In theory, California should be the greatest place in the world. You’ve got beautiful year-round weather, a wonderful Mediterranean climate that keeps the skies clear and blue while making rain and oppressive humidity a rarity. You have hundreds of miles of coastline, but you also have mountains, redwood forests, natural wonders (like Big Sur and Yosemite), and even deserts.
California is truly one of the most incredible places on the planet–if not the most incredible place on the planet. I was just there not a few months ago, and I love it. It’s absolutely beautiful.
There is a reason it is America’s most populous state, and that its population over the past 100 years has gone from about 3.5 million to nearly 40 million. This is truly impressive when you think about it. Consider that the population of New York State over the past 100 years has increased from 10 million to about 20 million.
California is on the west coast. It was the 31st state admitted to the Union, back in 1850. States on the east coast, meanwhile, got more than a 200-year head start on California when you consider when the first colonists (Pilgrims) arrived on these shores. The Northeast region of America was the first to be settled and colonized by the early Europeans, and American civilization spread from east to west. Although the Spanish had established settlements and missions in California as early as the 1500s, the territory remained sparsely populated for many, many years compared to the east coast.
And yet still, despite the eastern states having a multi-century head start on California, California has become the nation’s most populous state. And it’s not even close, either: Texas, the second-most populous state, has a population of about 29 million, still about 10 million behind California.
It took a while for Americans to recognize the inherent desirability of living in California given the difficulty of Westward Expansion, but people have flocked there in droves since basically the moment they had the means of doing so. It did not take people long to realize that California was the best place to live on this continent.
I say all this because I want to make it clear that when I post about what an utter disaster California has become, I am not doing so with any sort of glee or enjoyment.
It is nothing less than a tragedy what the Democrats have done to California. California should be the greatest place in the world to live, but instead, the worst people in the world have turned it into a dystopian laboratory for their twisted social, political, economic and environmental experiments.
Look at this:
Just leave your trunk open so that when the thieves inevitably come to rob you, they don’t have to smash the windows to do so. Makes it less of a hassle for all parties involved.
This is capitulation.
The war on crime is over: crime won.
Of course, it hasn’t always been like this. California has not always had this type of crime problem. It’s happening because the politicians in control have gone soft on crime. They’re letting it happen.
Things have gotten so out of control in California that wealthy aristocrats in Beverly Hills are now arming themselves in response to the surge in violent crime:
“I’ve always been anti-gun,” said Debbie Mizrahie of Beverly Hills. “But I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family. We’re living in fear.”
Even the limousine liberals–the most out-of-touch group of people in the entire country–are getting a reality check.
During Black Lives Matter protests last year, Mizrahie told The Post, her neighbor’s home was firebombed with Molotov cocktails.
“My kids were outside and they saw a huge explosion,” she said. “[The neighbor’s] backyard went up in smoke. Trees burned down … But it’s only gotten worse. Beverly Hills has been targeted.”
Mizrahie, a 40-something mother of two teenagers, isn’t alone. Ever since the protests last year descended into riots and lootings, a growing number of Beverly Hills residents have been buying weapons.
“It’s gotten to a point where residents feel insecure even going from their door to their car,” said resident Shirley Reitman. “A lot of residents are applying for a concealed carry weapon permit, even though that’s a great challenge in LA County.”
According to LA County Sheriff Alejandro Villanueva, the department has received 8,105 concealed carry weapon applications and approved 2,102 of them since he took office in December 2018, compared to his predecessor having issued 194 permits in four years.
“Even hardcore leftist Democrats who said to me in the past, ‘I’ll never own a gun’ are calling me asking about firearms,” said Joel Glucksman, a private security executive. “I’d say there has been an increase of 80 percent in the number of requests I’m getting this year.”
When reality collides head-on with a person’s ideological fantasy world, reality usually wins.
These people can talk all they want about how “Guns Are Bad!” but when the crime is in their neighborhood, they all want guns.
“What you’re seeing is the spillover into these communities of crime and violence,” explained LA police officer Steve Robinson. “Before, you would never hear of a robbery or a shooting [In Beverly Hills], or if you did, it was once or twice a year. In 2020, the Beverly Hills Police Department pulled 18 guns off Rodeo Drive. You go back any year before that, and it may have been zero to one or two.”
That trend increased last week, Glucksman said, after a beloved philanthropist, Jacqueline Avant, was killed in her home.
“The killing of Avant shows that even having a security guard isn’t enough to deter someone,” said Mizrahie. The victim and her husband, legendary music executive Clarence Avant, had a private security guard on duty when she was killed around 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 1.
Ironically, hours after Avant was killed, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón “distributed a fundraising letter seeking to overturn a law that would keep her [alleged] killer in prison,” according to the Washington Examiner.
The bill he was pushing for would eliminate additional prison time for using a gun during a crime.
Being more concerned about the killer than the victim is so irrational and so outrageous that it cannot be the product of mere stupidity: it has to be part of a deliberate effort to increase crime and terrorize the law-abiding regular folk.
Critics already blame Gascón for releasing many violent offenders with few restrictions. Last year, he eliminated cash bail for many offenses.
“It’s like we’ve been taken over by gang members and criminals because they know that Gascón is going to make sure he doesn’t prosecute them,” said one woman, a writer in the entertainment industry, who did not want to be identified. “He’s saying, ‘Hey, go out and rob someone for $900 worth. Get arrested, go back out on the street.”
A California ballot initiative, passed in 2014, allows the theft of items up to $950 before the crime counts as a felony, as well as the possession of three grams of hard drugs including meth. The combination, say law enforcement, has been toxic.
“It’s a revolving door at the back end because the DA doesn’t want to prosecute and got rid of cash bail,” said Glucksman. “So now police are saying to [private security firms], ‘Hey, I understand they’re trespassing, but we don’t want to take that arrest, because there’s nothing that’s going to be done. It’s a waste of our time and it’s a waste of money for us to expend the energy and take care of things that aren’t going to be attended to by the courts and legal system.’ The DA is sitting there going, ‘Nope, pop this one out the window. It’s not like they stabbed somebody or they murdered somebody or raped somebody.’”
Generally when things go to shit, the wealthy hire private security firms and cloister themselves in secluded, gated communities.
But now even this isn’t working in California. It’s not a matter, like in some other countries, where crime is so rampant and corruption is so deep that the police are simply overwhelmed by the criminals. No, what’s happening here in America is the DAs are letting it all happen–in fact they’re promoting it.
More than 1,800 people have been shot in Los Angeles in 2021, up from 1,530 in 2020. Homicides in LA rose nearly 50 percent, from 161 to 236, between January to October of 2020 and 2021.
There had been 361 homicides in LA in 2021 as of Dec. 9. That’s still a far cry from the peak: 1,984 homicides in 1991.
I’m going to assume this was predominantly gang related. The late 1980s/ early 1990s was the heyday of the crack epidemic and the gang wars in South Central. In other words, the wealthy were far removed from it.
But longtime residents of Los Angeles said they were less affected by violence in decades past.
“I don’t ever remember crime being so high,” the entertainment writer said. “We used to leave our doors unlocked. I would leave my keys in the car with the door unlocked. Not anymore. We’re seeing not just burglaries but also robberies. We are seeing emboldened gang members and criminals holding guns to people’s heads.”
Last week, two armed robbers invaded a holiday party at a house in Pacific Palisades and took a watch, jewelry and phones from startled guests.
“Everyone I know is anxious about going out to dinner,” said the entertainment writer. “People are afraid to wear their wedding band. They’re afraid to wear a watch. They’re afraid to carry not just an expensive bag but any name-brand bag. I keep wondering, are people going to get used to this level of crime?”
That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
Beverly Hills and surrounding neighborhoods like Brentwood and Bel-Air are famously home to liberal celebrities. People interviewed on Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive wanted me to know that they are very concerned about racism and police brutality.
But the killing of Avant was a wake-up call. “My industry is filled with progressives who have the luxury of being idealists and espousing philosophies they they thought would never come back and bite them,” said the entertainment writer, who is in her early 60s. “There’s a shift now that it’s become so much more dangerous.”
The liberals always love to talk about “privilege.” But the greatest privilege of all is being able to be a liberal in the first place. It requires a complete and total disconnect from reality and living at a distanced from the real-world results of the policies you push.
She mentioned a robbery on Nov. 30 in Hancock Park, a tony neighborhood south of Hollywood, when two men robbed a woman with a baby at gunpoint.
Glucksman said some criminals are sober and deliberate but many others are addicts and more reckless, breaking into cars randomly.
“Some are carrying around bats with them,” he said. “Three or four years ago my guys would see something like that once every couple of months but now we are now dealing with it on a daily basis, multiple times a day.”
After Glucksman’s guards arrest a suspected criminal, they turn them over to LA police and file a report.
“We are finding vagrants totally plastered out of their minds in private residential areas where our clients are and we have to call the paramedics to take them to the hospital because they were non-responsive [on drugs],” said Glucksman. “This is happening multiple times a week.”
Gascón has reduced the LA County jail population by nearly one-third, from around 17,000 to 12,000. The California prison population declined from 127,000 in January 2019 to 99,000 in July 2021.
You do stuff like this either because you’re completely delusional and believe every criminal is a victim of an unjust system, or because you are deliberately trying to make society less safe.
“Unfortunately, for the majority of people released from prison,” noted Glucksman, “it’s harder for them to find jobs than others. They’re without skills or an education. Nobody wants to hire them. So … they’re going to return back to their old ways.”
On Wednesday, Gascón held a press conference defending his controversial rollbacks on bail and and additional time for using a gun during a crime, as well as charging juveniles as adults.
“We have set a path for ourselves,” said Gascón, “and turned around the criminal legal system in the country in a way that will be more humane, more equitable and, above all, will create a safer environment for all of us.”
Yes. EQUITY. That’s the important thing.
Wealthy people in Beverly Hills aren’t exposed to as much crime and violence as people in South Central are, so in order to be EQUITABLE, we must ensure that everyone in LA county is living in fear and terrorized by constant crime and violence.
Critics called [Gascon’s] remarks “tone-deaf.”
Few people interviewed by The Post, including police, said they favored mass incarceration. “You shouldn’t be in jail for the rest of your life,” said police officer Robinson. “But if the three offenses happened to be violent offenses, the probability is that you probably have committed at least 30 crimes of the same nature and they haven’t been caught.”
Right. Isn’t there a middle-ground between throwing people in jail for possessing a little baggy of weed and completely emptying the prisons? Those two extremes can’t be our only options, right?
Beverly Hills residents have organized themselves, block-by-block and in nine city zones, for self-defense. The emergency preparedness committees, Just in Case Beverly Hills, were started by Vera Markowitz, a former 1960s radical who was a member of the New Left Students for a Democratic Society before moving to Beverly Hills.
This is awesome.
Maybe the libs can learn. Maybe they can see the light, one day.
One hopes it won’t be too late when they finally do, of course.
Today, she views public safety and fighting discrimination as two sides of the same coin. “Two years ago I got rid of the Beverly Hills police chief because she had cost the city $25 million in lawsuits by former police officers alleging that she was racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic,” said Markowitz.
(The police chief has stated that she retired.)
The entertainment writer and her retired business exec husband, meanwhile, organized neighbors to hire private security. “We got all these homes to buy in way more than I anticipated,” she said. “But it turned out there wasn’t private security available. There is complete panic out there.”
Security firms charge between $2,000 to $4,000 a month to patrol neighborhoods. “A lot of people are mad about it because people moved here in part because of the police and we’re paying a lot of money in taxes to be in Beverly Hills,” said the retired business executive.
$2000-$4000 a month to patrol neighborhoods? I feel like they could charge a lot more than that in Beverly Hills, no?
The residents have a right to be mad, though: they shouldn’t be having to hire private security to do the police force’s job.
But that’s what happens when you put Democrats in power. Wealthy people in Detroit have been doing this for years already.
Beverly Hills Police Department is under-staffed and just hired five new officers to make up for the 17 it lacked to meet the minimum required for public safety. That’s still a blip compared to LA, which has 500 fewer police officers today than it did this time last year.
Demonize the police and this is what happens. You cannot wage a year-long campaign of violence, looting and demagoguery against police and still expect them to want to protect your communities.
Private security executive Bryce Eddy runs Covered Six. One of his clients is the city of Beverly Hills, which hired his firm in June of 2020 after looters smashed store windows on Rodeo Drive.
“The police were overwhelmed,” said Eddy. “In October 2020 we were out there with 22 vehicles and 40 armed guys per shift for 80 armed guys a day. We reduced crime by almost 40 percent. They kept us on until January. After we left, crime spiked back up 90 percent.”
In February, three alleged gang members stole a $500,000 Richard Mille RM 11-03 Flyback Chronograph watch off the arm of a man eating lunch at the Beverly Hills restaurant Il Pastaio. The same month, criminals robbed seven people of their Rolexes in neighborhoods bordering Beverly Hills.
In response, the city hired Eddy’s firm again. “We’ve been back ever since,” he said.
Watch theft: the final straw.
This is what it takes to get the wealthy white liberals to finally see the light.
I guess I’ll take it.
Los Angeles’ progressive city government reduced the LA Police Department’s budget by $150 million in July, lowering its staff to its lowest level in 12 years. Today, LA has 500 fewer police officers than it did at this time last year.
The irony is that cutting police budgets, noted LAPD officer Steve Robinson, “means less training, which means we are going in the opposite direction. And criminals on the streets are more emboldened.”
There is now a bipartisan recall campaign underway that could remove Gascón from office, and all of the fearful Beverly Hill residents interviewed by The Post said they supported it.
Good. Fuck that guy.
“I think I’m still radical,” said Markowitz, “but I’m radical in the middle. I’m just not on the extreme of anything. I’ve always believed that when you believe in something, you fight for whatever it is.”
Yes. This is how it should be. If there is a problem, we work together to find the best objective solution to that problem without being blinded by ideology and partisan bias.
If the left has the better solution, we go with that. If the right has the better solution, we go with that. Very simple.
Ideology, on the other hand, is poison. Ideology is immune from facts, results and reality.
Ideology is when you, the Soros-funded DA of LA county, say, “You know, the real problem in this city is that we have too many people locked up. I’m sure they’re mostly innocent men wrongly incarcerated by a racist and unfair legal system.”
And the cops say, “Uh, that’s a bad idea.”
But then you, the Soros-funded DA of LA county, go ahead and empty the prisons anyway, causing a surge of crime and Purge-level anarchy in the city, and it doesn’t trouble you one bit, because you were acting in pursuit of higher ideals like racial Equity™ and Social Justice™ (and white guilt.)
Ideology is when you only care about implementing the policy, not about whether the policy actually makes society better.
For example, if you are a self-described advocate for “Criminal Justice Reform” and you believe we should eliminate cash bail, you will push and push and push and march and protest for the elimination of cash bail until you finally get it. But then, when the policy you fought for ends up causing a spike in crime, you don’t give a shit: you consider the spike in crime a price worth paying because you still have a fanatical ideological obsession with the idea of getting rid of cash bail. You are in love with the idea, even if the idea put into practice is a disaster.
That is is the essence of being an ideologue, right there.
It’s ultimately about turning your fantasies and ideas into reality, regardless of how they actually affect other people’s lives.
Ideologues are, at base, an extreme narcissists–they think the world should be built in their vision, and don’t care if their policies negatively impact people’s lives. They don’t care if their policies run head-long into reality, because they have a deep conviction that reality should conform to their ideology, not the other way around.
Ideologues are very dangerous people. They are delusional and insane.
Ideologues are the ones who have ruined California.
However, it is a good sign that even the white wealthy liberals of Beverly Hills–perhaps the most out-of-touch class of people in the entire country– are starting to wake up.