I guess I’ll just come out and admit that I am bi, in the sense that I live both in America and in California. The part of America that I live in some of the time is called Texas; you may have heard of it. When I live in Texas, my governor is Greg Abbott, a conservative Republican, who has made the Lone Star State a magnet for people like me. And when I live in California, my governor is a walking, talking pinko hairstyle with all the gravitas of a hunk of moist balsa wood. Gavin Newsom is laughable, but what he’s done to the Golden State is certainly not. He presided over its ruin.
Perhaps we should compare and contrast my two abodes, because how they differ is a graphic demonstration of how America’s competing ideologies differ. Texas is one of several states, like Florida, that shows you what America can be. And California is a cautionary example of the amazing power of socialism – nothing else could take a place so beautiful, with so many natural resources and advantages, and turn it into a roiling cesspool of social pathologies.
Let’s look at how the two states measure up in a number of categories, some foundational and some simply interesting.
Texas is against crime. Oh, there’s still crime. There are places I wouldn’t walk in Houston without a gun, and when I’m in Texas, I am never without a gun since it’s a free state instead of a nanny state dictatorship. Houston is a blue city surrounded by red, and it features a lot of the same problems you find anywhere Democrats have power. Gavin Newsom‘s social media team, a bunch of estrogen-fueled children with delusions of comic genius, takes pains to point out that crime in some red states exceeds crime in San Francisco. They never mentioned that the crime is all in the areas controlled by Democrats. I agree with their implied solution, which is that a competent state government should step in to take over for the incompetent municipal governments.
Of course, when we talk about crime, we’re not merely talking about statistics – and you can’t trust a single statistic from California. When normal people think of “crime,” they think of security, not just whether they’re personally going to be the 278th rape of the year, but whether they’re going to be hassled by some disheveled lunatic while walking out of Kroger’s. There’s a lot less of that here in Texas. It exists, except it is not tolerated the way it is in California. But hey, Gavin Newsom has a 10-year plan to end homelessness; I think we’re now on year 27.
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Texas also has a do-it-yourself solution to crime. You can carry a gun. Anybody can carry a gun if you are an adult and haven’t disqualified yourself through a criminal conviction or by being a nut. And I take advantage of that. I carry everywhere I go in Texas, except for the very, very few places where it’s forbidden. Those places are prominently marked with statutory signage. The weird thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody else with a gun out and about. People don’t open carry, at least not in the urban areas, and I don’t even see people printing their concealed weapons. It’s not a free-for-all of cowboys shooting things up. Rather, there is a calming sense that you know that if something goes terribly wrong – anti-criminal policies are not designed to end crime but to limit it to the minimum – other citizens can step in and help.
Not true in California. As an Army National Guard officer, I carried automatic weapons on the streets of Los Angeles. At one point, I commanded over 1,300 guys with automatic weapons in SoCal. But if I want to carry concealed, I must get the permission of some bureaucrat who probably doesn’t have a tenth of my experience. I might even have to get a psychological exam. I would have to wait for many months and pay through the nose, all to exercise my constitutional right. Until the US Supreme Court steps in and enforces the Second Amendment across the country, Texas has the advantage.
On crime, Gavin Newsom won’t let murderers be executed and frees killers sentenced to life without parole. In Texas, murder is illegal and they act like it. Advantage, Texas.
Let’s talk about people. Texans are nice, except when they drive. Californians are not hostile; they just have things to do. Californians are the best drivers in the world; if you find a bad driver in California he is an out-of-stater or an illegal alien, and yes, I can tell because I’m not going to pretend I can’t. Texas drivers are terrible, but not as bad as Boston. So, a tie.
How about natural beauty? Look, California is the most beautiful state in the union. It just is. No, Gavin Newsom had nothing to do with it – like all leftists, he is a cultural trust fund baby who inherited something wonderful and pretends he earned it. But there’s a lot of cool stuff in Texas. I particularly like the Hill Country; I will defer judgment on the new Texas wine country until I have a chance to do a little tasting. In any case, advantage, California.
Let’s talk about taxes. I remain a Cali resident, so I pay California’s income tax. It’s a boatload of money for which I largely get nothing, but then again, I’m not a deadbeat social parasite with my hand out and I’m also in this country legally. But Proposition 13 – which the Democrats hate, hate, hate, but don’t dare repeal – my property taxes are about 1% of my appraised value from when I bought my place. Texas has no state income tax, which will be nice when I someday become a resident. However, the property taxes are significantly higher than those in California. So, it sucks for me.
Let’s talk about the food scene. California used to be the center of the culinary universe, and it’s still very good for low-end eats (you must try Zankou Chicken before you die). It’s no longer that for high-end stuff. The food scenes in Houston and Dallas are incredible. And in the eternal conflict between In-N-Out Burger and Whataburger, while I like both, it’s obviously In-N-Out.
How about the people? In California, I live around a lot of rich blue goofs with those dumb “Hate has no home here” signs in front of their overpriced houses. They are tiresome. There are a few conservatives left, but most have gone. In Texas, there are a lot of great people. There are a lot of flags outside of houses; the American flag codes for cool. Now, in Texas, there are a lot of physically attractive people – I married one. California used to be known for that. Not anymore. California has become noticeably uglier. If you go to a fashionable restaurant in Hollywood, you’re not going to see people who look like movie stars anymore. They now all have that skuzzy, tatted-up influencer look; instead of asking you to read their screenplay, they’ll pester you to follow them on Instagram. Advantage, Texas.
How do they compare as places for business? Well, I had a company in California for nearly 30 years. It was a pain. In Texas, you’ve got businesses booming all over the place. And you’ve also got California businesses moving in. We never hear about anybody picking up from Texas and going west. But why would they? They can’t rely on the rule of law, public safety, or low taxes. They’ll get regulated into the ground. Sure, California still has Silicon Valley, for now. Elon Musk and others have already left, and more will follow. But this is just another example of California living off the past. The tech revolution started there (back when Gavin Newsom was about four, though he’ll take credit for it), and the infrastructure is there, so it’s going to persist for a while. But it’s not going to continue forever. People can’t buy houses because you can’t build new houses, and 10 million illegal aliens are competing for the housing stock that’s already there. California schools are a joke; you won’t learn to count, but you might learn that you’re the other gender. It’s just not a place for families. Texas, on the other hand, is.
Now let’s talk about vibe. What’s the feel of these two states? That’s important, because you naturally want to be someplace that’s exciting and vibrant. California used to be like that. I first moved there as a kid in 1972. I lived near San Francisco, growing up in the same town at the same time as Greg Gutfeld. I went to school in San Diego. After the Gulf War, I came back to live in Los Angeles. During those periods, California was fantastic. There was a sense of optimism. There was no sense of limitation. You could do what you wanted to do and be what you wanted to be. No wonder we were the place that Ronald Reagan called home.
But now, that’s all gone. You can feel the ennui everywhere. California is over. Everybody knows it. Everybody says it, sometimes with their mouths and sometimes with their feet when they move away. You get the sense that California is on the downslope, that things are only going to get worse, that it’s all going to come to an end. But you don’t feel that in Texas. There’s a sense of excitement and possibility there. Oh, I can’t demonstrate that objectively. Like I said, it’s a vibe. It’s completely subjective. Well, maybe not completely. The fact that people are moving here, rather than to California, is fairly conclusive evidence for my thesis.
Advantage, Texas.
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