Roy Exum
There was an intriguing story in the Nashville Tennessean yesterday that said a growing number of California companies are transferring operations to Nashville, just as others around the country have fallen in love with Tennessee. Monday’s story revealed three San Francisco-based companies have chosen Nashville for an expansion location in the past four months: Wonolo, KeepTruckin trucking logistics firm and pet food company NomNomNow. Go back to 2014 and the list includes Eventbrite, Google, Lyft, Postmates and Houzz.
Reasons include a capable work force, a better time zone, friendly and gentle people … all the sugarcoated, feel-good stuff.
Now let me tell you the real reason.
Dr. Ron Martinelli wrote an opinion piece this spring that has appeared in a growing number of newspapers and other publications. Now it has gone viral on the Internet.
Dr. Martinelli is a nationally recognized forensic criminologist specializing in police/corrections practices, who is also an adjunct professor of Forensic Science at an accredited university and holds a number of current certifications in forensics and law enforcement. He has based his life on facts, hearsay has no place in criminal forensics, and I am of the mind every American should read it and wonder out loud where do we go from here.
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THE DEMISE OF CALIFORNIA, written by Dr. Ron Martinelli.
I sit in the LAX terminal after concluding business in downtown Los Angeles for the past two days, I cannot help but reflect upon my journey from once a California native to a new resident of the Great State of Texas and why. You see, in my personal and professional opinion, the once great State of California has in essence become a third world country.
Third World Country – “The concept of the “third world” has evolved to describe countries that suffer from low economic development, high levels of poverty and little to no ability to utilize natural or economic resources.” --attributed to French demographer Alfred Sauvey, 1952
While the reasons for California’s ever-spiraling downwards status from 1st World economic prominence and prosperity to near 3rd World malaise are many; I will assert that when you combine uber-liberal politicians, with rich elitist Hollywood celebrities, dotcom CEO billionaires, disengaged millennials and illegal aliens; you in effect create the circumstances where your city or state becomes a 3rd World environment.
The process of California’s demise from the “Golden State” to 3rd World status has been slow but steady; supported and enabled by the aforementioned actors. While much of the legislated changes for the worse have been designed and voted in by politicians in Sacramento; municipal politicians and a complicit uninformed, naive and entitled voting public must also share blame. After all, when 51% of those on some type of government subsidy out-vote the 49% of the money earning and tax paying citizenry, any state is doomed to failure. With California now a “Sanctuary State” and their ‘libtard Democratic state legislature pushing for voting rights for illegal aliens, the state will never recover. My thoughts exactly. California is finished.
My observations during my short visit to Los Angeles underscored many of the problems Californians are facing as they follow like lemmings their Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, their Democratic legislators and urban mayors like Eric Garretti off the economic cliff.
Literally nothing substantive is good about L.A. An ever-growing homeless subculture populates the downtown area. The intoxicated, drug influenced, mentally impaired and criminals are everywhere. They literally surround Civic Center, federal buildings and courts – the so-called foundations and protectors of the Rule of Law and society. How ironic to be surrounded by the failures these very systems, liberal politicians and judges have created. Isn’t karma interesting to watch in real time?
The homeless, numbering in the thousands, sleep in the shadows of immense, gleaming edifices owned by multi-billion dollar international conglomerates and dotcom corporations. Business executives in Brioni suits and workers quickly pass by the unwashed masses, while holding their noses to screen out the stench of urine and feces. The obvious health and safety hazards to the public are too many to count.
Interconnecting Los Angeles city roadways and state highways designed to transport the commuting, tax paying public to their job sites are a debacle. The ribbons of roadways are a mess of potholed, weed infested, trash laden, graffiti vandalized passages filled with vehicles lined up bumper-to-bumper going nowhere fast. These are your tax dollars at work. While California voters grumble and groan, in the end they just seem to accept their fate as one of the prices to pay for living the California dream.
You see, the working public has no time to get out and protest the outrageous and constant increases in taxes on gas, municipal services, vehicle registrations, rapid transit and a bullet train going to nowhere. Only the unemployed, government subsidized masses have time to demonstrate in the streets to ensure that their subsidies continue. Since the liberal politicians in Sacramento know this dynamic and their power base all too well, the taxation without representation continues.
I was staying at a hotel near LAX and my mileage commute to downtown L.A. was a mere twelve miles. However, it took me every bit of one hour and twenty minutes to arrive at my destination. I then paid $20 for the privilege of parking my car in a public lot. Of course, this was after I paid $30 a day to park my rental car at my hotel. Nice. I’m seriously considering Uber next time.
Since I frequently travel throughout California on business, I will tell you that Los Angeles is a mirror image of all of the other large urban cities in the state. I have observed similar and even worse depressed and dysfunctional urban environments in the San Francisco Bay Area, Orange County, San Diego and a number of other cities.
California is rapidly becoming a two-tiered society of the very rich and the very poor, similar to the 2nd and 3rd World countries I regularly visit. The middle class, small business owners and the retired are either being pushed out of state and/or escaping in droves to such tax free, business friendly and less crime ridden states such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Lame duck Gov. Moonbeam and the state’s liberal Democratic legislature know this. They just don’t care because their power base is now assured. Just ask any of their castrated, powerless Republican colleagues.
There will never again be a Republican administration in California. The days of Ronald Reagan have long passed. The candidates lining up for the governor’s race in 2018 were Open Borders and Sanctuary State advocates Anthony Villaraigosa and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom.
(NOTE: Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom Won a landslide victory with 61.3% of the vote, the biggest victory in a gubernatorial race in California since 1950, and the first time Democrats have won three consecutive gubernatorial elections in California history.
Here are just some of things Californian’s have done in recent years to turn their state into a 3rd World mess. Passed Proposition 47 which has since freed tens of thousands of felons from state prisons and county jails back into communities. Prop. 47 also eviscerated the parole enforcement agency and created a system where police on the streets can’t even enforce outstanding felony and misdemeanor warrants anymore.
Police no longer arrest people for being under the influence of dangerous drugs. What would be the point; it’s just a misdemeanor. They have reduced the crime of auto theft to a citable misdemeanor. Steal a car; get caught and get a ticket. Commit non-violent crimes, get arrested and you are out the same day with a promise to appear in court that will not ever be enforced. No warrant enforcement, remember? Amazing!
California’s new “Sanctuary State” status supports and enables its Open Borders mentality. Police in a number of cities such as San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles are ordered not to assist ICE with border enforcement. Remember the Kate Steinle murder case where her five-time convicted criminal and deported illegal alien was acquitted? Well, that’s the political mentality that created that circumstance. This is also an excellent example that liberal politicians in California are willing to sacrifice the innocent to demonstrate that they support violent illegal alien criminals.
What happens in California’s larger cities filters down to its medium and small sized cities as well. I recently wrote about the city of Salinas, CA that experienced an incredible 150% increase in its homicide rate from 2014 – 2015. Salinas rated as one of the nation’s 30 most violent cities. Fifty percent of all of their murders were gang and drug related, with the predominate gang members being illegal aliens. I can only wonder how Silicon Valley dot-commers’ who are paying over half a million bucks for a home and commute over four hours a day to San Jose like living in that violent environment?
Which brings me back to why my successful business-owner wife and I escaped to Texas. The state loves us. No commute problems, no state taxes and we live in an area where there is little to no crime. Our area just outside of San Antonio has some of the best school districts in the U.S.; high employment, great people and lots of fun things to do.
My wife and I live a great life on a ranch with a river in our backyard where we can fish, swim, kayak and BBQ with family and neighbors anytime we want. The price? Less than you would pay for a one bedroom studio condo in any of the cities in California I’ve mentioned. New home buyers only need three percent down to purchase a home and veterans make no down payments. If you are a younger middle-classer, a small business owner or retired, you’d be nuts to remain in California.
With California over a trillion dollars in debt and 30% of their budget going to subsidizing illegal aliens at the expense of hard-working, taxpayers who have little to no voice on how their state is run, the state and the majority of their citizens are doomed. That’s what a two-tiered society eventually creates. One heck of a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!
The truth is blatantly obvious... and yet the left STILL turns a blind eye. I say let this Titanic sink…
People need to wake up…
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Did you catch that? One trillion dollars in debt with no possible way to repay it, certainly not with a whopping 30 percent of the state’s budget financing illegals, and above all else, a wacky group of politicians who think illegals should have a right to vote.
I checked Snopes, Google, Truth or Fiction for Martinelli and could find no entries affirming or debunking this paper the man allegedly wrote. But I believe, based on the anguish and disappointment his story brought out in California, it rang true. What sold me were the heavy comments made, and justified by signature. There people have no reason to circumvent or alter the truth, but every good and wholesome reason to assure that the truth be heard.