(Photograph: KTTV/Paul Scrivano)
From San Francisco to Los Angeles; from the state capital of Sacramento to the border city of San Diego; from Hollywood to Orange County, the San Joaquin Valley to the Inland Empire, the desert, mountain and coastal communities to the agricultural regions throughout the state, decades of left-wing policies have decimated California and will inevitably lead to its utter destruction.
There has been an explosion in crime, poverty, and chaos, unlike anything ever before seen in the Golden State. Billions of dollars every year are dumped into a sinkhole of homeless programs while the population of people living on the streets has skyrocketed; defunding the police, legalizing drugs, electing soft-on-crime politicians and district attorneys, demanding no accountability for criminals due to weakened or revoked laws that once protected good citizens from the threat of violence and theft, nullifying cash bail, decriminalizing serious crimes and lightening or suspending sentences, releasing dangerous criminals from prisons, providing sanctuary to lawless illegal aliens given unrestricted access across our national border, rewarding them with numerous financial incentives and granting them rights and privileges once only given to United States citizens; imposing out of control state taxes which are crushing middle class families, small businesses, and even large corporations, causing a mass exodus of Californians fleeing to other states; issuing oppressive restrictions and committing gross infringements on Constitutional rights of free speech and bearing arms, among others, with egregious governmental overreach in matters of parental, healthcare, and property rights, are all things which have turned the most beautiful and desirous place to live in the entire country, into a bleak, socialistic dystopia that’s too dangerous to walk about in the daytime.
California is in crisis.
The only way to restore the liberty, prosperity, security, and the beauty of this vast and abundant state, is to do what a good father would do for his family—bring discipline, responsibility, respect, honor, order, morality, goodness, and hope to his wayward children.
Californians are most certainly wayward; we have lost our way. We have listened to liars and fools and power mongers. And rather than all of us—leaders and citizens alike—learning from our poor decisions, which come from distorted thinking, we perpetuate and exacerbate the problems, by doing the same things over and over and expecting all different results. These problems are six decades in the making, with no sign of changing course.
We need to learn our lessons; we need discipline.
We need to stop blaming everyone else for the problems we have, and have caused; we need to take full responsibility for our actions.
We need to re-establish the rule of law; we need to respect one another’s lives and property, and place the utmost value on true justice. We must reaffirm our commitment to the U.S. Constitution in its original, historical intent.
We need to become trustworthy again—both politicians and citizens; we need to be honorable in our words and actions, upholding truth and being courageous in the face of evil, without ulterior motives, hidden agendas, manipulation tactics, or moral compromises. We must legislate, or vote, according to conscience, not merely personal benefit.
We need to return to a place of objective reality, where we have a common understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, wise and foolish—not as a relativistic, pluralistic, or hedonistic society in which everyone puts their own interpretation on laws, language, social expectations, and public behavior; we need a state of order.
We need good laws, which are true and right and just, and beneficial to all; we need morality to prevail, with the foundation of society being a belief that God rules over all things, to whom all are accountable; afterwhich the institution of the family and traditional marriage must be preeminent, not the state.
We need to be selfless; we need to seek the good of others by seeking the good of all. This should be done willingly, not by governmental coercion. True benevolence is voluntary, not compulsory, which takes a genuine change of heart toward one another, not the enforcement of mandates or the redistribution of wealth.
And we need to have an optimistic outlook; we cannot survive with cynicism, resignation, despair, or chronic incivility. We must have hope, but our hope must be placed on the right things. We cannot move forward in the unsustainable nihilism and misanthropy of the Left; nor should we look to the savior-esque figureheads of any political persuasion to deliver us from all our woes. We must have hope for a better future, that the dire circumstances of today do not necessarily dictate the situation of tomorrow, much less exist therein. We can reverse course. We need to first have a heart of repentance, and then we must take good steps as an outflow of our renewed heart. We must call upon God with humility, for own souls, and then for the soul of our state.
Therefore, if I ran this state, California, which I’ve called my home my whole life, I would do the following (and more):
Rebuild our law enforcement agencies. I would make them as strong as our Military, as shrewd as our Secret Intelligence, and as just as our Constitution, so that no criminal, gang, drug cartel, human trafficker, violent or sexual predator, or corrupt bureaucrat, union boss or corporate executive could possibly get away with their crimes. Officers would be expertly trained in the proper understanding and enforcement of the law, the effective use of force, and the control and deescalation of civil unrest, and they would be sworn to uphold the Constitution—just as court justices are—as their ultimate authority in all matters, from basic traffic stops to taking suspects into custody, ensuring a police force founded upon true justice, to go with its superior power and strength. They would be given free rein to enforce the law, guided solely by good principles. They would also be free of burdensome bureaucratic and political influences. They would be held accountable on the basis of their performance, and only those which perform well and meet the highest standards of excellence, would be incentivized, while poorly performing agencies would be disciplined and, if necessary, overhauled. The billions of dollars allocated to left-wing immigration policies would fund the rebuilding efforts and ongoing operations of all our law enforcement agencies, from small towns to big cities.
Clean up the streets. Every single person living on the streets, regardless of why, would be permanently removed. The billions of dollars annually allocated to so-called homeless programs would be redirected toward the restoration and beautification of our communities, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, from local parks to downtown streets. Those removed from the streets with mental illness (of any cause) would be assessed individually and placed in the appropriate environments, according to their situations. All individuals with criminal backgrounds, or who have committed crimes while on the streets (including, but not limited to, drug trafficking, human or sex trafficking, lewd public acts, assault, theft, and other acts of mischief) would receive placement separately from the rest of the population and held accountable to all applicable criminal laws. All those with drug-induced mental illness would be placed separately from those who have other forms of psychosis, to specifically evaluate their drug problems and determine whether the individual can be reformed or has a deeper psychotic condition requiring long-term measures. Those able to reform would be placed in rehabilitation until proven capable of taking personal responsibility, exercising self-control, and maintaining consistent employment; repeat offenders would subsequently be handled on a criminal basis and be subject to prosecution. Those removed from the streets without mental illness, who were there as a result of lifestyle preferences and living off handouts, would be processed as violators of traditional vagrancy laws, mandated by the courts to find lawful employment or to enroll in a job placement program in which efforts to find employment could be strictly monitored. Those removed from the streets who have lost homes or jobs, or endured other misfortunes of no fault of their own, or have children, would be offered assistance, such as temporary housing, employment placement services, and childcare support.
The State of California would no longer assume the role of rehabilitation provider, but would exercise all legitimate legal authority to place those living on the streets, without criminal backgrounds or mental illness, in private community or religious programs already in operation and well-equipped to handle their physical, vocational, therapeutic, and spiritual needs, by means of special tax incentives for those who make charitable contributions to such programs.
Bring back the asylum. Those with acute mental illness must be placed in secure facilities where they are not a threat to themselves or to others; they must be removed from the general public, so that they will no longer wreak havoc on our communities by their drug use, theft, vermin-infested and disease-ridden tent encampments, filth, public defecation, vandalism, harassment, open sexual acts, panhandling and loitering, and other illegal behavior. Historically, the asylum was a humane solution, utilized to facilitate those who were an imminent threat to themselves and to others. It was a good solution for those with mental illness, and it was good for society. However, it had the unfortunate consequences of rampant patient abuse and neglect, but it does not need to be that way today. The state mental hospital system was a failed system, thanks in large part to a bloated bureaucracy and gross mismanagement of funds, which eventually led to its dissolution and the emancipation of thousands of patients, transferring them to various private therapeutic programs within public communities throughout the state, many of whom had severe psychosis or significant developmental disabilities and were unable to acclimate to life amongst the general population, often becoming a physical threat to others, or committing self-abuse. The only truly humane solution is to place them in facilities in which they will pose the least amount of physical danger to themselves and to others. The physical safety and well-being of everyone must be of utmost concern in how we handle the mentally ill. The notion of rehabilitation, then, must be secondary, even considered a less practical approach, as there are too many mentally unstable individuals permitted to live freely in society, who are a perpetual cause of instability in it. Many simply are unable to be trusted in public environments, as the chaos caused by tens of thousands of unsafe drug addicts and psychotic individuals in our major urban areas has clearly proven. People are being assaulted, even abducted, daily, businesses are suffering and closing, and the dominance of filth and squalor is a public health threat of epic proportions. Society cannot function without prisons to keep dangerous criminals off the streets; likewise, society cannot function without asylums to keep dangerous lunatics off the streets. A good asylum is one which prioritizes the physical health of the patient first, then focuses on mental rehabilitation.
Put tax money back into the hands of the people. The State does not need to be rich—the people do; and we could be, from the many goods and services we supply to our state and even the whole world. The State, just as the Federal Government, is responsible for keeping its cities safe and secure from all threats against life and property, and keeping up the condition and appearance of our infrastructure. The citizen, on the other hand, is responsible for keeping his home and family secure, and that all physical, material, and health needs are met. Therefore, I would cut or eliminate all taxes, from sales to income tax, property to corporate tax, gasoline tax to arbitrary and punitive “sin taxes,” enabling private citizens to provide for themselves all the things they need to live and thrive. There would be no need for the excessive amount of taxes Californians pay, if the glut of unnecessary programs and projects were cut. Californians pay hundreds of billions on flawed policies, unreasonable fees, and suffocating regulations, like Climate Change, Immigration, Public Schools, Welfare, DMV, and Homelessness, along with numerous woke social programs, but we are getting nothing in return. These programs have yielded little, if anything at all, but have caused incalculable damage to individual freedoms, families’ abilities to survive, much less thrive, and the fundamental well-being of our children, not to mention their future. Where is our money going? Look around the state and tell me, if you know. It’s not going to the taxpayers.
Want the actual numbers?
“California’s combined state and local general revenues were $630.7 billion in FY 2021, or $15,967 per capita.” (source: US Census, Fiscal Year 2021, via Urban Institute).
It’s time to radically shave those obscene numbers down. Imagine what we could do with only a fraction of that?
I’m not a politician; I’m not a lawyer; I’m not an economist. My views are informed by those I believe to be among the wisest in their respective fields, with history certainly supporting their claims, along with logic and reason, and, most importantly, a biblical worldview, which is the ultimate light to all of life’s paths. It is not I who would matter, but the basic principles that undergird my views, which I would surely implement, if I ran this state.
Bravo. Unless we have divine intervention on a miraculous level, we can substitute "America" for "California" in the not too distant future.