George Rebane
[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary that was broadcast on 30 December 2011. The KVMR website has podcasts of this and previous editions of these commentaries.]
As we prepare to ring in 2012, I am reminded that governments at all levels have been busy taking away more of my freedoms and restricting what I can buy or build – all for my own protection, of course. And as a Californian, I am doubly blessed because my state is the country’s leader in protecting its citizens from every form of harm imaginable, including overworking. That benefit it provides by driving out companies, inhibiting new start-up businesses, and generally making the hiring of full-time employees as difficult as possible – in short, the business of Sacramento is eliminating business in California.
Starting this Sunday morning a whole slew of new laws and regulations will hit us. With regard to hiring, except in a few special cases, it will be illegal for an employer to check on the credit rating of an applicant. Checking credit ratings of new hires for positions of responsibility has always been important as a measure of the employee’s ability to manage personal affairs, and his propensity to focus on the new job instead of worrying about how to pay or avoid outstanding bills. The state has decided that this is no longer necessary nor permitted, employers can go suck an egg.
In 2012 we are also going to criminalize parents for continuing to let their six and seven-year-old children ride normally in cars. California has now determined that the little darlings will have to be strapped into larger size booster seats until they are eight years old. The kids are already screaming, and the parents are weighing the alternative of paying a fine of at least $475 and getting a point on their driving record; look for jailing these criminals in the coming years.
These little samples come from a pile of new laws that cover every aspect of our home and workplace lives. You can go on line and find dozens of websites documenting California’s crazy laws. The upshot of it all is that California now enjoys the bottom of the pile status in America for granting personal liberties, and providing a business climate that generates wealth. And all this is happening in a state that is already tens of billions of dollars in debt, and has unfunded liabilities that exceed a half trillion dollars.
How did this come about? The answer to that is easy. We have the greatest intelligence inequality in our voter population. Everyone has been focusing on income inequality, but it’s the overwhelming excess of stupid voters that will turn the economic tide every time. And the exodus of the brighter bulbs in the bunch promises to increase the fraction of idiots sent to Sacramento with every passing election.
This is all of a piece as California voted to assign all of our 55 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. This guarantees that the tipping point has been passed as far as America’s electoral college is concerned. While the law may be unconstitutional, in the interval it will guarantee the runaway condition that eventually destroys all national democracies – the dummies will always vote for what the progressives call a ‘fair redistribution of wealth’.
Speaking of political leanings, 2012 will see a new Obama enter the electioneering fray as an unabashed Teddy Roosevelt progressive. As did Teddy a hundred years ago in his famous 1910 Osawatomie speech, so did Barack Hussein in his 2011 Osawatomie speech. Both men stepped way to the left, and declared that government by an expert elite is the most enlightened way forward. Teddy was the first president to finger wealth as predatory, and Barack is right in lockstep with that notion.
In 2012 Obama will now openly forsake the center, and marshal his leftwing under the banner of ‘fairness’. In Osawatomie he declared the creed of his progressive nationalism, saying that “we are greater together when everyone engages in fair play, and everybody gets a fair shot, and everybody does their fair share.” And government will make all things fair through its authority, programs, and regulation.
Other than such certainties, 2012 still promises to be a year of exciting surprises for us all.
My name is Rebane, and I also expand on these and other themes in my Union columns, and on georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary appears. These opinions are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Happy New Year.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment