Why California Is So Badass

Sleepy little rustic mountain towns, country roads cutting through acre after acre of corn rows, grazing lands and apple orchards, quiet lakeside villages hovering at the edge of expansive forests, chilly seaside ports covered in fog and smelling of fish and seaweed. None of these scenes likely sound at home in California, but they are. And, they’re only taken from the northern portion of the state.

From the sunny, sandy beaches in the south, to the serene forests and rolling hills of the far north, California is a gorgeous state. Striking mountain ranges, expansive desert, rugged coastline, white-sand oceanside towns stretching on for miles, giant redwood forests, and some of the most serene and productive agricultural land in the nation, California is an experience all its own. We are a country within a country, a way of life which has become synonymous with laid-back living, constant optimism and an innovative spirit to match the wild and gorgeous land we call home.

Hosting Silicon Valley and Hollywood, titans in both the technology and entertainment industries, California is so much more than Los Angeles and San Francisco. World class cities worthy of plenty of your attention, they are but the tip of an impressive and expansive iceberg of class and beauty in one of the largest and most ecologically, geographically, economically, culinarily and ethnically diverse states in the US.

Take a relaxed road trip along the 101 highway, enjoying the ocean view and salty sea air in gorgeous settings like Big Sur. Visit the stunning vistas of Yosemite National Park in our rugged Sierra Nevada mountains, surf the gorgeous sun-kissed waves of the San Diego region’s coastline, get lost four-wheeling imposing sand dunes in the Mojave before playing a round or two of golf in one of our many resort towns. From quiet fishing spots in the mountains to bustling, neon-light filled nightlife in LA, California has something for everyone.

We have our problems, undoubtedly. Our state government is heavily encumbered by special interests and voter referendums, and proves time and again to be less efficient than other states. Our taxes and cost of living are higher than average, while our regulations and strong unions tend to make starting and maintaining a business here more difficult than other places in the country. For those who identify as politically or religiously conservative, San Francisco may as well be a living nightmare of backwards values. The state government in Sacramento might be the premiere example of the failures of modern liberal ideology, and the very word California has become an adjective to describe everything seen as wrong with the Left, Democrats and Liberals in America.

Yet, as with so much else, such views are overly simplistic and only part of the equation. We have amongst the highest standards of living in the country, a highly sophisticated and diversified economy which routinely grows faster than the rest of the the US, tying Oregon for highest growth rates in 2016, for example. Strong unions fight for and protect Californian jobs and wages, our public infrastructure is expansive, generally well-maintained and forward thinking with projects like the California High Speed Rail promising to connect two of the largest metropolitan areas in America.

Our social safety net, including tax credits for business, is amongst the most robust in the country, and we possess creative, manufacturing, technology, and entertainment sectors the rest of the world stands in envy of. Our public and private universities routinely make top lists around the world, and modern signatures from the bikini to the theme park were developed or popularized in California.

We are dynamic and relentless, disruptive and always pushing our own boundaries. We are an entire state dedicated to the idea that hard work and creative solutions can benefit everyone around us, and we’ve created a society which has become synonymous with the American Dream. California is and has been one of the fastest growing and changing states, economically and demographically, for decades, and will almost certainly remain this way for years to come.

We’re not perfect by any means, but there are so many reasons why the Great State of California is known, romanticized, envied, copied, and visited by so many around the world, and home to so many in America. There are many other beautiful places to call home, but few with the variety and dynamism California presents. Despite what you may have heard, Californians are by-and-large a friendly, welcoming, accepting, open-minded people, well accustomed to visitors and those newly residing in the state.

So, if you already live here, take pride in your home. Explore it and see all it has to offer. If you’ve never been here, make plans to visit. It is beyond worth it; you will not be disappointed in the variety of food, people, experiences and sights you’ll be able to get lost in while here. I’m extremely biased, but California has a way of doing that to people, once you’re here for a while. The Golden State is a grand, sweeping epic all its own. I love this state, and truly believe you will too. Come find your own badass adventure in the Great American West. Your future self will thank you.

Thanks for reading! This blog works in tandem with my YouTube channel of the same name. Feel free to check it out if you enjoy my content here. Come back often for regular updates, and see you next time...

YouTube channel here.

Not Even Net Neutrality Can Survive Trump?

It’s official guys, crony capitalism is in full swing here in the U.S. We can’t even defend the internet, around which so many of our lives revolve, in this era of Trump. Lies ranging from the regulations were harming investment to they hindered the ability of emergency medical services to function effectively were told, yet all of them were lies. The FCC knows they are lies, Ajit Pai, chairman of the FCC, knows they are lies, yet they are pushing this corporate-donor agenda anyways. If anything sums up the bullshit big-business corruption running rampant in Washington D.C., made even worse during the chaos of this early Trump administration, this is it.

In an age of resurgent white nationalism, shrunken national monuments, blatant lies on everything from inauguration crowd sizes to severity of tax cuts to the physical beauty of a border wall, habitual sexual harassers being exposed left and right, reckless tweets from our own President, and a general political atmosphere based on simple answers to complex issues, perhaps nothing is sacred. Maybe we shouldn’t expect anything to be off limits or too ridiculous for Trump and his kind, but we should never accept this as normal or okay.

Corporate and special interest money has been swelling the coffers of politicians for decades, yet has become more dramatic in light of some rather recent Supreme Court Decisions. Notably with the Citizens United case in 2010, politics has become ever more influenced by those most willing and able to fund the machine. Scores of competing billionaires, millionaires, corporations, lobbyists representing dozens of industries, unions and political action committees all jockey for position and influence, very often at the expense of the average voter.

There are times our interest overlaps with those of the wealthy and elite, but we are nearly never the reason why things go our way in politics. The best we can do is form powerful lobbies, like the NRA, wether you agree with it or not, to speak on our behalf. Aside from these single-issue organizations, the nation and economy is increasingly run by and in the name of those paying for it. We are not yet a tyrannical oligarchy like Russia, or a single-party dictatorship like China, but our crony capitalists are running most of the show.

We’ve faced situations like this in the past, notably in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, and we’ve emerged stronger, freer, and more prosperous every single time. But freedom and prosperity truly are not free. Our government is meant to be a tool of the people, a body through which our collective will can be shown. It was developed with plenty of checks and balances in the system to prevent both rule by whim of the masses, and rule by powerful yet corrupt individuals.

What our Founders could not have easily imagined, however, is how America would look today. Industrialization, automation, information technology, mass transit, dozens of multinational corporate juggernauts, the world has changed drastically since the creation of our country. Just as the branches of government provide checks and balances on each other, unions and the government represent the people when dealing with business.

We should absolutely support business, especially small and startup companies, they’re the backbone of our country, and keeping the market as free as possible has proven to be the greatest source of wealth creation and innovation. The unfortunate reality is, however, in areas where expensive infrastructure is needed, such as electricity, cell phone service and emergency medical services, there are often few options around a specific area. For example, where I live, there is no competition to Comcast in providing cable internet access, and if someone in my family suddenly had a heart attack or stroke, there are only two hospitals I can take them to.

This leads to effective strangleholds on various markets, with one or only a few companies providing a service. This allows for huge artificial manipulation of the price and quality of service, and we have seen this reality time and time again. Simply put, the free market does not work on behalf of the People in such circumstances. Yet, the government can intervene to represent our will. It can be the guaranteer of a free market and prohibit crony capitalism. Our government has done so in the past, and in the most successfully run countries on the planet, they do quite often.

This leads us back to the internet and net neutrality. The regulations put in place back in 2015 ensured a free, open and equal-access internet service for everyone. It is arguably the purest example of the government being used on behalf of the People to ensure a free market. There were dozens of utility exemptions given to the industry, from the government declining to set price limits or speed requirements to emergency medical services being allowed traffic priority. Nonetheless, it wasn’t enough. The large internet service providers want as much control over their market as possible, at the expense of the rest of us, and Ajit Pai and his FCC just handed it to them.

It is well past time for America to collectively wake up, to realize the Left versus Right political rivalry is much more showmanship displayed by a sensationalist media than reality, and it is in fact time for us to reclaim our say in matters of state, to reassert our voice in our government, to demand our Voice truly represents us again.

Every politician wants you to believe they are the one who will stand up for you and your interests, but until we curtail the influence of big money in politics and eliminate the ability of politicians to choose their voters through gerrymandering, a free internet is but one of many losses we’ll continue to sustain. It’s time to collectively grab our government by the balls and remind it who our representatives serve. We dictate the course of this nation, every vote counts if you make it, we are the masters of our collective destiny, and it’s about damn we start acting like it.

Thanks for reading! This blog works in tandem with my YouTube channel of the same name. Feel free to check it out if you enjoy my content here. Come back often for regular updates, and see you next time...

YouTube channel here.