Everyone I Meet Is Leaving California

The cover of "Homecoming" by America, which was released in 1972. The record included the song 'California Revisited,' which was originally titled 'Everyone I Meet is from California.'

We iPhone users tend to be a rather insular lot, albeit benignly so. It’s not that we believe ourselves to be better than everyone else who uses a lesser phone. Rather, we reside in the easy confidence of secure knowledge that our phone is so much better than anything owned by anyone else, it’s barely worth a mention due to its raging obviousness.

One feature of the iPhone I’ve come to enjoy is that whether you’re using the iPod function or any one of the available streaming audio apps, should you choose to not plug in the headphones it functions as a very serviceable emulation of an old-fashioned transistor radio. Back in the 1960s and early 1970s they were all the rage, with their little squawky speaker, static-laden on/off volume dial and earphone jack complete with white wired earphone that when you weren’t busy misplacing came in oh so handy for running up inside your sleeve and into your ear, cleverly hidden from view by resting your head in your hand with it cupped over your ear, all done with the intent of appearing to pay a fair amount of attention in class. Alas, not an option during short-sleeve weather, but perfectly applicable at other times. Now, decades later, through the magic of modem technology we can… do the same thing, albeit with far better sound quality. Or, should the mood strike one can use their iPhone or iPod Touch as a radio, listening to the tiny speaker at the bottom that courtesy of countless hours dedicated to advancing the cause of improved audio sounds exactly like a transistor radio. Minus the squawk and static.

This came to mind when I was spending a few quiet moments on this rainy, dreary Sunday morn in the San Francisco Bay Area doing the dishes, listening to a compilation of America via the speaker rather than headphones. I loved America (the band) in the 1970s, although I lost interest after Dan Peek left. My favorite records by them were their first three efforts, namely their self-titled debut, Homecoming and the sadly neglected Hat Trick which, after you get past the opening track (“Muskrat Love?” Seriously?) contains may excellent moments. This particular compilation runs in chronological order, thus before too long presents the tune “Everyone I Meet is from California” which was originally the B-side of “A Horse with No Name” when it was first released as a single, then was included on Homecoming under the title “California Revisited.”

Considering the then three members of America met in England where they were military brats, and had relocated to Los Angeles only a short time before recording their second record, Homecoming is laced with southern Californian imagery that lyrically and musically meshes well with the mostly laid-back style of the Eagles, Linda Rondstadt and other purveyors of the then-nascent L.A. “Mellow Mafia.” “Everyone I Meet is from California” is no exception. While lyrically it suggests one too many visits to the medicine jar (“In California you watch the shadow dancer / Floating gently, gently on the sea / In California you’re such a strange romancer / Come and see me when the world has set you free”), the simple chorus stands out:

Everyone I meet is from California
There’s dancing in the street in California

That was the early 1970s, though. Today, everyone you meet is from California, but the only dancing they’re doing is high-stepping it out of town.

As a native Californian, it no longer astonishes me how so many in this state, one bountifully blessed by nature, have become deaf to reason. I’ve grown sadly used to such alleged thinking. The people of California who determine government, business and societal direction have swallowed their own hype, firmly believing that California’s greatness cannot be damaged or destroyed by their actions. In this they are completely mistaken, utterly unaware of this being the case.

These people are committed to the philosophy that wealth is both to be obtained at all costs and the greatest of evils, something to be seized and redistributed to those unwilling to work toward bettering themselves. California is a nanny state on steroids, driving businesses away and mocking them as they leave for failure to be good citizens, never once stopping to note how their departure also means the loss of jobs and tax revenue. It preaches diversity but practices division, excuses all from personal responsibility and promotes itself as a godless church giving alms to the poor while not once noticing that not only in doing so does it keep them forever chained to government handouts, the donation basket is empty due to having driven away all followers from its pews.

There is no reason to believe any of this will change in the near future. Politically, the state is firmly in the hands of liberal Democrats who are blind to economic reality, forever beholden to overpaid and horribly over-pensioned state employees who accept no responsibility for the economic crisis. Unemployment is rampant due to the state’s anti-business attitude and insanely excessive regulatory addiction. Taxes are obscene; the highest in the nation. The California GOP is pathetic, unable to find and support quality candidates that stay on message while speaking honestly about the state’s problems. Sacramento gleefully doles out taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants while strangling farms with inane environmental laws that solve nonexistent problems while creating authentic new ones. California is tens of billions of dollars in debt with no cohesive policy, let alone the courage, to do what is necessary to solve the problem: create jobs by easing regulations and slashing taxes while simultaneously making deep cuts across the board in government spending, starting with its state workers salaries and pensions. Instead, it will most likely beg for a federal bailout, which it won’t get, and then either declare bankruptcy, hiding behind judicial decisions as to what will be done to relieve the debt, or simply default on what it owes to most everyone.

I know most everyone in the other 49 states hates California.

I also know why.

It used to be envy.

Now, it is deep burning anger at how a state once rich beyond compare has slit its own throat in the name of modern liberalism. In professing to care for all, California takes care of no one, let alone itself. And no song, no matter how dreamy or romantic about what was once the Golden State, can change the hideous truth about its rotting from within.

(Cross-posted at Liberty Pundits)