Posted on 05/15/2023 2:04:24 PM PDT by Rummyfan
The decline of California under one-party Democrat rule has been one of the long-running themes of this blog. Today Victor Davis Hanson discusses how California’s wealthy destroyed the middle class with policies whose baleful effects they knew wouldn’t fall on them.…
“The irony is that, as we created more wealth and more leisure, because of the very success of the middle class citizen, the middle class citizen and his central role in western government was forgotten.”
“California in the 1960s had the largest middle class in the United States. California had the finest educational system. California invented the idea of a modern freeway and a modern airport.”
“California had a state where two-thirds of the people lived with one-third of the precipitation, and yet they built the greatest transference of water with reservoirs and aqueducts the world had ever seen….
(Excerpt) Read more at battleswarmblog.com ...
“California had the most successful oil, timber and mineral industries in the world. They had some of the finest universities…Again this was a product of, both democratic governors and Republican governors.”
“However, today when we look at California, it’s got the highest number of homeless people in the United States. Half of all of America’s homeless live in California.”
“One-third of all the welfare recipients in the United States live in California. One-fifth of all Californians live below the poverty line.
The enviro-whackos and the general left whackos took over and we see the results today. A beautiful state destroyed.
California never had the finest educational system. Most expensive I can believe but tennis courts and swimming pools aren’t education.
The Left is Plato, the Right is Aristotle.
The result of a Plato’s Republic society is an elite group of intellectual snobs who have an army to keep the helots in line, so that society can supposedly take care of everyone.
The result of an Aristotle’s Politics society is a wide collection of middle class who produce enough on their own to take care of themselves and a bit extra for slippage and compassionate giving. No need for elites, which makes them very unhappy.
As Koholeth put it, there is nothing new under the sun.
Think of the savings if we could convince Calif to secede...........
California bills itself as a model for America. God help us.
California never had the finest educational system.
Back then everything from books to paper and pencils were provided, discipline was enforced with the “board of education” and there was no “one size fit all” to discipline.
I was not the greatest of students but I was given a good basis of skills that helped my entire life.
Finest? Don’t know, but certainly good.
California schools were ranked AT THE TOP OR NEAR UNTIL THEY LET THE TEACHERS UNIONIZE NOW IT IS AT THE BOTTOM OR NEAR BOTTOM.thank ex gov. Jerry Brown, who ruined what his father had accomplished
In the 1960s, the article says, is that where you saw these courts and swimming pools?
I can say that I received a very good education from a high school in the East Bay that had a few asphalt tennis courts but no swimming pool. What we had was a growing population that allowed the school to hire about five new teachers each year. They led the faculty in a top quality college track education, which I was able to sneak into. (First of my family to make it to college.) Incidently the system had a strong shop class structure that produced students who were equiped to immediately enter the blue collar society that also was flourshing.
I also became a teacher (and engineer — two careers) but I watched as education took a back seat to teachers growing old and gaining seniority. Sadly, this brought education standards down and my old high school fell into disunity and students fell a few levels in their grades.
I cannot fault the political party as this article does except for the erroneous concept that public servants (teachers Etc. ) should have the power to unionize and work politically to support the community leaders who will run these same institutions.
I don’t have a problem with corporate workers who wish to unionize, but allowing civil servants the same privilege does not support a growing and meritorious society.
I am a product of the educational system from 1960 to 1973 never a worry about buying school supplies, even driver Ed was free, even community College was free.
When education is trumped by indoctrination everyone loses. Q:When is indoctrination education? A:when progressive leftists say it is.
“At the same time, America has allowed in 20 million illegal aliens, half of which have ended up in California”
Oh Please. It’s now north of 40 million. Five million in the last two years alone.
Go watch the internet videos of LA in the 20s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Even Adam 12 in the 70’s. All English on the signs, all the usual American stores and companies. Not a word of Spanish. The missions were a quaint relic of the past.
The Invasion began in the mid-70s after the Mexicans decided to piggyback on the civil rights bandwagon of the black people even though they were never slaves but in fact were a) the enemy from the Mexican-American war and b) the very people who actually brought slavery to the Americas.
Now they control California by intimidation, violence and being a “protected class” where we are forced to hand over everything to them by 9 jerks in Washington DC.
The Asians play a big role in the destruction of the state too but of course since they are productive and mostly intelligent, not as much. But they aren’t the “model minority” that people think they are: rigid, statist, insular and avaricious, they just want the goodies the damn Round Eyes created.
VDH - Mr. Mumbles - is too much of a normie to admit the obvious: immigration destroyed California.
Today: California students with parent income under $60K don’t pay tuition/fees. (There are holes in this at the level of 2-3% of those students...,) Back in the Golden Past of the 60’s & 70’s, they would have paid $120/$240/$540 depending on year, which corresponds to $860/$1520/$2756 now, but they don’t pay tuition/fees now. So for those students, roughly half of all UC students, the situation is better now that the “tuition free” Golden Past. It’s actually much better now, because most of those students are getting money for living expenses, books, etc, from the federal government, state of California and UC (and paid for by you the poor taxpayer sap).
“How California Destroyed Its Middle Class”
Which is what the Demoncrats plan is. The old sayings is: As California goes so goes the nation.
Despite what looked like deficiencies in K-12, the university system was highly regarded everywhere.
I’m talking about curriculum. The schools I went to had a tougher curriculum than the schools my relatives in California attended.
Correct—the majority of UC students pay no tuition at all. The price of tuition now is based on income (and in CA, soon the same for utilities—income based sliding scale).
California has been historically generous to in state students. In the best schools it was harder for out of state students to be admitted. This is the same situation in some of the better schools in other states. What winds up happening is that the best students in those schools aren’t typically from in state.
The California Asians have been the big disappointment.
They tend to imitate the “establishment” of whatever culture they join in an effort to be “respectable”—in California that has meant turning into leftist freaks who hate white people.
VDH nails it!
I am a “grouchy, outspoken citizen!”
I am calling on EVERY “grouchy, outspoken citizen” to diligently work to re-elect Donald J. Trump and end the Obama/Biden nightmare!
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