I voted for marijuana legalization, and I'm glad it passed. It's none of my (or anyone else's) business if someone wants to use pot, any more than it is if they use alcohol.
I think it is some kind of door way to the demonic realms
"Demons"? Really?
Posted on 08/03/2018 12:00:16 PM PDT by beaversmom
When asked about a popular restaurant, Yogi Berra put it like only Yogi could. “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”
Well, Colorado has turned into that restaurant.
A fascinating recent report by The Denver Post’s Aldo Svaldi (which I’m pretty sure is the name he made up to start a budget winery) details the demographic shifts happening to our once ruggedly individualistic state. More people are still pouring into Colorado than sneaking out, but the gap is narrowing.
Last year was the first drop this decade in people moving here from other states. At the same time, more people were leaving Colorado than ever before. There were still 30,000 more coming than going, so don’t think our population is shrinking. They’re still flooding in like the Chinese into Korea during the war, and destroying what Colorado used to be.
People have always come here, that’s not news. The real story is people are escaping at record numbers to get away from what the state has sadly become.
Most anti-growth types yap about how all these out-of-state transplants hurt the “character” of their communities. To the point even traditionally sensible places like Lakewood have turned tribal in attempting growth limits, foolishly thinking it will reduce traffic and give them back some elbowroom. Elitist Boulder proves it does just the opposite.
“Character” of communities always changes and we’ll always long for what they used to be like in our younger years.
People are fleeing Colorado not because there’s too many people here or a box store replaced a mom-and-pop shop (don’t worry, the box store will be replaced by Amazon drones, and later something will replace that). They’re bolting because what it is to be a Coloradan has changed.
Deep down in its soul there has been a seismic shift in the spirit of Colorado, in its people. It’s not the change in the physical “character” of our town. It’s the change in the character of our people.
You feel it. You’re reminded of it every time you roll your eyes when you’re stuck behind a California license plate in traffic. You feel it with the growing “triggered” society, ready to riot over a sign at a coffee shop. You feel it with every proposal to raise “fees” on grocery bags or drinks with sugar, force green roofs, municipalize power companies, raise sin taxes on smoking, build city-owned internet, growth control, gun control, healthcare control. Control, control, control. You feel it — we are becoming California.
More than ever Coloradans want to make decisions for other people and engineer how others live. This is wildly antithetical to the Colorado I grew up in.
The personal stories in Svaldi’s report echo this Californication as the reasons our escapees are fleeing: “The growth of our beautiful city has brought nothing but increased traffic, angry entitled transplants who have no respect, and a cost of living that is through the roof.” “Colorado had become very liberal, anti-religion, anti-gun and way too sensitive about stuff.”
Colorado has always been a destination state, perhaps THE destination state in THE destination nation. Why? Because people were drawn to Colorado because it was the place where one could write his own biography.
People who craved the freedom to make their own decisions were pulled to this state by some unseen magnet which created the Colorado Character.
Miners, farmers, ranchers, brewers, artists, techies and businessmen all were drawn here and had one common denominator: a fearless desire to take on risk. They directed their own activities, made their own calls, and through the power of freely associating with others built the greatest state in America. The tales of their failures and successes only powered the magnet more.
The magnet that seems to pull today’s new Coloradans are pretty mountains, a job, and home that somehow costs less than the one they’re selling in California.
The new Colorado character craves the illusion of security and certainty of outcome.
It’s time to rename our state East California.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
So... alcohol is harmless?
Yep, I remember those, too. It’s been going on for a while.
No, I would say that used to be California, but the nut jobs have destroyed that. The author fails to mention the legalization of marijuana and what effects that has had on his state. I dont think it can be discounted. And the Colorado liberal streak goes back decades - they declined the 1976 Winter Olympics. At Aspen, you have the super-rich driving out the merely rich. The Colorado the author cites... did it even exist the last fifty years?
So they finally split CA...
America has freedom of movement. You can’t tell people they can’t move to a state. Colorado attracts physically active people who come to live close by the fabulous outdoor activities and beauty available.
The Front Range is urban and lousy, like all urban areas. The area and town I live in on the western slope is great. You wouldn’t even know pot was legal here. No pot stores, no overt use, no hang-abouts on the streets. Business is booming.
There are more summer tourists in the county than I’ve ever seen. They’ll be gone soon. Then the hunters will come, they spend a lot of money.
I’ve been here 42 years and it’s great, no plans to leave.
Drugs in our nation our certainly a problem. I have conflicting feelings on mj, and I don’t know all the consequences of legalization here in CO and elsewhere, but meth and heroin are destroying lives, families, and the decency and souls of people. I’m going to post a short video report on that next.
lol!
Rename it Colofornia!
I grew up on the Western Slope and loved it. But I am looking at Utah or Idaho as retirement draws near. Can’t wait to leave California.
Sorry that title has already been taken by New Mexico now known as The Peoples Republic Of Eastern California.
bump to that!
The marijuana is a draw for ex-Californians.
I would do the Western Slope or Utah or Arizona. I know every place has problems. I love the front range. I’ve been here since 75. But there are problems. And I foresee even bigger problems the bigger we get here.
Ahhh...shoot. Where are they heading in NM? Santa Fe? ABQ? Or other parts?
I voted for marijuana legalization, and I'm glad it passed. It's none of my (or anyone else's) business if someone wants to use pot, any more than it is if they use alcohol.
I think it is some kind of door way to the demonic realms
"Demons"? Really?
True enough...
Noteworthy that James Dobson’s Focus on the Family moved from a Los Angeles suburb to Colorado Springs because it saw California as becoming more intolerant and hostile to Christians and family values. It looks like California belatedly followed them.
I spent my junior high days in Littleton just south of Denver (suburb where the Columbine High School massacre took place) in the late 1960s in a sprawling ranch house between the distant South Platte River on one side and the lush mountains on the other.
My sister relocated to the hogback southwest of Denver back in the 1980s and the land of that big ranch home had been subdivided into numerous homes with an artificial fishing pond added onto the property. The Centennial horse race track was gone and much of the sprawling land around the house had been built up with homes.
To me, the charm was lost then. The open western charm has vanished, replaced by suburban sprawl. If you want to reclaim that lifestyle, best to move to Wyoming, Idaho or Montana but they, too, are working through their own California invasion.
In Iowa we are actually advertising in Chicago to bring us your welfare dependent people. It is our own fault but it sure isn’t how we voted.
“The common denominator is marijuana “
I don’t care if people smoke marijuana (not my children, though), but I tell people all the time that it has changed the culture in Colorado, which we visit 4-5 times a year. It’s all about marijuana in Colorado- it has taken over the culture in many places there. States should be very careful making the decision to legalize it!
Moved to Colorado Springs in 1980..left in 2001...to many people...
In 1980 there was nothing from the Air Force Academy to the Denver Tech Center
Now it has houses both sides of the interstate...Except the ranch on the East side north of Colorado Springs..State owns it sort of..
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