Part II: Blue Policies Make for Bluer States
(Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Mike Pompeo during Pompeo’s confirmation hearings, January 2016.)
It didn’t take long for California’s newly-minted Senator, Kamala Harris, to display the animating concerns of California’s insular governing class. The confirmation hearings of Mike Pompeo for CIA Director gave us a perch to view the political island of California at work. It quickly became apparent that all other matters pale in significance to sexual orientation and the Sierra Club’s environmentalist demands .
Without a whiff of humility or scientific caution, while being oblivious to the more relevant Age of Terror threats, she raised “climate change”. She asked,
“CIA Director Brennan who spent a 25-year career at the CIA an analyst, a senior manager, a station chief in the field, has said that when CIA analysts look for deeper causes of rising instability in the world, one of the cause those CIA analysts see is the impact of climate change. Do you have any reason to doubt the assessment of these CIA analysts?”
She further burrowed in,
“In the past you have questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. Nevertheless, according to NASA, multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97% or more of actively published climate scientists agree that climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities. In addition most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. Do you have any reason to doubt NASA’s findings?”
Doctrinaire positions on sexual orientation matched Harris’s passion for “climate change”. Again, Pompeo had to sit through the following query,
“Your voting record and stated position on gay marriage and the importance of having a quote un quote traditional family structure for raising children is pretty clear. Um, I disagree with your position, but, of course, you are entitled to your opinion. Um, I don’t want to that, however, to impact your opinion on that matter—the recruitment or retention of patriotic LGBT women and men in the CIA, some of whom, of course, have taken great risks to their lives for our country. Can you commit to me that your personal views on this issue will remain your personal views and will not impact internal policies that you put in place at the CIA?”
Why the insistence on ramrodding anything LGBT and “climate change” into national security? The awkwardness of the issues in a hearing on the CIA should be apparent to anyone not blinkered by partisanship. But they are the common obsessions of the governing interests in California. These interests became governing interests when once in power they drove out the base for opposing views and interests. Their policies helped create the conditions for their dominance. Blue begets blue.
The policies of the state’s governing class are actually a set of politicized aesthetics. They are a collection of fashionable standards of thought and beauty of particular powerful factions in the state. It’s a litmus test ranging from growth control, environmental purity, victimization, and stamping the Hollywood sitcom version of urban life on the whole state – and the nation if they get away with it. Of course, all of it hinges on the mirage of the omnicompetent state.
Some of the factions merged as NIMBY/drawbridge suburbanites united with environmentalist partisans. The alliance paved the way for growth control ordinances, CEQA, the California Coastal Commission, activist local planning boards, expanded powers for state and local agencies, and rising housing prices as if on a booster rocket. The effect is great for people with already attained wealth and homes. It’s not so great for those wanting to join them.
The rich are in a class of their own. They can afford whatever the Frankenstein housing market presents.
Jacked-up prices on the coast push the housing market into the interior. But people looking for cheaper housing will not escape the reach of the environmental lobby and its rich and powerful patrons. They’ll face jacked-up utility bills due to the necessity of air conditioning. On the map of electric rates below, the dark color follows the borders of the state.
The state’s energy markets are a state-run extortion racket forcing home buyers to pay $500/month or blanket their roof with solar panels. The utility companies are at the mercy of the state’s environmentalist godfathers and forced to play along. The state’s ratepayers and taxpayers are on the hook for all the subsidies. It’s a massive robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul gambit in a game of musical chairs. No wonder many have thrown up their hands, loaded up the U-Haul, and headed east.
Accepting longer commutes for cheaper housing may prove to be no bargain either. The environmentalist reach will grab you at the pump. The state has the highest fuel taxes in the nation. Just crossing the state border saves you 25-38 cents per gallon.
Don’t think taxes are the end of it. The boutique fuel markets within the state, with its state-mandated blends, distorts the markets and pushes up prices. (8) (9) There’s no end to it.
If the car should ever wear out, which it will on the poorly maintained roads, replacing it will be costlier than most any other state. California ranks as one of the worst to buy, operate, and maintain a car. It is next to dead last according to the Huffington Post. (10)
One-time, state-imposed costs (fees and taxes) at the time of purchase are some of the highest in the nation. (12)
In no ranking is California among the cheapest for buying a car, or almost anything for that matter.
Need I say anything about taxes? California has set herself up as one of the worst, to add to all the other “worsts”. (16)
It certainly isn’t a welcoming place to do business. It’s not breaking news to find California dead last in surveys of the best and worst states for business. One CEO was quoted as saying, “States like California just don’t get it. At the rate they are going, who’s going to pay the bills with such an anti-business, leftist government and businesses leaving every month for Arizona and Washington state?” Another exclaimed, “California has been running businesses out of the state for years, and, in fact, their policies are getting worse. Class-action lawsuits abound, and it’s a crazy environment for small business out there.” Such comments are so common, and its been true for so long, a person can be excused for responding with “ho-hum”. (13)
But such nonchalance hides a deeper reality: nobody gets a real job off a poor person. You need rich people and business people. An economy is more than the entertainment and tourism industries and Silicon Valley. Any economy so narrowly contrived will increasingly become feudal with the prosperous in their coastal castle-keeps in a sea of peasant poverty.
Once again, the eastward trek continues. Left behind is the supportive base for the disease.
Woe be to you if you happen to live in California and take your Christianity seriously. Woe be to you if you believe the Holy Scripture to be holy. The LGBT lobby is on the prowl, with the state’s legislature and governor as sidekicks.
Prop 8 – the 2008 effort to define marriage as a traditional one – had the misfortune of appearing on the “California” ballot. The state is a hornet’s nest of LGBT activism. The abuse heaped upon Prop 8 supporters rivaled Kristallnacht. More than individuals, entire and long-established Christian denominations were targeted as if they were synagogues in 1938 Germany. (14) Like German Jews of the 30’s, Christians might feel more comfortable elsewhere. No doubt, Christians make up a large portion of the U-Haul clientele.
Leaving no stone unturned, the power of the state’s LGBT hive is now aimed at Christian colleges. Already, youngsters in the public schools are required to be exposed to the hive’s agenda and sexual activity. With SB 1146, faith-based colleges will face lawsuits and the withdrawal of financial aid for teaching and practicing their faith. There used to be an exemption, which is not likely to last much longer. (15)
Everyone must bend a knee to the hive. Religion, by definition, must have some relation to timeless truths. There’s little room for a zeitgeist here. The normalization of homosexual conduct demands the embrace of the LGBT zeitgeist by a Christianity going back to the cross and further to Genesis. It all must give way to the zeitgeist. Too much of the Bible is an embarrassment to the hive. Accommodation to the hive’s agenda by Christianity essentially works out as a suicide pact. For Christians who actually believe their Christianity, it may be healthier to leave the state. Many have.
High taxes, abusive energy costs, hostility to business and Christianity lead to a combination of fear and loathing for the not-so-golden Golden State. The welcome sign has been removed for the striving, enterprising, family-oriented, and Christian crowds. Those left behind are increasingly more accepting of this hostile agenda. The political playing field is steeply tilted blue. The tilt is getting steeper by the day.
RogerG
Sources:
(1) http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/01/12/dem-senator-grills-pompeo-on-climate-change-in-confirmation-hearing/, “Dem Senator grills Pompeo on climate change in confirmation hearing”, The Blaze, 1/12/17
(2) “California Prepares to Throw Climate-Change Skeptics In Jail. Meanwhile, They Allow Violent Criminals To Go Free.”, Hank Berrien, The Daily Wire, 6/2/16, http://www.dailywire.com/news/6263/california-prepares-throw-climate-change-skeptics-hank-berrien
(3) “California Senate sidelines bill to prosecute climate change skeptics”, Wash Times, 6/2/16, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/calif-bill-prosecutes-climate-change-skeptics/
(4) “California to investigate whether Exxon Mobil lied about climate-change risks”, LA Times, Ivan Penn, 1/20/16, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exxon-global-warming-20160120-story.html
(5) “Virtues of journalism are at stake in project by Columbia’s Energy and Environment Reporting Fellowship”, Crain’s Cleveland Business, Richard Osborne (former reporter, editor, publisher, Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame 2007), 1/26/16, http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160126/BLOGS05/160129864/virtues-of-journalism-are-at-stake-in-project-by-columbias-energy
(6) “InsideClimate News: Journalism or Green PR?”, Jillian Kay Melchior, NRO, 12/22/15, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428878/environmentalism-advocacy-journalism-who
(7) “Kamala Harris Grills CIA Nominee Pompeo on Gay Rights and Climate Change”, Weekly Standard, 1/12/17, http://www.weeklystandard.com/kamala-harris-grills-cia-nominee-pompeo-on-gay-rights-and-climate-change/article/2006261
(8) “Why California gasoline is so expensive”, Dan McSwain, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/3/16, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/columnists/sdut-why-california-has-higher-gasoline-prices-2016feb03-story.html
(9) “Car Buyers Beware, Cheapest And Most Expensive States For Unexpected Fees”, Forbes, Jim Henry, 6/29/14, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2014/06/29/car-buyers-beware-cheapest-and-most-expensive-states-for-unexpected-fees/#f45371677f5e
(10) “Most (and Least) Expensive States to Own a Car”, Elyssa Kirkham, Huffington Post, 3/21/16, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gobankingrates/most-and-least-expensive_b_9516846.html
(11) “Tax-Friendly Places to Buy a Car”, Mark Solheim, Kiplinger, 4/7/06, http://www.kiplinger.com/article/cars/T009-C000-S001-tax-friendly-places-to-buy-a-car.html
(12) “Most (and Least) Expensive States to Own a Car”, GoBannkingRates, 3/21/16, https://www.gobankingrates.com/car-loans/most-least-expensive-states-own-car/
(13) “Survey: California still worst state for business”, Editors, OC Register, 5/23/16, http://www.ocregister.com/articles/california-716365-states-business.html
(14) “The Price of Prop 8”, Thomas M. Messner, Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #2328 on Family and Marriage, 10/22/09, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/10/the-price-of-prop-8
(15) “Does This New Bill Threaten California Christian Colleges’ Religious Freedom?”, Thomas Berg, Christianity Today, 7/5/16, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/july-web-only/california-sb-1146-religious-freedom.html
(16) “Best and Worst States for Taxes 2016”, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45ehhij/no-45-california/#391c3d67e3cd