It’s no use lying to ourselves. The state of California is no longer safe. Its government has assumed the likeness of something inimical. It is “progressive,” having turned to the “left.” It has put out the welcome mat for La Raza (UnidosUS), Antifa, and the People’s Liberation Army. The state appears to be run by Marxists. Should that surprise us? California’s business and political elites are tied to Beijing. San Francisco, with its many homeless encampments, is part Chinese colony and part liberal zoo. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is becoming a foreign city. 

As these words are written California burns. Outside my window ash is falling. The sky has a pinkish-orange glow because wildfires are raging across the state. Yesterday the fires knocked out our connection to the internet. The state’s leading politicians blame the fires on Trump’s failure to combat “global warming.” But the wildfires are not due to global climate change. The fires, wrote Chuck Devore of Forbes Magazine, are the result of “decades of environmental mismanagement that has created a tinderbox of unharvested timber, dead trees, and thick underbrush.”

The radical leftists, who dominate California, are slowly destroying it. Their totalitarian urges have always been in evidence. If you have any doubts on the matter, consider what happened to California GOP state Senator Janet Nguyen on 23 February 2017. Following the death of Senator Tom Hayden, a pro-communist radical, Nguyen prepared a commentary on Hayden’s treasonous activities during the Vietnam War. She first read her statement in Vietnamese, but as soon as she began to pronounce it in English, presiding Senator Ricardo Lara called her out-of-order, cut off her microphone and brought in the sergeant-at-arms to escort her out of the room.

Even before Nguyen attempted to criticize Hayden, a Democratic staffer named Dan Reeves, working for Senate President Kevin de Leon, had emailed Nguyen’s staff, warning them that any statement against Senator Hayden would be a violation of Hayden’s rights and “will be ruled out of order and rebuked by the [Senate] body.”

Senate President Kevin de Leon took full responsibility for the action against Nguyen, finally agreeing to let her speak. Yet the true feelings of de Leon are best reflected by the further statements of his staffer, Dan Reeves, who maintained that Nguyen had no right to criticize Hayden because Hayden had not criticized her. We can see, by this, the true north of the ruling Democrat’s moral compass.  

That sorry affair happened more than three years ago. Today the situation continues to worsen. The state government, being opposed to electricity for the sake of “the planet,” didn’t allow enough power plants to be built; so last month’s heat wave resulted in rolling blackouts, business shut-downs and lost working hours. Last fall there were preemptive power shut-downs. Get this: The odd chance that wind might knock a tree onto a power line resulted in whole cities being deprived of power. And yet the forests and the underbrush burn anyway.

Environmentalism of the communist kind, bent on sabotaging private property, is an important aspect of California politics. Remember the spotted owl? They stopped timber falling to save the spotted owl. Now the spotted owl is burned out of his habitat because the loggers aren’t clearing the dead trees and brush.

It would be wishful thinking to expect California’s ruling party to change. They are not going to rebuke their radical policies. Consequently, businesses and people are leaving the state. They are voting with their feet. As a friend in San Francisco told me this morning, “People are fleeing, rents are dropping; but even with rents dropping, people don’t want to live here because it has become a cesspool.”

The writing is on the wall. It is time to get out of California. I am preparing to leave, too. Whatever happens, it’s going to get worse in California before it gets better. The United States has tolerated treason and sedition for decades. Our collective unwillingness to identify domestic and external enemies has brought the country to a crisis. Even now, we are not facing the facts. California, like New York City, is being abandoned by those who work and produce. Why? Because in the end, the Marxists are destroyers. They will destroy private property. They will end free speech. As they are emboldened, their tyranny will grow.

NOTES AND LINKS

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2019/02/25/wildfires-caused-by…

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article13…