Lighten up, California - North San Diego County Times

[question everything]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/01/30/opinion/editorials/1_29_0421_36_07.txt


No, it won't. That's the short answer to all those who are predicting doom for California. This imagined doom is coming in a number of ways, they say: too much growth, too much immigration, too much government spending, too many taxes, too much traffic, too many languages.

They're all wrong. Nothing will kill California. We've got problems, sure. Chief among them today is the enormous budget deficit. State government requires radical surgery. But nothing about our situation today, with the possible exception of that deficit, is unusual ---- for California.

(snip)


Let's not kid ourselves. California faces tremendous challenges. We always have. "The most important respect in which California differs from the other 47 states," McWilliams wrote, "(is) that California has not grown or evolved so much as it has been hurtled forward, rocket-fashion, by a series of chain-reaction explosions. The rhythm of the state's development is unlike that of the other states. ... In California the lights went on all at once, in a blaze, and they have never dimmed."

(snip)

As the presidential campaign heads our way next month, we'll be hearing more doomsaying. Take it with an enormous grain of salt. California will weather our budget crisis. We'll learn from it and we'll teach the rest of the country a thing or two along the way. Because, as McWilliams wrote, "California is no ordinary state."