It is a known fact that God has been trying to destroy California for some time now.  Conservative pundits are quick to remind us that the state is riding a slip-n-slide straight into the Pacific, which to their way of thinking can only be explained by the existence of Sodom Francisco.  Geologists offer up some Discovery Channel mumbo-jumbo about why this is happening, but anyone who’s ever sat through a college geology course knows that listening to a geologist is almost never worth it.  Between the earthquakes, the mudslides, the bear attacks, the fires, The Hills, and the terrorists on Alcatraz, it’s hard to deny that God is doing everything in his power to get rid of The Golden State.  (To be fair, many believe this is only because He wants an unobstructed shot at Las Vegas.)

Why this ire?  Why this unleashing of righteous judgment?  I can think of only one reason: the people.  In the same way that the rest of the world might be a tolerable place to visit were it not for all the foreigners, California might be a half-decent place to live were it not for all the Californians.  You may have heard that Californians suck, and I can tell you that what you’ve heard is true.  However, they don’t suck for the reasons you may think.  When Christians (read: Midwesterners) celebrate the imminent demise of the Bear Flag Republic, it is usually because they’ve heard that Perez Hilton lives there.  While it’s true that California has become a veritable Petri dish of vanity, VD, and V-necks, those are not my primary complaints with the the people.  The true scourge of the Californian is stated eloquently by Chuck Klosterman in his better-than-decent book Killing Yourself To Live.

I don’t care if 85% of [California] is stupid.  I can deal with stupid.  My problem is that every stupid person in [California] is also (a) unyieldingly narcissistic and (b) unyieldingly nice.  They have somehow managed to combine raging megalomania with genuine friendliness.  It’s a combination that infects your blood like leukemia…you find yourself admiring people you hate…

California has created a new and terrifying breed of douchebag: the likeable douche.  You go to the beach and see a guy wearing a hoodie with no shirt underneath playing Jack Johnson songs on his guitar to no one but himself and you arrive at the only possible conclusion, “I should probably hate that guy.”  Having established this as your point of reference, it is disorienting when you bump into that same guy at the fish taco stand and discover that he’s really digging “what you got going on” and is intensely interested in “your deal.”  In fact, the only thing he’s more into than “your deal” is his own deal, specifically, the way his deal looks in board shorts.

Californians, particularly those of the Southern variety, are infected with a baffling blend of kindness and egomania can only be attributed to relentless sunshine, recreational Hinduism, and easy access to high-quality marijuana.  Chances are good that anyone you interact with in Southern California will be one of the nicest people you’ve ever met.  Chances are also good that a five minute conversation with one of them will feature at least 15 hand runs through playfully tussled hair, several dozen glances into the nearest reflective surface, and repeated references to how sweet various aspects of their life are.

This unique cocktail of engagement and arrogance is concerning because it numbs our innate attack/avoid instinct when encountering douches.  Anywhere else in America, if you met a guy with a guitar and a Jack Johnson song you would either punch him in the face or go sit on the other side of the dorm lobby.  Not so in California.  Here you find yourself conversing with him about surf competitions and whether or not a tortilla wrap that doesn’t contain “guac” can actually be called a burrito.  Before you know it, the two of you have purchased matching cruiser bikes and you’re feeling the urge to work on your “beach bod.”

This is the danger of the Californian.  He cannot be placed in either of humanity’s two mutually exclusive camps: douchebags and decent people.  Generations of inbreeding have created an unholy mutant that is neither douche nor decent yet somehow both at once.  This is why California must be destroyed.  Should this conflation of personality types spread to other states, the American way of life might come crashing to the ground.  In a world where we can no longer trust our presidents, governors, baseball players, or Associations of Community Organizations for Reform Now to whom will we turn if our preconceived notions of goodness and doucheness turn out to be false as well?

California is waging a war on my social paradigms, and that is why I’m rooting for its imminent demise.  People need categories.  We need stereotypes and visual signals by which to recognize and categorize strangers on the street.  When I see a dude in a giant pickup truck with a bicep tat, a Jamba Juice, and a visor, I want, I need, him to be a prick.  I don’t want him to be sincere, generous, or in any way interested in me as a person.  At this point in my life, mountains, trees, and large bodies of water are confusing enough.  If one more Jason Mraz fan on a Vespa turns out to be cool, I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Note: I don’t own the rights to that picture and I’m not sure who does.  If it’s yours, let me know and I’ll give you all the credit you can handle.

Unfortunately, Californians are as bad at whispering as they are at putting out wild fires or being straight.  They peddled their dream through teen soap operas, Colin Hanks movies, and pop/punk songs to a waiting world and it died quicker than a security guard at a Raiders game.  What remains is the bombed out shell of a state that has all the charm of Miami in the 80s except with higher taxes and slightly less cocaine.

Thanks to California, we now know the answer to the age-old quandary: what would happen if 30 million addicts, war protesters, child actors and sex offenders banded together and took over a country?  What happens is a deficit of $26.3 billion, an unemployment rate of 9.3%, humans breeding with goats, and a thousand other maladies born from a populace that is heavy on opinions and light on fully-functioning brains.

When it comes to government futility, it is hard to imagine a place south of Moscow better at it than California.  The state is simply and obviously ungovernable.  Criminals don’t stay in jail.  Kids don’t stay in school.  Roads don’t work like they’re supposed to.  Air doesn’t taste like it’s supposed to.  And tax dollars…well, uhh…haha, about those tax dollars…they’re umm…yeah, they’re gone.

As the uproar over the state’s fiscal starvation becomes loud enough to drown out the American Idol auditions, more and more Californians have started scrambling to figure out just what in the hell everyone is talking about.  This has split the state between people who can’t figure out what the big deal with a measly $26.3 billion is and people who don’t believe that 26.3 billion is a real number.    The rest are just happy to be upset about something and, in all likelihood, probably think they’re raising money for Africa.

Since most of the citizenry is busy trying to count to 26 billion on their toes, The Governator chose last week as the time to send out an innocuous little email letting everyone know that he’ll be appropriating an additional 10% from our paychecks for the next two months.  Not to worry though, this is not a tax increase; merely a temporary hike in deductions that will address the state’s current budget “shortfall.”  Basically, Uncle Arnie needs an advance on next year’s allowance so he can buy a few lotto tickets and keep the bookies at bay until after Christmas.  Besides, we owe him the money anyway.  If he winds up taking more of our checks this year than he normally would, he will be happy to send us a refund in April.  He’s not taking our money, he’s borrowing it.  He’s totally gonna pay us back when he can.

Mr Schwarzenegger is able to get away with this because he knows the average California voter doesn’t understand economic principles like opportunity cost, the time value of money, or direct deposit.  Having not been educated by the California public school system, I do understand these principles.  I also understand an even more relevant one: the importance of hoarding Halloween candy when it goes on clearance.  I love me some candy corn and Reese’s cups and I really could have used that extra 10% of my income on Sunday afternoon.  Will I still be able to buy bags of fun size Snickers for $0.85 when I get my tax refund in April?  Not likely.

This is the stupefying ineptitude of the California political machine.  They raise my taxes in order to open more smog-check stations and hire more police officers to keep me from texting while I’m driving and all they succeed in doing is coming between me and my cheap candy.  In Sacramento this is referred to as “collateral damage.”  Where I come from it’s referred to as stealing.

I can deal with the flavored air.  I can deal with the surcharges on my debit card purchases.  I was even getting used to the radio stations that are half Spanish, half English.  But I cannot deal with one more cent of my paycheck going to subsidize the spending habits of a government that’s trying desperately to destroy its state before God does.  If I wanted that I would have moved to Zimbabwe.

That being said, it’s November 3^rd and I haven’t worn long-sleeves in seven months.  So, you know, no complaints.