This state needs a serious change in leadership. People laughed when it was proposed the southern California counties (specifically excluding Los Angeles) split from the existing state and form a new state of Southern California.

If you look at California’s voting demographics, you’ll see all the tree-hugging, socialist, “You Owe Me”, peaceniks live along the coasts from Los Angeles on up. Sacramento has a huge cluster of pod people there also, but they’re too far north (and too far out there) to care about the rest of us. The vast majority of inland California voters are conservative, law-abiding, “stand for something or you’ll fall for anything” people. This can best be summarized by looking at one of California’s most divisive election issues, Proposition 8.

Prop 8 was a voter initiative that wanted to firmly establish and retain the concept of marriage as a union between one male and one female. Unhappy with the near identical language in the “civil union” statutes that guaranteed equality for same-sex partners, the state devolved into throwing stones back-and-forth over the word “marriage” and, for me at least, it’s religious connotations. Regardless, check the map. If you have an image blocker on your browser you can see the image here.

See the green? If we were to change that color to red, what would that represent to you? If we changed the yellow to blue, does that change your perspective? Yes, I’m trying to draw a parallel here between Republicans and Democrats and no, they didn’t vote along party lines for or against Prop 8. My purpose here is to graphically illustrate how the population centers that would tend to be red or blue are divided between the coast and the inland valley, mountain areas. Los Angeles county is the lowest patch of yellow on the coast and the Mono Lake lovers are hugging Nevada.

So we have a problem. Check the numbers. The reason why California is a political wasteland is because the numbers are so close. True, the example shown is Prop 8, but the numbers pretty much ring true for just about any state issue. We can’t get anything done here. If we were to split the state and allow the southern counties to keep their tax revenues rather than sending them off to Sacramento so they can subsidize Oakland and San Francisco’s social service programs, we’d be doing a lot better. The San Bernardino / Riverside County areas known as the Inland Empire have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state but because the population density is less than Oakland, we lose. It ticks me off. It grinds my gears.

But why, specifically, does California suck today? Yes, it’s that old theme of illegals, drivers licenses and political pandering. There was an article today (here) in which the Los Angeles City police chief said his officers were not going to enforce the current law that requires them to impound vehicles of unlicensed drivers. Why? Because it’s not fair. It might limit or restrict their ability to get to or search for work. Uhhh…what?

California already turns a blind eye to illegal immigration. It’s a Federal issue and the State doesn’t have the right to enforce Federal immigration laws. Let me take that one step farther and say the state wouldn’t enforce those laws even if required to do so. Unlike Arizona, California would never consider laws that would require illegal aliens seeking to enter our public school system to show they live in the local district. Pay the same tuition at a college or university? Are you insane? That would mean undermining the DREAM Act.

I have had the immigration rant with just about everyone that knows me. I believe in immigration the way it was run even as late as the 1950s. If you want to come here, fill out the forms and get in line. Have a sponsor. Get a job. Two of my grandmothers had to do that and they were married to a U.S. born-and-raised citizen! They tried to deport one grandmother back to Australia and my Peruvian grandmother had issues because my grandfather was often out of the country flying aircraft between Los Angeles; Lima, Peru, and; Sao Paulo, Brazil. I’m not going to go into my overall feelings on this but I will say it’s highly disingenuous of our country to require people from countries with whom we do not share a common border to process through the system yet we pander to others.

But back to today’s issue. I have no doubt in my military mind that if I was pulled over in the People’s Republic of Los Angeles and produced my insurance card, my registration card and my Disneyland season pass from last year as a photo ID, they’d impound my car. It wouldn’t matter that I could recite to them my driver’s license number, my home address or my height and weight. My car would be on the back of a tow truck on the way to the revenue station impound yard in a heartbeat. I really don’t understand the reasoning behind the decision.

We’re told constantly it may be illegal to hire day laborers from the street corners. Forgetting the personal safety and risk you take, the state loses tax revenue. If we want to stop complaining about the number of jobs citizens have lost to illegals, stop hiring them. Some organizations post lists on the internet of companies known to hire or cater to the “undocumented” crowd. If you want to keep your job or create a job, boycott those businesses. If we get enough economic sanctions against employers (either by increasing penalties or citizen boycotts), they won’t hire illegals and they will magically self-emigrate back to their homeland.

But no amount of pushing an employer will seriously induce an individual to act now and act with decisive finality. If you know you cannot obtain a driver’s license in this state unless you can prove you have a right to be here, that’s a concern. If you know you might be subject to Federal identity theft laws if you use a false or stolen social security number to obtain employment, that’s a concern. But concerns really don’t mean anything. Every time you stuff a cigarette in your face you might be concerned about lung cancer but it doesn’t stop you from lighting up.

Just because I might get caught doesn’t really mean I need to lose any sleep over it. However, if I’m on my way home and I get pulled over and I have my car towed and impounded, THAT gets my attention. If I have to pay the tow charges AND the impound charges for my vehicle as well as a fine for driving the car without a license, I’m impacted directly. How will I work? Who freaking cares, as far as I’m concerned. How will you pick up the little ones from day care? Not my problem.

For me, this is not a humanitarian issue. Don’t cry to me about how as a Christian I’m charged with saving the world and all the people in it. This is not the same. Requiring foreigners to obtain documentation for admission into this country gives them certain rights and responsibilities. Knowing and obeying our laws keeps the playing field level. Breaking a law and claiming ignorance of the law because you didn’t know about it is the wrong answer. But let’s move on.

If the requirement is that you either pay-to-play (by getting a driver’s license legally) or you don’t drive, you don’t drive. Using the new Los Angeles philosophy, it seems any high school student 16 or older could tour around the county without having to have a license. All they need is their school I.D. Mom and Dad have their name on the registration and insurance, so the car shouldn’t be towed, right? True, they might fine the student for driving without a license but how can they do that to Betty Sue or LaTonia when they won’t do it to Belinda? Obviously, my comment has racial overtones, but my point is this: How can you say all you have to do is provide a picture ID and they won’t tow your car? Idiots.

California sucks.