Intolerance and America’s west coast

Blogatrix Cathy Seipp writing in the National Review, relates the tender mild ways of the left. Even as it relates to a man expelling his feelings about Los Angeles based cartoonist Michael Martinez’ boss, editor Michael Kinsley:

«“Why do you keep him on?” one guy wailed, in tones that suggested he was wearing a monocle while peering at a cockroach.

Kinsley patiently explained that the Times hasn't run [George] Will's syndicated column in years (presumably some readers still suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome from the horror of the memory) and that a left-leaning editorial board needs to be balanced by some right-leaning signed columns. Regarding Michael Ramirez, he added: "This is the question I get more than any other: Michael Ramirez, how can I kill him?"»

To put the state of California into a context, here is one ¡No Pasaràn! reader’s take on what this state of social affairs holds for our future:

«I spent 6 months in 2000 in San Jose (SF, Oakland, and SJ form the 'Bay Area'). The whole of San Francisco has been termed the "world's largest outdoor lunatic asylum" by [KSFO radio personality] Lee Rodgers. The entire city is a socialist looney-land -- just what the Democrats would love to remake America into.
I went through there in 1997 on a tourist pilgrimage to drive the California coast from SF to LA by convertible, starting at the Golden Gate Bridge. To get there, I had to drive through San Francisco from south to north. When I did that, I saw people living in their cars with laundry strung from wires attached to cars at one end and to telephone poles at the other.

I was later informed that the route I took wasn't even through the seediest portions of the city, where I was assured that Amsterdam has already been surpassed. You can guess how all of these people vote.

The rest of the Bay Area isn't much better. A few days before my departure from the place -- which was just before the election -- some colleagues took me out to lunch. The conversation turned to the election, and every one of them planned to vote for Gore. Many of them couldn't articulate a reason why.»

So there you have it – To be sure electing Arnold Schwarzenegger is a temporary seeming palliative by those outside of California’s cities, and the handful within who hope for the reintroduction of some common sense. In full view are the rewards of leftism it seems is anger, poverty, and a declining quality of life, not to mention a degraded view of living. It is impossible to look past all of this when those on one side of the Atlantic wish for an America that looks more like Europe. It should be no surprise that the notion is received with considerable resistance.