Well, I have a lot of experience as a Californian and as a Texan, and recently as other things. So it's funny this comes up on poal; I actually know something. California was once a land of opportunity. These people you think of as Californians: Most of them are from somewhere else. And I don't just mean in the sense that all Europeans foreigners somewhere up the family tree. I mean that most of the ancestors of Californians moved there from somewhere else in the USA. Because it was pretty and comfortable. And it was largely empty. (Technology made it habitable, mainly irrigation) California became a victim of its own success, and of the trends that threaten the entirety of the United States. The first thing is there's just too many damn people there. Immigration is one factor, but also migration within the country and the fact that several generations ago one could reasonably raise a large family on a working man's salary in California. Something happens to people when they end up in close proximity to one another. They start to crave government. And Cali has that in spades. At every single level. From the desire to control their surroundings, came County water boards, came planning commissions, came neighborhood associations. It was just too good, and attracted too many people for people to live there freely. Throw in the leftist (Jewish, whatever) subversion, preaching the demise of family, disrespect for religion, and all the degeneracy we talk about here. Some generations down the line, you end up with amoral people that don't know how to take a shit without the government telling them where.