Some interesting examples of Calif Republicans rationalizing away the obvious:

[Moonbeam]

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-voters-cal-20181130-story.html

Some interesting examples of how the conservative mind seeks to protect itself from negative information. I really liked the preregistration of 16 year olds two years before they can vote but still young enough, read naive enough, to be liberal, 90% in fact.

 

[K1052]

The GOP argument is now, explicitly, that when more people vote they lose. Not that conservatism (as practiced by the GOP) is so ideologically attractive that people would vote for it anyway.

They're messing around with the laws in states they lost like Michigan and Wisconsin to strip incoming state officials of power because they are Democrats. Republicans are solely interested in maintaining minority rule no matter what. Until these people are defeated widely and repeatedly on the ballot we'll never be rid of them.

 

[Jhhnn]

Rohrabacher's reference to Bolshevik billionaires was highly amusing.

 

[Greenman]

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-voters-cal-20181130-story.html

Some interesting examples of how the conservative mind seeks to protect itself from negative information. I really liked the preregistration of 16 year olds two years before they can vote but still young enough, read naive enough, to be liberal, 90% in fact.

Isn't just about every young person a liberal? I was way left until I had to support a family. Once I retire I plan on becoming a hard core leftist again. You guys are going to love me when I turn 65.

 

[IronWing]

Isn't just about every young person a liberal? I was way left until I had to support a family. Once I retire I plan on becoming a hard core leftist again. You guys are going to love me when I turn 65.

As a working person supporting a family, I can't think of a single reason to vote for a conservative, much less a Republican. It simply isn't in my self-interest to do so and never has been. Conservative policies, while totally awesome for the uber-rich, don't work for working folks.

 

[whm1974]

Isn't just about every young person a liberal? I was way left until I had to support a family. Once I retire I plan on becoming a hard core leftist again. You guys are going to love me when I turn 65.

I wasn't until I started slowly questioning some of the Conservative and Libertarian ideals that I held after my mid 30's.

 

[Moonbeam]

Isn't just about every young person a liberal? I was way left until I had to support a family. Once I retire I plan on becoming a hard core leftist again. You guys are going to love me when I turn 65.

Not me. We have a massive housing problem in the bay area and people like me are squatting on land the poor need so they don't have to sleep under bridges. The obvious remedy, though a bit harsh and conservative, not unlike the liberal plan to ship old people off on icebergs, is to force half of the population under the age of 50 to settlement camps in the country so those who remain will have plenty of housing and the old can stay in the neighborhoods they have lived in for a lifetime. There the ungrateful bastards who would force the old out of their lifetime homes can get a taste of what it is they deal. But I will not support, when they have turned those settlement camps into desirable places to live, they be moved again. A bit liberal and a bit conservative should go hand in hand.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Isn't just about every young person a liberal? I was way left until I had to support a family. Once I retire I plan on becoming a hard core leftist again. You guys are going to love me when I turn 65.

Yup like the old saying.
If you vote Republican when young, you have no heart
If you vote Democrat when you are old, you have no money

 

[DrDoug]

Rohrabacher's reference to Bolshevik billionaires was highly amusing.

What's really telling in Rohrabacher's complaint is that he is such a Russia-loving wanker that he had to reach back to the Bolsheviks to insult the Democrats. Can't call them Commies because that might upset his BFFs in Russia.

 

[woolfe9998]

Rohrbacher was a Putin mole in the US Congress. You have to wonder what his old boss Reagan would have thought about that. The fact that he's gone was a high point of these midterms.

Now, we just need to get rid of the mole in the White House.

 

[bradly1101]

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-voters-cal-20181130-story.html

Some interesting examples of how the conservative mind seeks to protect itself from negative information. I really liked the preregistration of 16 year olds two years before they can vote but still young enough, read naive enough, to be liberal, 90% in fact.

All this time I had severely misunderstood you. Enigmatic? heehee

 

[Greenman]

Not me. We have a massive housing problem in the bay area and people like me are squatting on land the poor need so they don't have to sleep under bridges. The obvious remedy, though a bit harsh and conservative, not unlike the liberal plan to ship old people off on icebergs, is to force half of the population under the age of 50 to settlement camps in the country so those who remain will have plenty of housing and the old can stay in the neighborhoods they have lived in for a lifetime. There the ungrateful bastards who would force the old out of their lifetime homes can get a taste of what it is they deal. But I will not support, when they have turned those settlement camps into desirable places to live, they be moved again. A bit liberal and a bit conservative should go hand in hand.

The reality is we only have a housing shortage in desirable areas. Those areas are desirable because they're regulated to prevent urban sprawl and high density housing. Fun fact, almost everyone thinks high density housing is a great idea, for other people. No one moves into high density housing if they have a choice.

Sit on your land Moonie, it's your's until you can't pay the government for it, or they decide they need it more than you.

 

[fskimospy]

The reality is we only have a housing shortage in desirable areas. Those areas are desirable because they're regulated to prevent urban sprawl and high density housing. Fun fact, almost everyone thinks high density housing is a great idea, for other people. No one moves into high density housing if they have a choice.

Sit on your land Moonie, it's your's until you can't pay the government for it, or they decide they need it more than you.

Coastal California is not desirable because it has low housing density, this is nonsense. The cheapest housing areas in California is in the sparsely developed inland empire. No density there to speak of. If anything prices in California are almost perfectly correlated with density, just like in the rest of the country. The more expensive, the denser.

Prices are high in coastal California because it has a thriving job market and a highly desirable climate, making demand to live there extraordinarily high. Unfortunately, foolish politicians and greedy incumbent property owners have prevented this desirable land from being properly developed so prices have skyrocketed.

When you guys see the homeless and the suffering on the streets I hope you take a moment and reflect on the suffering you are purposefully inflicting on others so that you can keep your neighborhood the way you like it.

 

[Jhhnn]

The reality is we only have a housing shortage in desirable areas. Those areas are desirable because they're regulated to prevent urban sprawl and high density housing. Fun fact, almost everyone thinks high density housing is a great idea, for other people. No one moves into high density housing if they have a choice.

Sit on your land Moonie, it's your's until you can't pay the government for it, or they decide they need it more than you.

"Prevent urban sprawl and high density housing" at the same time is a contradiction in terms.

 

[K1052]

No one moves into high density housing if they have a choice.

This isn't true at all. I could buy a stellar McMansion on a bigish lot in a good suburb here but that lifestyle does not interest me in the least. I can walk to everything I need and anything that isn't obtainable in that radius comes to me. I am certainly not alone in making these decisions. Even the people in my age range who are moving to the burbs are buying townhomes, condos, or maybe city lot size houses close to transit that can be in the city under 30 minutes.

To claim there is no market for density (or really the amenities and time savings it confers) is simply wrong.

 

[Moonbeam]

This isn't true at all. I could buy a stellar McMansion on a bigish lot in a good suburb here but that lifestyle does not interest me in the least. I can walk to everything I need and anything that isn't obtainable in that radius comes to me. I am certainly not alone in making these decisions. Even the people in my age range who are moving to the burbs are buying townhomes, condos, or maybe city lot size houses close to transit that can be in the city under 30 minutes.

To claim there is no market for density (or really the amenities and time savings it confers) is simply wrong.

Where is 'here' that you could buy and how many kids are you raising in your ant nest that will never see a real one? Did you ever go out alone as a child and explore the world, catch horned toads, lizards and snakes, explore caves, ride your bike for tens of miles to wander through abandoned buildings. Did you ever have a chance to catch pollywogs and frogs in a stream of kayak down wild rivers? The little box you call home looks to me like a prison. And the air stinks.

 

[hal2kilo]

The GOP argument is now, explicitly, that when more people vote they lose. Not that conservatism (as practiced by the GOP) is so ideologically attractive that people would vote for it anyway.

They're messing around with the laws in states they lost like Michigan and Wisconsin to strip incoming state officials of power because they are Democrats. Republicans are solely interested in maintaining minority rule no matter what. Until these people are defeated widely and repeatedly on the ballot we'll never be rid of them.

They've known this for years, and plan accordingly. Caging, and voter suppression are their tools.
Caging

 

[Moonbeam]

Coastal California is not desirable because it has low housing density, this is nonsense. The cheapest housing areas in California is in the sparsely developed inland empire. No density there to speak of. If anything prices in California are almost perfectly correlated with density, just like in the rest of the country. The more expensive, the denser.

Prices are high in coastal California because it has a thriving job market and a highly desirable climate, making demand to live there extraordinarily high. Unfortunately, foolish politicians and greedy incumbent property owners have prevented this desirable land from being properly developed so prices have skyrocketed.

When you guys see the homeless and the suffering on the streets I hope you take a moment and reflect on the suffering you are purposefully inflicting on others so that you can keep your neighborhood the way you like it.

I can't keep my neighborhood the way I like it. There are tons of new businesses in my area and tons of new high density incredibly expensive low cost housing with waiting lists that fill the moment they become able to be signed up on. Everywehre I go there are a million cars in my way. All I want is to be able to afford my property tax so I can stay. I have another house a relative lives in rent free and I pay all the life expenses, that person being handicapped. I have promised another relative she and her kids can move in with me if she loses her job. I will then be supporting 6. My nephew works 80 hours a week and has nothing left over to pay me back the 120,000 I lent him to take care of his family. And the homeless, of course, follow the population hand out density, and there is none of them around where I live. The streets here are lined with Mercedes Benzes except for a 21 year old Buick and a 20 year old Honda that were given to me. The homeless will have to get in line. And I would move in a heartbeat but I'm not the one who wants to live here or who will need my house when I die or needs me close to take care of her kids when she works. I keep or or add support to keep 8 people afloat. I think I am doing my share.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Coastal California is not desirable because it has low housing density, this is nonsense. The cheapest housing areas in California is in the sparsely developed inland empire. No density there to speak of. If anything prices in California are almost perfectly correlated with density, just like in the rest of the country. The more expensive, the denser.

Prices are high in coastal California because it has a thriving job market and a highly desirable climate, making demand to live there extraordinarily high. Unfortunately, foolish politicians and greedy incumbent property owners have prevented this desirable land from being properly developed so prices have skyrocketed.

When you guys see the homeless and the suffering on the streets I hope you take a moment and reflect on the suffering you are purposefully inflicting on others so that you can keep your neighborhood the way you like it.

Density and prices do not always correlate. There are many high density areas in SoCal that are not desirable at all, and as such are quite affordable. San Diego has hardly any density at all and is even less affordable. Low density suburbia used to be the domain of the “haves” until urban gentrification became a thing.

The high cost areas are the small sliver beach cities and small affluent HOA walled enclaves sprinkled here and there, and increasingly resembles a feudal society of lords and serfs.

I agree that homeowner greed and political incompetence made it that way.

 

[Greenman]

Where is 'here' that you could buy and how many kids are you raising in your ant nest that will never see a real one? Did you ever go out alone as a child and explore the world, catch horned toads, lizards and snakes, explore caves, ride your bike for tens of miles to wander through abandoned buildings. Did you ever have a chance to catch pollywogs and frogs in a stream of kayak down wild rivers? The little box you call home looks to me like a prison. And the air stinks.

I did all of those things, except I rode my horse instead of my bike. It was a hell of a great way to grow up.

 

[fskimospy]

Density and prices do not always correlate. There are many high density areas in SoCal that are not desirable at all, and as such are quite affordable. San Diego has hardly any density at all and is even less affordable. Low density suburbia used to be the domain of the “haves” until urban gentrification became a thing.

San Diego is not a dense city I agree but it is still considerably more dense than inland California cities like Bakersfield and the US average.

The high cost areas are the small sliver beach cities and small affluent HOA walled enclaves sprinkled here and there, and increasingly resembles a feudal society of lords and serfs.

I agree that homeowner greed and political incompetence made it that way.

All of coastal California is extremely high cost by US standards.

 

[Moonbeam]

I did all of those things, except I rode my horse instead of my bike. It was a hell of a great way to grow up.

We had a stables nearby where I could rent and ride. Riding on the back of a galloping horse was an incredible high for a kid like me who didn't own a horse. I've been looking at properties in the country that have stables on them but I don't think I could manage cleaning up horseshit on a daily basis these days would be ideal. I'd rather have a greenhouse with raised beds I could weed from a chair. 🙂

 

[Starbuck1975]

San Diego is not a dense city I agree but it is still considerably more dense than inland California cities like Bakersfield and the US average.
All of coastal California is extremely high cost by US standards.

True, but Bakersfield might as well be South Dakota. Living in places like Bakersfield are the worst of all worlds. I found the abandoned or desolate places of California like the high desert and parts of the Inland Empire fascinating, especially towns that sat on the old rail lines.

 

[Greenman]

We had a stables nearby where I could rent and ride. Riding on the back of a galloping horse was an incredible high for a kid like me who didn't own a horse. I've been looking at properties in the country that have stables on them but I don't think I could manage cleaning up horseshit on a daily basis these days would be ideal. I'd rather have a greenhouse with raised beds I could weed from a chair. 🙂

I plan on moving to a flyover red state, and buying an old horse so he won't outlive me.

 

[fskimospy]

True, but Bakersfield might as well be South Dakota. Living in places like Bakersfield are the worst of all worlds. I found the abandoned or desolate places of California like the high desert and parts of the Inland Empire fascinating, especially towns that sat on the old rail lines.

I used to go to the towns around the Salton Sea sometimes, it was some pretty solid ruin porn.