The Decline and Fall of California

Jim Geraghty of National Review writing about his recent visit to California:

The state, indisputably, is now far around the bend, in a vicious cycle of instituting progressive ideas and then reacting with shock and horror to those ideas. There are unbelievable water restrictions in effect because of the perpetually ongoing drought; the slogan “brown is the new green.” Despite the enormous problems with the drought, environmentalists are opposing reopening desalinzation plants because of the carbon footprint. One was built in the 1990s and has been just sitting there, unused, because it wasn’t cost-efficient enough and there hadn’t been enough need. There’s been another new round of tax hikes. Yet construction continues on a much-delayed high-speed rail project that will never have enough riders to make financial sense.

This is the end result of democratically insulated neo-socialism: slow decline, followed by chaos and economic collapse. It's no surprise to those of us who have actually bothered to read a history book, of course. In the deluded minds of Leftists, history is irrelevant; only the future matters. They have failed to learn, with consequences exactly as George Santayana warned.

California is a beautiful place. I lived there for several years and loved it. The perfect Mediterranean climate on the coast; the stark beauty of the high desert; the incredible majesty of Sequoia trees and the jaw-dropping vistas of Yosemite. It is truly a wonder of nature. But that perfect natural locale attracted in droves one of the most destructive forms of humanity: the Progressives. They have used their many decades of dominance in the region to foul their own nest. Only a full confrontation with the results of their failure will bring them back to earth. Perhaps not even then, as Leftists are notoriously incapable of understanding the world as it really is, preferring instead the childish fantasies they construct around reality in order to keep it at a distance from themselves.

I have no sympathy for their self-created plight and will not lift a finger to assist. Like an arrogant child who put himself in harm's way despite repeated warnings from his parents, he must now be allowed to learn the lesson the hard way. Injury will probably result, and possibly death, but that is the way of the universe.

“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” - Robert Heinlein