Poor Puree (Part Deux)

My spleen is so large it needs venting several times a day.  And requires me to write about those ventings at least once a week.  So here goes...

I come from an era where very little pissed me off.  And that which did, I did something about.  Today?  There's so many things that piss me off, there's simply no way to resolve it all.  But my A.I. therapist tells me to cough up that hairball and let everyone know how I'm feeling.  I've therefore picked three more you might enjoy reading about.

1.  Mail-In Election Ballots:

I awoke to a raging blizzard that early November morning.  I was 9 and my Dad had told me to get dressed as he was going to drive me to school.  He wanted to show me something special on the way.  I would have normally mounted my new Schwinn Black Phantom* for the 10 block ride.  But that day I'd be riding with Dad. 

I jumped into the car quickly to get out of the snowstorm.  Dad then drove me the few blocks it took to reach our nearest poling place.  We saw the line around the block of people waiting to vote.  In a blizzard.  All wearing winter coats and hats, with scarves wrappped tightly around their faces.  Dad said the only thing we owe our Government is to vote.  To show up and stand up and express our preference via a vote.  Just like the several dozen waiting in line that day.  

That memory sticks with me like glue.  

Dad had scarlet fever as a kid, so his heart was too weak to enlist in the Big War.  In spite of his illness he volunteered at the Sunflower Ordinance Plant in Kansas to build the 500 pound bombs our boys dropped on Germany.  He was that patriotic.  And I got my patriotism from him.  Voting where I came from wasn't for a week.  Or a month.  Or, like California, for a season.  Voting was a day.  And that's how it should always remain.  

Just like Florida, which has 23 million residents yet counts votes in one day.  California mails ballots to everybody, plus a few extra million just in case.  And then counts votes until they have all they need to win.**  Maybe someday someone will turn California back around to the place it used to be when I got here.  But until then, it reeks of socialism.  And its residents seem to be so accustomed to being mistreated by those it hires and pays to serve them, they keep on voting them back in.  It's like an advanced case of "Stockholm Syndrome."  You're taken hostage and kept until you fall in love with your captors.  And then forget what it was like when you had freedom.  

I arrived here exactly 50 years ago.  Back when it was a center-Right State.  Remember, we had two terms of Ronnie Reagan, two terms of Pete Wilson, two terms of Deukmajian, and two terms of Ahhnold Swartzenhoozits.  And then 16 straight years of all Democrats, all the time.  16 years of Democrat governors.  16 years of Democrats in statewide offices.  And 16 years of the Legislature being 2/3rds supermajority Democrat, so they could pass anything they wanted.  And they have.  Some of the dummest damm laws one could imagine.  Look around you.  This is what you get if you vote Democrat in November...

2.  Sanctuaries:

There's a "Supremacy Clause" in our Constitution. That means the Federal Gubmint takes charge should state laws and Federal laws bump into one another.  Such as regards immigration, to include who gets in, and who goes out. 

Even so, there's 256 counties, cities, townships, and villages in our Great Country which have declared themselves "sanctuaries" from Federal immigration laws.  Think about that.  They've decided to pick and choose which Federal laws they wish to obey, and which they do not.  And they can't do that.

Sort of like a Chinese restaurant.  One from column "A," and two from column "B."  And surprisingly, the Feds haven't made them pay a price for their intransigence.  Yet.  Although the Feds are now considering pulling all immigration and enforcement personnel from airports in sanctuary cities.  Such as New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Lost Angeles.  Just in time for the Olympics.  

This action would keep international passengers from disembarking in those cities.  Depriving those cities of hundreds of millions of $Dollars they receive from those services.  I'm hoping they will. Maybe they can be coerced into following the law.  By holding a symbolic gun to their socialist heads.  I doubt it, but maybe.

Just imagine if we, the public, were to treat those cities' laws the same way.  You get stopped for speeding and you tell the cop you've declared a "sanctuary" from their driving laws.  Or refuse to pay their property taxes until they start acceding to Federal law.  The reason tens of millions of illegal aliens have set up housekeeping in sanctuary cities is because of their posture on following Federal law.  

Maybe it's time we make them pay.  I think we should.

3.  HOA's:

I'm betting you'll be surprised when I tell you how many of your neighbors and mine are living under the cruel and regimented thumb of an HOA.  That stands for "Home Owners Association," doncha' know.  And the answer is...

                              35% 

Yes friends, one-third of us live in concentration camps with neatly manicured lawns.  With homes all painted the same shade of tan, and mailboxes all pointing the same direction.  And back yards free from swing sets and bird feeders.  And God help you if your property is different in any way from the HOA rules and regs.  If so, they'll fine you into the Stone Age.  Or, only $100 at a time, now that the courts have gotten involved.  It used to be $1,000's at a time until the courts' recent ruling.  

Truth is, HOA's boards of directors are made up mainly of those who never had any authority of any kind in their entire lives.  They were the postal carriers, and the secretaries, and the cashiers from Wal-Mart.  They always had a boss telling them what to do.  And they didn't like it.    

And then they retired and moved into an HOA-managed development.  Then ran for the board of their HOA, got a clipboard and a pencil and a ruler, and started looking for violations at YOUR home.  They're filled with venom and fueled with righteousness.  They're finally able to talk back to somebody for the first time in their lives.  To order folks around.  And they're going to take it out on you.  In spades.

Please, Fellow Patriots, do yourself a favor and make sure there's no HOA running things in the home you're thinking about buying.  I didn't, and wound up being pursued by a retired professional quilter (!) all around my kitchen for trying to install solar panels on my roof.  She yelled at me for fully 30 minutes after having been awakened by a hammer falling at 7:05 a.m., 5 full minutes after their legal starting time.  

She then called the sheriff and highway patrol.  And the city's permitting office to see if the job had been officially approved.  Before long there were 2 Samoan solar panel installers, 4 HOA board members, their poor, mistreated husbands, and a sheriff's deputy and a policeman in my back yard.  Trying to figure out if the installers could start installing. The HOA's rules said they could.  The quilter broke down and admitted herself for psychiatric treatment. 

I've owned 12 homes in 4 states and never before had an HOA trying to ruin my life.  The good news is there's not too much of it left, so this problem will naturally go away before long.  Make sure it doesn't happen to you.

So these things piss me off.  Maybe you too.  And I intend to keep writing about them until they stop.  It's cathartic.  It makes my spleen feel better.  Maybe yours too.  Or maybe you're piss off-free and just need to read how others are suffering.  If so, keep reading.  It's good for us both...

*   That bike cost me $120 of my newpaper route money.  And it was so special then its worth more than $3,500 today.  Wish I had it back.

**  I attended Rep. Dana Rohrbacher's relection party at Skosh Monahan's one night awhile back.  Back when Orange County, CA was turning from bright red to purple.  He was so far ahead on Election eve that we all toasted his return to Congress.  Where he'd  been for 30 years.  Excepppppt, two weeks later a ballot harvester pulled up in front of the Secretary of the Election's office to drop off 250,000 ballots.  Which put Dana's opponent into the lead.  Like what just happened to Pratt in Lost Angeles.  They just keep on counting until they get it right.  Remember the Golden Rule:  He who has the gold, rules...