NANCY PELOSI, and her LA RAZA SISTERS, SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN,
FORMER SEN. BARBARA BOXER and NOW SEN. KAMALA HARRIS are a pantheon of
staggering self-serving corruption.
They and their families have all gotten filthy rich off of
these women’s elected office.
Their endless hispandering for the illegals’ votes has turned
California into Mexifornia, a drug, gang and anchor baby welfare third-world
dumpster!
“Liberal governing has
transformed beautiful California into the poverty
capital of America with the worst quality of life. Crazy taxes, crazy high cost of living, and crazy overreaching regulations have crushed the
middle class, forcing the middle class to exit the Sunshine
State. All that is left in California are illegals feeding at the
breast of the state, rapidly growing massive
homeless tent cities, and the mega-rich.” LLOYD MARCUS
Illegal aliens are increasing
Prosecutions deter illegal immigration, avoiding the dangers for families
By Andrew Arthur
USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/30/illegal-aliens-increasing-editorials-debates/35513539/
Excerpt: The government recently said it would prosecute aliens entering illegally, even those traveling with children. This seemingly harsh policy actually protects foreign nationals.
Illegal entry is a crime. Prosecuting illegal entrants deters it. Deterrence avoids the dangers of smuggling, as women and children “often find themselves at risk for assault and abuse such as rape, beatings, kidnapping and robbery” at smugglers’ hands, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Republican James Bradley in ‘Striking Distance’ of California Senate Slot
Republican James Bradley is within “striking distance” of second place in the California primary for U.S. Senate, according to the latest University of California Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) poll.
According to the poll, which was released June 1, incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is comfortably in first place with 36% of support from likely voters. State Sen. Kevin de Léon is second, with 11%, while Bradley is in third place, with 7% — behind De Léon by a margin that is just outside the poll’s 3.5% margin of error.
Fully 25% of the voters are still undecided, and there are a large number of other Republican and Democratic candidates who split the rest of the vote between them.
Bradley, a political outsider and veteran, also polled near second place in a Berkeley IGS poll in April. His repeat performance proves that the first poll was not a fluke — but he will need to finish strong to qualify for the general election.
Under the rules of California’s “top two” or “jungle” primary system, all voters — regardless of party registration — vote for all candidates in a common pool. The top two finishers advance to the general election, regardless of party. There is a chance for an all-Democrat final, but if Bradley — or another Republican — can catch De Léon, the general election will resemble a more traditional Democrat-versus-Republican race.
Breitbart News Tonight spoke to Bradley in April:
Republicans hope that at least one of their members qualifies for the November ballot in a statewide race, because that could bring more Republican voters to the polls, which would help save several vulnerable congressional seats.
That, in turn, would help keep Congress in Republican hands, and keep Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) out of the Speaker’s chair.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
It Pays to be Illegal in California
THE INVISIBLE CALIFORNIA
De facto apartheid world in the Golden State.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270265/invisible-california-bruce-thornton
ABOUT BRUCE THORNTON
Is California Governor
Jerry Brown Mentally Ill?
June 5, 2018
The one topic Democrats don't dare bring up in today's SoCal primary
The airwaves in Southern California are flooded with Democratic candidate ads, with most openly touting extremely loony far-left positions – promises of free health care for all, free college for all, beefed up public funding for Planned Parenthood, full gun control, pretty much the full Bernie Sanders plate of pie-in-the-sky goodies. Democrats, whether in the House, Senate, governor, or assembly races, are all openly offering all the free stuff on the far left's wish list, not holding back at all. Fiscal discipline isn't in fashion with this bunch. If I had to speculate, I'd say it's because at the time these platforms were formulated, Democrats were convinced that a blue wave was upon them. In a crowded field, and at primary time, where only the most committed voters show up, extremism seems to be the way to stand out and get ahead of the pack.
There's one topic among these offerings that isn't being touched – not even in one campaign ad:
Illegal immigration.
As the sign says: "Caution."
We all know that Democrats favor open borders, given the potential for muscling mendicant votes in the state's poorest cities from their well oiled political machines. Democrats favor DACA, DAPA for the parents, amnesty, state benefits for illegals – from driver's licenses to free health care – an end to deportations, and no border wall, let alone National Guardsmen at the borders. You can find vague admissions of these stances on candidates' websites, buried deep.
But somehow, this topic isn't one they want to bring up in the heat of the primaries, at least not in ads, where they have an overcrowded slate of candidates on the June ballot, and face the real prospect of seeing no Democrats making it to the slate in November.
Illegal immigration seems to be the electric third rail.
That says a lot about the sentiment of the voters in illegal alien-filled California, which houses one quarter of the nation's illegals. Nobody's brought up the Democratic plan for free health care for illegals, now wending its way through the California statehouse. Nobody's asked Gavin Newsom, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for governor, what he thinks of the state's inundation of illegals, and he's certainly said nothing to the broad public about it in his ads. The costs of illegal immigration are being carefully hidden by Democrats.
Meanwhile, city after city and county after county in Southern California has joined the lawsuit against the state for its "sanctuary state" laws, which require them to house and feed illegals instead of turn them over to the feds for breaking the law. It's probably significant that increasingly blue San Diego and Orange Counties, the two areas Democrats have placed all their hopes and cash on for winning the House back, have joined this movement.
It all suggests that this topic is dry tinder among voters, the internal polls look bad for Democrats on their free everything for illegals, and the Democratic Party line is far more unpopular than anyone on the left is willing to admit.
President Trump should have a field day enacting his orderly immigration agenda, even in California, when crunch time comes at the November midterms.
It Pays to be Illegal in California
It
certainly is a good time to be an illegal alien in California. Democratic State
Sen. Ricardo Lara last week pitched a bill to permit illegal immigrants to
serve on all state and local boards and commissions. This week, lawmakers
unveiled a $1 billion health care plan that would include spending
$250 million to extend health care coverage to all illegal alien adults.
“Currently,
undocumented adults are explicitly and unjustly locked out of healthcare due to
their immigration status. In a matter of weeks, California legislators will
have a decisive opportunity to reverse that cruel and counterproductive fact,”
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula said in Monday’s Sacramento Bee.
His
legislation, Assembly Bill 2965, would give as many as 114,000
uninsured illegal aliens access to Medi-Cal programs. A companion bill has been
sponsored by State Sen. Richard Lara.
But that
could just be a drop in the bucket. The Democrats’ plan covers more than
100,000 illegal aliens with annual incomes bless than $25,000, however an
estimated 1.3 million might be eligible based on their earnings.
In
addition, it is estimated that 20 percent of those living in California
illegally are uninsured – the $250 million covers just 11 percent.
So, will
politicians soon be asking California taxpayers once again to dip into their pockets
to pay for the remaining 9 percent?
Before
they ask for more, Democrats have to win the approval of Gov. Jerry Brown, who
cautioned against spending away the state’s surplus when he introduced his $190 billion budget
proposal in January.
Given
Brown’s openness to expanding Medi-Cal expansions in recent years, not to
mention his proclivity for blindly supporting any measure benefitting lawbreaking
immigrants, the latest fiscal irresponsibility may win approval.
And if he
takes a pass, the two Democrats most likely to succeed Brown – Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – favor excessive social spending and are actively courting
illegal immigrant support.
Adios, Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
BLOG:
MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S EXPENDITURES FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN
MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE
POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE
BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE EXPENDITURE ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH
LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER A BILLION DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO
MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN
CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF THE STAGGERING WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE
DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS ANY LEGALS VOTES. ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE
HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR LA RAZA’S “FREE” MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE
ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals
claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true.
It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute
only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6
billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner
Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil
disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with
the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant
Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political
party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next
and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
If Immigration Creates
Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California
used to be home to America's largest and most affluent middle
class. Today, it is America's poverty
capital. What went wrong? In a word:
immigration. According to the U.S. Census Bureau'...: The Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
California used to be
home to America's largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it
is America's poverty capital. What went wrong? In a
word: immigration.
According to the U.S. Census
Bureau's Official
Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers around 15
percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau measures
poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account for
differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing, and
health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for example. Accounting
for these differences reveals that California's
real poverty rate is 20.6 percent – the highest in America, and
nearly twice the national average of 12.7 percent.
Likewise, income
inequality in California is the second-highest in America, behind
only New York. In fact, if California were an independent country,
it would be the 17th most unequal country on Earth, nestled comfortably between
Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is slightly more
egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the "social
democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most unequal nation,
while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176
countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in
common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More Government, More Poverty
High taxes, excessive regulations,
and a lavish welfare state – these are the standard explanations for
California's poverty epidemic. They have some merit. For
example, California has both the highest personal income tax rate and the
highest sales tax in America, according to Politifact.
Not only are California's taxes high,
but successive "progressive" governments have swamped the state in a
sea of red tape. Onerous regulations cripple small businesses and
retard economic growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific
Research Institute, gives a few specific examples of how excessive government
regulation hurts California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for
the Los
Angeles Times:
Extensive environmental regulations
aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also
hurting the poor. By some estimates, California energy costs are as
much as 50% higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of
Continental Economics ... found that "in 2012, nearly 1 million California
households faced ... energy expenditures exceeding 10% of household
income."
Some government regulation is
necessary and desirable, but most of California's is not. There is
virtue in governing with a "light touch."
Finally, California's welfare state
is, perhaps paradoxically, a source of poverty in the
state. The Orange
Country Register reports that California's social safety net is
comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother
with two children under the age of 5 who participates in these major welfare
programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (food stamps), housing assistance, home energy assistance,
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – would
receive a benefits package worth $30,828 per year.
... [Similar] benefits
in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in
Romania. The California benefits package is higher than in
well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even
Sweden ($22,111).
Although welfare states ideally help the poor, reality
is messy. There are three main problems with the welfare
state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe poor with government
handouts that are often far more valuable than a job. This can be
ameliorated to some degree by imposing work requirements on welfare recipients,
but in practice, such requirements are rarely imposed. Second,
welfare states are expensive. This means
higher taxes and therefore slower economic growth and fewer job opportunities
for everyone – including the poor.
Finally, welfare states are magnets
for the poor. Whether through domestic migration or foreign
immigration, poor people flock to places with generous welfare
states. This is logical from the immigrant's perspective, but it
makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This fact is why socialism
and open borders arefundamentally
incompatible.
Why Big Government?
Since 1960, California's population
exploded from 15.9 to 39 million people. The growth
was almost entirely due to immigration – many people came from other states,
but the majority came from abroad. The Public Policy
Institute of California estimates that 10 million immigrants
currently reside in California. This works out to 26 percent of the
state's population.
BLOG: COME TO
MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
This figure includes
2.4 million illegal aliens, although a recent
study from Yale University suggests that the true number of aliens
is at least double that. Modifying the initial figure implies that nearly one in three Californians is an immigrant. This
is not to disparage California's immigrant population, but it is madness to
deny that such a large influx of people has changed California's society and
economy.
Importantly, immigrants vote
Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report from the Center
for Immigration Studies. In California, immigration has
increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5 million people,
compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican
voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories,
but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This
means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon or soften many
conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a
Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because
millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California
blue, and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty
level.
REALITIES OF A STATE IN
MELTDOWN:
THE INVISIBLE CALIFORNIA
De facto apartheid world in the Golden State.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270265/invisible-california-bruce-thornton
In 1973, as I
was going through customs in New York, the customs agent rifling my bag looked
at my passport and said, with a Bronx sneer, “Bruce Thornton, huh. Must be one
of them Hollywood names.”
Hearing that
astonishing statement, I realized for the first time that California is as much
an idea as a place. There were few regions in America more distant from Hollywood
than the rural, mostly poor, multiethnic San Joaquin Valley where my family
lived and ranched. Yet to this New Yorker, the Valley was invisible.
BLOG:
FEINSTEIN & BOXER THREE TIMES ATTEMPTED TO INSERT IN VARIOUS BILLS AN
AMNESTY FOR FARM WORKERS TO REPAY THEIR BIG AG BIG DONORS.
ONE-THIRD OF
ALL FARM WORKERS END UP ON WELFARE AS SOON AS THE ANCHOR BABIES START COMING
Coastal
Californians are sometimes just as blind to the world on the other side of the
Coast Range, even though its farms, orchards, vineyards, dairies, and ranches
comprise more than half the state’s $46
billion agriculture industry, which grows over 400 commodities,
including over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits
and nuts.
Granted, Silicon
Valley is an economic colossus compared to the ag industry, but agriculture’s
importance can’t be measured just in dollars and cents. Tech, movies, and every
other industry tends to forget that their lives and businesses, indeed
civilization itself, all rest on the shoulders of those who produce the food.
You can live without your iPhone or your Mac or the latest Marvel Studios
blockbuster. But you
can’t live without the food grown by the one out of a 100 people who work to
feed the other 99.
A Politically
Invisible Valley
Living
in the most conservative counties in the
deepest-blue
state, Valley residents constantly see
their
concerns, beliefs, and needs seldom taken
into
account at the state or federal level.
Registered
Democrats in California outnumber registered Republicans by over 19%, and the State Legislature seats about
twice as many Democrats as Republicans (California’s one of only eight states nationwide with a trifecta of a Democratic and
two Democratic controlled legislative bodies).
California’s
Congressional delegation is even more unbalanced: in the House of
Representatives, currently there are fourteen Republicans compared to
thirty-nine House Democrats (at least half of those GOP districts are in danger
of turning blue this fall); half the Republicans represent Central
Valley districts, none bordering the Pacific Ocean. The last elected Republican
US Senator left office in 1991. The last Republican governor was the
politically light-pink action-movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose second
term ended in 2011.
This progressive
dominance of the state has led to policies and priorities that has damaged its
agricultural economy and seriously degraded the quality of life in the Valley.
Despite a long
drought that has diminished the run-off of snow from the Sierra Nevada,
projects for dams and reservoirs are on hold, seriously impacting the ag
industry that relies on the snowmelt for most of its water. Worse yet, since
2008, a period including the height of the drought, 1.4 trillion gallons of
water have been dumped into the Pacific Ocean to protect the endangered Delta Smelt, a two-inch bait-fish. Thousands of
agricultural jobs have been lost and farmland left uncultivated, all to satisfy
the sensibilities of affluent urban environmentalists. And even after a few
years of abundant rain, Valley farmers this year are receiving just 20% of their South-of-the-Delta water
allocation.
Or take
California’s high-speed rail project, currently moribund and $10 billion over budget just for construction of the easiest
section, through the flat center of the Valley. Meanwhile, State Highway 99,
which bisects the Valley from north to south for 500 miles, is pot-holed,
inefficient, and crammed with 18-wheel semis. It is the bloodiest highway in
the country, in dire need of widening and repair. Yet to gratify our Democratic governor’s
high-tech
green obsession, billions of dollars are
being
squandered to create an unnecessary link
between
the Bay Area and Los Angeles. That’s $10 billion that could have been spent building more
reservoirs instead of dumping water into the ocean because there’s no place to
store it.
The
common thread of these two examples of
mismanagement
and waste is the romantic
environmentalism
of the well-heeled coastal left.
They
serially support government projects and
regulations
that impact the poor and the aged, who
are
left to bear their costs.
The same
idealized nature-love has led to regulations and taxes on energy that have made
California home of the third-worst energy poverty in the country. In sweltering
San Joaquin Valley counties like Madera and Tulare, energy poverty rates are 15% compared to 3–4% in cool, deep-blue
coastal enclaves. Impoverished Kings County averages over $500 a month in
electric bills, while tony Marin Country, with an average income twice that of
Kings County, averages $200. Again, it’s the poor, aged, and working class who
bear the brunt of these costs, especially in the Valley where temperatures
regularly reach triple digits in the summer; unlike the coast, where the
clement climate makes expensive air-conditioning unnecessary.
Deteriorating
Quality of Life
It’s
no wonder then that Fresno, in the heart of the
Valley,
is the second most impoverished city in the
poorest
region of a state that has the highest
poverty
levels in the country and one of the
highest
rates of income inequality. Over one-fifth
of its
residents live below the poverty line, and it
The
greatest impact on the Valley’s
deteriorating
quality of life, however, has been
the
influx of illegal aliens. Some are attracted by
plentiful
agriculture and construction work, and
others
by California’s generous welfare transfers
—
California is home to one in three of the
country’s
welfare recipients— all facilitated by
California’s
status as a “sanctuary state” that
regularly
releases felons rather than cooperate
with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE).
As a result, one-quarter of the country’s
from
underdeveloped regions of Mexico and Latin
America
that have different social and cultural
mores
and attitudes to the law and civic
responsibility.
The
consequences of these feckless policies are
found
throughout the state. But they are
especially
noticeable in rural California. There
high
levels of crime and daily disorder—from
murders,
assaults, and drug trafficking, to
driving
without insurance, DUIs, hit-and-runs,
and
ignoring building and sanitation codes—
have
degraded or, in some cases, destroyed the
once-orderly
farming towns that used to be
populated
by earlier immigrants, including
many
legal immigrants from Mexico, who over
a few
generations of sometimes rocky
coexistence
assimilated to American culture
and
society.
Marginalized
Cultural Minorities
More broadly,
the dominant cultures and mores of the dot.com north and the Hollywood south
are inimical to those of the Valley. Whether it is gun-ownership, hunting,
church-going, or military service, many people in the San Joaquin Valley of all
races are quickly becoming cultural minorities marginalized by the increasingly
radical positions on issues such as abortion, guns, and religion.
Despite the
liberal assumption that all Hispanics favor progressive policies, many Latino
immigrants and their children find more in common with Valley farmers and natives
with whom they live and work than they do with distant urban elites.
Indeed, as a
vocal conservative professor in the local university (Fresno State), I have
survived mainly because my students, now more than half Latino and Mexican
immigrants or children of immigrants, are traditional and practical in a way
that makes them impatient with the patronizing victim-politics of more affluent
professors. They have more experience with physical labor, they are more
religious and, like me, they are often the first in their families to graduate
from college. As I did with the rural Mexican Americans I grew up with, I
usually have more in common with my students than I do with many of my
colleagues.
And this is the
great irony of the invisibility of the “other” California: the blue-coast
policies that suit the prejudices and sensibilities of the affluent have
damaged the prospects of the “others of color” they claim they want to help. Over-
represented
on the poverty and welfare rolls, many
migrants
both legal and illegal have seen water
policies
that destroy agricultural jobs, building
restrictions
that drive up the cost of housing,
energy
policies that increase their cost of living, “sanctuary city” policies
that put back on the
streets
thugs and criminals who prey mainly on
their
ethnic fellows, and economic policies that
favor
the redistribution rather than the creation of wealth and jobs.
Meanwhile, the
coastal liberals who tout a cosmetic diversity live in a de facto apartheid
world, surrounded by those of similar income, taste, and politics. Many look
down on the people whom they view as racists and xenophobes at worst, and
intellectually challenged rubes at best. This disdain has been evident in the
way the media regularly sneer that House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin
Nunes is a “former dairy-farmer” from Tulare County, an origin that makes “the
match between his backstory and his prominence” seem “wholly
incongruous,” per Roll Call's David Hawkings.
Finally, those
of us who grew up and live in the rural Valley did so among a genuine
diversity, one that reflected the more complex identities beyond the crude
categories of “white” or “black” or “Hispanic.”
Italians,
Basques, Portuguese, Armenians, Swedes, Mexicans, Filipinos, Southern blacks,
Chinese, Japanese, Volga Germans, Scotch-Irish Dust Bowl migrants—all migrated
to the Valley to work the fields and better their lives. Their children and
grandchildren went to the same schools, danced together and drank together,
helped round up each other’s animals when they got loose, were best friends or
deadly enemies, dated and intermarried, got drafted into the Army or joined the
Marines—all of them Americans who managed to honor their diverse heritages and
faiths, but still be a community. Their most important distinctions were not so
much between races and ethnicities, though those of course often collided, but
between the respectable people––those who obeyed the law, went to church, and
raised their kids right–– and those we all called “no damned good.” Skin-color
or accents couldn’t sort one from the other.
What most of us
learned from living in real diversity in the Valley is that being an American
means taking people one at a time.
That world still
exists, but it is slowly fading away—in part because of the policies and
politics of those to our west, who can see nothing on the other side of the
Coast Range.
ABOUT BRUCE THORNTON
Bruce Thornton
is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at
Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at
the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous
essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most
recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now
available for purchase.
March 23, 2018
Is California Governor
Jerry Brown Mentally Ill?
Leftists are relentlessly
selling their bogus narrative that Trump is insane. Here are samples
of leftists' headlines: "Lawmakers Met With Psychiatrist About Trump's
Mental Health," "President Trump's Mental State An 'Enormous Present
Danger,'" "The Awkward Debate Around Trump's Mental Fitness,"
"The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists Assess."
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