There’s been a lot of talk recently about
California seceding from the union. It’s akin to Hollywood celebs vowing to
move out of the country if a Republican wins the White House. Meaning that it’s
all bluster. Those who extol the virtues of the People’s Republic of California
love to make hollow threats, but they possess neither the courage nor the
financial resources to back them up.
If California were ever on its own, within
six months of its “independence” it would be unable to function at even a
survival level. Though it boasts the sixth largest economy in the world (larger
than that of both Brazil and France!), there’s no economy big enough to keep a
Marxist country afloat. This has been demonstrated time and again in such
failed nations as Cuba, the Soviet Union, Mozambique, and every other country
that has experimented with socialism/communism in any of its hideous forms.
The majority of California’s adult
population consists of adult children whose brains have never developed beyond
adolescence. They cling to a stunted Woodstock mentality that makes them
incapable of rational thought, which, if not addressed professionally, has the
potential to be fatal. They live in an Oz-like land of constant frustration,
which causes them to resort to tantrums and violence as the combined solution
to every perceived problem.
The bottom line to all this is that a
majority of Californians are not able to function as self-sustaining adults in
the real world, so they irrationally dedicate themselves to the impossible task
of trying to remake our imperfect world into a perfect world they create in
their soiled minds.
Such an immature and naïve mental state can
have dire consequences not only for the individual who is saddled with it but
for rational people of good will who live in the same societal space as they
do. It’s dangerous to everyone, because those who are part of the Radical Left,
in particular, employ lies, slander, and violence day-in-and-day-out in an
attempt to achieve their impossible goal of creating the perfect world they
envision in their minds.
I lived in Southern California for about 20
years, and I loved it for about ten of those years. It was a period when
seemingly everything that happened was wonderful — meeting and marrying the
most beautiful, kindest, most caring woman in the world, enjoying my four
children as they progressed through grade school, middle school, and high
school, rising from oblivion to the pinnacle of the book-publishing world by
writing and self-publishing two New York Times #1 bestsellers, and much,
much more.
But as we rolled into the eighties, the
glitzy lifestyle of Los Angeles began to lose its appeal for me. Being
surrounded by millions of Hollywood types and, worse, wannabe Hollywood types,
became a painful daily task. I grew tired of seeing people with no visible means
of support driving Rolls-Royces and living in rented mansions.
Above all, the left-wing political
craziness and political correctness began to wear me down. I got tired of
debating low-information people — and, worse, no-information people —
and increasingly found myself withdrawing from the outside world.
I slowly faced up to the reality that
people in Southern California had a collective mental disorder that caused them
to talk and act in ways that was completely foreign to how the rest of the
nation thought or behaved.
I remember many years ago Paul Newman
saying that “Los Angeles is like a beautiful lady dying of cancer.”
Notwithstanding his liberal credentials, Newman nailed it. For sheer luxury and
beauty, it’s hard to beat Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, and Bel-Air, but, with
just a few exceptions, most of the rest of Los Angeles is
a sewer.
I became convinced, and today am certain,
that California cannot be saved. It long ago passed the tipping point and is
now a giant left-wing cauldron boiling over with hatred, intolerance, and
violence. It’s gigantic GDP can’t save it, because when GDP in California
increases, it always brings with it an increase in welfare benefits. The
Sacramento beast has an insatiable appetite for vote-buying entitlements, regulations,
and illegal schemes.
That said, given that the national debt can
never repaid — and, in fact, is going to increase dramatically in the coming
years — I favor killing two birds with one stone and settling our debt with our
largest creditor, China, by giving it title to the state of California outright
— lock, stock, and illegal immigrants. Then, let Sacramento figure out how to
deal with its new Asian rulers who don’t take kindly to liberal ideas like
sanctuary cities, rioting, and welfare fraud.
As I’ve
written about before, it’s inevitable that the United States will ultimately
break into several nations, but right now just getting the People’s Republic of
California out of our lives and out of our pocketbooks would be a real boost to
the average American’s morale.
So, with that delicious thought in mind, I
invite you to join me in a toast to California’s secession — voluntarily or
forced, I’m not particular.
