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2012-07-31 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2012-07-31 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 VDH nails it. Again.

Posted by Secret Master 2012-07-31 01:15|| 2012-07-31 01:15|| Front Page Top

#2 Ouch! Insightful analysis.

Posted by tipover 2012-07-31 01:15|| 2012-07-31 01:15|| Front Page Top

#3 California leads the way.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-07-31 02:43|| 2012-07-31 02:43|| Front Page Top

#4 Hanson is a national treasure. The "Road Warrior" metaphor is one many of us have had in the back of our minds.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-07-31 03:22|| 2012-07-31 03:22|| Front Page Top

#5 VDH ought to contrast the exodus of 18th-19th Century Euros to America to get away from the destructive and oppressive elites and their policies with the migration now occurring out of CA. Also throw a note in that those who stayed behind because they let things anchor them to the rotting carcass got to enjoy the experiences of the First and Second World War, up front and close.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-07-31 08:33|| 2012-07-31 08:33|| Front Page Top

#6 Other movie metaphors come to mind:

A Clockwork Orange
Lord of the Flies
Idiocracy
Animal Farm
Fahrenheit 451

There are probably many other movie metaphors that signal the decline of a civilation in the cities and the coasts. Most of these areas are blue and have similar characteristics as Hanson so aptly described. Most of the problems come from too much government rather than too little government.

Posted by JohnQC 2012-07-31 10:02|| 2012-07-31 10:02|| Front Page Top

#7 From the article, VDH is correct on the housing prices in Palo Alto. I'm staying in Palo Alto this week, at a tear down on .2 acres worth 1.5 million.

Posted by penguin 2012-07-31 12:44|| 2012-07-31 12:44|| Front Page Top

#8 California reminds me most of Book 1 of Atlas Shrugged. Love, hate or remain indifferent towards Rand but I doubt anyone has hit it farther out of the park in setting forth the manner in which Western Civilization will die.

Posted by AzCat 2012-07-31 13:02|| 2012-07-31 13:02|| Front Page Top

#9 I think he's wrong in saying Generation X near the end. I think it was the following generation that he's really talking about. Gen X are well into adulthood now.

Posted by rjschwarz 2012-07-31 14:40|| 2012-07-31 14:40|| Front Page Top

#10 My kids always laugh at me when I tell them we wouldn't be the first civilization to turn to dust.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-07-31 15:11|| 2012-07-31 15:11|| Front Page Top

#11 VDH is always a good read, and his section of The Valley is tired, at best, and uncomfortably close to where I live. We get some gang spillover and other nonsense.

Most of VDH's angst, I suspect, comes from watching the area of his family homestead and all that he and his ancestors worked for go into decline. I can relate. I was born in Oakland, and so was my father.

Still, as is said, that which cannot continue, won't. Cities are declaring bankruptcy, and the state may well have to in the future. These are good things. Apparently, it is only at the end of days time that liberals (who have a choke hold on the government) feel they have the leeway to buy a clue.

We'll see. My optimism may come from living in a county that tries to stay a step or two ahead of fiscal insanity. Our pension fund is sound and independent of the state, and new county workers are now employed in a more fiscally responsible tier. Voters in our county seat recently handed local police and fire a collective bargaining setback.

Life goes on.

The Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing... after they have exhausted all other possibilities. -Winston Churchill

Posted by Shinter Javirong9154 2012-07-31 17:20|| 2012-07-31 17:20|| Front Page Top

#12 Cities are declaring bankruptcy, and the state may well have to in the future.

There exist no provisions under any current law allowing a state to declare bankruptcy. The theory, I think, being that as the states possess plenary taxing power they will always, by definition, be able to meet their obligations.

Posted by AzCat 2012-07-31 18:32|| 2012-07-31 18:32|| Front Page Top

#13 I agree with rjschwartz, the Gen X comment is incorrect. I think we were the last generation to have some semblance of traditional values and what was expected of us from society, employers, girlfriends/wives, etc.
Gen Y and Millenials are more dislocated than Gen X by far. Poor little buggars, them computer games done f*cked up their brains!

Posted by bigjim-CA 2012-07-31 18:35|| 2012-07-31 18:35|| Front Page Top

#14 I'm not sure that the EU will keep Greece in the union, and I have doubts that the rest of the USA will keep California. And that comes from someone who lives in CA.

And in reference to the photo in the article above ... can someone pass me the box of ammo??

Posted by Raider 2012-07-31 19:06|| 2012-07-31 19:06|| Front Page Top

#15 in short, a sort of Procopiuss description of Gothic Italy circa AD 540.

So Procopius2k refers to a 2,000 year old man posting at Rantburg?

Cool!

Posted by Bobby 2012-07-31 19:15|| 2012-07-31 19:15|| Front Page Top

#16 I am on the cusp of Gen X, born in 1961, with my youngest sibling born in 1964. We were the first to enjoy massive numbers of divorced parents, latchkey kids, and entering the job market just as it dried up -- my husband chose job over grad school (his life's dream), estimating correctly that the three jobs offered to him as #2 in his graduating engineering class in 1981 would dwindle to zero if he waited two more years. But we also were the first of whom less was demanded academically, according to all the grumbling I've read here at Rantburg, the first to have video games at home instead of pinball at wherever pinball machines lived, and American Pie, Carrie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and that stupid fraternity house flick were our films. So yes, we were handed a coarsened popular culture, and many of us revelled in the coarseness.

Posted by trailing wife 2012-07-31 19:16|| 2012-07-31 19:16|| Front Page Top

#17 ....don't forget Punk Rock TW. We had Punk Rock too.

Actually, come to think of it, in its simple way Punk tried to warn us in about what was to come. And now it's here.

Posted by Secret Master 2012-07-31 21:37|| 2012-07-31 21:37|| Front Page Top

#18 It's only 1500 years.

(O, to be 90 again...)

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-07-31 21:50|| 2012-07-31 21:50|| Front Page Top

23:13 DarthVader
23:00 JosephMendiola
22:56 JosephMendiola
22:39 JosephMendiola
22:31 JosephMendiola
22:21 JosephMendiola
21:50 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:37 Secret Master
21:20 Zhang Fei
20:56 Barbara
20:43 Barbara
20:23 Zhang Fei
20:06 Airandee
19:37 Matt
19:16 trailing wife
19:15 Bobby
19:07 JohnQC
19:06 Raider
18:47 tu3031
18:35 bigjim-CA
18:32 AzCat
18:10 Zhang Fei
17:59 tipper
17:46 Zhang Fei