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Last summer, Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize winner, asked in his New York Times column: "What have we liberals done to the West Coast?"
This week, the leftist elite in California are asking, "What has our leftist government done to us?"
While Hollywood and much of Southern California burn---with little containment.
As millions are suffering loss, including loss of life in SOCAL, they're beginning to ask Kristof's question: "What have you liberals (progressives) done to us?"
There's hope.
Be informed, not misled.
Last June, Kristof said, “We in the West impeded home construction in ways that made cities unaffordable, especially for people of color. The basic reason for homelessness on the West Coast is an enormous shortage of housing that drives up rents. California lacks about three million housing units, in part because it’s difficult to get permission to build."
What matters is improving opportunities and quality of life, and the best path to do that is a relentless empiricism — which clashes with the West Coast’s indifference to the laws of economics….What is needed is less purity and more pragmatism and the first step must be the humility to acknowledge our failures.”
The Left's inability to acknowledge failure.
In his Case for Christianity, CS Lewis said:
“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world it's pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We're on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
But the so-called progressives cannot admit they have made a mistake.
The New York Times editor added to Kristof's comment: "Editors’ note: This is all true – but even Kristof doesn’t diagnose or acknowledge the full extent of the dysfunction of progressive governance. Yes, over-regulation of housing is a problem. But what about drugs? What about confiscatory taxes? What about the miserable schools? What about the lawlessness thanks to leftist prosecutors? What about the anti-business culture?"
A host of famous Hollywood landmarks remained under threat Thursday as the deadly fires laying waste to vast parts of Los Angeles County and its immediate surroundings show no abatement.
Two new blazes broke out overnight in the Hollywood Hills and Studio City, forcing first responders to redeploy their stretched resources to the smoldering landscape. "
Over 100,000 people have now been told to flee at least five separate blazes, including in the heart of historic Hollywood, just a few hundred yards from the storied theaters of Hollywood Boulevard.
Red flag warnings remain in effect for L.A. County and much of Ventura County through Friday.
Celebrity Sarah Michelle Gellar is leading the stars that are blasting the LA mayor, whom they elected, as gridlock cripples evacuations.
"City of LA, you want everyone to evacuate, yet you have complete gridlock and not one traffic cop on the roads helping," Gellar wrote on Instagram stories with tags to the official social media accounts for the City of Los Angeles and Mayor Bass.
Former "Dancing with the Stars" professional dancer Valentin Chmerkovskiy aired grievances on social media Wednesday, writing, "5th largest economy on the planet. Firefighters didn't have enough water pressure to do their jobs?! Are you joking me?! The taxes we pay for 3rd world infrastructure is unbelievable?! Come on."
Model and TV personality Amber Rose joined in with concerns over water, writing on her Instagram story: "How TF is there Low water pressure in Los Angeles???? WTF? The fire hydrants barely work here??? This is insane!"
Sara Foster wrote on X, "We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted to save fish. Our fire department budget was cut by our mayor. But thank god drug addicts are getting their drug kits. @MayorOfLA @GavinNewsom RESIGN. Your far left policies have ruined our state. And also our party."
Her comments were re-posted by Candace Cameron Bure, who previously told Fox News Digital she worries families and small businesses will not recover following the fires.
Celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels remembered losing her home in the 2018 Woolsey Fire as she took to X to criticize California's leadership.
"The mayor is apparently in Ghana," she wrote. "The fire departments budget was apparently cut by 17 mil. And someone made the decision to not refill some of the reservoirs - now some fire hydrants are dry. Leadership in California is beyond negligent. This is completely unacceptable."
In another post, Michaels continued, "California governor @GavinNewsom issues a press release admitting they knew about the insane fire risk this past Sunday because he was propositioning fire engines. And yet, he just called in the national guard a few hours ago. Pacific Palisades ran out of water at 3am. I’m so so upset for the people of California. My family who stayed. My lifelong friends who live there. Our brave firefighters. This is not a partisan issue it’s pure incompetence and misprioritization."
Actor James Woods, who lost his home Tuesday in the Palisades Fire, wrote on X that the blaze wasn't from "climate change" but due to "liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass."
He continued, "One doesn't understand the first thing about fire management and the other can't fill the water reservoirs."
Woods posted throughout the day as he prepared to evacuate his home, and he later gave fans a somber update that he had lost his house in the Pacific Palisades.
Actor Dean Cain appeared on "Fox & Friends" where he called out the California Democrats for their response to the Palisades fire and others that broke out Wednesday.
Cain, known for his role as Clark Kent in the TV series, claimed the disappointing response was a "perfect storm" of mismanagement and leadership failure.
Meanwhile, Zachary Levi appeared on "Jesse Waters Primetime" and called for California's political leadership to be "held responsible" as wildfires burned down neighborhoods near Los Angeles.
The "Shazam!" star questioned if there was "criminal intentionality" in the mismanagement of the fire response.
There's hope.
Have you noticed that every culture that so-called "secular progressivism" touches begins to rot?
Atheism, secularism, and humanism were largely philosophical imports from France, Germany, and England after the Constitution was written and after the deaths of most of our Founding Fathers.
It had little effect on America until the late nineteenth century.
At Columbia University, John Dewey and his disciples produced "progressive education" which has turned out to be a disaster educationally and spiritually.
In 1962, the progressive march began through our public education, which included stripping any recognition of the Bible and Judeo-Christian morality.
Public education in America is now in decline, even though we spend more per student than most any other developed country.
We raised a generation that turned out to be secular humanists. And then another and another.
Now secular humanists have not only educated our children but have now shaped the worldview of many of our leaders, including our political leaders.
When we look at the West Coast of America, we see the largest cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle.
While Los Angeles is, at the moment, plagued by fire, all West Coast major cities are plagued with homelessness, crime, and a diminishing quality of life.
To fix the problems, the citizens of these once beautiful cities vote for new leadership, who hold the same worldview as the former leaders. And the city continues to rot. And people ask why?
Andrew T Walker serves as associate professor of Christian ethics at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He has written extensively on this subject.
He says, "The fundamental organizing principle of our existence is that God is the Lord. The fundamental organizing principle and logic of human self-understanding ought to be the Creator-creature distinction."
At the heart of our existence ought to be the distinction between God and His creation. Rather than amass power for ourselves, we believe in a divine disaggregation. We embrace a duality of God above and man below. We cannot arrogate to ourselves a power that was never ours to begin with. Progressivism denies the Creator-creature distinction because it is a metaphysic that rejects any notion of objective creation, objective Creatorship, or objective morality, meaning that progressivism conceives of itself as its own God.
Progressivism relies upon monistic explanatory principles. It denies the duality of power distinctions between God and man. The historical arc, then, is to create principles that allow for the total consumption of all things into progressivism’s conception of itself as divine and omnicompetent. Maybe that is liberty, pleasure, or power—or the progressive belief in the ever-improving conditions of man and man’s nature. So, it plays a godlike role even if it is not God. And if it is trying to play a God-like role, it will play that God-like role falsely.
Takeaway
Progressivism’s antipathy to God means its claims are comparably more anti-Christian. Any political worldview that does not begin with acknowledging the order and truth of a sovereign God is a worldview—and political community—destined to fail.
No culture survives the terminal state of progressivism when built upon the lie of honoring the collective—rather than Christ—as Lord.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.