Three states form the base of Democratic political power in the United States: California, New York and Illinois. All three states are locked in an accelerating economic, demographic and social decline; all three hope that they can stave off looming disaster at home by exporting the policies that have ruined them to the rest of the country. (News from Obama’s Home State)
I hear that. Here in Colorado, liberal Californians swarm in like a plague of locusts, escaping the mess they've made. But they haven't learned. They insist we do everything here that wrecked California. It's a brain disease.
Not only are liberal states in decline and in peril of collapse, liberalism itself is decrepit and tottering.
American liberalism today is in an advanced stage of intellectual decline. Cynical and short sighted interests wrap themselves in the increasingly tattered mantles of sacred ideas. Liberals are right to feel that social justice matters, that the poor should have greater opportunity and that government in a democratic society cannot remain indifferent to the existence of great social evils.
But where liberals in America have the freest hand—in states like New York, California and Illinois—we see incontrovertible evidence that the policies they choose don’t have the consequences they predict. (News from Obama’s Home State)
Democrats, like the insane, trot out the same old failed policies over and over, insisting we just need more of it and harder. Ask California and Illinois how that's workin' out...
More correctly, at least here in Illinois, you can narrow down the problem to four cities. Chicago, New York, San Francisco and LA. Eliminate Chicago and Illinois is a rather red state. Eliminate those four cites from the equation and the current Democratic party will never win another Presidential Election.
ReplyDeleteWe have transplanted Chicagoans and some St. Louis people here in Southern Illinois. I am a transplanted Chicagoan, as are four of my five closest neighbors. The progressive BS does not fly.
My immediate next door neighbor is a one time hippie who actually lived on a commune for awhile (great stories). He's almost more Conservative than I am.
When fleas have sucked everything they can out of their hosts, they move to another host.
ReplyDelete"...we see incontrovertible evidence that the policies they choose don’t have the consequences they predict."
You can add 'fantasize' and 'dream about' to that.
I hear you, Marine.
ReplyDeleteI was born in Illinois but escaped years ago. I still have lots of kinfolk there, so I keep abreast of what's going on.
The Democrats have stolen every last penny out of the teachers pension fund and then raised taxes. Worst of all, the Republican pols jump right in and accept their cut of the loot.
It's sad. Illinois, without the corrupt Democrat Machine, could be a very rich and prosperous state.
At times we have come to the reasonable agreement that government has become a crony capitalist oligarchy but you regress to this childish left baiting.
ReplyDeleteWhy? I would rather not take the bait today.
I am not baiting anyone, Ducky.
ReplyDeleteWalter Russell Mead is a thoughtful man who writes powerfully about what he calls "the blue model."
He is no libertarian, but his thesis is that the old progressive model is now a century old and by all evidence is no longer working.
He doesn't advocate anarchy, but rather a reinvention of government to meet the needs of a new millennium.
I don't know how widely you travel around Right Blogistan, but I think I may be the only conservative who regularly reads and discusses him.
I also linked Walter Russell mead's article today.
ReplyDeleteIllinois is an interesting case. I rad an article in the last month that explained that Illinois is a rural state, farmland. Yet, the four countinies in the metropolitan Chicago area control the state legislature and for that reason, Illinois is governed as if it were all urban.
"Here in Colorado, liberal Californians swarm in like a plague of locusts, escaping the mess they've made. But they haven't learned. They insist we do everything here that wrecked California. It's a brain disease."
ReplyDeleteFunny! The exact same phenomenon is happening in New Hampshire. I have numerous friends and relatives there -- some natives -- some from my old home town -- and "immigrants" desperately trying to escape the crippling consequences of living in places like Taxachusetts and New York.
My cousins call the refugees from Massachusetts, who bring their crypto-Marxism WITH them, MASSHOLES. An apt and clever appellation, if ever there was one!
What do you call the Californians now beginning to pollute Colorado?
Calforlornians?
Calipornians?
Corrosivornians?
Shitheads? ;-)
The last would be more to the point, I should think.
~ FT
Northeastern PA has gone the same way. Now a bedroom community of NYC. The jackasses commute hours a day to the city and fill up the PA schools with crime and drug infested kids.
ReplyDeleteAnd if California, New York, and Illinois aren't proof enough, one can look a little further east at Europe, which underscores the point.
ReplyDeleteFT: We call them Californicators.
ReplyDeleteI too am familiar with the Masshole invasion of New Hampshire. I used to travel out there back in the early 2000's, and the locals were complaining about it back then.
Maybe we should fence in the liberal zones and make them live in the nest they have befouled. ;)
@Bunkerville
ReplyDeleteThose are the same people who got laughed out of township meetings up there 20 years ago for asking why no one ever picked up their trash, and why weren't there any street lights.
@ Maybe we should fence in the liberal zones
Another example of Heinlein's prescience! LOL
The difference between R's and D's.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that most Democrats would vote for a competent Republican over an incompetent Democrat.
That is not the case for Republicans.
Ducky- "I do believe that most Democrats would vote for a competent Republican over an incompetent Democrat."
ReplyDeleteI believe that to be absolutely false. We will see come the 6th. If Jackson Jr is reelected as Rep for the 2nd district of Illinois, you may then recant.
In 2010, 3 counties in Illinois voted for a Democrat Governor. The remaining 100+ counties voted for the Republican. The Democrat, Pat Quinn, won. What Chicago does to this state is a crime. Chicago is its own corrupt, liberal entity. Those residents of Illinois outside of Chicago don't even consider it part of our state.
ReplyDelete"I do believe that most Democrats would vote for a competent Republican over an incompetent Democrat."
ReplyDeleteIf that was a true statement, Romney would be up by 30%. The yellow dog democrats will vote for anyone or anything as long as they are a democrat.
Interesting discussion. Most of us who live in these places (I'm born and raised SoCal for 57 years) that are being discussed are past being mad; now we are saddened as well.
ReplyDeleteMost of America, geographically, feels the same. It's a difficult situation. Very densely populated areas _must_ live differently that less dense communities. More and more the left and right have been separated by vastly different ideas of what life should/could/would look like in the big city or out in the country.
In SoCal I see Birkenstocks, gray beards and very thin haired ponytails, driving Volvos. The Obama campaign signs are on most front lawns.
This week I am in the panhandle of Florida, based in Panama City Beach. On Tuesday I cycled my bike inland for 120 miles. I didn't see many euro cars but I did see a lot of Ford, Chevy and GM trucks. I never saw one Obama sign on a front lawn. I did see many many Romney/Ryan signs. Today, Thursday, I rode 112 miles, looked harder for an Obama sign and had the exact same experience.
My take away, how unfair it is to expect the millions of people in New York, Chicago, LA and SF to live the same way as country folks. Likewise, it is absurd to expect these rural people to live like millions upon millions of people living on top of one another.
We have a problem. "I am learning a lot these days, but I will never be as smart as I was back when I knew it all" (courtesy Montgomery Gentry).
It can't be one way or the other. We are going to have to compromise; and we will; we always have short of the civil war.
Ducky and others make a great point: that is, politics is dirty. It always has been. But like doping in sports, it is getting harder and harder to get away with. Internet trails, camera phones, GPS, etc. We need to break down the crooks we elect and the big money that buys them.
Silver, California, in and of itself, is one of the worlds most powerful and largest economies. If you want to run a giant economic powerhouse like a hick state with a couple of representatives, if you think that's a good idea, you're insane.
ReplyDeleteGranted, people migrate and sometimes import inappropriate ideas, so, if you don't like that, you have the people democratically limit development by the power of government.
Now, I know you're a radical anarchist who disdains all government, but here is an example of you asking for big government to solve your problems - to zone in such a way as to limit development in general.
It all comes down to zoning. But remember, one of the world's most powerful and largest economies is California, that state you see as run by children. I've got news for you sunshine, the children sit at the children's table, and it's red, and it's heavily located over the empty Bread Belt and the White South, where GOVERNMENT zoning is the key to everything.
New York and California are among the world's top economies. I don't see any Bread Belt or White South states competing anywhere near those levels.
Sure, big state economies have troubles from time to time, for all sorts of reasons, but all this small state opinion just seems so simplistic and stupid.
Do you know why those states became the economic engine of this nation you take for granted as some kind of Western Hero movie? They zoned for the good of the people instead of just for the sake of their prejudices and lesser angels.
JMJ
Now, I know, Silver, you're not from a "small" state, and I certainly feel for Colorado's annoying predicaments. It seems to me Colorado has a host of complex problems, and quite a few of them have national implications.
JMJ: Actually, the plague of Californians is Colorado's biggest problem, right up there with the bark beetle and forest fires, both related to federal government folly thinking they could 'manage' millions of acres of forest as envisioned by enviro-hippies.
ReplyDeleteUnlike California and Illinois, we do not have tens of billion in structural debt. Like most sane states, we balance our budget each year, and without the phony-baloney tricks.
KP: Sounds like you're having a good time!
ReplyDelete@: "Very densely populated areas _must_ live differently that less dense communities. More and more the left and right have been separated by vastly different ideas of what life should/could/would look like in the big city or out in the country."
You nailed it.
Jersey and others enjoy portraying me as a Randoid anarchist, but I am far from it. I want good government that is as close to the people governed as possible, and a government that lives in the community it governs and that has to live by the rules it makes.
That means pushing more government down to the states and local communities.
I don't bust on Californians of Bostonians for how they live. It's their business. What I object to is politicians coming out of these places, going to Washington, and imposing their crack-brained ideas on the entire nation.
KP, 120 Miles in a day On A Bike at 57, you have my utmost respect.
ReplyDelete@ "KP, 120 Miles in a day On A Bike at 57, you have my utmost respect."
ReplyDeleteMine too! I'm still working up to my first century ride. There's one on the MD. Eastern shore I'm shooting for next year. 45 at one shot so far, but it's not flat here. Those 12% grades are killers. LOL
I'm a CA native and I wouldn't be caught dead relocating in Colorado - too many CA libs there and the place will eventually become CA in the Rockies. As Silver notes, their brain disease will soon wreck his beautiful state too.
ReplyDelete"I don't bust on Californians of Bostonians for how they live. It's their business. What I object to is politicians coming out of these places, going to Washington, and imposing their crack-brained ideas on the entire nation."
ReplyDeleteOoops.
Pres. Reagan was a Californian.
Gov. Romney was a Massachusetts governor.
Weere/Are their ideas crack-brained?
I did not say every Californian did it. That would be ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteAnd the men you mentioned are not liberals.
Clinton barnstorms for Barack, George W. Bush barnstorms for bucks at Cayman Island tax-dodge soiree
ReplyDelete'Blackout' imposed as George W. Bush speaks at Cayman Islands investment conference
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/02/14875519-blackout-imposed-as-george-w-bush-speaks-at-cayman-islands-investment-conference?lite
Careful there, Liberalmann, Clinton did his share of scooping up cash around the world as well.
ReplyDeleteNot saying it's right or wrong, just giving you some perspective.
@Skud @Viburnam Thanks guys. Consistency is the key to going long on the bike. When I am in the hills I rate a ride by time in the saddle as the going is slow and the work load high. On the flats the miles look good. I have done a 12 day bike camp in Colorado where we crossed the continental divide five times and climbed most of the big passes and ended with Mt Evans to 14,000 feet. That was a tough one.
ReplyDeleteThis week, I got in 120 Tues, 112 Thurs and 100 miles Friday. I'm pooped. Heading home Sunday after coaching several athletes at Ironman Florida this morning.
Feel free to ask any Qs of me here or via e-mail off line. I am always happy to share my experiences on fueling or training advice.
@Silver << I want good government that is as close to the people governed as possible, and a government that lives in the community it governs and that has to live by the rules it makes. That means pushing more government down to the states and local communities. >>
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree. Local action is the best way to tackle change as well as fostering and supporting what already works.
The larger the federal program the more generic it becomes. To be clear, the federal government has a critical role to play, and so do state legislatures like those in Illinois and California. But big city folk need to understand their lifestyle is very unattractive to some of us. Likewise, I try to remember that life in the big cities, by nature, has to be structured with specific rules and mutual cooperation to sensure survival. Literally, survival depends on shoulder to shoulder cooperation.
The larger government programs become the more they are dummied down (like a classroom).
What I object to is politicians coming out of these places, going to Washington, and imposing their crack-brained ideas on the entire nation.
ReplyDelete========
Of course you'd never say the same thing about Texass.
No I wouldn't Ducky. But I can understand people from ASSachusetts (one childish formulation deserves another) objecting, and therein lies the fatal flaw of the progressive model that federalizes everything and tramples states's rights.
ReplyDeleteYou and your fellow liberals have a right to to be a liberal as you want in your communities, just as Texans have the right to be conservative.
The trouble starts when one group on another hijacks the levers of federal power and aims to bulldoze everybody else into submission.
THE SALT LAKE CITY ENORDES OBAMA< SLAMS RMONEY:
ReplyDelete(This] is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"
The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.
More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. ...
... and that is such a coveted, 'enordement,' too...
ReplyDeleteIt is also remarkable that this is the only actual city to endorse a candidate. Usually it's a newspaper that does it...
Perhaps the Mormonism-centric Salt Lake City correctly views Romney's directly financing abortions in Massachusetts with taxpayer money and his official recognition of gay marriages as "the real Romney."
ReplyDelete