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.
California has never been tasked with immigration control.
It's not up to California to enforce national borders. It's not up to it to run inland enforcement. It's not up to it to incarcerate or report illegal aliens.
This is all the duty of the federal government.
In Article 4, Section 4 of the U. S. Constitution it enumerates the duty of the federal government to protect the states from invasion.
I voiced a complaint over this for 25 plus years, and only now is the federal government starting to take actions that should have prevented California from the situation it is in, with regard to illegal aliens.
Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Amnesty, and part of that Amnesty bill were much tougher regulations on business that hired illegals. Those laws were never enforced.
After Reagan, all pretenses on inland enforcement ceased. Very little was done to stop the massive illegal immigration either.
California's fault? How did you propose California stop the illegals? Under what law would they do that?
Name one Constitutional mandate that prescribes states to be responsible for illegal aliens, other than turning them over upon request to the Feds? The Sanctuary City movement is a fairly recent one over the last few years. It's not something that they always did. Now that things are this bad, the state thinks it can get away with it.
Many of us stated publicly that this would be worse and worse and worse if it wasn't addressed. Well here we are.
Tell us how Colorado stops people from moving there. Tell us how you stop illegal immigrants from living there and working there?
‘Tell us how Colorado stops people from moving there. Tell us how you stop illegal immigrants from living there and working there?’
OK, I’ll tell you; we don’t...
It seems to me the problem is they move to low tax states and then want to turn the state into another California.
It’s definitely the pot. I’ve lived in Wyoming for over 10 years now and quite often have to drive to DIA to fly because it’s quicker and cheaper that trying to fly out of where I lived. I-25 has always been aggravating on that drive, but when pot was legalized it turned into a living nightmare. 90% of the time when I drive it there will be a wreck because of some dumb assed pothead. Three times now in bumper to bumper traffic I’ve people smoking on bongs in the car next to me. It’s a real crap hole now.
Where are these folks going?
= = =
They show up, poop all over everything, then complain about the poop.
So they look for the next poop-free location.
Maybe I should poop in my own yard, as a preemptive defense.
What a tenuous grasp on old news.
There might be something to this idea.
Yes, this started way back in the sixties in Colorado. The state was changing into hippie/hipster paradise. I think we should blame that dorky old singer, John Denver. :-)
Not trying to be harsh to Colorado people, but this is the same problem we faced.
Bad consequences of one drug do not justify bad consequences of another.
We are obviously viewing this issue from two very different angles.
FWIW; I get your point but California did make itself very hospitable to illegals. It didn’t have to do that but it did. All water under the bridge now. No way to un-ring that bell; especially with the leftists in charge at every level. It would be more precise to say leftism ruined California.
There’s a reason good people are bailing out of CA. At some point it will be the rich, the very rich, the filthy rich, and the poor. The middleclass will be wiped out because it will too expensive to live there in that income bracket and they have too much value on paper to qualify for all the free stuff to make it affordable for the poor. Free rent, free food, free money, etc. etc.
The plants secrete that THC to prevent predation. It's supposed to make mammals stupid because that is exactly what it was evolved to do.
Lots more. You are right. A lot of hx. A lot of factors.
John Denver is a CO icon, but he was a bit pie in the sky, wasn’t he? Still love his tunes, though.
1914 with the Harrison Narcotics act. Weed wasn't popular enough to notice until later.
Actually started with the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906.
Reminds me of a pic I snapped of a sign in NM. I’ll have to post it.
My sisters live in western Colorado and we will possibly relocate there . I hear all about it . “Trying to figure it out’ - I think it is bigger than our states; more like how society is a bit frayed these days (and then some). Isn’t Bloomberg doing a push to make Colorado blue, also??
I heard there was a concerted effort to turn several states blue. I think it was after 2004. Colorado was one of them.
I wasn’t making that argument chief. Personally I’ve been off the sauce for 28 years.
Not to be argumentative, because this is what it is.
When illegals showed up, our state had to abide by federal policy. It didn’t have a whole bunch of arrows in it’s quiver.
If someone shows up at a hospital, they have to be given treatment.
If kids show up to school, they have to be enrolled.
If someone tries to rent property, the landlord can’t simply refuse them. If two or three families show up to buy property, they get a shot just like anyone else.
These aren’t California laws. These are federal laws.
The feds gave away all sorts of perks no matter where the illegal aliens resided. What control over that did California have?
Banks that come under federal regulation allowed illegal aliens to have bank accounts.
We have children here from Mexico and third world places. They have to be given some form of health treatment, because kids have to have their shots or they expose other kids to disease.
These kids and their parents have other medical problems that have to be addressed, or the community at large can be exposed to spreading problems.
How was California nice to them? What choices did it have?
I’m tired of the rhetoric that California somehow brought all this on itself.
Californians pleaded with the federal government to get its house in order. NOTHING!
I mentioned these problems here. Folks thought it was a real hoot. “Oh you folks just welcomed them with open arms.”
Now here we are.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.