California used to be a leader, but now it is stuck in the backwaters of the 1960s. While other states have tried complicated bureaucratic solutions to our problems, most are now rejecting them and looking for more decentralized liberty-based alternatives. How long will it be before we, as a state, finally get that haircut, take a shower, and get to work dismantling our bureaucracy and rebuilding families, businesses, and private religious and charitable organizations?
I love Jimi Hendrix. I wouldn't move to CA today.
I was born two years after Hendrix died, and I still love his music.
Paying the Piper is not that far off. When the cuts come and they will...the nation will hear a guttoral scream from the hordes that fed off the socialist teat.
Their utopia was 40 years ago. You'd think they'd have moved on by now.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, while always expecting a different result. You'd think that after failing to acheive their Worker's Paradise for 40+ years, they'd get a clue, but they must have fried too many brain cells.
Yes, I like Hendrix' music, too. The man was a great blues guitarist before he got into bad crap.
And then it changed.
"When the cuts come and they will..."
They will think of creative ways to try to persuade the rest of the country that it is somehow our fault, and that we should bail them out.
It won't work.
My hope is that we collapse, see the error of our ways, and rebuild accordingly. My fear is that we'll just continue to slide into irreversable failure (3rd world status).
I agree with you and that is why I moved to Nevada.
Bump from a Californian for later read.
Horowitz and Collier analyze the delusional self-destructiveness of the Left, and the manner in which the dope-addled idiots of the 60's destroy everything they touch, in their book "Destructive Generation". The 60's doper-babies live in a "pseudo-environment" of their own imagining, to use the term coined by Horowitz and Collier, and when they get control of a government (the authors use Berkeley as an early example) they sit around in their handful-of-nuts-that-screw-together and enact legislation based not on the reality of any situation they're in, but on the way they "wish" things were, or think they "should" be.
With the loss of the State Senate by the Republicans in the last election, Oregon is now teetering on the brink of the abyss into which Commufornia has fallen. We're infested with the same leftist scum, and they're one step away from dragging us over the edge with them, in their fanatical determination to indulge their mad fantasies to the very end, even if - in fact, probably *in particular* if - it means taking everyone else down with them.
Remember, these are the same people who would rather see the U.S.A. destroyed, than to admit that one-world globalism will not work or that national sovereignty is in any way permissible. Destroying an individual State with their madcap idealism is no problem at all for them.
The demographics are now such that I do not think the situation is reversible until catastrophic financial collapse occurs. We are already seeing signs of that. The successful recall of Grey Davis was a sign of changes to come. However, Arnold the A$$wipe has not, so far, lived up to some people's expectations with regard to fiscal responsibility. In lieu of the firing of about 50% of state employees, and the shutting down about the same (or more) percentage of the Great California Welfare State, and preventing about 10 million illegals from tapping into the education/medical/social services net, I do not see enough spending cuts being implemented in order to avoid another fiscal crisis in the near future. By that time, Arnold the Great will probably have moved on to greener pastures, leaving the fiscal mess for the next governor/legislature to fix. Its a freekin' total nightmare for those of us still being tapped (greatly) for the lion's share of taxes.
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