California, rich in everything from oil and food to international trade and technology, but still skimming along the bottom of the national economy.

Sorry this is so long, but it is an e-mail I received from a former California resident who moved to Washington to escape. Now he's looking around Washington and sees the same slide.

"Welcome to California and any other state or big city environment where unions, socialists, minorities and governments have colluded for the acquisition of power and control. This is going on all over the country, though more in the open in California and recently in Wisconsin. That was certainly a major factor in my decision to leave that state. I truly felt like a stranger in my own country during my last days there. It was once a beautiful place with hard-working people just interested in raising their families in a safe, wholesome environment with growing opportunities in jobs and education . Most Californians were friendly, tolerant people who enjoyed playing as hard as they worked. That began to change rather dramatically in the 1960's when people took to the streets protesting the war in Vietnam and America in general. Most folks in the SF Bay area saw the protests as an inconvenient novelty with bridges and streets often shut down to normal passage. "Peaceful" demonstrations turned to violent confrontations that made trips to San Francisco or Berkeley potentially dangerous ventures, especially if one failed to find out in advance where the confrontations were taking place that day. Of course there were probably some principled young people who genuinely disagreed with our involvement in Vietnam, but the vast majority were ill-informed idiots and a few cowards being driven by the lies of the Left and the communist party...both domestically and internationally. So it is with the Left today.

Let me just say that there are some dangerous similarities between the California that I once knew and the State of Washington today. Here are just a few:

Good well-meaning people pre-occupied with their daily lives.
Legislatures controlled entirely by Democrats and supported by unions.
Weak Republican Party filled with RINOS.
Complete ignorance of the cost of unionization, particularly public service workers and teachers. (Believe me...Boeing has a plan to finally turn out its lights in Washington.)
A blind acceptance that more dollars spent on education will result in more qualified future citizens and workers.
Illegal aliens just want to work...rule of law be damned.
Almost no knowledge of the destruction of property rights and individual freedom quietly being put in place by local, county, regional and state agencies...all in the name of protecting the environment.
A "tax the rich" mentality.
Political correctness to a fault."
Yep!

Posted by Jimmy J. at June 9, 2011 8:56 PM

Most of those who want out are out, the rest either can't get out or have painted the blood cross on their forehead.

Posted by Peccable at June 10, 2011 3:36 AM

Or, most of the people who live in California and in Washington are playing Farmville in Face Book.

Posted by Cilla Mitchell, Galveston Texas at June 10, 2011 4:04 AM

I don't think Victor Davis Hanson has any plans to leave, and maybe we don't want him to. He has deep roots there, since he is both a farmer and a college professor. He has assigned himself the task of chronicling California's decline, and is doing us all a huge favor because of it.

I'm hoping that some day he'll be able to chronicle the state's turnaround, especially if it includes an influx of sober, rational Americans, especially ones from the Red States.

Posted by Don Rodrigo at June 10, 2011 2:37 PM

"America to Californians still possessed of a brain:"

They may have the brains to leave, but where the roam they will vote for the same policies that destroyed their homeland.

If Californians with a brain fled California for Washington, then Olympia wouldn't have Gregoire.

Posted by ErisGuy at June 11, 2011 4:19 AM

California stopped being "a beautiful place with hard-working people just interested in raising their families in a safe, wholesome environment with growing opportunities in jobs and education" around 1968, instead becoming the land of Haight-Ashbury and Altamont. It has declined since then.

Posted by ErisGuy at June 11, 2011 5:11 AM

Ann Barnhardt wrote a very eloquent piece on why secession is a very bad idea. It's worth a read:
http://barnhardt.biz/

Posted by Jewel at June 11, 2011 5:48 PM

We were greeted with these words at an indoctrination lecture into basic training by our First Seargent at Fort Lewis WA during the Vietnam war.

"There will be NO discrimination in this unit based on color, creed or national origin, and that goes double for you a--holes from California."

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