IRAQ vs. CALIFORNIA

[Ban Hammer 14,295]

The following is a very interesting perspective from Victor Davis Hanson who is a professor at Fresno State.

Eye of the Beholder

by Victor Davis Hanson

The American Enterprise Online

War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.

As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California - yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about "Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!"

How about a monthly media dose of "600 women raped in February alone!" Or try, "Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!" Those do not even make up all of the state's yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

Iraq's judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California 's with 170,000 criminals - an inmate population larger than those of Germany , France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.

Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year - or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, "Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals"?

Some of California's most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensationalize: "Guards watch as inmates are raped!" Or "Correction officer accused of having sex with under-aged detainee!" And apropos of Saddam's sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer,Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005 - 26 years after he was originally sentenced.

Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq 's borders with Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia , Syria, and Turkey . But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who sneaked in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, costing about $500 million a year . Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: "Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco !" or "Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California !"

Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes - nearly twice the number of Americans lost so far in three years of combat operations in Iraq. In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than Improvised Explosive Devices. Perhaps tomorrow's headline might scream out at us: "300 Californians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!"

In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricit y in the United States. Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household's line of defense.

We're told that Iraq's finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California's. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning newscast teasers: "Another $100 million borrowed today - $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month's end!"

So is California comparable to Iraq? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bankrupt, crime-ridden den with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide-open borders.

I myself recently returned home to California , without incident, from a visit to Iraq's notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.

Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.

©2006 Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University , a Professor Emeritus at California University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.

[munchkins 1]

Lots of food for thought there Charles

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Let's get started on that wall. I'm willing to pay extra for my yard work.

[rclouse 0]

Apple this is orange. Orange, meet apple.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Apple this is orange. Orange, meet apple.

I like fruit salad.

[mawilson 2,133]

The comparison is so ridiculous, I'm not even going to comment.....

[peezey 0]

The comparison is so ridiculous, I'm not even going to comment.....

It is, but you can expect nothing more from a Hoover Institution Fellow. It's where all the Nice Polite Republicans come from.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Yeah, I'm not gonna hold my breath on Californians getting in line to migrate into the much more peaceful and safe Iraq. Is that fellow gonna be first in line to get his family to safer grounds or what?

[UmmSqueakster 54]

I must be missing all the reports of car bombs coming out of California. Bad main stream media, bad!

[peezey 0]

I must be missing all the reports of car bombs coming out of California. Bad main stream media, bad!

That's why we have so many Hummers here, and just so many cars in general. Because we lose so many each day via car bombs. It's also why there's so much traffic and it takes forever to get to work....all the checkpoints!

[garya505 2]

So what are the real stats for homicides in California and Iraq?

[peezey 0]

I also find it interesting this think-tanker brought up our prison population....GOOD! This is true all across the US. Maybe we can step it up and become humane and civilized like Singapore. I cannot stand we live in a country where prisons=capitalist free for all. It's embarassing.

It also sickens me that he finds it ridiculous it took 25 years of appeals to kill someone via state-sponsored murder. Tookie is the prime example of a rehabiliated criminal, but this isn't valued in CA or anywhere in the US.

[Ban Hammer 14,295]

I also find it interesting this think-tanker brought up our prison population....GOOD! This is true all across the US. Maybe we can step it up and become humane and civilized like Singapore. I cannot stand we live in a country where prisons=capitalist free for all. It's embarassing.

It also sickens me that he finds it ridiculous it took 25 years of appeals to kill someone via state-sponsored murder. Tookie is the prime example of a rehabiliated criminal, but this isn't valued in CA or anywhere in the US.

so you want to bring back whipping with a cane then

[peezey 0]

I also find it interesting this think-tanker brought up our prison population....GOOD! This is true all across the US. Maybe we can step it up and become humane and civilized like Singapore. I cannot stand we live in a country where prisons=capitalist free for all. It's embarassing.

It also sickens me that he finds it ridiculous it took 25 years of appeals to kill someone via state-sponsored murder. Tookie is the prime example of a rehabiliated criminal, but this isn't valued in CA or anywhere in the US.

so you want to bring back whipping with a cane then

Of course not, but if there was a choice between a spanking and capital murder, I'd choose the cane. Bizarre that you'd equate the two.

[Ban Hammer 14,295]

I also find it interesting this think-tanker brought up our prison population....GOOD! This is true all across the US. Maybe we can step it up and become humane and civilized like Singapore. I cannot stand we live in a country where prisons=capitalist free for all. It's embarassing.

It also sickens me that he finds it ridiculous it took 25 years of appeals to kill someone via state-sponsored murder. Tookie is the prime example of a rehabiliated criminal, but this isn't valued in CA or anywhere in the US.

so you want to bring back whipping with a cane then

Of course not, but if there was a choice between a spanking and capital murder, I'd choose the cane. Bizarre that you'd equate the two.

just as i find it bizarre you'd equate singapore with being civilized after that uproar about that american teen being caned for scratching cars.

and tookie took about 23 years too long to get his reward