Think it cannot happen in Virginia, well think again

As a member of the United States Navy and subsequently as a Department of the Navy Civil Servant I spent much of my career starting in the early 1970s in Southern California which was a virtual paradise – the best public schools in the nation, superlative public services, and a pristine landscape unmarred by the encampments of “newcomers” and homeless camps that now mar the landscape. Although there was a strong presence of the Democratic Party in the urban centers of the north Ronald Regan was the state’s governor from 1967-1975 where he put into the practice the principles embodied in the Republican Creed of Virgina, e.g., fiscal responsibility, Constitutional limitations, and the free enterprise system. The “Golden State” truly was gold.

Over my forty-year career which vacillated between San Diego and Washington D.C. it was obvious that the aura of that magic land was fast diminishing – the quality of schools and public service declined, the interests of special interest groups were placed above those of the general population, and once vibrant economy stagnated – in short California that once was the envy of the nation was no more. What was the cause of this dramatic decline? Easy, the rise of the Democratic Party and its inability to govern and its catering to special interest groups. While California Democrats were focused on minutia the state as a whole continued to decline to the sorry state of where it is today.

Unfortunately, this same pattern has been repeated systematically across the nation. Many of our cities that were once a testament to American exceptionalism are now such as state of decay that they barely function and provide basic services to their residents. In rural America, the North American Free Trade Agreement orchestrated by the Clinton Administration has off shored many once solid American industries such as textiles and manufacturing and placed many rural residents  below the poverty line and solely dependent on government assistance to make it from one day to the next. LBJ’s “Great Society” which has been perpetuated by the Democratic Party has now left generations of Americans in an endless cycle of poverty and despair so that many assume their existence is in fact the ”normal” way of life. 

This November the Commonwealth of Virginia will face the fork in the road much like California faced years ago. The right to life, school choice, the Second Amendment among others that many Virginians take for granted may be no more and once they are gone like my experience in California they will NEVER return. Luckily the common sense and veto power of Governor Glenn Youngkin has prevented Virginia from proceeding down a path from which it will never return. I fear if Virginia goes “blue” under a radical administration of Ms. Spanberger much like my beloved California, Virginia will become yet another paradise lost never to return to its former glory. We simply cannot let that happen to the state we call home.