I’m a native of Southern California. Love the mountains, beaches, deserts, dining, theater… used to hike, ski, camp, waterski, dive, trail run, body surf, dine, ride horseback all over. It was a great place to live, work, play, and raise a family.
I worked IT, led IBM into digital cinema, managed teams at studios that built new TV networks and new ways to deliver content to consumers. I’ve also ridden a bike paper route, bagged groceries, milked cows, slaughtered beeves and hogs, been a camp counselor, Scoutmaster, Little League manager, herded cows & horses, and finished college there. And been a dad and stepdad.
Just about done it all, taken every advantage I could in what once was the most beautiful state in our nation, and I say that advisedly, having been to every state but Alaska.
Not anymore.
Because of the politics, however, I moved my family to AZ ten years ago, when our youngest graduated high school.
California’s only gotten worse. I still visit family there about once a month. But … living there!?! YGTBKM.
As I watch the idiots burn down LA, yammer about “stolen land” (LOL), and their “right” to resist the law “by any means necessary…” it occurs to me that I just don’t care anymore.
It’s a foreign country. Like they’ve turned California into a combo of Mogadishu and Tijuana. I turn on YouTube and watch my city burn. Oh, well…
I don’t care.
Watching these violent enemies of the rule of law get their ass handed to them by cops, watching them attacking & being repelled by the Guard, for me, at least, is like watching the troops bagging bad guys in Baghdad. I. Don’t. Care when rioters are grabbed, held, beaten, tazed. And if some of the violent ones are reduced to room temp? Don’t care; it’ll be a bonus for the entire country.
It’s a spectacle. It’s lefty theater. Good guys will get killed - too many. Bad guys will get killed - not enough.
They’re attacking MY country. If they spread to my area, I’ll be all rooftop Korean without apology.
I took an oath to protect & defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Well, those burning down American cities are enemies both foreign AND domestic. And if they come here, I’ll respect my oath.
But California essentially has become a foreign country, and a third world one, at that. And I just no longer give a rat’s ass about it.
The voters are getting what they voted for, “good and hard.” Those idiots who thought illiterate, un-American foreigners whose first action in MY country was to break OUR laws would suddenly become valedictorians and Nobel prize winners… well… more of those idiots need their homes burned down. They can be identified by the childish “In this home…” signs in their front yards.
And I thought “All I need to know I learned in kindergarten” was a self-help book, not a documentary on the complete education of lefties…
And all while the state & local leaders, like Governor Hairgel and the communist idiot, Mayor Bass, who seems to be doing her best to finish the job of burning LA down, and the absolute morons representing LA in Congress - looking at you, Kerosene Maxine Waters - are standing before cameras and telling us “Mission Accomplished.”
I just could not care less. California voters have done this to themselves. It’ll only get worse.
It’s all - ALL - based on the absolute refusal of CA - and US government - to enforce the law… for decades.
Even before Brandon illegally spent tens of millions of dollars breaking the law flying & busing & walking illegals across our - not his, our - border, NGOs were spending our tax dollars - allocated by Congress - breaking our laws. Murderers set-free because they grew up in a fatherless household or they suffered from post-partum syndrome… young men beating men and women on the street, not only not executed, but not even jailed. Crips v Bloods? Should have all been annihilated decades ago. But that would be mean.
And it’s not like illegal aliens are a new problem. Reagan tried to secure the border over four decades ago and got played by the same people breaking the border and burning down cities now: Democrats.
And don’t even get me started about uber-useless Pam Bondi.
Agree on all points. I left New York in 1988, and although I've visited a few times, I have no urge to move back there. I moved to Arkansas for business reasons, however the change of state ended up being the best part of the move. Life here's so much better without a Democrat majority and a snow shovel.
Thanks for the article. I too took an oath to protect this country, and I don't remember an expiration date. Not going looking for trouble, but if it comes here, FAFO!
Your ode to California reminds me of a popular song from the 1960-70s: Those were the days:
“Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way…”
Remember?