Californicated

It's official. I am Californicated. I swore it would never happen to me, but it has.

Think you're above it? Think again.

This week I traveled on vacation to Florida. The first thing I noticed while in search of the perfect Cuban (sandwich) was that even at 6 a.m., local workers on the streets of Miami rushing to work on their bikes and motorcycles, helmet-less, had one hand on their handlebars, and the other on a big, fat Cuban cigar! Smoking while driving, and without a helmet would probably get you hard time in California!

Our first month living in California, my daughter was stopped by police twice in a week's time on her yellow beach bike because, as the officers said, she "looked suspicious." She has not been back on a bike since. She was truly traumatized.

But that is just the beginning.

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Our second night in Miami, my husband and I went dancing. We walked out of an establishment with our mojitos in hand. Now to those of you outside of California still living in America, that might not sound crazy. But you are not Californicated. In California, you cannot have alcohol on the streets, or on the beach. You cannot smoke cigarettes or cigars most anywhere, either. You can, however, smoke pot almost anywhere, and you can buy it everywhere.

Thanks to the environmentalists, you cannot have a fire on the beach, or even in your own fireplace in parts of Southern California.

For my son's birthday, we had another family over to play beach volleyball with us behind our home on the beach. We pulled out our little camping grill to roast marshmallows. The police, and two full fire fleets came, twice, to shut us down. They were even laughing at the ridiculousness of their job in doing so, but in California, that is the law. No burning.

Thank you, environmentalists (emphasis on mental!). My question to you greenies is this: Do you think our little camper grill fire for our son and his friends did more damage to the environment you claim to protect, or do you think the two full fire calls might have choked out more damage? Consider that CO2 is actually healthy for tree growth and clean air, but let's not get bogged down in truth while we were having this fun commie-fest.

Order Gina Loudon's book "Ladies and Gentlemen: Why the Survival of Our Republic Depends on the Revival of Honor" – how atheism, liberalism and radical feminism have harmed the nation.

My husband and my producer have had tickets for using their cell phones to navigate. The reason for looking at your phone doesn't matter to police. If you check your phone, even for navigation, you are guilty of a crime and police are happy to issue you a ticket. Holding it in your hand while driving is a crime. The ticket cost starts at $162, but by the time other fees are tacked on, the fine is nowhere close to that amount.

Despite research that shows that cell-phone bans do not reduce accidents, California aggressively enforces that ridiculous law.

In California, a seat-belt ticket will also set you back $162. By contrast, in my former home of Alabama, that ticket is $50. In Missouri, it is $25. If I am fully insured, who the heck's business is it to force me to wear a seat belt or helmet in the first place? That is between my insurer, and me and not up to the government to dictate or enforce. Worse, California even enforces a back-seat seat-belt law! I learned of that law the hard way.

In California, plastic bags are now banned.

In parts of California, children are taking baths once a week in dirty water – all to save a species of fish that the radical environmentalists have deemed endangered.

Emissions testing, the highest state income tax in the nation, highest state sales tax in the nation, requiring licenses for more occupations than any other state, the list goes on.

California just has all the rules. My husband notes that despite propaganda efforts to define progressives as hip, liberal, civil liberty lovers, California is both the most progressive and most oppressive state.

The most pronounced trashing of individual liberties are the gun laws. In California, certain guns are simply banned. They arbitrarily ban certain bullets, magazine sizes and add-ons for guns. Then they make it impossible to carry a gun, even if your life is threatened. There is an outright ban on lead shot. Sorry, duck hunters.

When I lived in Missouri, I easily got my concealed carry permit. When I moved to Alabama, my first week there, a police officer stopped me and asked what I was doing out at night in a car alone without my gun. That seriously happened. In California, I have had death threats, but I am not allowed by law to carry a weapon to equalize my position as a vulnerable woman who is easy prey for anyone with 100 pounds on me. Where is the gender equality again?

Despite research that says more guns equal less crime, California takes guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. Gun sales have soared since Obama took office, and violent crime has decreased.

Despite common knowledge and a body of research proving the healthy effects of CO2 on the environment, California continues to push emissions testing and to tax everything that doesn't play into its politically correct (if ignorant of any facts) agenda. California leads the way in adopting Al Gore's "Carbon credit" trading scheme called "cap and trade." We call it cap and tax. While other states adopted it as well, all have reversed course and abandoned or outright repealed it except for – you guessed it – California. The system fails unless you have a broad trading market. California found a willing trading partner in … Quebec. While California has nearly as much crude oil as Texas and loads of refineries, it also has the highest gas prices in the country. Only California progressives could pull that off. Cap and trade is expected to add at least 15 percent to the cost of a fill-up. While the lefty politicians line up to buy Teslas, their struggling constituents suffer as their meager incomes vaporize. When a few urban Democrat lawmakers from LA attempted to roll back cap and trade at least temporarily, they were easily squashed by the leftist vanguard from San Franciso.

In addition to oppressive gas taxes, California has the highest income taxes and the highest sales taxes. What do Californians receive for this? California ranks at or near the highest in unemployment, has the single worst business environment, is third worst in homelessness and has the worst schools in the nation. At least we have the best compensated public retiree union members.

Here's another question: Why can't I enjoy a cocktail in the passenger seat in the privacy of my own car, with my husband driving? Many states, including my former home state of Missouri, do not ban alcohol for passengers. It might sound unseemly, or make people feel better to say no alcohol in cars, at all, ever, but where is the constitutional justification, let alone the common sense for these invasions of government?

In my head, I still know constitutional government, and I know California is one big bastardization of any semblance of constitutional. But I have been Californicated. I was shocked when I saw signs in Florida asking that you go ahead and put your weapons in a pocket or holster before entering a restaurant (rather than carrying them out in the open, I guess). I felt like a giddy criminal when I could carry my mojito out in the street and on the beach without being arrested. I still can't believe people can ride their bikes while smoking a cigar, and motorcycles without a helmet. I felt like a bona fide convict when I put my groceries in a plastic bag and left the store with them.

I really thought that I was a unique brand of freedom lover who would never grow used to oppression. I was wrong. It is amazing to me that only a couple of years in California have whittled away at my memory of freedom. I have become used to a life of oppression, and even comfortable. Is this how it happens?

I feel like I spent a renegade week basking in constitutional freedoms, and now I am back in California realizing again what oppression feels like. But I have readjusted to oppression shockingly quickly. I am now off to Texas in another attempt to recover from my severe case of Californication.

Beware, freedom lover. It slithers in like a snake and wraps around your brain and, before you know it, you can become Californicated, too.

Order Gina Loudon's book, "Ladies and Gentlemen: Why the Survival of Our Republic Depends on the Revival of Honor" – how atheism, liberalism and radical feminism have harmed the nation.