Wealth “extraction” in San Francisco
An article about the tech drain from San Francisco includes this:
…[A] moral argument for tech’s responsibility to California, and specifically the Bay Area, has recently been produced. It goes something like this: young ambitious people moved to the state, and struck gold. But rather than “give back” to the land, they’re leaving with resources they “took” from the region…
I take extreme issue with the notion that industry leaders have taken something from the “community,” defined here as the “talent,” the “incubators,” and the “mentors.” This is precisely the opposite of reality. The men and women leaving are the talent, they have started the incubators, they have built the companies, they have funded the startup ecosystem, and they have mentored countless young people. This is the “network.” They are the network. Technology workers do not “extract” value from the region, they are what makes the region valuable.
The left has a strange idea of how economics work. But paradoxically, the perpetuation of that idea has in part been made possible by the success of capitalism in creating wealth. I think it gives people the idea that wealth is just there, like ore, to be extracted – or perhaps even stolen – from others.
The author of that piece feels that tech workers who are complaining about what has happened to a once-proud city like San Francisco should have participated more to change local politics:
…[H]ad tech workers actually assumed a significant measure of political influence, and led in local politics, San Francisco would today be one of the greatest cities in the world. But not only was such political influence not achieved, it was never attempted. Throughout the most recent technology boom of the last fifteen years, there has been almost no meaningful engagement in local politics from the industry.
The author mentions that California is a “one-party” state, and that this is a good part of the problem. But it’s curious that the author never mentions what party that might be. He never mentions either party by name, nor does he mention left or right. However, from my limited but not nonexistent knowledge of the politics of the tech world of the Bay area, I would guess tech workers almost certainly vote strongly Democrat. And from my likewise limited but not nonexistent knowledge of the Bay area as a whole, it’s my guess that anyone with sensible solutions could not be elected there even as dogcatcher.
Someone with more knowledge of this than I have, please correct me if I’m wrong about that.
I also believe that this exodus we’re seeing from California and other deep blue states bodes ill for the states to which the exiles move. I hope I’m wrong about that, because I’d like to think that the people leaving are those who would vote for someone with practical and sensible approaches, someone not of the left. But I tend to doubt that people have learned that particular lesson from the fall of California.
I have plenty of friends and relatives in California, lived there for a while back in the 70s, and have gone there countless times over the past 50 years. I’ve seen what has happened to San Francisco, a city I used to love. It’s not just sad, it’s tragic, and it’s caused by the bad policies that keep being perpetuated by the voters of the area. And yet over the years it’s only gotten worse and worse and worse, and other leftist cities have followed in San Francisco’s footsteps right into the mire of leftist quicksand.
His non mention of “Democrat” was strategic. He wants to get heard instead of getting flamed by hysterical flamers.
“Extraction. Smh” he writes and then shows this is silly, and politics is hard.
Today, Leftists don’t have economic ideas so much as the have fantasies about economics. For example, the movies mentioned like Avatar and There Shall Be Blood. QED.
At least we get to learn a new word: “tecxedous,” or did I misspell it?
Cali needs new and competent leadership. It cannot get it because the institutional drivers there hate that.
Paradoxically, I’ll finish by saying that the best that can happen to that clustermufk is another four years of Trump. It used to be called “Reality Therapy.”
WA, CA and OR should be told not to worry. Same goes for Cuomo-DeBlasioland.
If Biden gets in and Senate is controlled by Kamala, Federal zillions will be cranked out to those venues.
The Left has many strange ideas about economics, all of them fatal to humans.
All of these people leaving California for Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Idaho, Utah etc. is very, very bad sign. I saw the same thing happen in Washington and it turned us from a purplish state into a lunatic fringe leftist hellhole.
Even if some of those moving are moderate or right leaning the majority will just go to their new state and vote for the same garbage they voted for back in California.
“Technology workers do not “extract” value from the region, they are what makes the region valuable.”
100%. The socialists think their satrapies are “magic dirt.” This is the “you didn’t build that” gaslight writ large. It’s the classic whining of moochers and looters who are under the misimpression that they are the real movers and shakers.
And, of course, you’re equally accurate about the political participation from all the young technical socialists being precisely what accelerated this political rot over the past 30 years. And they are moving out of the society they destroyed because they are incapable of making the intellectual connection between their beloved policies and their inevitable tragic results.
I understand your feelings for the states where the fleeing Californians settle. I saw it on a small scale when we lived in a fairly bucolic county west of DC. (It was a great mix of ordinary people and the Hunt Club set. Brit Hume lived in the village of “Hume”. Although we did not rub elbows he was seen from time to time in the Library. I saw Robert Duval on the street one day with his “bombshell”; and so on. That has nothing to do with the point, however.)
As the DC sprawl crept into the area, agitation started because there were not enough services, and virtually no culture; although you could still get to sites like the Kennedy Center, or Wolf Trap, in about 45 minutes.
I anticipate conflicts in states like Texas; although many of the transplants may find comfort in the areas around Austin.
“political participation from all the young technical socialists being precisely what accelerated this political rot over the past 30 years…”
As further proof… we’ve all heard of DuckDuckGo, the search engine that promises never to track you or scrape your interest profile like giant socialist Google does. Sounds tailor-made to attract the right-wing paranoid, doesn’t it?
Now, check out all the political donations made by officers and employees of DDG. Not a single one went to a Republican — not even a RINO.
The center cannot hold with “participation” like this.
I lived in California at various times in the 50s 60s and 80s. A total of 14 years. I love the state and would be living there now if not for the politics. It has wonderful beaches, useful harbors, productive farmland, a magnificent mountain range, and a welcoming Mediterranean climate. And it has been turned into a Banana Republic.
In February of 1957 the USS Hancock sailed under the Golden gate Bridge headed for the West Pacific. The city was bathed in winter sun and as gorgeous a sight as I can remember. It certainly lived up to Tony Bennett’s landmark song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7RDIlzCJaQ
In the 1960s I was stationed at NAS Alameda for five years. The “city” was the place to go. Good food, nice vistas, Golden Gate Park, and an atmosphere of the good life. It breaks your heart to see what can happen when unrealistic progressive philosophies turn a paradise into a pit.
I don’t know the writer’s reason for not naming the party responsible for the state of things in California, but I observe that the writer suffers from a condition that we’ve all seen many times. Progressives are the Party of “Forward”.
Every aspect of existence is part of the exciting, brave march of Progress. Forward! Forward, where all things are new! Of course, this means that there are natural limits to backward-looking reflection on the results of this Great March Forward. And one can certainly see how these limits become entrenched in the group psychology and manifest as a real discomfort. There is a reluctance – a real avoidance really – to put oneself in a situation where mistakes may have to be admitted to, acknowledged. Better to keep the attention focused on Forward! There are always new things coming Tomorrow!
Future-tense pandering is a way of life for Progressives. It’s the polar opposite of Conservatism, and sometimes I think this is the root of the country’s polarized position. You can really see it coming, in Texas. All of the major cities have now turned blue. The Democrats are very clever at using progressivism to draw attention away from their tracks, their failures, their corruption. They have a whole portfolio of Tomorrows to promise instead, capitalizing on the childish unseriousness of their followers.
I would guess tech workers almost certainly vote strongly Democrat. –neo
They certainly do and they are happy to.
This was the dog that didn’t bark in the Pirate Wires article. What tech workers did he expect to rise up and challenge progressive politics?
___________________________________________
But if 2020 proved anything, it’s local politics is almost the only thing that matters in terms of our day-to-day existence, and if the deterioration of San Francisco can’t be stopped, I at least hope it will be remembered. –Solana
___________________________________________
San Francisco is not some bizarre exception because its Board of Supervisors is composed of fools going way back. It’s because San Francisco voters — including tech workers — are progressive fools voting for progressive fools. Like most of the coastal states.
If Solana wants to turn San Francisco around, he needs to turn around its tech workers too. I wish him luck.
On the question of how to prevent the ’embluishment’ of conservative areas, it seems to me that a couple of options suggest themselves, each with its own time span.
1. Let the blue cities and deeper-blue metro areas burn themselves out, practicing containment while waiting. Then, after they are really thoroughly burned out, recolonize with conservative types, driving out the blue remnants as necessary, and rebuild from there.
2. Separation/secession of the conservative states and regions with a fairly hard border so that people can’t just flee the split-off blue areas.
3. (this is the most paradoxical) Deliberately make the conservative areas unattractive so those fleeing the blue cities and metros won’t want to go there and thus bring the blue practices and voting patterns with them, perpetuating the cycle. (I suppose this idea was suggested to me by the title of a book about the U. P., You Wouldn’t Like It Here.) The most obvious problem with this one, perhaps, is that in order to make a region that unappealing to the urbanites, how many of the natives will want to stay? You have to have some willing to hang on until some variation of 1 or 2 takes hold and you can relax a bit.
Yeah, here’s an east coast version of the same phenonenon.
Some time in the 2000s, back when I was an east coaster, this leftie friend of mine thought he’d score a debate point (via e-mail) by pointing out that even rock-ribbed conservative New England-y Vermont had supported some leftie policy concerning which we were debating at the time.
I pointed out that I wasn’t falling for that “gotcha” for an instant, that rock-ribbed conservative Vermont was no more, as leftie collectivist/socialist New Yorkers had invaded Vermont, largely to escape the consequences of policies they had voted for, in New York, but had learned *nothing* — and consequently, their stubbornness was now affecting (I’ll say “afflicting”) the real Vermonters.
No response.
Henry, I always wondered how people were getting the data with which to discuss political tendencies within a business on a quantitative level like that. Now I know. Thanks for that pointer! I tried it on my own employer – noticed that the total list of my own contributions is incomplete for some reason.
I lived in CA in the late seventies when Californians were beginning to move north. I remember that the governor of Oregon had a campaign going at the time, “The governor of Oregon welcomes the people of California to move somewhere else”. Didn’t help, they came anyway and turned OR blue.
“they are incapable of making the intellectual connection between their beloved policies and their inevitable tragic results.” Henry
I think it less an inability and much more an unwillingness to make the connection, a willful blindness. When the result of a policy is contrary to its professed goal and, reconsideration of the effectiveness of a policy is rejected, the motivation is preservation of self-worth. They place pride before and above truth.
Relevent dialog from the movie “The Wild Bunch”
Pike: “A hell of a lot of people, Dutch, just can’t stand to be wrong.”
Dutch: “Pride”…
Pike: “And they can’t forget it… that pride… being wrong. Or learn by it.”
There’s a reason why pride is the first listed of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Nor can a nation in which its citizens substitute pride for virtue remain virtuous. Such a society sows the seeds of its own downfall. As error denied perpetuates self-deceit, which brings unsustainable consequence.
Sounds tailor-made to attract the right-wing paranoid, doesn’t it?
Now, check out all the political donations made by officers and employees of DDG. Not a single one went to a Republican — not even a RINO.
That’s disconcerting. Please note, though, that just 15 employees made contributions. The database records some astonishingly small contributions. About 85% of the sum was donated by two employees. The other 13 donated about $135 a piece.
As a general rule, at least three public institutions lie between a vote and the result. This means a couple of things. One is that the vote’s desired result may be sidetracked deliberately or by operation of other circumstances, all of which have to be managed somehow.
And, from the point of view of the voter, the utterly predictable–except to him–result was on account of the intemediating agencies or institutions. So, no connection, no cause and effect, no blame, no learning. Always somebody else’s fault that when he got what he voted for it didn’t turn out.
Tech workers used to have a very strong libertarian streak. Many of us who remain in the business over the age of 45 still do. But the new kids, not so much.
The draw for being in Silicon Valley was always the network of people. You could strike up a conversation with strangers about how to solve silicon design problems waiting in line at Subway. Today, maybe you still can, but you’re likely to be able to do this easier in Austin instead.
As I sometimes like to say, there’s no Silicon left in Silicon Valley. Just a social espionage business culture where the Silicon used to be.
Didn’t help, they came anyway and turned OR blue.
The Governor who said that was Tom McCall, a Rockefeller Republican. The Democrats held the state senate all through his tenure and held both chambers the last two years. The Republicans controlled one, the other, or both chambers during the period running from 1992 to 2006, but otherwise the Democrats have dominated since 1973. At no time in all those years did the Republicans ever control the Governor’s chair and the legislature in tandem.
This is pretty much the same article. I post it because it cites a new-to-me acronym FOMO.
http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/silicon-valley-startup-founder-moved-to-austin-to-flee-san-frans-high-housing-costs-and-said-fomo-will-prompt-more-in-the-hive-minded-bay-to-move-to-newer-tech-hubs/
The hive-mind of our Tech Overlords will cause more of them to move to TX. Because otherwise they will experience the “fear of missing out”. LOL
NB. Gordon Smith is the only mainstream Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Oregon in the last 70 years, and his ACU scores were like Lamar Alexander’s, not those of Ted Cruz.
I lived in California from 1975 to 2012. I witnessed its slow decline into a full rejection of reality.
Philip Sells,
“1. Let the blue cities and deeper-blue metro areas burn themselves out, practicing containment while waiting. Then, after they are really thoroughly burned out, recolonize with conservative types, driving out the blue remnants as necessary, and rebuild from there.”
Neither containment nor secession will work. The first fails to address the internal. Collectivist ideologies are cancerous and cancers metasticize. Secession would fail because it would balkanize America and fatally weaken it against conquest. A divided America will not have the resources to maintain development of outer space. Whereas, a united China will continue to develop technological mastery of High Earth Orbit. Once China achieves an unchallenged mastery of High Earth Orbit, its over.
Morality cannot be legislated and the less of it a people voluntarily embrace, the less capable of self-governance will they be.
“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Edmund Burke
“And from my likewise limited but not nonexistent knowledge of the Bay area as a whole, it’s my guess that anyone with sensible solutions could not be elected there even as dogcatcher.
Someone with more knowledge of this than I have, please correct me if I’m wrong about that.”
Sensible solutions – thats asking for a lot. But I live in the county just south of San Francisco (San Mateo) and it is sensible compared to the others. It did not permit BLM to shut down the 101 Freeway. And it did not do anything to defund the police. I think it may be unique on those two issues.
Tech workers used to have a very strong libertarian streak. Many of us who remain in the business over the age of 45 still do. But the new kids, not so much.
The draw for being in Silicon Valley was always the network of people. You could strike up a conversation with strangers about how to solve silicon design problems waiting in line at Subway. Today, maybe you still can, but you’re likely to be able to do this easier in Austin instead.
steve c.: It was glorious.
That world was so much smaller, so there was also a special feeling to it, like you were part of an elect doing super-cool stuff and building the new world. (And making good money, occasionally fabulous money in the process.)
Robert Martin, a writer-programmer-consultant from the old days and is now known as “Uncle Bob,” estimates that today 1% of the world’s people are programmers. Instead of being scruffy mavericks, programmers are now hive workers.
Which is part of the answer to the question Mr. Solana isn’t asking.
“Always somebody else’s fault that when he got what he voted for it didn’t turn out.” – Aubrey
They do seem to be voting for what they are getting, don’t they, because they believe the snake oil salesmen who lie to them.
I still have a vivid memory of a news report shortly after the first premium increases after Obamacare were mailed out, so some poor progressive whining, “I wanted everyone to have health care, but I didn’t think I would have to pay for it!”
“check out all the political donations made by officers and employees of DDG. Not a single one went to a Republican ” – Henry with replies by Philip and Art Deco.
If I knew people in my company could find out who I had contributed to, as a Republican, I certainly would not make any that could be traced back to me through that data base.
Though I did check, our name doesn’t show up — the DB may access only a few specific donation sites. LOTS of “ActBlue” – which may be because of the push for BLM donations to signal being down with the anti-racist progrom.
Several Bernies, a few Bidens, and only about 5 WinReds out of 275 listings.
“There’s a reason why pride is the first listed of the Seven Deadly Sins.” – Geoffrey
In April 1989, President Benson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints admonished church members to beware of pride, and detailed its core attributes.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1989/04/beware-of-pride?lang=eng
Pride also goeth before a fall.
* * *
Addenda:
That talk has been often commented on and amplified by other LDS speakers.
https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/kim-b-clark/ye-stripped-pride/
If some of that talk sounds familiar, President Benson’s file cabinets contained copious references to C. S. Lewis, Rudyard Kipling, and many other well-regarded writers.
(paragraphing added for clarity)
https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-16-no-3-2015/beware-pride-prophetic-preparation-classic-address
steve c – “there’s no Silicon left in Silicon Valley”
The original Silicon Valley companies, HP and the semiconductor companies, and the follow-ons like Sun and Amdahl, were manufacturing companies and had a manufacturing culture. There may have been an overlay of California hipness but the workforce was mainstream middle class and middle American. The companies dominating now – Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. – are really media/advertising outfits with all that implies, little of it good.
AesopFan
Yes, the lefties seem to be getting what they voted for–good and hard–but convincing them they actually voted for it is a slog. And trying to convince them not to do it again is impossible.
I suspect I am oversensitive or something, but the smug, self-righteous, superior attitude, voice and tone, body language, and facial expressions when lefties are insisting up is down and anybody who doubts it is an inferior person is not only enraging but frightening.
I once was asked where my safe space was. “Here,” I said. “Why here?” “Because I’m in it.” Implication was that I can G. D. well take care of business. And perhaps that is why, lack of immediate tension, I see things, as I figure it, clearly.
But it’s my friends and family and my country who are being put into unsafe spaces by these smug know-it-alls. And I get the impression sometimes that the latter know it and like it.
I have two granddaughters, both good athletes. But they’re the fine-boned, quick type. And if they encounter a trans type in, say, soccer, they could well be seriously injured. And if that happens and I ask a lefty what about that, I suspect the latter will have a hard time not smiling. Not sure I’m right, but the accumulation of impressions leads me in that direction.
I believe that some of the problem in the Blue States is the same as what happened in the presidential election. They cheat to maintain the Democrats in power.
With the exception of the two huge urban metropolitan areas of L.A. and S.F. California is conservative. But, the state is heavily gerrymandered to ensure the Democratic machine stays in power. And even within those metropolitan areas, they use all of the election chicanery to ensure they don’t lose elections.
If the systems were not so lopsided, California would actually be a Red State.
Roy. Good to know. Suggests a strategy going forward for sensible folks going forward, presuming they can get even a little traction in the current situation.
The left has a strange idea of how economics work.
Learned it in school. Schools & universities are full of strange (and wrong) ideas of how the world works. Popular, though.
Sensible solutions?
OK
* Three time losers are executed.
* Cities are required to have balanced budgets.
* No public employee unions.
* Incarceration of “homeless.”
* Ban drugs. Long sentences for drug dealers.
* Ban self-succession in public office.
* Seizure of all property and revocation of all rights for betrayal of public trust.
* Gun licensing only for automatic weapons.
* No city, county, or state minimum wage (federal remains).
* Literacy and competency tests for voters.
* If you can’t vote, you can’t hold office.
* No income taxes. No estate taxes.
If I knew people in my company could find out who I had contributed to, as a Republican, I certainly would not make any that could be traced back to me through that data base.
AesopFan: That’s how Brendan Eich was forced to resign from Mozilla. He made a donation to California Prop 8 to ban gay marriage in 2008. In 2014 Eich was appointed CEO of Mozilla. By then there were web links published for looking up political campaign donations. Eich got outed, a web campaign was drummed up against him and Eich was forced to resign.
Eich created JavaScript, the web programming language which allows web pages to be far more interactive than the original HTML and its variants. It is now one of the most popular programming languages in the world and a must-know for serious web developers.
Which is to say Brendan Eich is a programmer god. It is no small thing that the SJW mob took him down.
* Three time losers are executed.
* Cities are required to have balanced budgets.
* No public employee unions.
* Incarceration of “homeless.”
* Ban drugs. Long sentences for drug dealers.
* Ban self-succession in public office.
* Seizure of all property and revocation of all rights for betrayal of public trust.
* Gun licensing only for automatic weapons.
* No city, county, or state minimum wage (federal remains).
* Literacy and competency tests for voters.
* If you can’t vote, you can’t hold office.
* No income taxes. No estate taxes.
Sensible solutions to what?
If the systems were not so lopsided, California would actually be a Red State.
Around 44% of California’s population lives in the four counties around Los Angeles. About 17% lives in the 7 counties around San Francisco Bay. First tier metropolitan settlements outside of California are almost uniformly blue; greater Phoenix might be an exception. Another 12% of the state’s population lives in either San Diego County or Sacramento County. 2d tier metropolitan settlement are quite commonly blue.
re Programmers, especially programmers in the Bay Area, see my post TechnoProletarians:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/52410.html
These people design specific ways to steal your attention from living your life and being fully present with friends and family, and their business model depends 100% on openly monetizing your personal life while talking a good game about protecting your privacy.
The idea that those people would also have the sense of duty and purpose to advocate for better policies in local politics … strikes me as laughably naive.
They’re bad people who don’t have anything to offer the rest of us because they are some combination of a) elitists with zero connections to regular working class folks and b) too deep into their love affair with technology as the solution to all of life’s problems and c) bending over backwards to do whatever the CCP says to stay in that market.
Strike 1, strike 2, strike 3.
The author and many like him don’t understand the depth of the problem here. These are not civic-minded leaders with a good grasp of our history and the value of freedom that we should look to, they’re the opposite: “me first” get-rich-quick whiz kids who are tearing down our culture one app at a time.
They have declared war on freedom, and therefore on us as a people, quite openly. The time for choosing sides is right now, and it’s not too late.
FOAF…”The original Silicon Valley companies, HP and the semiconductor companies, and the follow-ons like Sun and Amdahl, were manufacturing companies and had a manufacturing culture. ”
Silicon fabs use a lot of electricity; a large plant may draw 100 megawatts…this is up there with the electric arc furnaces used for steelmaking. Having high and increasing electricity costs is a real deterrent for locating such a facility in an area.
I’m really concerned about what a (California-like) Biden-Harris energy plan could do to US manufacturing.
Aesopfan, why would you quote the opinions of an apostate nonChristian like Benson for guidance on Christian theology? Hint: Christian churches have the Holy Bible as their holy book, and are proud to display the cross in their buildings. Neither are true of the LDS heretics. I pray that they abandon JoeSmithism (founded by a pedophile thief liar) and accept Salvation, offered solely by accepting Jesus of the Bible.
Since some people are talking about big solutions, one of my favorites is making every citizen’s vote count exactly proportional to the amount of tax they pay.
No representation without taxation.
Ah yes, the “destroy my neighborhood, then move next door” approach to life. I live in what used to be a thoroughly red Nevada. No longer. The good news is, our economy is booming with California money seeking wide open spaces and lower taxes. Those features will likely disappear before long, and the Californians who moved here between 2005 and 2025 will then head for the only state that has not been turned blue by then: Idaho. They are, in fact, already moving to ID, but not in the numbers to be expected in the next ten years. After that? Maybe Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
Since some people are talking about big solutions, one of my favorites is making every citizen’s vote count exactly proportional to the amount of tax they pay. No representation without taxation.
Which is a solution in search of a problem. Your problem isn’t impecunious people per se, and segments of the professional-managerial element and the institutional elites are now the most addled and the most destructive elements in society. Certain ethnic subcultures are a problem, certain birth cohorts are a problem, people in certain family situations are a problem. Many of those in those segments are insecure or cash-poor, but that’s not what distinguishes them.
I moved to the Northeast in 1989 to work in NYC. I lived in Manhattan for the last 7 years and lived through its inevitable decline under the incompetent fool, Bill DeBlasio and the other lunatics that run that asylum. I enjoyed the city life but can no longer tolerate the idiocy and increasing violence caused by their so-called “progressive” policies. I escaped in August and now have no connection to the Big Apple, other than a few remaining friends.
I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo not bummmmmmmmed for Frisco and Cali. They done it to themselves. A plague be upon them. The STUPID was STRONG in those fools. Harsh? I could be harsher…
I saw the same thing happen in Washington and it turned us from a purplish state into a lunatic fringe leftist hellhole.
The problem is they also can turn the red states to which they move into purplish states. This happened when people fled Taxachusetts for New Hampshire, which used to be pretty red. It’s like the phenomenon where the smartest people in one group go to a smarter group and the average IQ of both groups declines.
Leftism is an awesome collectivist secular atheistic force that values orgasms more than Truth.
In the USSR, the consumption of vodka was huge, and this tendency, now embedded in the Russian persona, persists. Because in an alcohol fog one may no longer feel powerless, I guess; and the self-pity that goes with the booze effect yields passivity and sorrow, not resistance and resolve.
We are going down the same path of secularism, moral relativity, despair and, ultimately, impotence.
The US as founded has been dying for a century as the Progs have progressively seized our institutions. Its morbidity did not become apprarent until the 1960s though the Progs had been on the march since before World War 1.
Texas as a State has no “standing” to bring a case of vote fraud disenfranchisement of Texans in a national election before the Supreme Court?
My parents were part of the great Rust Belt exodus of the late ‘70s to Texas. The license plates you feared the most were those from Michigan and New York… besides those of the locals. It took all of a generation, though, for those people to assimilate to the Texas way.
Sure, it has changed in the last 40 years, but there are a couple of things Texas has that neither Washington DC nor most other bandwagoneers’ destinations have. First, there is the Texas mentality – “we’ll do it, and we’ll do it bigger and better.” Second is the lack of a state income tax. The state is facing fiscal difficulties in the upcoming session, but that leads to the third differentiating factor: its legislators are truly part-time. The legislature is in session for 90 days every two years. That said, they regularly have special sessions to address unresolved problems, such as budget shortfalls. But there remains, at least to a degree, the sense they are both part-timers and therefore accountable to the people they work with back home.
I don’t know if Tennessee has the same culture — Texas benefited from a number of Tennessee’s finest in its earliest days. The question is whether they left any of that spirit when they left. Hopefully so.
Why take exception to AesopFan’s sourcing, when the quoted substance is spot-on? Let’s go Scriptural to drive a point home: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” should the Divine Command around which a strong, grounded, humble Conservatism musters its response to the Progressive vanguard, which so earnestly and pridefully advances us all into Hell. Can such a movement be formed at this late date? Merry Christmas, all!
The easiest thing to do in SF is to live outside downtown, enjoy the weather and vote the way your neighbors do all the while avoiding the effects of SF’s governmental policies on the rest of the population.
Also known as slash and burn agriculture.
regarding “wealth extraction,” see my post Larry the Liquidator is on the Line:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/64191.html
Midnight the 25th-26th morn: BIG BREAKING NEWS FROM OANN: plane loads of ballots were lifted into contested states? Witnesses coming out? Dead man switch assures documents to be released the next day (Sunday)?
Such are high-faulting claims from the FreeRepublic.com news aggregator site (see top right side bar to quickly link): oh, and maybe there is a Santa Claus? IDK!?!
LINK
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3918950/posts
Good Lord: Christmas…Justice?
“ Stew Peters
@realstewpeters
·
9h
I’m on the phone getting a detailed account of events from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport from the night of Nov 7. Cannot believe my ears. I have documents, videos, photos and audio recordings that will prove illegal, fraudulent ballots were on planes.
@realryanhartwig”
Ok. If true, there’s gonna be fights in certain legislatures before the US Congress gets their whack at it on January…6th.
The original Silicon Valley companies, HP and the semiconductor companies, and the follow-ons like Sun and Amdahl, were manufacturing companies and had a manufacturing culture. There may have been an overlay of California hipness but the workforce was mainstream middle class and middle American. The companies dominating now – Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. – are really media/advertising outfits with all that implies, little of it good.
This is a key observation. Some of us leaving CA are conservative middle class.My conservative son was taking his conservative daughter to look at colleges. They agreed Austin TX was a dump. She is enrolled at U of Alabama next fall. He is planning his exit from CA while his trial lawyer leftist brother has no plans to leave.
It is difficult to know exactly what you mean, Luke, but a couple of points.
You call Benson both an “apostate” and a non-Christian.
Let’s assume that Mormons are not Christians. Let’s also assume that the Wiki biography is correct. If so, then Benson is not a Christian apostate in the sense of ” defection from” most commonly used in the last couple hundred years: since, he was never a Christian in the first place.
In fact, some Mormons might consider Benson an embryo Mormon apostate, or at least in danger of becoming heretical, for tending to eclectically incorporate orthodox Christians sources into the formulation of his own moral ruminations and reasoning on pride.
The next duplex issue concerns supposedly quoting, ” … Benson for guidance on Christian theology …”
1. I see no evidence that AesopFan was citing Benson as a guide to Christian doctrines on the nature of God.
2. The Seven Deadly Sins in their current formulation are found in Christian Catechisms, and were definitely mentioned as deadly dispositions and vices scattershot in the epistles; as in Paul, or as implied in James, but their antecedents are not found exclusively there.
This might be enjoyable for some. “Sargon of Akkad” on …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OXa80iqZQqI
Finally …
In this season then, of peace and understanding, and good will to all men of good will, Merry Christmas.
As the Firesign Theatre once said:
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The road to opportunity is paved with Californians.
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Though it doesn’t mean quite what it used to.
MORE on the plane loads of ballots allegations; ties to top Dems claimed? Who financed this ballot stuffing fraud?
“BALLOT DELIVERY! DOD Operative Accidentally Exposes Second Plane in Phoenix!”
Podcaster in Minneapolis, Stew Peters, hosts Ryan Hardwick with ties to Project Veritas, 16 minutes: https://rumble.com/vc4jkf-facebook-whistleblower-sidney-powell-team-drops-bombshell-election-fraud-pr.html
Pre-filled Biden ballots on plane from UAE, audio recording, details coming on Monday podcast. Tweet here: https://image-cdn.parler.com/6/8/68PIxdTFxK.jpeg
Posted yesterday on Patrick Byrne’s Twitter feed:
“ TRUSTinGOD LydiaAGFlag of United States?
@PrivilegedLydia
· 20h
BREAKING: Latest forensic AUDIT in Savannah GA shows tabulation machines were sending election results to CHINA!!!
========
Could this be a LINK to foreign election interference?
Are those insisting on forensic audit of Dominion machines on to something real?
Patrick Byrne commends American Thinker piece by Andrea Widburg who “plays it straight” in telling his role in the Russia-Obama Spygate saga, here
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/overstocks_colorful_founder_has_tales_to_tell_about_the_russia_hoax.html
“On Tuesday, he claimed that Obama had blackmailed Hillary Clinton to own her politically. If that’s true, what Byrne is saying can upend the American political scene.” —Widburg (Above)
Steel Truths 8 minute interview with Byrne about how he was recruited by the FBI to sting Hillary Clinton with Turkish money in January 2016 so they could control her Presidency on behalf of Obama!
https://video.parler.com/QL/1R/QL1RTdypp0fO_small.mp4
I sensed this was the real story behind his admitted affaire with Russian Maria Butina, in a 2019 interview with Byrne. But he was somewhat coy and kept certain facts and implications out of the tale. Not now.
More from this stunning interview “next time” and how it reveals Lee Smith’s Permanent Coup thesis against Trump and the fraud election true, and to be more serious in telling us about the Deep State corruption in DOJ. Wow!
Byrne suggests that a new alternative DOJ be built elsewhere, then have the first one starved and then shut down as the only effective reform strategy.
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In connection with the piece on the wealth “extraction” mentality in San Francisco, some musings on the current meaning of capitalism over at Civil Horizon:
http://civilhorizon.com/2020/12/27/capitalism/
Relevant quote:
“The American underclass has every reason to see the tech companies’ and Wall Street’s capitalism as predatory, monopolistic and doing little or nothing for them. Sure they can communicate with friends and family more easily than they once could, and are offered endless entertainment in return for giving up any semblance of privacy; but the cold hard truth is that these things don’t open a lot of doors for them: they mostly just open windows onto a world they’ll never inhabit.”
Bingo. Worth a read. The author is a retired venture capitalist who lives in Connecticut, so he knows whereof he writes.
Damning info that Sydney Powell promised proving Chinese firm remotely changing votes in vote counter machines in contested states during the election, methods, affidavits, and government documents on Iranian involvement, too, presented by Patrick Byrne on “Steel Truth” — Ann Vandersteel early in this interview from five days ago.
https://www.pscp.tv/annvandersteel1/1eaKbnyaovZKX
LISTEN — SHARE!
President Trump’s support for Powell (Flynn, Byrne) is being subverted by WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and WH legal Counsel Pat Cipollone (sp?).
According to Byrne, the Deep State dangles megabuck jobs to WH staffers who give Trump the bums rush out of the WH.
Wow. Coverup mode by the Deep State? Sure seems like it.
Yeah. We know that lawyer Robert Barnes believes Sydney Powell has swallowed tin foil hat conspiracy theories about the election fraud and stealing votes.
But what does Barnes know about CyberSecurity?
What if small routers inside vote counting machines exist, connect to local appliances wires to the internet and go to a Chinese city that can be audio geo located? What if the “tin hats” are really the tools of spycraft? Industrial or State Sponsored actors?
That’s what Byrnes says happened in the last US election.
From Down Under, we find Joanne Nova featuring Patrick Byrne interviewed for an hour with Jerome Corsi. It’s a chatty and almost relaxed back and forth exchange, despite the seriousness of these issues.
Trump is a man beset on too many sides, striking Byrne like a Hamlet.
“[Byrne] tells a tale of insider white-anting at the Whitehouse where senior legal staff have apparently been offered million dollar salary packages by outsiders and threatened to be ‘cancelled’, if they don’t play the right game, which is to talk Trump into conceding. The senior team are leaning on the juniors. The self-serving lawyers are shockingly disrespectful, sexist and Byrne would sack them in an instant if they worked for him.
“According to Byrne — Trump is the smartest man in the room (Byrne has a PhD from Stanford) — a gentleman, very different to what the media portrays, and ‘too nice’ almost too a flaw. Byrne is a small L liberal [or libertarian in the US] who didn’t vote for Trump, but appears to have become one of his biggest supporters since meeting him. But he stresses, and from Trump’s point of view too — this is not about Trump or Biden, it’s about the Republic. Trump needs this battle ‘like a hole in the head’ and would happily concede and ‘have a great life’ if only the election had been run fairly and the future of the USA did not depend on it.”
https://joannenova.com.au/2020/12/traitors-inside-the-whitehouse-and-voting-data-sent-direct-to-china/#comment-2391579