And this one is verified by a number of other folks… sigh…
GOODBYE TO CALIFORNIA
Written by Dr. Ron Martinelli
(Dr. Martinelli is a renowned forensic criminologist and retired police detective with the San Jose Police Department).
As I sit in the LAX terminal after concluding business in downtown Los Angeles for the past two days, I cannot help but reflect upon my journey from a once California native to a new resident of the Great State of Texas and why. You see, in my personal and professional opinion, the once great State of California has in essence become a third world country.
“The concept of the “third world” has evolved to describe countries that suffer from low economic development, high levels of poverty and little to no ability to utilize natural or economic resources.” French demographer Alfred Sauvey, 1952.
While the reasons for California’s ever-spiraling downwards status from 1st World economic prominence and prosperity to near 3rd World malaise are many; I will assert that when you combine uber-liberal politicians, with rich elitist Hollywood Celebrities, dotcom CEO billionaires, disengaged millennials and illegal aliens; you in effect create the circumstances where your city or state becomes a 3rd World environment.
The process of California’s demise from the “Golden State” to 3rd World status has been slow but steady; supported and enabled by the aforementioned actors. While much of the legislated changes for the worse have been designed and voted in by politicians in Sacramento; municipal politicians and a complicit uninformed, naive and entitled voting public must also share blame. After all, when 51% of those on some type of government subsidy out-vote the 49% of the money earning and tax paying citizenry, any state is doomed to failure. With California now a “Sanctuary State” and their libtard Democratic state legislature pushing for voting rights for illegal aliens, the state will never recover.
My observations during my short visit to Los Angeles underscored many of the problems Californians are facing as they follow lemming-like their Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, their Democratic legislators and urban mayors like Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles off the economic cliff. Literally nothing substantive is good about L.A. anymore. An ever-growing homeless subculture populates the downtown area. The intoxicated, drug influenced, mentally impaired and criminals are everywhere. They literally surround Civic Center, federal buildings and courts – the so-called foundations and protectors of the Rule of Law and society.
How ironic to be surrounded by the failures these very systems, liberal politicians and judges have created. Isn’t karma interesting to watch in real time?
The homeless, numbering in the thousands, sleep in the shadows of immense, gleaming edifices owned by multi-billion dollar international conglomerates and dotcom corporations. Business executives in Brioni suits and workers quickly pass by the unwashed masses, while holding their noses to screen out the stench of urine and feces. The obvious health and safety hazards to the public are too many to count.
Interconnecting Los Angeles city roadways and state highways designed to transport the commuting, tax paying public to their job sites are a debacle. The ribbons of roadways are a mess of potholed, weed infested, trash laden, graffiti vandalized passages filled with vehicles lined up bumper-to-bumper going nowhere fast. These are your tax dollars at work. While California voters grumble and groan, in the end they just seem to accept their fate as one of the prices to pay for living the California dream.
You see, the working public has no time to get out and protest the outrageous and constant increases in taxes on gas, municipal services, vehicle registrations, rapid transit and a bullet train going to nowhere. Only the unemployed, government subsidized masses have time to demonstrate in the streets to ensure that their subsidies continue. Since the liberal politicians in Sacramento know this dynamic and their power base all too well, the taxation without representation continues. I was staying at a hotel near LAX and my mileage commute to downtown L.A. was a mere twelve miles. However, it took me every bit of one hour and twenty minutes to arrive at my destination. I then paid $20 for the privilege of parking my car in a public lot. Of course, this was after I paid $30 a day to park my rental car at my hotel. Nice. I’m seriously considering Uber next time.
Since I frequently travel throughout California on business, I will tell you that Los Angeles is a mirror image of all of the other large urban cities in the state. I have observed similar and even worse depressed and dysfunctional urban environments in the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County, San Diego and a number of other cities. California is rapidly becoming a two-tiered society of the very rich and the very poor, similar to the 2nd and 3rd World countries I regularly visit. The middle class, small business owners and the retired are either being pushed out of state and/or escaping in droves to such tax free, business friendly and less crime ridden states such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Lame duck Gov. Moonbeam and the state’s liberal Democratic legislature know this. They just don’t care because their power base is now assured Just ask any of their castrated, powerless Republican colleagues.
There will never again be a Republican administration in California. The days of Ronald Reagan have long passed. The candidates lining up for the governor’s race in 2018 are Open Borders and Sanctuary State advocates Anthony Villaraigosa and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. Governor Brown and his Democratic legislature are pulling out all the stops creating legislation that will allow illegal aliens in the state to vote in state and local elections. Republicans, conservatives and moderates don’t stand a chance.
Here are just some of things Californian’s have done in recent years to turn their state into a 3rd World mess:
- Passed Proposition 47 which has since freed tens of thousands of felons from state prisons and county jails back into communities.
- Prop. 47 also eviscerated the parole enforcement agency and created a system where police on the streets can’t even enforce outstanding felony and misdemeanor warrants anymore.
- Police no longer arrest people for being under the influence of dangerous drugs. What would be the point; it’s just a misdemeanor.
- They have reduced the crime of auto theft to a citable misdemeanor. Steal a car; get caught and get a ticket. Commit non-violent crimes, get arrested and you are out the same day with a promise to appear in court that will not ever be enforced. No warrant enforcement, remember? Amazing!
California’s new “Sanctuary State” status supports and enables its Open Borders mentality. Police in a number of cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles are ordered not to assist ICE with border enforcement. Remember the Kate Steinle murder case where her five-time convicted criminal and deported illegal alien was acquitted? Well, that’s the political mentality that created that circumstance. This is also an excellent example that liberal politicians in California are willing to sacrifice the innocent to demonstrate that they support violent illegal alien criminals.
What happens in California’s larger cities filters down to its medium and small sized cities as well. I recently wrote about the city of Salinas, CA. that experienced an incredible 150% increase in its homicide rate from 2014 – 2015 which rated Salinas as one of the nation’s 30 most violent cities. Fifty percent of all of their murders were gang and drug related, with the predominate population of gang members being illegal aliens. I can only wonder how Silicon Valley dot-commers’ who are paying over half a million bucks for a home and commute over four hours a day to San Jose like living in that violent environment?
Which brings me back to why my successful business owner wife and I escaped to Texas. The state loves us No commute problems, no state taxes and we live in an area where there is little to no crime. Our area just outside of San Antonio some of the best school districts in the U.S.; high employment, great people and lots of fun things to do.
My wife and I live a great life on a ranch with a river in our backyard where we can fish, swim, kayak and BBQ with family and neighbors anytime we want. The price? Less than you would pay for a one bedroom studio condo in any of the cities in California I’ve mentioned. New home buyers only need three percent down to purchase a home and veterans make no down payments. If you are a younger middle-class person, a small business owner or retired, you’d be nuts to remain in California.
With California over a trillion dollars in debt and 30% of their budget going to subsidizing illegal aliens at the expense of hard-working, taxpayers who have little to no voice on how their state is run, the state and the majority of their citizens are doomed That’s what a two-tiered society eventually creates.
One heck of a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!
The truth is blatantly obvious… and yet the left STILL turns a blind eye. I say let this Titanic sink.
It’s no wonder anyone with any sense is leaving… But sadly, they are trying their damnest to turn the states they’re going to into another California…
A few years ago I knew a couple living in Salina Kansas. They were both born and raised in Bakersfield and described themselves as having escaped from California. Things have gotten worse there since then.
Assimilation for those from other states can be hard. Texans don’t care who you are, but do care about liberty. Liberty includes being free from unbridled efforts to make more laws, and a failure to observe the demand for privacy. Texans are friendly, but tough on obnoxious people demanding special consideration. Texans demand you produce, and expecting a free ride is not tolerated. Most of all, don’t think Austin represents Texas. It’s a liberal garbage pit, and houses some of the most reprehensible critters in the state: Politicians and bureaucrats.
You don’t want to move to Texas. Nosiree. You wouldn’t like it here. I do understand, through, that New Mexico is a fine place.
It’s a nice screed, and pretty accurate, but it’s only half the story.
You’re whistling past the graveyard, ladies: Texas and Florida are purple now, and in ten years they’ll be as blue as CA is.
And Trump will be the last Republican president you’ll ever see in your life.
Or, you can build the wall, and start shoveling people back over it once it’s up.
Meanwhile, those of us who didn’t land in CA ten minutes ago aren’t bailing out in ten more minutes either.
Because once this state goes bankrupt, socialism ends for good here.
Then the statues of Marx and Lenin get pulled down, and then we get our state back.
But that horde of welfare ticks you raised, or imported here?
Don’t fret; the children of your toothless banjo-playing kinfolk will be moving right back home, and bringing their nannies and gardeners with them.
To your state.
Not wishing anyone ill, just reading your fortune.
So, where are all y’all going to run off to when that happens…? NYFS? North Dakota? Alaska?
You can kayak there too, for almost 4 months out of the year.
Mind the Kodiak bears though.
Pleasant dreams.
You know, Aesop, I mostly enjoy your comments and generally agree with you. But what is it with you and banjo players?
Let me tell you, I live in bluegrass central, and *every* banjo player I know is very conservative. California would do very well by importing more, not less of them.
Of course, if you are talking about the children of all of the hippies that moved to CA in the 60’s & 70’s. Yeah, you might have a point. Hippies, however, were generally not banjo players.
I take it the movie Deliverance was outside your data reference pool.
“Because once this state goes bankrupt, socialism ends for good here.”
Just how does a state go bankrupt? Where there is real life results like departments closing, and major policy changes? I don’t see CA doing that sort of thing.
I would expect the only visible change would be massive tax increases, but no cost cutting of anything real. That and Sac expecting the Feds to bail the state out.
Nothing will change, except things will get worse in all areas of life here. The names may change in Sacramento, perhaps, but the cast will remain. Until politicians, ropes, and lightposts are assembled, I expect no changes.
Unlike the feds, a state can’t print currency 3 shifts a day around the clock to pay its bills; when the money is gone, it’s gone, and they can’t make more.
So, how long do you figure state employees will come to work for free, when they get IOUs in their pay envelope?
How long will their landlords and banks accept IOUs for rent checks?
How many bags of groceries can you get today in exchange for an IOU next Tuesday?
They won’t need policy changes, they’ll be B-R-O-K-E.
The bond rating will be FFFFF, and no one will buy any.
And you can no more tax your way out of that than you can stand in a bucket and lift yourself up by the handle.
When the party is over, it will be over for good, and no more welfare to dole out, no more EBT cards to load, and the fedgov, being 27 times as broke, will be in no position to “bail” anyone else out, least of all a state with a surplus of Democrat legislators, and a deficit of fiscal common sense.
And at that point, the welfare hordes will be coming back home, and with their illegal aliens in tow, as predicted.
When the seed runs out, the pigeons always flock to a new spot to crap on.
Since all y’all gave us most of them, going back to the 1930s, you’re welcome to take them back. They weren’t “Californians” when they landed here, and they won’t be “Californians” when they wash up in your town either.
Nature always balances things out. And I assure you, it’s going to be hilarious to watch from here.
Some people probably think it was mythical “Californians” that almost upended Ted Cruz in TX yesterday, and almost elected Gillum in FL too.
My father used to note that for some people, there are other substances that’ll do for brains, in a pinch.
The reality is that CA was overrun with the greedy lazy hordes from everywhere else some 25 years hence, and they killed it. And the same cluelessness that led to that is now working its magic in every other state, and your day is coming.
Go down to the local Home Depot in whatever part of the country you’re in around 7AM, and tell me it isn’t an outpost of Greater Aztlan already. Then ask yourself where all those hordes came from that turned a red state blue in 10 years.
So when Cousin Bubba moves back to God’s country from Californication, because this state has gone fiscally tits up, remember what I warned you.
When Uncle Floyd, who moved here, retired on a state pension, then moved back home as a tax refugee is suddenly broke in your state, and getting IOUs from CALPERS, they’re now your problem too.
Best wishes when that happens.
In the meantime, go read some de Tocqueville, and note what he suspected 200 years ago would happen in America, once folks realized they could vote themselves money from the public trough.
It’s coming, sure as sunrise.
I’ll have you know the sound of banjos and gunfire is the song of my people.
CALEXIT is a prophecy book.
It’s sad to see the place in decline, but I made my decision to leave, and don’t regret it. I’m ticked that it seems to be taking forever to get the new house finished, but that’s how it goes.
I have a friend who moved from NYC to SF. She bought a one bedroom, former hunting cabin, a half hour outside of SF – her mortgage is jaw dropping, not to mention her taxes. The crazy thing is she could live anywhere because she works for herself!
Attended a conferance in downtown LA about 25 years ago. Was so unimpressed that I was never interested in going back. Am glad I got to see the La Brea tar pits and Will Roger’s home in Santa Monica. You can keep the rest.
My condolences, but whoever your planner was, was insane.
Downtown LA was an open sewer 50 years ago; what idiot held a conference there in the 1990s?
That was the peak of the crack epidemic and gang wars.
Nobody local with a lick of sense goes there for any reason who doesn’t have to, and hasn’t since the late 1960s.
What makes it doubly funny is all the historically-challenged hipsters who’ve cleverly moved into code-deficient buildings recently lofted in downtown for stupid amounts of money in the last decade or so, who’re going to be so much rat kibble after the next big quake levels most of downtown, especially the masonry buildings put up before 1933.
Due to age and resources, I’m stuck here.
Tomorrow will interesting.
Gonna buy stock in popcorn and ammo.
All- Thanks for the comments. Good luck Skip!
Posted from my iPhone.
This part of Texas is still rather nice and should stay that way for some time, I looked up the author Dr. Ron Martinelli and his business is located right here in my nice town Boerne TX a good six or seven minutes from my house. We might need to start giving a prospective Texas citizenship test to folks moving in from leftie states.
My wife went back to Kommiefornia for a week after living here in Colorado for a year.
She said it was noisy, dirty, and she didn’t remember the traffic being as bad as it was.
In the 35 years I lived there, I saw California deteriorate to the point that I had to get out.
I loved the California of the 60’s. Now I don’t even want to make a connecting flight there.
California is like a cancer sending the disease to other states.
WSF – you are correct – look at what they have done to Oregon, Washington, Colorado for a start. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in kalypornia – last trip was over 11 years ago – have NO reason to ever go back.
BTW – something over 45 years ago when I was in college we had bumper stickers that read “Don’t Californicate Idaho” – being a poor kid I didn’t have a car so never put one on 😉
Hey Old NFO;
Yep California is sick and people are leaving for Texas, Oregon, Washington State, Montana, and other places, some want the freedom, others bring their attitudes that caused California with them, ergo they vote for the same things that caused California in their adopted state. They voted democrat in California and now vote democrat in their new state, they haven’t learned the cause and effect thingie yet.
My state of Washington is rapidly going the way of California, I have lived here all my life and it saddens me to see the direction it is going. As Bob has said those that move here from California continue to vote democrat and haven’t got a clue that they are part of the problem.
And where did they move to California from, before passing through, and then landing in the Evergreen State…?
Take a peek at how many electoral votes NYFS had in 1960, and how many it has today, for a major clue.
Trust me, CA hasn’t been exporting Democrats in…ever.
If we had, folks’d never have needed to leave here in the first place.
WA just got the pass-through carpetbaggers on their way to the next place to screw up.
Trying to palm it off on CA is just plain demographic laziness, tinged with sunshine envy. Because there aren’t many folks from here who’d give up t-shirt-and-shorts sunshine 300 days a year to move to the land of the perpetual rain storm.
But there’s been a mess of folks who’d think rain superior to snow 6 months a year, and they’d be from…where, d’ya think…?
All- Can’t disagree, Aesop, I was stationed in Cali three times. EACH time it was worse. And it’s not demographic laziness, all you have to do is look at the demographics you talk about. As far as the weather, it’s not all that great other than down in San Diego. Friend of mine and his dad, 1st/2nd generation Mexican immigrants (legally) sold the farm they’d had since the 1940s in the central valley and moved to Reno because the father was being harassed by the illegals to ‘give them stuff’… He sold the land for $50/acre more than he paid for it in the 1940s, because he was in fear for his life.
Posted from my iPhone.
Two things:
1. Texas absorbed thousands of liberals from New Orleans after Katrina and they never returned to Louisiana .
2. Most Navel Officers are liberals, ergo, democrats.