Imagine a mobster punching you to the ground, then using a foot to push your face into the dirt while one of his snickering, weasel-like lackeys told you he was helping you smell the goodness of the earth.
That’s the situation mimicked in a headline offered by the government-supporting Associated Press as it writes about a new, onerous, command that California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) wants to foist on victims of the government-worsened (often-government-started) wildfires in the Golden State.
As if the action is a wonderful move coming from a wise “man of action,” the AP headline says:
“Newsom wants to speed up a delayed rule to make California homes more fire resistant”
As if the “fire resistance” mentioned would have helped save any of the homes that now litter the Los Angeles area like shattered gravestones.
When one gets into the details of this wondrous “delayed” idea, it’s easy to get the impression that Newsom and the AP blame the homeowners for the devastation, when, in the recent history of the state, the bulk of the wildfire devastation has arisen from mismanaged government land and the state power monopoly, Paific Gas and Electric (PG&E).
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," the Wizard of Oz said as he pulled levers and performs his illusions.
Writes the AP:
“As Los Angeles reels from deadly January wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order Thursday directing the state to advance long-delayed regulations requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear combustible materials around their homes.”
As far back as 2017, I have been writing about the fire problems created by the combination of government-run land and PG&E buying space over that land to run its spark-shedding powerlines.
As I noted January 13 this year for MRCTV, the largest and deadliest California wildfires over the last century were not the fault of homeowners who didn’t “clear combustible materials around their homes.” They were the fault of the federal and state governments claiming “ownership” over vast tracts of land, renting space over the land, leaving the land poorly managed or not managed at all, and destroying local capacity to use sufficient water to fight the fires.
One such fire killed 85 people:
“(I)n 2018, 85 people died in the Camp Wildfire, near Paradise California, 18,000 buildings were ruined, and 153,000 acres were torched. And the source of the fire was pinpointed to Pacific Gas and Electric power lines shedding sparks on government land, a problem for which PG&E was convicted on 84 felony counts.”
Back in 2018, Donald Trump criticized Newsom and the California government for not clearing the deadwood on state-run land and, thus, increasing the fire threat. He repeated his criticism in 2019. Not long thereafter, in 2020, Newsom and then-Senator Kamala Harris literally TRESPASSED on the ashes of a private home in order to look “caring” while a press pool took their pictures after yet another devastating fire.
The following year, in 2021, the state finally appeared ready to act on Trump’s recommendation. But they didn’t. And the state also did not act on voter-approved projects to supply more water for fire-fighting and irrigation. Instead, the water was most often pumped into the ocean.
And yet last week, true to form, Newsom again made a CNN appearance to double-down on his foolish grandstanding, blaming the fires on the unproven, government-pushed canard of anthropogenic climate change – the same go-to he has used after previous fires that were directly attributed to government land mismanagement and powerline problems.
Not only that, when it came to others rebuilding their devasted homes, he also used the collectivist pronoun “we,” which is a pronoun politicians use to include OTHERS in their coercive plans.
"You can't rebuild the same. We have to rebuild with science. We have to build with climate reality in mind."
In classic sociopathic form, the California Coercer, the Golden State Gang Leader, Newsom, claims the authority to tell others how to REBUILD the homes that his own system helped turn to ash.
Writes the AP:
“Newsom ordered the state to publish draft regulation next month, with a deadline to adopt those rules by the end of the year. The requirements were passed by lawmakers in 2020 and originally set to take effect by Jan. 1, 2023. Newsom signed the order after he returned from Washington to advocate for disaster aid.”
"Disaster aid” that is not sanctioned by the US Constitution and which forces people from other states to pay for what Newsom wants.
“The rule requires homeowners to clear materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of their homes in fire-prone areas. As multiple fires roared through LA neighborhoods in January, the regulations still weren’t written, and the state Board of Forestry and Fire Protection told The Associated Press last month it had no firm timeline for completing them.”
And, of course, the State Board of Forestry is not addressing what has been the long-standing problem: state and federal land mismanagement.
Related: Mel Gibson Criticizes Government Mismanagement Amid Los Angeles Wildfires
The land is mismanaged because politicians have no private property incentive to properly manage it, and they do not personally suffer the consequences for damaging or destroying other people’s private property. The artificial… the governmental… the statist, faceless overlord can do what it likes, and avoid responsibility, even to the point of Newsom implying that the wildfires were the fault of residents, not the government that claims that magical power to “protect” people.
And even the AP contributes to the ill-will, writing:
“Under the latest proposal, existing homes would have three years to comply with the regulations, so it is not clear how many homes would have been saved.”
It never will be clear how many homes would have been saved by the arbitrary edict, and the very idea that the government can impose such edicts on private property owners is offensive to the concept of private property.
Ownership carries with it responsibilities for one’s own land and responsibilities should one’s errors bring harm to other people’s land or to other people. Government has no such incentive, and repeatedly has shown that its officials do not care, even as they take tax money and lay blame on others.
And now, as people try to rebuild, Newsom wants to get in their way, even as the City of Los Angeles tells landowners that much of their reconstruction be devoted to what the government claims is “low-income” government-subsidized housing.
“Last week, The Center Square reported on a newly passed Los Angeles ordinance that could require a large portion of apartment units lost to the Palisades Fire to be replaced with low-income housing.
The ordinance could require all multifamily units built before October 1978, which are subject to city rent controls, to be replaced with income-restricted units affordable to low-income households (relative to city, not Palisades income levels).
It also could require the replacement of post-October 1978 units that have been occupied with a low-income renter in the past five years with a low-income unit, and, for units for which the owner does not have complete five-year tenant household income history, replacement with low-income and very-low income units in proportion to the citywide average.”
So, the collectivist parade continues along many avenues, all dictating to people what they can build and now they will manage their property.
And that first, Associated Press, piece implies that this kind of thuggery is for “your own good,” California. (That would be the Associated Press, which, we now know, received from the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for many years, as recently revealed by reporter Kyle Becker and cited on an official government website.)
For your own good.
Perhaps, someday, the politicians who knock you down and put their boot on your face no longer will have such media lackeys acting as their smirking assistants.
Until then, it will be up to freedom-lovers to uncover the facts, remember principles, and spread the word.