Thoughts from Veronique de Rugy:
In the end, the Terminator’s tenure as a governor of the Golden State will be remembered as a disaster flick which ends with high taxes, failed promises, and gigantic spending. For instance, not only did he bail on his promise to destroy the car tax, cut spending, and bring unprecedented prosperity to California, but he also caved to the unions and now wants voters to pay for the mess he caused.
The sad part of this bad movie is that this is a guy who came into office with a very promising future and a potential to be transformative in important ways. He was pro-business, pro-small government, and open-minded. He even quoted Adam Smith.
Yet he failed in every dimension of the job.
About the best that can be said is that he became a slightly darker shade of Gray.
I just read where 80x the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez seeps out of the ocean floor off the coast of Santa Barbara. If the state of CA really wanted to get out of trouble they could drill baby drill as there are billions of barrels of oil offshore.
The offshore oil in california may not be in extractable formations.
If there was an ocean of oil on the continental shelf, such as in the Gulf of Mexico, it would be actively drilled.
They were drilling and pumping it for years, up until the Santa Barbara oil spill in the sixties. The rigs are still sitting off the coast, ready to be started up again any time, you moron.
Rand, I don’t understand the reference to “slight darker shade of Gray”.
This isn’t one of those obscure references to alien races and wars, is it?
It’s a reference to his failed predecessor, Gray Davis.
Schwarzenegger gave up on fiscal conservatism during his first year when all of his propositions failed. He then decided that popularity (and his political career) was more important to him than any kind of principles. Insiders say its vanity. Arnold likes to be liked. So, he went over to the dark side with the state democrats and has helped to exacerbate the mess that they have created.
My recollection matches Kurt’s: first unions soundly defeated Ahnuld at the ballot box, and only then he caved in. Once he caved in, there was an expansion of the state payroll by 26,000 jobs in just two years. No economy would survive that.
> If there was an ocean of oil on the continental shelf, such as in the Gulf of Mexico, it would be actively drilled.
If there’s no extractable oil, why are there laws against new drilling off the CA coast and any drilling off the FL coast?
I thought you banned Jack Leg.
Maybe Hauser has been the California Governer all of this time.
Start the reactor Quade!
Rand, your remarks above seem intemperate to me. There are at least 20 oil platforms off of the coast – I am looking at them out my office window – and they are producing oil now. I have treated patients for injuries sustained during this dangerous work. To disagree with someone about policy is one thing. But to call him or her a moron for asserting something which is actually so seems to be wanting in civility.
To disagree with someone about policy is one thing. But to call him or her a moron for asserting something which is actually so seems to be wanting in civility.
Jane, in what way did “jack lee” ” assert something that is actually so”? It looks to me like he asserted that what is happening is not happening.
And if you’ve read enough comments by “jack lee,” you’d know that there is nothing you can say to or about him that is “intemperate…”
But I appreciate the input.
From what I see in California, Arnold is powerless. The Democrats in the state legislature control the state completely.
What can he do? Veto something? He’d be told to sit in a corner.
We only need the great San Francisco quake, to make it just like the opening of Running Man, and the Cadres
Darkstar,
What about using ‘the bully pulpit’ to rally the population against the legislature? He might fail (in fact he probably would), but isn’t failure in a good cause better than supinely surrendering to (in fact, aiding and abetting) a bad cause? Arnold didn’t just fail after all, he active worked with the Democratically dominated legislature (often at the expense of the GOP members) to increase state spending, and drive CA into this mess.
kurt9 is spot on. I don’t doubt that Arnold’s heart was in the right place, when he ran. But…he was eunuched by the unions and the Democratic establishment in Sacramento, which is unbelievably corrupt. And then, indeed, he turned to the Dark Side, or at least made Faustian bargains with it.
If I had to guess, I would say that that analogy (turning to the Dark Side) is more apt than one might realize. I would guess Arnold’s betrayal of his electing principles comes from naivete (he had zero experience in politics) and arrogance (he defeated a sitting governor in a special election!), plus probably he simply trusted all those people around him, and the Santa Monica Think Of The Children culture in which he’s been steeped all his life (not to mention through his wife, the Kennedy connection). I think he probably half came to believe all those Democratic/SIEU lies. He probably started to think the Legislature and the big union lobbies really did have the best interests of Californians at heart, and really knew what they were doing, at least politically, if not financially (he was a successful businessman, so I’m guessing the financial madness of the unions and legislature was about the only thing that kept ringing a little bell of warning).
It can happen, even to a good man. When you’re surrounded by fanatical apostles of an intolerant religion — and keep in mind California specializes in talented cult high priests and brilliantly persuasive con-men, hence the existence of Hollywood, and its history as the epicenter of the real-estate, dot-com, and other bubbles — you can fall prey to the hypnotism, you can start to get deluded along with them, if you have merely mortal powers of resistance. Think of Boromir and the One Ring and you get the idea.
There are California leaders (e.g. Tom McClintock) who someone manage to stay afloat in the toxic political and social environment, and who aren’t evil narcissist bastards, who keep true to sound principles, but they do not rise very high, and the narcissists take special care to demonize them as strongly as they can.
Ultimately the problem is the California culture of narcissism, of “me” before any “we,” whether it be family, firm, or community. It has produced decades of disconnect between segments — LA does not talk the language of Fresno nor Sinkyone nor again San Diego — and between cultures (ditto Latino, black, Asian, white) and between taxpayers and tax-eaters and government. Our solution to an energy shortage is to expensively subsidize solar panels and windmills, build no power plants nor transmission grids, whine at everybody to conserve, and buy power from Texas and Arizona (doubtless increasing the net pollution, compared to generating the stuff locally). Our solution to congestion is to build hugely expensive HOV lanes (which ironically slow traffic down since they build in many more merge zones), whine at people to take the bus and train (which are mostly nonexistent or impractical anyway), and let communities build a hodge-podge of roads, uncoordinated at the state or regional level, that suit their own resources and wishes. Our solution to crappy schools is to pay our teachers exorbitantly and build a giant administration (the average 9-month salary is north of $70,000, and many earn over $100,000; of the staff in an average public high school only half are actually in a classroom teaching each day) but spend nothing on infrastructure (10-year-old biology textbooks in AP Bio are standard), whine about how the citizens won’t fork over the necessary dough, and then let, again, communities scramble incoherently to implement whatever their locals pay for, and wish.
It is in general a gross abdication of responsibility, a delusional insistence on fantasy-world results that consistently forestalls achievable real-world results, and a system that magically combines the worst aspects of free-market liberalism and fascist-state collectivism into a unique Californian hell.
But the beaches are nice. The mountains, too.
“There are at least 20 oil platforms off of the coast – I am looking at them out my office window – and they are producing oil now. ”
And if there was a real ocean of oil there, there would be slant driling efforts
to grab it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slant_drilling.
you can slant drill for a couple miles and the technology is improving.
If there was a real ocean of oil, it would drive efforts to chase it.
Bur Mr Simberg prefers name-calling, it’s a very juvenile affect.
Schwarzenegger gave up on fiscal conservatism during his first year when all of his propositions failed.
Arnold has his own definition of “fiscal conservatism.” He’s often stated that his inspiration and role model is Richard Nixon.
If there was a real ocean of oil, it would drive efforts to chase it.
There are efforts to chase it. They are completely stymied by the politicians in Washington and Sacramento, who have banned offshore drilling in California.
Why do you continue to flaunt your monumental ignorance at my web site?
” They are completely stymied by the politicians in Washington and Sacramento, who have banned offshore drilling in ”
So why not figure out a way to slant drill from Shore?
Try understanding the question, rather then calling names.
Tell you what. You go up to Sacramento and tell them that you want to slant drill from shore, and let us know how that works out for you.
“So why not figure out a way to slant drill from Shore?”
Sure, the southern california beaches are famous for their oil rigs!
So why not figure out a way to slant drill from Shore?
Or why not from Colorado? Bypass that whole pesky California law issue entirely!
Seriously, jack, I respect your efforts to reason back from effects to causes, but you should probably try not to do it in a total fact-free vacuum. Logic unmoored from data can take you in all kinds of strange directions.
“Sure, the southern california beaches are famous for their oil rigs!”
Ever been to Long Beach?