California representatives discuss secession from the United States, apparently seriously.
‒ News report
Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill making California “sanctuary state,” where U.S. immigration laws will be flouted
‒ News report
California State Senator Ricardo Lara announces that opponents of Trump’s immigration policies will “…fight in the streets.” [Emphasis added.]
‒ News report
San Bernardino joins San Francisco and Los Angeles as a “sanctuary” city that refuses to help Immigration deport illegal immigrants, despite the 2015 attack by two extremist Muslim immigrants that left 14 dead and 22 injured.
‒ News report
San Francisco remains a “sanctuary” city, despite the murder of Kathryn Steinle by a five-time deportee released from jail in defiance of an Immigration hold.
‒ News report
Gov. Jerry Brown signs bills making purchase of guns or ammunition harder for law-abiding citizens, but removing the extra penalty for using a gun in a violent crime.
‒ News report
California Democrats look at politics the way children look at a buffet ‒ a place to bypass the veggies and load up on desserts. The long-term effects of their policies have no part in their thinking. But before we talk about imaginary secession, let’s talk about real riots.
My wife and I were living in Los Angeles during the 1992 riot following the Rodney King verdict. The verdict was announced on Wednesday afternoon, and localized rioting began. By Thursday morning, we could see multiple fires through our bedroom window, in a line coming closer − clearly planned. We drove to a market to get a week’s groceries, but others had the same idea, so the lines were long.
While waiting, I listened to a pocket radio and learned that a sporting-goods store less than a mile away was being looted at that moment. I regretted that I had been unable to break my habit of obeying the law. It is impossible to obtain a permit to carry a firearm in Los Angeles, but who would have known if I had a small handgun in my jacket pocket?
Strict gun-control laws restrain the law-abiding but do nothing to reduce violent crime, and even less to control a riot. The police were overwhelmed. The California National Guard was mobilized, but they could not deploy promptly. Their M16 rifles retained their full-automatic capability, and politicians did not trust the guardsmen with them. So armorers had to alter them, one-by-one, to fire only semi-automatically, and this took days.
Finally, even politically correct politicians realized that something had to be done. President Bush the elder sent in Marines from Camp Pendleton and soldiers from Fort Ord. But to comply with the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, he first had to order the rioters to disperse.
I recall a vehicle with a pedestal-mounted machine gun on the streets of Westwood near UCLA. I don’t recall whether it was Army or Marine − I was concentrating on the .50-caliber “Ma Deuce.” A colleague had to sleep on the floor of his office at USC for three days because the streets were impassible. The tire store I patronize kept their window with the bullet hole for years as a memento. Medical clinics and businesses moved out of the area. Some never returned.
The riot finally ended after six days, but not before 53 were dead, and over $1 billion in damage had been done.
Do you see the relation between the subject of riots and the subject of secession? During the 1992 Los Angeles riot, local and state authorities were unable to restore order. They asked for help from President George H. W. Bush. He sent in Army troops from Fort Ord, which no longer exists, and Marines from Camp Pendleton, which does.
But what if California were an independent nation? Yes, it would have the sixth largest economy in the world ‒ at least until higher taxes and more regulations would drive out more businesses. But how would California make up the billions in federal aid it receives for education, health care, transportation, and law enforcement? How high could taxes go before California would no longer be prosperous? How low could food production go before California stopped restricting the water supply to formerly rich Central Valley farms to protect a two-inch fish that isn’t even a native species? How much rich agricultural land would be devoted to marijuana instead of food?
The same politicians who now blabber about secession also favor open borders. Even if secession occurred, how long would California remain independent? With open borders, it would soon become part of Mexico, in fact if not in law. And with Mexican-style corruption, drug cartels, and ineffectual schools, how long would California’s economy remain vibrant?
Talk of secession and states’ rights used to be the province of bigots who believed in the superiority of their own race. Oh wait – it still is, as witness the California officials who are members of La Raza. And no, it doesn’t mean “the people.” That would be El Pueblo or La Gente. As any Spanish dictionary will tell you, it means “the race.”
Mexicans, and leftists generally, believe that Europeans stole a beautiful, rich land that Native Americans had built. In fact, Europeans came to a largely empty wilderness where people lived in the New Stone Age, and built the most successful nation on earth ‒ based on their Judeo-Christian values and free-enterprise economics. Remove the foundation, and the whole structure collapses.
What would California officials do if civil unrest recurred, and they couldn’t handle it? A state of wimps is a sad place. A nation of wimps is an unstable place. A nation of wimps seceding from a nation of non-wimps is an impossible place.
Those irresponsible, bloviating California gasbags braying about secession should recall their high-school American history classes ‒ assuming they ever had one. They should recall the Civil War that drenched the earth with blood, and littered the fields with corpses and amputated limbs.
Before these infantile politicians throw another tantrum, they should recall who the “Johnny Rebs” were ‒ predominantly country boys used to hunting and proficient with firearms. You want to secede? You need tough, lean men like those. And even they lost.
Now look at this political cartoon in the Los Angeles Times. The editors see it as a warning to the Trump administration that brave, freedom-loving Californians refuse to be pushed around. But what about the millions in the huge, red center of America? How do they see it? Do they see tough, dedicated rebels willing to fight for their beliefs? Far from it. They see self-absorbed stoners and would-be hippies who evoke not respect, and surely not fear, but merely curiosity. Want to build a rebel army from those? Good luck!
http://www.trbimg.com/img-584a2c74/turbine/la-na-tt-california-secede-20161206
How far would the South have gotten with its attempt at secession, if its people resembled current Californians ‒ city-bred wimps who never held a gun in their hands, never hunted, never camped out for days, and never missed a meal? How far would the Confederacy have gotten, with “soldiers” whose idea of deprivation was driving an older-model car, whose idea of sacrifice was smoking a cheaper grade of weed, whose idea of stress was having to present a report, and whose idea of injury was a paper cut? How far would the rebels have gotten, if they were raised to expect “safe spaces” and were shielded from unwelcome opinions, much less hostile people?
You “progressive” windbags raised a generation of wimps who are frightened not only of guns and fighting, but even of opposing opinions. You want to run a secession movement with people like that? Don’t make me laugh. As they say in Texas, you’re all hat and no cattle. And as they say in the Midwest, if you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.
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Author’s Note: For a discussion of the role of the military during the Los Angeles riot, and the difficulties and confusion involved, click here. For a cop’s-eye view of the Los Angeles riot, click here.
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Contact: dstol@prodigy.net. You are welcome to publish or post these articles, provided that you cite the author and website.