Here’s a short list of things that worked fine until we fixed them, at which point every solution wound up a failure.
MARIJUANA: For decades weed supported Ukiah and Mendocino County economies despite it being, at bottom, a criminal enterprise. We had a rising tide that lifted all boats and that also sold a lot of trucks, bought a lot of restaurant meals, vacations and 40-acre parcels. But what about taxes? We need to legalize pot and tax it, we whined. Very smart, us.
Eyes wide open, we let the government run the marijuana industry the way the government usually does: Over a cliff. Once legal, everything about Mendocino County marijuana got worse. Every single thing. A lot worse.
We went from weed money distributed in free markets in support of our economy to government officials forming committees, hiring administrators, oversight agencies and spending money on things to spend more money on later and then standing back and slowly realizing they’d botched the entire enterprise. We've made no money on marijuana, and instead businesses lost millions. It all turned into a confusing mess.
How did our smart county administrators botch it? They were gifted world famous, top quality Mendocino Marijuana to market and they blew it.
THE INSANITY OF MENTAL HEALTH: Passage of Measure B generated millions of dollars for county professionals to provide services to an ever-expanding number in crisis. But that was years and millions of dollars ago.
The Measure B committee probably still meets now and then, though what it accomplishes would be the same if it never met at all. High level expert professionals, these committee members. They owe taxpayers some explanations, but never explain anything. Let’s terminate every member and start over with people who actually want to address mental health issues.
We gave them money. They closed the door and turned off the lights.
INDIAN CASINOS: Well that was easy. All we had to do was legalize gambling on Native American reservations and poof! Goodbye poverty and alcoholism as the slot machine money started rolling in.
Been to a Mendocino County reservation in the past decade or so? Sad as ever. Where, indeed, has the money gone?
HOMELESS: Once upon a time in a small town in Northern California, a few down-and-out chaps panhandled. We’d see them at on-ramps holding “Will Work For Food” signs, or maybe outside Safeway sitting on a backpack, head buried between his knees, a cup on the sidewalk and a small cardboard “God Bless You” sign. We gave what we wanted or could afford.
Then came trained government-approved hotshots to turn a local problem into a citywide catastrophe. The professional helpers promised to cure the homeless problem with proven strategies, networks of services and other tired slogans. They managed to turn a few homeless folks into a full-blown disaster.
It began with “A Hand Up, Not a Handout” posters to convince citizens that giving a lazy bum a dollar meant a dollar less was sent to a nonprofit government agency. (Besides, the dirty old homeless guy would waste your buck on vodka, then go sleep under a bridge.)
Your money should instead have gone to Redwood Community Services’ travel budget, enabling high paid grant-funded workers to visit seminars and conferences in San Diego and learn about networking and cross-pollinating programs that deliver unworkable solutions for problems the social workers themselves had carefully designed and implemented.
And 25 years later, Mission Accomplished. Those running Ukiah’s homeless programs have accomplished their work: There are zero beggars holding up signs saying “Will Work for Food.”
I HAVE A THEORY.
These policies and solutions align nicely with yard signs and bumper stickers we’ve seen around town. All the “No Matter Who You Are or Where You’re From, You Are Welcome Here” got planted in yards by people who would in reality invite a rabid snake into their home before a family of Guatemalans.
It’s called “virtue signaling” and we can also thank it for for “Coexist” bumper stickers and Che Guevara t-shirts. In 2024 goody-goody sentiment is impacting elections. Emotion-based virtue voting is a cancer sweeping the land, and an especially virulent strain has struck Mendocino County.
This weird, disturbing evolution toward societal suicide is a mega-example of virtue voting. We now cast ballots for candidates and issues that make us feel like nice people, the kind of people with signs celebrating open borders and instructions on Whose Lives Matter.
All these pious displays are for show, and to impress friends and strangers who judge others by their advertised tolerance, sensitivity and their child-like faith that, across the globe, our hearts beat as one and are in universal harmony.
The result: California’s dysfunctional one-party rule is forcing change and solutions where none are needed, and mostly will fail.
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