State of Contradiction

Long-suffering California native Victor Davis Hanson captures its state of contradiction:

Open borders, redistributionist socialism, therapeutic and politicized public schools, and public-employee unions finally are proving a match even for Apple, Google, Facebook, the Napa Valley wine industry, Central Valley agribusiness, Hollywood, Cal Tech, Stanford, and Berkeley. In California, it is a day-by-day war between what nature and past generations have so generously bequeathed and what our bunch has so voraciously consumed.

On any given day, beautiful weather, the Pacific Coast, and the majestic Sierra Nevada are trumped by released felons, $5-a-gallon gas, and a 1970 infrastructure crumbling beneath a crowded 2012 state.

Decades of worsening conditions are apt to make anyone discouraged, especially those who, like Dr. Hanson, live in the Central Valley. However, we remain hopeful that what man can break, man can fix.

California's vast natural (e.g., the Monterey shale's energy reserves "could equal Saudi Arabia’s output for more than a decade") and human resources cannot be hamstrung forever by poor self-governance. As a former California governor said, we'll be back.