They infiltrate the coastal real estate and bring it down with regulations and poor planning. If a place is nice they creep in like snakes. I've read of similar things in Austin, Durango, etc... I was just talking with a close colleague about this today. We were saying how we love our Mediterranean climate here. I realized that you need to go to another country to, hopefully, find such a climate in a place that isn't ruined.

Well, you won't get much of a break in Oregon, and Washington is worse..almost like someone is engineering it....

I'm really getting sick of this place. Working to build my nest egg to get out with some options. It's just become a real shite-hole.

Nasty.. it also reflects some serious moral and social issues that apparently cannot be corrected by "freebies". In fact, the "freebie" mentality I would say, would lead to more stealing, because, after all, it's free too....

As one example of life in California....

Yesterday we had a small gathering at a local park in an upscale neighborhood to celebrate my daughter's birthday. She's 7 now. At one point she took off her bike helmet to play in the large play structure. That got stolen. She was very upset about it as it was a neat helmet that looked like a dinosaur head. She wore it all the time. Then, my son and I were playing with one of those phoebe Frisbees...those ring-styled affairs that fly really well. Also stolen. I just see it as a sign of the times, of another example of living in California. Too many people here think nothing of just stealing stuff from kids.

That is good for them. It is a function of the amount of money they control. The more people percieve their free ride is due to a specific group, the more leverage that group maintains. Obviously I would say that an analysis of the money programs in OK should present that some programs either became too painful to continue, or they dropped off, making an opening for the Republicans. As long as people focus on what is in it for me at a personal level, politics will be a dysfunctional concept. I believe this has been so for the last 2000 years, so it is not a new idea, but it is a root cause for many of our problems, IMHO.

It's been said many times that you get the government you deserve. Democrats took it for granted they would "own" Oklahoma in perpetuity, having had an authoritarian majority for decades, but the voters decided the Democrap party no longer believed in their values. Republicans are now firmly in control, with supermajorities in the state House and Senate. However, the voters have put the Republicans on notice that they are being watched, and can just as easily be removed if they don't do their job.

Thank you sir, it is incredibly frustrating living in a world that claims to care so much, yet is so willing to freely take from people to feed that claim.

Nickursis:

I always appreciate your postings. Makes me feel that I am not alone in the struggle, as does being a part of Galt's Gulch.
This whole opportunity of a website is what keeps me sane, truly.
Dukem (somewhere in the fog of Oregonian liberalism).

AMEN! I generate spec instructions and have to pound it down to "pick up nut" then "Screw on bolt, left is loose, right it tight".....

dukem, I am in complete agreement, being on the west side, even in a Republicrat county, they have their own brand of imperialism, which is similar to the Liberal one, they do not do anything to stand up to the looters, I have given up on trying to get the Republicrat representative (Goomberg) to actually do anything beyond pander for money for the coast...

In many, many, ways by many, many players...

Doc, not so sure, oregon has a big Dumbocrap party machine that makes all the choices, even the Republicrats run a litmus test on you if you want to run, I failed, when I told them I did not support all the party ideals, unless my constituents wanted me too. They didn't like that answer....

Senators (most of them anyway) deal more with their party bosses who determine who gets backing for reelection than they do with their constituents. By removing the motivation for money raising, the party elite would lose their control over senators. The state legislators have to answer to the people who voted them into office, so the line of influence and deal-making would be closer to the voters than it is now.

As I recall there was a movement for California to become separate country. What a great idea. With Gov. Brown becoming President, it will only be a question of time before they are banging at the door to be let back in. Think of all the fun it will be to turn them down.

I have heard this claim but never understood it. Maybe I need to read a book on it. It seems like changing who elects senators just changes whom they have to pander to. Intuitively it seems like it would be easier to do a sweetheart deal with members of the legislature than with the entire population.

One thing that would be a start is the abolition of the 17th amendment and redirecting senators' interests to the people of their state, instead of to their party. Selection of senators by the state legislatures gets rid of the big campaign expenses and takes influence from the party power brokers.

Here I go again.

I have been a part of this trend for over 40 years. I'll skip the details. Came to CA when it was paradise (mostly), left for greener pastures 15 years ago to central Oregon (rural, sort of) and now the inmates of all types are fleeing CA and nesting here and bringing all that crap with them. We went from Republican to Democrat in my area almost overnight, it seemed, and it shows. No money to fix potholes, but we sure do have enough to keep funneling to the palaces and nurseries they call schools, resulting in more of the same. I call them "safe spaces for snowflakes." Wish I had originated that phrase.
Why don't I leave? That's my next step. But where I want to go it's getting almost the same way (Colorado).
Thanks! Now I feel much better! (Insert sarcastic grimace.)

Ironically, plastic bags today are manufactured from corn starch, designed to degrade in land fills. No one took the time to discover that. Fabric grocery bags are carriers of bacteria due to the occasional liquid spill inside. No one took the time to realize that either. That's the problem with the radical left: they don't take time to think of the consequences of their well intended "improvements." Jerry Brown sees nothing wrong with neglecting maintenance of roads, bridges, dams, and canals, while spending billions on the high speed train from nowhere to nowhere. If we clipped California's wings a bit by reducing the federal money to just emergency response and military that might send a wakeup call (but maybe I'm just delusional).

Rule of thumb writing for business is that if you want your audience to read something you have to write it at the 3rd grade level. Perhaps that is what this author is trying to do however, I would say that the ability of this crowd is significantly better then 3rd grade level......

Yep! Like New Jerseyans who are fleeing the stupidity of the state but taking their silly brand of Progressive politics with them to where it is now better! Fools don't realize that they are just bringing the same garbage that they are escaping from with them. I like them to the plague of locusts (devouring and destroying everything that they touch). Sanctimonious fools!

Amen! He who manages least manages best! These silly leftist "tinkerers" are the reason for so many problems across the board! The best things these clowns can do is "Don't just do something! Stand there"! The law of "Unintended Consequences" will almost always prevail. So far the Progressives haven't gotten anything right however look how much damage they have been able to do! Amazing! Simply amazing!

You're correct! Lincoln did good however at the same time he was doing good, he was gutting a key component of the US Constitution! Between the enumerated powers that remain and the stripping away of the ability of a state to easily secede from the Union (Texas being the exception), our country has forever changed (sometimes not necessarily for the better).

My condolences! I feel your pain because I live in another "brain dead" state (New Jersey). We have a bunch of functional illiterates who live and vote here as well. Who did away with poll taxes and competency tests? Must have been another functional illiterate who got further than he/she should have. Obviously not the brightest bulbs on the tree. Oh well "stupid is as stupid does"!