In a Fallen World bad public policy always enhances the devastation caused by natural disasters. Natural disasters will always be with us, but God gave us the brains to lessen their effect. One party rule in California, dedicated to an insane green agenda, has led to the annual fire season in California becoming a major threat to property and life. Until the voters come to their senses this will continue.
Pati necesse est multa mortales mala — “Mortals must bear many ills.”
I feel no pity for California. Those people voted for Democrat politicians whose policies and programs resulted in the very conditions which have caused these fires. Let them fill up to the full measure on what they chose. Liberal progressivism has its ever predictable consequences.
“I feel no pity for California. Those people voted for Democrat politicians whose policies and programs resulted in the very conditions which have caused these fires”
Not all of them voted for it! Trump got about 40% of the vote in California this time and there are conservative/Republican officeholders in many inland communities. Even in the deepest blue states and cities like NY or Chicago GOP candidates get at least 20% of the vote, sometimes up to 30%, meaning anywhere from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 voters did NOT vote for the liberal Democrat. As much or more than the 10 righteous people who could have saved Sodom.
Sorry for the rant, but as a conservative resident of an equally deep blue state (Illinois) I get kind of, shall we say, triggered by the suggestion that everyone who lives there “deserves what they get because they voted for it”.
Not all of them voted for it!
We may be on the cusp of a great change in the blue states politically. In any case they are Americans and they have my sympathy, especially for the bad governments that misrule them. EL Cid gives the right attitude:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrkQ8WKoBqA&t=73s
I can and do feel badly for the people losing property and lives because of this. But that doesn’t mean I excuse failure to think rationally about policies that put pie-in-the-sky leftist propaganda above the obvious interests of residents of the state or county or city.
It takes seriously stupid policies to screw up a place as beautiful and resource-rich as California, but the Democrats have done it. And absent a wholesale overhaul of the state’s absurd election laws, not to mention some actual attempts to stop fraud, it’s not going to get better any time soon.
The reasonable view is that the Santa Ana winds have triggered a ferocious wind storm from the desert that no human intervention could have prevented or even predicted.
Combined with droughts since mid 2024, the conditions for a full scale bushfire are inevitable. I’m not sure extra fire fighters would have reduced the damage. The fires are so strong, they are only being stopped when they reach the coast! What does that tell you? California is much like most of Australia. We have fires every year, if not every second year in at least one State. The fire seasons are becoming longer and more savage.
Yes back burning helps. Yes water reserves are crucial. But fires have a mind of their own.
Prayers for everyone’s safety.
Guys, the LA Fire Chief warned what would happen due to funding cuts. And I know that NOT every Californian voted for these jack a$$es who prevented controlled bush burning to prevent major fire outbreaks, who diverted water reservoir supplies to keep fish alive instead of supplying people’s needs, etc. But there are consequences. So my advice to conservative Christians is to flee California as God told Lot to flee Sodom and Gomorrah, and not look back as Lot’s wife did. Sure, that’s really tough advice, and worst of all, it’s not sentimental and it’s not nice. But if you vote for Democrats over and over again (I know, not everyone did), then you’re not any different than the man who smoked all his life till he got COPD, and ate gluttonously till he got obesity, diabetes and heart disease. God Almighty let Israel and Judah get punished (often by their own actions) for rebellion. Is California exempt from the consequences of its actions? Sure, I feel sorry for innocent people who voted against these idiots, and for children and others who have no say in this. And I shall pray the Rosary for everyone affected. But the rain – or in this case, the fire – falls on the good and the bad equally. And we’re no better than the Californians. Luke 13:1-5 comes to mind. I probably deserve worse punishment than they for my sins.
The recent Norcal fires destroyed the homes and livelihoods of (mostly) working class and older middle class people, who bought resort and retirement places when they were cheap before the late 1960s. From interviews most had been complaining about forest and brush management policies for years. The Palisades fires are burning the houses of wealthier folks who were probably hung-ho about the same bad policies: drain reservoirs, leave Nature to manage itself, etc. Now Nature has astonished them with its ingratitude.
As LCQ says, a history of mal-administration and disastrous funding cuts, Karen Bass the very image of unqualified DEI leadership, precipitated this ..well, disaster.
Also, LA County firefighters off the record according to Fox 11 LA (the TV station, showing some gonads) say that many of their experienced colleagues were fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020 and this is also a the reason that their experienced workforce is way down.
An interesting biographical note to lifelong Democrat leftist Karen Bass (and why the sociopathic leftistLA Times & LA TV media loved her):
“In the mid-1970s she was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade, a pro-Cuban group that organized trips by Americans to Cuba. She visited Cuba eight times in the 1970s.” (Wikipedia, but she probably approved the note)
So now, just like Mayorkas and ex DA of LA George Gascon, both radical left ex-Cubans, have done, you have Bass’ lovely Fidel’s Havana-on-the-Pacific. With all the corruption, fraud, and incompetence.
This may be piling on (hey, it’s still football season) but Pacific Palisades, Bel-Air, Beverly Glen, Malibu, etc are all in the CA 32nd Congressional District, which has voted over 65% Democrat (including for liar Adam Schiff Nov 5th) for decades.
it hasn’t had a Republican since 1974.
No opinion on the subject of forest management and the like, but the fact that reservoirs were left underfilled is a scandal. Also a scandal (and one which seems pervasive among government and non-profit executives) is embezzlement of institutional funds to pay for your holiday. If the law were sane and prosecutors had integrity, that sort of behavior would lead to criminal prosecution. Foreign travel on the taxpayer dime should be strictly forbidden. Travel to the federal and state capital might pass muster, but only because of the hypertrophy of grants-from-above-with-strings-attached method of financing local government.
Here’s the thing: the overwhelming majority of people who vote Democratic are insensitive to performance in office. They ignore poor performance or swallow some excuse propagated by a talking point mill that whatever happened isn’t the fault of the people for whom they vote again and again.
Am concerned about my niece. Haven’t heard from my brother about his daughter’s whereabouts.
Art:
The people who vote Democrat may be as insensitive to performance as you say, but the people who fund the party are not. Especially after they, a relative or close friend lost a home.
Ex Californian here.
I was born in and grew up in So Cali. We had wildfires EVERY year. Now we have the Climate Cult building expensive houses in dense brush areas and sacrificing them to their goddess Gaia and her fire demons.
Pitiful idiocy. Just pitiful
To the assertions that this catastrophe could not have been averted, SoCal resident and expert on CA land and water use law Hugh Hewitt offers the following:
https://youtu.be/oOh2Ug4KNFg?si=Y9o9u5EHx_zLTZ2s
Firings (no pun intended) occurred for refusing to take the mRNA in 2021. Never forget which of those two awful years was more evil.
[…] Reaches Mt Wilson, Threatening LA Radio & TV Transmitters – Catholics For CatholicsMan Made Disaster – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American CatholicL.A. Suburb Doubles Down on Sanctuary […]