By Stephen L. Hall
Having wasted the entire weekend on useless, mind numbing video games, it occurs to me at the very last possible moment that I ought to write a post as it is generally expected of me. So, in the tradition of many, shall we say “quality”, leftist blog writers on the internet, I chose to do what they often do: turn on the web browser, and look for the first interesting but completely meaningless story and choose to harp on that for a couple thousand words.
Fortunately, the article which caught my attention reminded me of a couple comments I had posted late last week, and the amusing juxtaposition thereof to each other. Particularly, the combination of the lunatic fringe of the left coast in California wanting to secede from the union to form their own independent nation together with the crumbling of the spillway over the damn which is falling apart due to excessive precipitation.
As anyone paying attention to the news is aware, the Oroville Dam spillway recently collapsed and the whole dam is in danger of potentially catastrophic failure if the overflowing water undermines the basic structure of the dam itself. And of course they are expecting more rainfall which could push it even further; this after an extended period of drought ironically.
Rather than reviewing the causes of the collapse and potential failure, which you can read about here if you are interested. I thought it more relevant to reference the systemic problems California faces not merely an isolated incident. Before we look at California’s growing budgetary fears, perhaps we ought to look at the general state of the state itself.
The excessive rainfall has brought to the fore numerous infrastructure problems being faced all across California. That is not to say that much of America faces the looming problem of an aging infrastructure problem, which is only natural given the nation’s rapid development just over a hundred years ago building steel and concrete structures which were generally engineered with a hundred year useful life, so that coincidently, but expected, the structures all become due for replacement at roughly the same time.
Something like an unusual abundance of rainfall can exacerbate this situation and highlight the underlying problems in a way that just telling people about it seldom does. This is a problem the whole nation faces, to a greater or lesser degree, greater where there is more environmental stress on the infrastructure systems.
It is at this time that certain elements of the radical left (as if there were a non-radical left) decides that they really need to push for a statewide referendum on seceding from the union and striking out on their own, having an economy often touted as the eighth to sixth largest in the world if they were an independent country and not part of the United States.
Much of this apparent surge in interest to leave the rest of the Neanderthalic, mouth-breathers in the hinterland behind them stems from the very sour grapes of having lost a national election to Donald Trump. It is not just that they lost, but it is the realization that California pushed the popular vote from 1.4 million in favor or Trump to 2-3 million in favor of Hillary.
Of course, we recognize that this is just a silly, little, childish, temper tantrum by a bunch of aging hippies and naive, college coddled, social justice warriors and that it will never go anywhere. However, the mere possibility that it could has a lot of leftists rather spooked, as do a lot of anti-establishment, radical, extremist movements appearing on the left which seem to defy traditional Democrat control. Having spent so long pumping up the mindless hatred and indignation, the mob appears to be getting away from their Democrat handlers. The idiots are becoming increasingly less useful.
One of the leading mouthpieces on the left coast of the leftist puppet-masters, the LA Times, is trying to caution them on just why taking your ball and going home might not be the best solution to the Democrats’ problems.
This by assuring the left that while they are vastly morally superior to the rest of the country and their condescension ought to be fully justified, but they will hurt their fellow leftist, particularly the Democrat party, by leaving:
“For decades California has exerted more influence on American politics and culture than vice versa. Secession would not improve our values. But it would practically ensure that the rest of the U.S. would drift farther away from our laid-back tolerance and easygoing diversity. And they’d still be our neighbors, geographic reality unchanged by political independence.”
That’s right, they would be in danger of losing that Hollyweird influence upon the values of the rest of the country. You know, with those television shows and movies which they keep telling us do not have any impact on those very values of America because it is just entertainment.
What they don’t bother to point out to their leftist audience, is just how much of that California economy is dependent upon selling to the rest of America their entertainments, their wines a citrus, and their computer software products. That is, the California economy thrives because of its customer base . . . in those other 49 states.
They also don’t caution the SJWs on the fiscal disaster which would confront them with long term budgetary considerations looming over their head. Like the rest of the U.S., California gets about half of their tax revenues from the top 1%, so they have a temporary boost with stock prices rising. If something happens to endanger that, they will go right back in the red.
“We’d be more like Greece to [America’s] Germany –– nicer weather, sure, but that ain’t everything.” (I’m assuming that they are saying that they have better weather than the rest of America, not that they have better weather than Greece, what with both of them being Mediterranean climates.) The author might be closer on that analogy that they actually intended, with the potential monetary problems of the California budget.
But, let us just imagine that we exacerbate the situation just a little with the beginning of this post. Add to the hazardous budgetary position, the crumbling infrastructure and no money to finance the dams, road, bridges, water, and sewage pipes which are all needing to be replaced. The collapsing infrastructure can only make an independent California struggle that much more.
Like most states, California spends nearly half of their state budget on education. The story referenced above has a nice graph depicting this in the California budget. The education budget of a border state with open immigration and sanctuary cities would be set to explode all over their books in red ink.
Operating any state or nation is a difficult task, but trying to stay fiscally afloat with millions of people pouring across the borders demanding free handouts of that state’s accumulated wealth, at the same time a state has to spend billions updating basic systems at the same time they throw their economic system into chaos by alienating the vast majority of their customer base . . . that is the #CalExit plan.
Not only a hashtag diplomacy disaster, but it would make the coming collapse of Greece look like a Sunday picnic. Fortunately, our fellow Americans are not that stupid, they would never commit such obvious political, social, and economic suicide. Would they?
