California and Zimbabwe

[Chen019]

Mark Steyn on worrying signs described by Davis Hanson:

I enjoy Victor Davis Hanson best when he’s writing about the California he loves and which his family has farmed for generations. Okay, “enjoy” isn’t exactly the word; it’s ineffably sad stuff. But he’s covering something that’s as relevant to the future of this nation as deficits and debt ceilings. “Where Dreams Die” concludes with a bleak list of some recent visitors to the Hanson homestead in “the center of our cry-the-beloved state”:

*May 2011: two males drive in “looking to buy scrap metal.” They are politely told to leave. That night barn is burglarized and $1200 in property stolen.

Later May 2011: a female drives in van into front driveway with four males, “just looking to rent” neighbor’s house. They leave. Only later I learn they earlier came in the back way and had forced their way in, prying the back driveway gate, springing and bending armature.

Later May 2011: shop is burglarized — both bolt and padlock knocked off. Shelves stripped clean.*

Victor adds:

It is the little things like this that aggravate Californians, especially when lectured not to sweat it by the academics on the coast and the politicians in Sacramento.

I can believe it. That “cry-the-beloved” line is an allusion to Alan Paton’s now mostly unread novel about South Africa. But my thoughts strayed further north, to the white farmers in post-independence Zimbabwe. First, you get some oddly determined visitors and attendant burglaries. Then, the intimidation gets ratcheted up. Your farmhands get beaten. The local authorities take down the details and do nothing. Then you or your wife and kids get beaten, or shot. You sell your land for a fraction of what you would have got a few years earlier. And, if you don’t, you get driven off it anyway. Or killed.

White Rhodesians were the planet’s favorite pariahs for a long time, so nobody cares what happens to them. But it’s strange to see the same scenario starting to play out in the Golden State – and in parts of Arizona, too. Where next? Texas? Border immigration on the scale of the south-west is not about people moving but about borders moving. Less enlightened regions of the world understand this as they understand the sun rising in the morning, but it all seems too complicated for Californian sophisticates.

Victor calls what’s happening to him “a clue to what’s ahead”. It certainly seems a safe bet that these trends will not diminish over the course of the next decade in an ever more debt-ridden state ruled by kleptocrat commissars far from the sharp end of their policy consequences. When widespread impoverishment meets demographic transformation, you’re not going to want to be standing anywhere near. I suppose his friends on the Stanford campus 180 miles away assume, consciously or otherwise, that, when it comes to their own neighborhood, they’ll be able to hold the line.

[Gorsnak]

Illegal Mexican immigrants are going to violently drive out white Californian property owners? Really?

Good lord you’re a moron.

[Dr.Drake]

What is your point? The story itself is pretty mundane: look! Opportunistic thieves in a bad economy! The analysis, though, is disturbingly racist.

250 years ago there weren’t any white people in California. 50 years ago they were the majority. 50 years in the future they will be the minority. So what? That in and of itself says nothing about the quality of life in the state.

I’m white. I was born in California. The state has a ton of problems, but people coming from Mexico or points south isn’t one of them. Speaking Spanish isn’t one of them. Those actually enrich the state. Racist morons who lazily simplify complex problems by blaming the nearest brown person… those are the kind of people who should be expeled.

[Chen019]

@Dr.Drake

What is your point? The story itself is pretty mundane: look! Opportunistic thieves in a bad economy! The analysis, though, is disturbingly racist.

250 years ago there weren’t any white people in California. 50 years ago they were the majority. 50 years in the future they will be the minority. So what? That in and of itself says nothing about the quality of life in the state.

I’m white. I was born in California. The state has a ton of problems, but people coming from Mexico or points south isn’t one of them. Speaking Spanish isn’t one of them. Those actually enrich the state. Racist morons who lazily simplify complex problems by blaming the nearest brown person… those are the kind of people who should be expeled.

I don’t think they’re blaming Indian immigrants. It’s not a case of just blaming brown people, but the importation of poverty through massive unskilled immigration.

Fifty-seven percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 18) used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children (which is alarmingly high in itself). The highest rates are for families headed by an immigrant from the Dominican Republic (82 percent using welfare) and Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent). The states with the highest rates are Arizona, Texas, California, and New York (61–62 percent) — which, unfortunately, are also the top states of immigrant settlement. For immigrant households with four or more children, 81 percent are using welfare, as are 80 percent of households with children that are headed by an immigrant without a high school degree.

[Inbred_Mm_domesticus]

If I understand it right, among racists, fetishizing Rhodesian whites is the cause du jour?

[Dr.Drake]

@Chen019

I don’t think they’re blaming Indian immigrants. It’s not a case of just blaming brown people, but the importation of poverty through massive unskilled immigration.

Okay, but much of the state’s economy is driven by unskilled or low-skill labor (agriculture, construction, service industries). Further, back when the educational system was working, “unskilled (uneducated)” only lasted half a generation. The young immigrants put their kids into the school system and fifteen years later, they [=the kids] were just as educated and skilled as any other Californian.

I repeat: what is your point? Do you really think that Mexicans are causing the collapse of California, as opposed to say an unwieldy legislative process, insane real estate prices, pathetically under-supported education at K-12 and university levels, a decaying ill-maintained infrastructure, and other really obvious factors?

[Chen019]

@Dr.Drake

Okay, but much of the state’s economy is driven by unskilled or low-skill labor (agriculture, construction, service industries). Further, back when the educational system was working, “unskilled (uneducated)” only lasted half a generation. The young immigrants put their kids into the school system and fifteen years later, they were just as educated and skilled as any other Californian.

I repeat: what is your point? Do you really think that Mexicans are causing the collapse of California, as opposed to say an unwieldy legislative process, insane real estate prices, pathetically under-supported education at K-12 and university levels, a decaying ill-maintained infrastructure, and other really obvious factors?

The problem isn’t the educational system, it’s the students.

Unskilled immigration isn’t the only problem, but it is a factor as the overall skill level of the population is falling and that will lead to future economic losses.

[Der_Trihs]

Yawn. Another “the Mexicans are coming to take over California” screed. It’s not like I’ve never heard that before. :rolleyes:

Perhaps next you can warn us of the Yellow Peril.

[Try2B_Comprehensive]

I guess the analogy is that Cecil Rhodes et. al. drove out the natives of Zimbabwe essentially for plunder, and later the beneficiaries got their collective assess kicked by said natives.

President Polk et. al. invaded Mexico and secured its surrender, then tossed 'em $10 million so America could say the ‘purchase’ of California and the West/Southwest was not a conquest, in the name of Manifest Destiny.

So now, are the natives going to rise up and take over what they lost in the US?

Seems to me this is a case of ‘At some point in history, genocidal conquests were considered okay if you could pull it off.’ The California case seems to occur before that line (and also be perhaps less genocidal/racist), and in any case is probably a far more complex situation than Zimbabwe, which kind of straddles the line and was the victim of a sole identifiable agent (no Spanish, for instance).

And Zimbabwe was poor. The US is the beneficiary of the kinds of factions which plundered Zimbabwe, and also the world’s wealthiest nation.

My 8-ball says, ‘Does Not Compare, Try Again.’

[Dr.Drake]

@Chen019

The problem isn’t the educational system, it’s the students.

Could you clarify your point? I appreciate that including a link is easier than writing out a whole sentence, but you’re making me guess what you mean. This link seems to be advocating a free-market approach to education, which as far as I can see has nothing to do with the parents’ labor skills or even the family ethnicity.

So when you say “the problem… 's the students,” what on earth do you mean?
I genuinely don’t know.

[Chen019]

@Dr.Drake

Okay, but much of the state’s economy is driven by unskilled or low-skill labor (agriculture, construction, service industries). Further, back when the educational system was working, “unskilled (uneducated)” only lasted half a generation. The young immigrants put their kids into the school system and fifteen years later, they [=the kids] were just as educated and skilled as any other Californian.

I repeat: what is your point? Do you really think that Mexicans are causing the collapse of California, as opposed to say an unwieldy legislative process, insane real estate prices, pathetically under-supported education at K-12 and university levels, a decaying ill-maintained infrastructure, and other really obvious factors?

Actually, this post is more succinct in debunking the bad schools argument.

[Dr.Drake]

@Chen019

Actually, this post is more succinct in debunking the bad schools argument.

Thank you for that, but is there some reason you can’t just make your fucking point? I gather you’re objecting to my characterization of the schools as “pathetically under-supported.” I don’t think either of your sources truly addresses that argument, much less rebuts it.

[Chen019]

@Dr.Drake

Thank you for that, but is there some reason you can’t just make your fucking point? I gather you’re objecting to my characterization of the schools as “pathetically under-supported.” I don’t think either of your sources truly addresses that argument, much less rebuts it.

Under-supported compared to which schools? If you look at the Super Economy link you’ll see that they are actually better funded than European or Asian schools! Also, see here for OECD data.

[Chen019]

@Dr.Drake

Could you clarify your point? I appreciate that including a link is easier than writing out a whole sentence, but you’re making me guess what you mean. This link seems to be advocating a free-market approach to education, which as far as I can see has nothing to do with the parents’ labor skills or even the family ethnicity.

So when you say “the problem… 's the students,” what on earth do you mean?
I genuinely don’t know.

I mean that student ability, attitude and motivation is the problem, not the schools resourcing.

[Miller]

We don’t have all that many rules about OPs here in the Pit, but we do require that you actually have an OP. Try again when you can muster something beyond a link and a block of quoted text.