Politics are about shared values as much as they're about anything else. As the author points out, California is completely out of step with the country, and provided Hillary Clinton with 100% of her margin of victory in the popular vote.
Of course, if we could agree to abide by the 10th Amendment there'd be no reason California should have to leave. They could live by their own values in perfect accord with their nearby neighbors' living in accordance with more traditional values.
Yet in the wake of Trump's election, I have seen no signs at all of any softening of the idea that the Federal Government Should Rule All. I have seen calls to abolish the electoral college, calls that are completely removed from the reality that Democrats now control none of the capacities that would enable them to amend the Constitution. I have seen calls to abolish the states, even though state governments like California's (and there are less than a handful of such states) provide Democrats with their only practical shelter against whatever Trump's Federal government may do.
If I were inclined to view political disagreements in medical terms, I would think this pathological. This insistence on imposing one-size-fits-all solutions on a big and diverse nation is what lost them all of those state governments. It's a major contributing factor to what lost them this Presidential election. It's also lost them a bunch of House and Senate seats. Yet they continue to double down on the strategy, determined to knock down all remaining laws between them and a fully centralized power. They do this without apparently realizing that these are load-bearing walls, and the power will be centralized like a roof being brought down on their heads.
So yes, by all means, let them go. I will gladly support any Constitutional convention or amendment aimed at freeing California to pursue its own destiny. We would all be happier, and our politics would be healthier, if we could make this happen.
Ha! I just posted the comment "Can we just give them California and back away slowly?" to the Duncan Lloyd post and when I refreshed this popped up.
ReplyDeleteSure,
ReplyDeleteLets sell them oil.
Lets sell them Water too.
We can control the price of each.
and grain too.
There are lets of places in South America we could buy Vegetables from.
How many Liberals would we get rid of?
It would be fun to see Trump put Tariffs on everything they export to the rest of us
Yep, let em go, we are better with out them.
-Mississippi
Oh thanks folks- looking to get me cut off in another country full of crazy leftists. I guess that would settle my stay or go debate real quick.
ReplyDeleteMississippi- Actually California has plenty of oil and at one time was the largest oil producing state in the nation even out producing Oklahoma. Near Bakersfield are two towns, one named Oildale and the other named Mc Kittrick (which may as well be Gasville- look it up on google earth and you'll see hundreds of miles of surface pipeline connecting thousands of wells). It's just that we're nimby about that stuff- that's why they don't approve any new drill rigs off the coast near Santa Barbara, even though there's so much oil it oozes out of the ocean floor and bluffs near the beach- which oddly is why a lot of people are against drilling- they think it comes from the drill operations. There are even active wells still pumping not too far from LAX. If they had to, they could get plenty of energy. Water is also mostly a man-made problem- we stopped building new retention capacity (reservoirs) decades ago, even though population growth demands more capacity- that's the main reason we have a drought problem- it's not because of the drought, which is a natural cyclic occurrence here, but because of environmental politics.
With that in mind, maybe it would be for the best- give the left it's 'paradise' and watch them burn it to the ground as an example for the rest. The idea just breaks my heart so- this could be and once was such a great state.
Only California? There are some other very worthy contestants!! Massachusetts, New York, Illinois.....
ReplyDeleteYou have spit on these others. Is OUTRAGE!!!
You know, it's not like you can't point to numerous inner cities in deep blue states run by Democrats for decades- Baltimore, Chicago, and especially Detroit- and say 'look, your policies don't work', but empirical evidence doesn't work with them- it's pure faith. That must be broken, there's no reasoning with it. But how?
ReplyDeleteI watched with great amusement as people I know on social media who had (just months ago) stated with sincerity that all this talk of a "Texit" (Texas-exit) in the wake of the Brexit was "treasonous talk", calling for a secessionist movement for California and the Pacific Northwest following the election.
ReplyDeleteI think the difference is, we realize that we could do just fine without the Blue States, but they knew they could not function without the Red States.