{"id":12039,"date":"2019-10-31T20:48:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T03:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12039"},"modified":"2019-10-31T20:48:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T03:48:28","slug":"is-california-becoming-premodern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-california-becoming-premodern\/","title":{"rendered":"Is California Becoming Premodern"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More than 2 million Californians were recently left without power after the state\u2019s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric \u2014 which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year \u2014 preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consumers blame the state for not cleaning up dead trees and brush, along with the utility companies for not updating their ossified equipment. The power companies in turn fault the state for so over-regulating utilities that they had no resources to modernize their grids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Californians know that having tens of thousands of homeless in their major cities is untenable. In some places, municipal sidewalks have become open sewers of garbage, used needles, rodents, and infectious diseases. Yet no one dares question progressive orthodoxy by enforcing drug and vagrancy laws, moving the homeless out of cities to suburban or rural facilities, or increasing the number of mental hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taxpayers in California, whose basket of sales, gasoline, and income taxes is the highest in the nation, quietly seethe while immobile on antiquated freeways that are crowded, dangerous and under nonstop makeshift repair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gas prices of $4 to $5 a gallon&nbsp;<strong>\u2014<\/strong>&nbsp;the result of high taxes, hyper-regulation, and green mandates&nbsp;<strong>\u2014&nbsp;<\/strong>add insult to the injury of stalled commuters. Gas tax increases ostensibly intended to fund freeway expansion and repair continue to be diverted to the state\u2019s failing high-speed rail project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2019\/10\/california-nears-limits-progressive-adventurism-policy-and-politics\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review More than 2 million Californians were recently left without power after the state\u2019s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric \u2014 which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year \u2014 preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds. Consumers blame the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-38b","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11690,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/californias-rendezvous-with-reality\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":0},"title":"California\u2019s Rendezvous With Reality","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Californians brag that their state is the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy. They talk as reverentially of Silicon Valley companies Apple, Facebook and Google as the ancient Greeks did of their Olympian gods. Hollywood and universities such as Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley are cited as permanent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;California&quot;","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2909,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/accounting-for-californias-suicide\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":1},"title":"Accounting for California&#8217;s Suicide","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services What went wrong in California? I think we can all agree on at least three observations. First, California is by nature the most richly endowed region in the world. Nowhere else is there so much fertile land, watered by gravity-fed winter runoff from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;March 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"March 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/march-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9856,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-oroville-dam-disaster-is-yet-another-example-of-californias-decline\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":2},"title":"The Oroville Dam disaster is yet another example of California&#8217;s decline","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Los Angeles Times A year ago, politicians and experts were predicting a near-permanent statewide drought, a \u201cnew normal\u201d desert climate. The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California\u2019s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Water&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Water","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/water\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8517,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/we-are-all-californians-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":3},"title":"We Are All Californians Now","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"California Drought -- Bad Policy, Poor Infrastructure\u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online California\u00a0is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old drought. Yet the state has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;California&quot;","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lake Oroville Marina, CA Photo via NRO ","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/img_8_1024-500x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":890,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/california-tuition-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":4},"title":"California Tuition Blues","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services In so-called March in March protests, thousands of students in California universities recently demonstrated in outrage over spiraling tuition costs. At both the California State University and University of California multi-campus systems, tuition hikes in recent years have far exceeded the national average.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;California&quot;","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2259,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-fishy-tale\/","url_meta":{"origin":12039,"position":5},"title":"A Fishy Tale","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services California is in an uproar over water. Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;September 2009&quot;","block_context":{"text":"September 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/september-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12040,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12039\/revisions\/12040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}