How can you be so crazy ?

When reading my previous post, the question comes to me. What on earth, and what in particular in this post, could cause anyone to justify splitting up such a wonderful country as the United States?

The United States is renowned throughout the world for having been a values and has acted boldy to end two World Wars in Europe and stood up against Communism. It is seen as the leader of the free world.

The question: How can you be so crazy suggests several possibilities: that the person in question may have a diseased mind, or that they have an overfertile imagination or simply that the position is unreasonable. I will reject the first two objections and retain the third.

I say I am not unreasonable because we are losing our values on which our country was built on, we are wasting time, and we are failing to listen to the warning signs from our own children.

Our country was founded as good example of the Judeo-Christian moral system, an excellent work ethic, and political democracy. I claim that for several decades these three values have been slowly eroding.

I say we are wasting time because of an across the board consensus on our foreign and fiscal policy and free trade. We are also wasting time because of an excessive polarization on other issues, specifically the culture wars. We are wasting time because we are unable to adapt our Constitution to the realities of todays world and there is breakdown of the separation of powers and our federal system.

We are not listening to our own children. When I grew up I earned of the existence of dissidents in the Soviet Union, such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vaclav Havel, and Andrei Sakharov. While there were people outside of the political mainline in the United States, the idea of an individual dissident did not make sense. Today we find these dissidents in the Western world and they are young people. This is a bad sign, like a canary in a coal mine.

What is the California Question

The question California is facing is whether or not it will remain in the United States under a changed status or become an independent country.

In a little more than 200 years since it was settled, California has undergone amazing developments first under Mexico and then as part of the United States of America.

These include the building of the transcontinental railroad, the founding of Stanford University, and the creation of world class companies such as Apple and Google.

One out of 200 people in the world lives in California and the population is growing rapidly. The population of California is expected to reach 60 million by the year 2060. There is an incredible diversity and it is possible to hear dozens of languages being spoken in the streets of Los Angeles.

People come to California to start a new life. We thank Almighty God for our freedom in the first words of our State Constitution.

Recently California has been going through some growing pains.

A nuclear reactor in Southern California had to be shut down at a cost of billions of dollars because badly designed boilers were bought from Japan.

California used to have the best high schools in the United States. The University of California is still one of the best universities. Today there are many problems in school today, including unequal opportunities based on racial or economic factors, and a lack of opportunity for those that are able to graduate from the University of California. Our best students are from China not L.A.

There is a worsening drought and the state government seems incapable of adopting common sense measures. A pistachio costs a gallon of water to grow but the government can do nothing.

Mayor Chuck Reed of San Jose tried to reform public service pensions and got little thanks for trying.

We need to put people into school not into prison. A friend of mine's son, Aaron Swartz, was hounded to death by the federal government for doing the kind of stupid thing I did when I was young.

We have a growing young population, a culture of tolerance, good weather, and populations from around the world with good moral values.

What is needed is that people of good will that are willing to think out of the box get together to propose solutions. We need to break down walls. Class, racial, or political barriers should not prevent us from working together. Only a lack of integrity is unacceptable.

The example of Poland and the civil society in the 1970's is an excellent one. The present situation is untenable, long term. Our elected Washington officials seem to be simply unaware of what is happening.

We need to give young people hope, not false promises. There will be a reckoning.