I am starting to feel as if I am living in a Vandal state, perhaps on the frontier near Carthage around a.d. 530, or in a beleaguered Rome in 455. Here are some updates from the rural area surrounding my farm, taken from about a 30-mile radius. In this take, I am not so much interested in chronicling the flotsam and jetsam as in fathoming whether there is some ideology that drives it.
Last week an ancestral rural school near the Kings River had its large bronze bell stolen. I think it dated from 1911. I have driven by it about 100 times in the 42 years since I got my first license. The bell had endured all those years. Where it is now I don’t know. Does someone just cut up a beautifully crafted bell in some chop yard in rural Fresno County, without a worry about who forged it or why — or why others for a century until now enjoyed its presence?
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The city of Fresno is now under siege. Hundreds of street lights are out, their copper wire stripped away. In desperation, workers are now cementing the bases of all the poles — as if the original steel access doors were not necessary to service the wiring. How sad the synergy! Since darkness begets crime, the thieves achieve a twofer: The more copper they steal, the easier under cover of spreading night it is to steal more. Yet do thieves themselves at home with their wives and children not sometimes appreciate light in the darkness? Do they vandalize the street lights in front of their own homes?
In a small town two miles away, the thefts now sound like something out of Edward Gibbon’s bleaker chapters — or maybe George Miller’s Road Warrior,or the Hughes brothers’ more recent The Book of Eli. Hundreds of bronze commemorative plaques were ripped off my town’s public buildings (and with them all record of our ancestors’ public-spiritedness). I guess that is our version of Trotskyization.
The Catholic church was just looted (again) of its bronze and silver icons. Manhole covers are missing (some of the town’s own maintenance staff were arrested for this theft, no less!). The Little League clubhouse was ransacked of its equipment.
In short, all the stuff of civilization — municipal buildings, education, religion, transportation, recreation — seems under assault in the last year by the contemporary forces of barbarism. After several thefts of mail, I ordered a fortified, armored mailbox. I was ecstatic when I saw the fabricator’s Internet ad: On the video, someone with an AK-47 emptied a clip into it; the mail inside was untouched. I gleefully said to myself: “That’s the one for me.” And it has been so far. But I wonder: Do the thieves not like to get their own mail? Do their children not play Little League? Do they not want a priest at their funeral? Would they not like to drive their cars without worrying about holes in the street? Or is their thinking that a rich society can cover for their crimes without their crimes’ ever much affecting them — given that most others still do not act as they do?
I know it is popular to suggest that as we reach our sixties, everything seems “worse,” and, like Horace’s laudatores temporis acti, we damn the present in comparison to the past. Sorry, it just isn’t so. In 1961, 1971, and 1981, city street lights were not systematically de-wired. And the fact that plaques and bells of a century’s pedigree were just now looted attests that they all survived the Great Depression, the punks of the 1950s, and the crime-ridden 1970s.
A couple now in their early 90s lives about three miles away from me on their small farm. I have known them for 50 years; he went to high school with my mother, and she was my Cub Scout leader. They now live alone and have recently been robbed nine, yes, nine, times. He told me he is thinking of putting a sign out at the entrance to his driveway: “Go away! Nothing left! You’ve already taken everything we have.” Would their robbers appreciate someone else doing that to their own grandparents? Do the vandals have locks on their own doors against other vandals?
There is indeed something of the Dark Ages about all this. In the vast rural expanse between the Sierras and the Coast Ranges, and from Sacramento to Bakersfield, our rural homes are like stray sheep outside the herd, without whatever protection is offered by the density of a town. When we leave for a trip or just go into town, the predators swarm.
"In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line."
In Marin, there are gazillions of dollars spent "preserving Marin's agricultural heritage" (which is really more about fighting development.) Roughly 80% of the land in Marin is owned by the government-municipal, county, state and fed and most of this is as park or open space. Almost ALL of it. Yet the Marin Agricultural Land Trust keeps buying land to maintain its agricultural use. I would think if these MALT people REALLY cared about land in California being preserved for agriculture, they would set their sights on the Central ans San Joaquin Valleys. But they never will...
I used to enjoy driving driving down 5 and up 99 (or down 99 and up 5) because I found the central valley quite beautiful. Most of my fellow Marinites (Mariners? Marinois?) Thought I was crazy... "Why would you torture yourself with so much boring scenery?"
Most Californians don't give a rat's tuchus about this part of the state--it is a part of the state to be tolerated. To be flown over to get from point A to point B. And while they appreciate cute little dairy farms in West Marin, and picturesque vineyards on the rolling hills of Sonoma (with high end shopping tucked in among the vineyars), they wouldn't care if total and complete anarchy took over in the Central Valley. It's sad...
California is on the road to hell. Unfortunately, it is VDH's corner of the state that it is starting in. But eventually, the narrowmindedness, and shortsightedness of people in the population centers, (and the wealthy enclaves like Marin and Santa Barbara and La Jolla and...) will ensure that the putrefaction infests the entire state--including their little enclaves.
I left just in time.
I do hope I am wrong, and I wish the best for VDH and his neighbors...
Here's a suggestion: BUSING for the Marinated. Send them to the Central Valley on 'cultural sensitivity tours,' to see the fruit of their liberal nostrums.
Nice idea, but those taking the tour would cluck their tongues and say 'Oh those poor, poor people! We must give them more [welfare][food stamps][scholarships][unearned tax refunds] -- provided they don't come anywhere near where WE llive.' And back home to Marin the tour bus would go.
I moved away from Fresno last year - my husband grew up there, and my dad grew up in Stockton. Most of my friends still live there - I made more friends in Fresno in four years than I did in 20 in Phoenix. I think I left my heart there...
But my family lives in Arizona, and here I'll stay.
My prayers and best wishes go to VDH and the beautiful Central Valley. It was like living in a garden while I was there. I'm glad I had the experience before the barbarian hordes carried it away for scrap.
Captcha: "lets eat" - a grammatically incorrect description of the amazing "land between two rivers," Fresno County.
Los Angeles and San Francisco both became unlivable for Americans who have children two decades ago. The Central Valley of 2011 is just where Los Angeles was twenty years ago. California's cities are now lands of relatively few childless affluent whites and far more numerous and relatively poor immigrants. It sounds as if the Central Valley is experiencing the same demographic trend.
I find northern San Diego County, southern Orange County, the central California coast from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz, and the coast north of Marin County to still be livable. However, all of these areas are living off of human capital that was developed decades ago and are not replacing themselves.
I spent 15 years living in the foothills above Porterville and have many close friends in the area.
I left in 1999 and visited last 2005.
The change is stark and heartbreaking. I wish you well Mr. Hanson
It may be accelerating in California, but it will become the norm in the desert Southwest as these hoards of undereducated unemployed Mexicans cross our boarders.
I have made sure that all of my weapons are fit for use and I have increased my ammunition supply accordingly.
I will defend my family and property against the unwashed scourge now hitting our society.
Taking the law in your own hands is a terrible idea. I "promise" you that local law enforcement will enforce the criminal and regulatory laws against you. VDH's point that the police enjoy harassing generally law-abiding citizens but avoid hardened criminals applies to you too. Our best defense is to elect political leaders who understand the crisis our nation is facing and have the intestinal fortitude to do something about our situation.
"We don't know the event, but when it happens you'll know it."
Old addage refering to great change.
Germany had Soviet Tanks and the collapse of a wall to signify their changes. The Confederacy had a wave of union soldiers sweep through their land like a storm. And my guess is the USA will be a whimper; the checks will start to bounce and the local politbureau members will start to get more pointless.
But mark my works, there is always an event. Always.
The US isn't entirely dumb on this. They do PERT analysis. Oh, the Republic is dying but it might be able to mutate into more of an empire. Obama would be the first ruler and we do have an imperial Senate.
But what 90% of all the historians miss on Rome was the silver mines in Gaul were mined the Empire was living on borrowed time. The mines were exhausted in the 4th Century and by the late 5th Century Rome was a memory.
2012 will be a curse of a year. Europe will be gone in the first half, no later than the second.
Obama's win of the 2012 Presidental election will be like winning to be Captain of the Titanic. Who wants to be around a sinking ship?
Author Davis, I regret to inform you of this fact. Welcome to Detroit.
I live somewhat close to Detroit. To a Michigan resident a city to adopted the management/election system of Detroit was like crossing the famous "Swartzchild Radius": it quickly became a hole.
Back in the early 1970s Major Coleman Young took over Detroit and it's now a third world city. One of the most shocking sites in Western Civilization is crossing from Detoit to Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is like going from Uganda to Europe just merely by crossing a bridge.
Flint, Saginaw, many of Detoit's suburb cities, Benton Harbor have all crossed the demographic line of turning into neo-third world cities. The middle class is beseiged, the political class throws up their hands, and we can feel that America is the true sick man of Western Civilization. Our time is short.
I regret your California has joined Michigan in the decline of the of the Western way of life. In this case mysery does not enjoy the company because it means there is no retreat. The disease of decline is national. The national cancer is just more profound in Michigan. But the barbarians are at the gates everywhere.
My hope is that Canada will take refugee families in the post 2020 era.
You're forgetting Wisconsin. A recent article at "Atlantic" had a discussion of the extreme problems of Milwaukee. Only Detroit, the gold standard of urban decline, is worse.
In a recent trip in the UP I saw a long row of low rent housing in Munsing. The gangsta-rappers in Munsing would have been at home in Detroit or South LA.
You're flanked. They didn't come over the bridge. They came west from US-2 and up via 41, 95, and 45.
We live in the Grand Rapids area and generally feel safe. But it is frightening to know we are really only 2 1/2 hours from Detroit. Break-ins have become more common in our area.
