Legal Cannibalism on the Ballot in California

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Oh wait... I guess it is not cannibalism, it is cannabis.  I suppose cannibalism has always been legal in California. The Donner Party of 1846 was never prosecuted at least.  Afterward, one of them even opened an inn that served food.  It had good reviews, except for one guy (published in Harper's I believe) who just couldn't get beyond the idea of it.

It is hard to keep up with all the law-making in California.  When I lived there, the state government averaged between 2000 and 3000 new laws a year.

It would probably be a better place to live if the legislature was constitutionally restricted to meeting only for a month or two each year, as is done in Wyoming.  Or maybe require that for a new law to be passed, two existing laws have to be repealed.

World history shows that the slate always gets wiped clean eventually.  But then they start writing again.

Have they declared the massive California state debt illegal yet?

A girlie knife to cut the budget

Isn't it funny that when the budgets are tight (which is really all the time in California), the first thing they threaten to cut are schools and essential services.  "If we can't get this new tax passed, our schools/police/courts/fire department will suffer."  Instead why don't they close the government employee motor pool, or sell all the government employee gym equipment, or cut the office furniture budget?

Or an even better idea:  Look at the list of what California state government agencies existed in 1955, and compare it to the list of agencies that exist now.  Dissolve any agencies not on the 1955 list, terminate the employees, and sell the assets. The government worked fine in 1955 -- actually much better than it does now.

A little better

I try to tell folks that the federal and state governments were never intended to help people.  They just look at me blankly and say, "Well if they aren't supposed to help people, why do we even have them?"

I just smile, and say, "To do those few things that people can't do themselves.  You need to think of government as really just an association that we belong to.  We hire some people and give them the power to provide schools, and police, and courts, and a fire department.  And we need to pay a small tax for that so that they can keep going.  That's about it."

It is funny that even the proponents of gigantic government understand this intuitively.  Those true government services are the ones they always threaten to cut whenever the people balk on more taxes.

Is there any state that has a small government that doesn't try to enslave the people in the name of providing everything they need?

Well, maybe Wyoming.

What Arnold really needs for budget cutting

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