l****z 发帖数: 29846 | 1 Dennis Prager:加利福尼亚选民和泰坦尼克号乘客的区别在哪?泰坦尼克号乘客没有
投票决定去撞冰山
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2010/11/09/how_do_california_and_the_titanic_differ/page/full/
OK, riddle fans, here's a toughie: What's the difference between California
voters and the passengers on the Titanic?
The passengers on the Titanic didn't vote to hit the iceberg.
Most Americans understand that California is sinking. What is almost
incredible is that it has voted to sink.
On Election Day, 2010 Californians voted Democrats into every statewide
position (one is still undecided). This is the party that singlehandedly has
brought one of the world's greatest economies to near ruin. There may well
be historical parallels to what Californians did -- but I cannot think of
any.
A listener called my radio show two days after the elections to tell me that
his business is booming -- thanks to Californians. His occupation? He's a
real estate agent in Phoenix, Ariz.
The middle class has begun to leave California. It is, of course, impossible
for most members of such a large group to leave a state; few people leave
their family, their friends, their job and their home except under the most
dramatic circumstances. But this fact makes all the more noteworthy the
exodus from California that has been taking place.
You have to wonder how many businesses and individuals would leave
California if their friends and family could also leave, if they could find
a comparable job elsewhere and if they could sell their homes without losing
money. What you don't have to wonder about is who would stay under those
conditions. The state of California would eventually be left largely with
those groups who voted Democrat in this election: rich liberals (such as
those who live in Nancy Pelosi's Marin County, in the bay area and in West
Los Angeles); state and municipal workers (who vote Democrat in as direct a
pay-for-vote scheme as a law-based society allows); those who rely on state
and city governments for entitlements; and those Latinos who either fall
into the last category or who unfortunately identify the Republican Party
with anti-Latino sentiments because it opposes illegal immigration.
Those who believe in individual responsibility, the free market and personal
liberty are a minority in California. We greet each other as Americans
would greet each other meeting in a foreign country.
We watch as one of the greatest places in the world -- with its
extraordinary natural beauty, almost uniquely beautiful weather and
agricultural abundance -- wastes all of this as a result of having become a
left-wing experiment. What is particularly saddening is to see a state whose
success was achieved because it was a Mecca for the adventurous in spirit
do everything possible to crush that spirit and drive away those who have it.
There is a silver lining here: clarity. Americans living elsewhere need not
elect liberal Democrats to know what will happen if they do. They only need
to look at California if they want to see what happens to a state governed
by the left (and, for that matter, they can look at Texas to see what
happens to a state's finances when governed by the right).
The left and its teachers unions have ruined public education in California.
The left and its public service unions have saddled the state with $500
billion in unfunded pension liability. California's left-governed cities
have set themselves up as "sanctuary cities" for those who have come into
America illegally. And the left passes more and more rules governing the
behavior of California citizens. Two examples: San Francisco just banned
McDonald Happy Meals because they come with a toy and therefore entice
children to eat fattening food; and the Democratic legislature has made it
illegal for a California employer -- even in a retail operation -- to ask a
male employee who comes to work wearing a dress to wear men's clothing while
at work.
And to render the Titanic analogy even more accurate, Californians voted to
retain a law that was described by George Will as one "that preposterously
aims to cool the planet by requiring a 30 percent reduction of carbon
emissions by 2020."
That law will ensure that California taxes energy use more than any other
state. That, in turn, is guaranteed to increase unemployment and the cost of
living in the state -- one more reason businesses and productive
individuals are leaving, but rarely moving, into California.
Environmentalist true believers have free reign in California. They have
convinced a majority of the state's voters to believe the increasingly
absurd notion that human carbon dioxide emission is heating up the planet to
temperatures so high that humanity and the earth will suffer cataclysmic
consequences.
To return to our Titanic metaphor, the great difference between that ill-
fated ship's crew and California's crew (its voters and the California
Democratic Party) is that the Titanic's crew did everything possible to
avoid hitting the iceberg; California's crew did everything possible to hit
it. Perhaps they believe global warming will melt it before they get there. |
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