This is the real reason we pay taxes: to keep the ruling class (high ranking officials) and the larger parasite class (government employees and government contractors) living lifestyles of relative opulence and ease while private sector workers toil to produce all the real wealth. If it seems worse in California it’s because the grift is at a far more advanced stage there. For example, government services like fire suppression and infrastructure are cut in order to fund lavish pensions for state employees. This is true in many states, but it’s especially bad in California.
Dry fire hydrants. Millionaire firemen. High crime. Crumbling infrastructure. Is this that “civilization” that Oliver Wendell Holmes was talking about? Possibly. Contra the clueless Holmes, however, taxes are definitely not the price we pay for civilization. If anything, taxes destroy civilization by funneling resources to extractive state organs which work primarily to enrich themselves and the ruling oligarchy.
Somebody seems to understand the state and all of its members and what it is for. We are the herd to be milked and they are the assmilkers milkers for their own pleasures. The fires are starting to awaken many more people to these facts of life. THEY are trying to live at the expense of everybody that is productive and they don’t give a hot damn what happens to the herd. In fact, lately, they think the herd must be culled and culled heavily. Now is the time to be having a head on a swivel.