Interests:Jesus Christ, theology, the Bible, apologetics, my family, motorcycles, Anaheim Ducks,running, politics, history, music including Old Crow Medicine Show, Nickel Creek, Beatles, '80's Alternative and Christian Rock. Expertise:I have certain strengths, but I don't know that I'd claim expertise in anything. Occupation:Coach Operator Industry:Transportation
The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure. – Lysander Spooner (Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur)
This article pretty much touches many of the issues that are driving people like me out of California. I just wonder if it is an indication of where we collectively are heading as a nation as Washington DC seems to be embracing California liberalism. I do wish to address this issue on a personal level, but I don't even know if there is a point to it. The California I knew growing up no longer exists. I had a dream I guess about two years ago now, where Courtney and I were in front of a new house, and my oldest son was moving in with his bride (obviously dreaming about the future), and I turned to Courtney and said, "This never could have happened in California." It is true that prices have gone down on real estate, and the weather is nice, but meanwhile my children are shunned in their school (the same their Grandmother teaches at) where they are the minority (we had to go back to public school; long story and hopefully temporary) and they are learning exactly what that means. They have been called racial names and are constantly on edge waiting for the next time they will be in a fight or have their stuff vandalized. Being social by nature, they are learning that they need to keep to themselves because they are unwanted and unwelcome at their school, and to some extent in California at large. They are all ready sight unseen and having never been to jump in the car and go to Tennessee, or anywhere they do not have to face what they face now. And now, our beloved state is bankrupt, and on February 1st the welfare dries up, and what happens then? I still remember the Rodney King riots, and seeing LA burning as gangsters rolled up and down the alleys screaming about killing white people and setting cars and trash cans on fire. For two days I was stuck in my apartment before I finally was able to sneak out and get out of there. It is a miracle my car was not touched. God was watching over me, but all the same, I will never forget what that felt like. You don't forget things like that. Funny thing is to comment about these experiences is to be labeled a racist. How do you win when you can't even be heard when your feelings and experiences are not valid because of the color of your skin?
Here is the article, and please, I do hope you will comment...
LOS ANGELES – Mike Reilly spent his lifetime chasing the California dream. This year he's going to look for it in Colorado.
With a house purchase near Denver in the works, the 38-year-old engineering contractor plans to move his family 1,200 miles away from his home state's lemon groves, sunshine and beaches. For him, years of rising taxes, dead-end schools, unchecked illegal immigration and clogged traffic have robbed the Golden State of its allure. Is there something left of the California dream?
"If you are a Hollywood actor," Reilly says, "but not for us."
Since the days of the Gold Rush, California has represented the Promised Land, an image celebrated in the songs of the Beach Boys and embodied by Silicon Valley's instant millionaires and the young men and women who achieve stardom in Hollywood.
But for many California families last year, tomorrow started somewhere else.
The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period — more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y. The state with the next-highest net loss through migration between states was New York, which lost just over 126,000 residents.
California's loss is extremely small in a state of 38 million. And, in fact, the state's population continues to increase overall because of births and immigration, legal and illegal. But it is the fourth consecutive year that more residents decamped from California for other states than arrived here from within the U.S.
A losing streak that long hasn't happened in California since the recession of the early 1990s, when departures outstripped arrivals from other states by 362,000 in 1994 alone.
In part because of the boom in population in other Western states, California could lose a congressional seat for the first time in its history.
Why are so many looking for an exit?
Among other things: California's unemployment rate hit 8.4 percent in November, the third-highest in the nation, and it is expected to get worse. A record 236,000 foreclosures are projected for 2008, more than the prior nine years combined, according to research firm MDA DataQuick. Personal income was about flat last year. With state government facing a $41.6 billion budget hole over 18 months, residents are bracing for higher taxes, cuts in education and postponed tax rebates. A multibillion-dollar plan to remake downtown Los Angeles has stalled, and office vacancy rates there and in San Diego and San Jose surpass the 10.2 percent national average. Median housing prices have nose-dived one-third from a 2006 peak, but many homes are still out of reach for middle-class families. Some small towns are on the brink of bankruptcy. Normally recession-proof Hollywood has been hit by layoffs.
"You see wages go down and the cost of living go up," Reilly says. His property taxes will be $1,300 in Colorado, down from $4,300 on his three-bedroom house in Nipomo, about 80 miles up the coast from Santa Barbara. California's obituary has been written before — "California: The Endangered Dream" was the title of a 1991 Time magazine cover story. The Golden State and its huge economy — by itself, the eighth-largest in the world — have shown resilience, weathering the aerospace bust, the dot-com crash and an energy crunch in recent years. But this time, the news just keeps getting worse.
A state board halted lending for about 2,000 public works projects in California worth more than $16 billion because the state could not afford them. A report by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., last month said the state lost 100,000 jobs in the last year and the erosion of home prices eliminated over $1 trillion in wealth.
"I don't think the California dream, per se, is over. It has become and will continue to become grittier," says New America Foundation senior fellow Gregory Rodriguez. "Now, perhaps, we have to reassess the California of our imagination."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is among those who say the state needs to create itself anew, rebuilding roads, schools and transit.
"We've lived off the investments our parents made in the '50s and '60s for a long time," says Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento. "We're somewhat in the position of a Rust Belt state in the 1970s."
Financial adviser Barry Hartz lived in California for 60 years and once ran for state Assembly before relocating with his wife last year to Colorado Springs, Colo., where his son's family had moved.
"The saddest thing I saw was the escalation of home prices to the point our kids, when they got married, could not live in the community where they lived and grew up," Hartz says. "Some people call that progress."
I'm grateful for the sacrifices he made on our behalf to keep us safe, and even as I did not always agree with him, I liked him and I hate to see him go. I do believe he is a good man, and I trust that history will be far kinder to him than the partisan venom has been. God bless you President Bush!
I watched a show called W.T.F. (W. Thanks and Farewell) with some liberal comedians who were ripping into Bush. One story had the "Good Presidents" of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and FDR haunting W. for civil rights abuse and suspending Habeas corpus; LINCOLN!!! So much for facts.
Anyhow, I pray for our nation, for George W. Bush, and for our new president.
Monday is our anniversary, and so we will be celebrating it today. I love her more today than ever before, and I am so grateful for our marriage! I love you Courtney! Happy Anniversary!!!
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