CALIFORNIA’S POLICY FAILURES

A Story of Red Tape

The General Problem

If you’ve tried to do almost anything in California, you run into procedures, rules, laws and paperwork designed to frustrate you.  It’s as if politicians here want nothing to change, which is why we have a shortage of power and water (among other things), while our population has skyrocketed.  Most people seek to avoid doing things that trigger these demands or work around them.  How many people get permits to modify their house?  Not only does it cost a lot, it also delays your progress, which can also add to the cost.  It’s as if progress is mired in the La Brea Tar Pits, keeping us stuck in the past, like dinosaurs.  Freedom is nearly extinct here, unless you can claim “victim” status.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

In some cases (maybe most), people may need to take things into their own hands. As an example, remember that some of the best work in dealing with CCP virus supplies was provided by individuals and small businesses, making hand sanitizer, masks and face shields.  On guy invented a better way to automate, providing air to hospitalized patients.  We’re a can-do nation, one reason why it is accurate to refer to the US as exceptional.  We get the job done.

A Story to Inspire You

I hike a lot of the parks in Walnut Creek, CA and one of them, Lime Ridge, surprised us by looking a lot better.  This park attracted the young to sneak out and drink at night, leaving trash everywhere.  Homeless people have recently started parking there, not only dumping trash, but also breaking into cars because they know that hikers will take at least one hour to make it around on the trails.  But on Saturday, this park looked a LOT better.  In fact, we saw some new trees and a lot of fresh gravel which smooths the path and will make the trails less muddy in the winter.

We saw a man watering the new trees from his truck, using an endless supply of water jugs.  Ed has adopted the challenge of making this park a great place to visit, pretty much completely on his own.  He has always collected trash and tried to make it nicer, but a surprise bequest gifted him with some money to further his effort.  He offered it to the Walnut Creek City Council, but they determined that the regulations would make it difficult to implement anything just for this park.  After years of back-and-forth on this issue, they apparently decided to give him a key so he could drive his truck into the park and, if he didn’t explicitly tell them what he was doing, could use the money to transform the park.  And so, he did, creating a nicer space than we had ever seen.  Next time, I’ll try to get his contact information, so I can make more people aware of his efforts, get him some help and more money to continue.  It was incredibly inspiring to see that one man could make such a difference to so many people, most of whom have no idea who their benefactor is.

Going Forward

This story should serve as two lessons for Californians and one big one for the rest of the country.  The big lesson is…Don’t follow California into the disaster it has created for itself, caving into eco-freaks and regulation-Nazis.  We have so many regulations, it’s a wonder anything ever gets done, and when something actually gets finished, it cost too much and takes way too long.

Lessons for California: 

1.   Stop voting in people who pass laws to take away basic freedoms, add to the cost of everything and add no value.  The latest idiocy is that to protect bees.  California pols have labelled bees as fish.  Not a joke.

2.   Look at this story and think about what you, as an individual, can do.  We see things that are wrong and ignore them, in some cases because it is inconvenient and in others, because we know we aren’t supposed to do something. If enough people engage in positive acts of civil disobedience, these laws will lose their meaning.  What small thing can you do to subvert these authoritarians?