The Golden State
California is a U.S. state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.5 million residents, California is the most populous state in the United States and the third largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 8.8 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County; its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; and its fifth most densely populated county, San Francisco.
Geographical type: Territory
Latitude: 37° N — Longitude: 120° W
Area: 423,970 km²
ISO 3166-2 code: US-CA
Notable Places
- Los Angeles - The City of Angels
Related Individuals
Joseph Fuhrig, 1982 U.S. Senate candidate
Birthplace of
David Brin, in Glendale, on 6 Oct 1950
Bryan Caplan, in Northridge, on 8 Apr 1971
Clint Eastwood, in San Francisco, on 31 May 1930
Williamson Evers, Williamson M. Evers, in San Francisco, on 18 Oct 1948
Marshall Fritz, Marshall William Fritz, in Inglewood, on 10 Mar 1943
Richard Nixon, Richard Milhous Nixon, in Yorba Linda, on 9 Jan 1913
Gregory Peck, in La Jolla, on 5 Apr 1916
Mark Skousen, Mark Andrew Skousen, in San Diego, on 19 Oct 1947
Home To
Advocates for Self-Government, Sacramento
Libertarian Party of California, Sacramento
Liberty International, San Francisco
Deathplace of
Peter Finch, in Beverly Hills, on 14 Jan 1977
Gerald Ford, in Rancho Mirage, on 26 Dec 2006
Milton Friedman, in San Francisco, on 16 Nov 2006
Rose D. Friedman, in Davis, on 18 Aug 2009
Marshall Fritz, in Fresno, on 4 Nov 2008
Warren G. Harding, in San Francisco, on 2 Aug 1923
F. A. Harper, on 21 Apr 1973
Robert A. Heinlein, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, on 8 May 1988
Raymond C. Hoiles, in Santa Ana, on 31 Oct 1970
Yuri Kochiyama, in Berkeley, on 1 Jun 2014
Suzanne La Follette, in Stanford, on 23 Apr 1983
Tibor Machan, in Silverado Canyon, on 24 Mar 2016
Patrick McGoohan, in Santa Monica, on 13 Jan 2009
Vince Miller, in Benicia, on 28 Jun 2008
Linus Pauling, in Big Sur, on 19 Aug 1994
Neil Peart, in Santa Monica, on 7 Jan 2020
Sharon Presley, in Lodi, on 31 Oct 2022
Justin Raimondo, in Sebastopol, on 27 Jun 2019
Butler Shaffer, in Burbank, on 29 Dec 2019
David J. Theroux, in Oakland, on 23 Apr 2022
V. Orval Watts, in Palm Springs, on 30 Mar 1993
Robert Anton Wilson, in Santa Cruz, on 11 Jan 2007
Web Pages
Advocates for Self-Government - Libertarian Education: David Bergland - Libertarian
Includes picture, biography and quotes
Includes picture, biography and quotes
Before his presidential campaign, Bergland had sought public office four previous times. In 1974, he ran for Attorney General of California as a Libertarian write-in candidate (before the California Libertarian Party had gained ballot status). ... In 1978, he ran for state senate -- and was the first candidate to appear on the ballot in California with the Libertarian Party label. In 1980, he was a candidate for U.S. Senate in California ... That campaign earned him the Samuel Adams Society's first Sons of Liberty Award, given for California campaigns that do the best job of 'upholding libertarian principles.'
Related Topics: David Bergland, Libertarian Party
Measures of Freedom
Freedom in the 50 States 2015-2016 | California | Cato Institute
2014: Overall rank: 49, fiscal policy rank: 46, regulatory policy rank: 48, personal freedom rank: 16, economic freedom rank: 49
2014: Overall rank: 49, fiscal policy rank: 46, regulatory policy rank: 48, personal freedom rank: 16, economic freedom rank: 49
LP State-by-State Membership Numbers [PDF], Libertarian Party News, Apr 2006
31 Dec 2005: Number of Members: 2828
31 Dec 2005: Number of Members: 2828
Articles
Bob Poole Remembers Tibor Machan, A Fellow Founding Co-Editor of Reason Magazine, by Robert W. Poole, Jr., 25 Mar 2016
Memorial essay, highlighting Machan's life, his involvement with Reason and the Reason Foundation, and some of his writings
Memorial essay, highlighting Machan's life, his involvement with Reason and the Reason Foundation, and some of his writings
Lanny Friedlander ... told me to look up Tibor ... when he learned I was about to move to Santa Barbara to take up a new job. Tibor and I became friends ... I have fond memories of long evenings at Tibor's hillside home, discussing philosophy and imagining what kind of impact a serious libertarian magazine could have. (Yes, in those days a graduate student at UCSB could afford to buy a house in Santa Barbara!) ... During the Foundation's early years, [Tibor] secured funding annual summer research seminars in political philosophy, bringing a dozen or more scholars to Santa Barbara.
California LP targets utility taxes with "Operation Energy Tax Revolt", Libertarian Party News, Jan 2002
Over the past year, the state legislature has sent energy prices soaring by piling regulations on energy companies in the wake of California's electricity crisis ... 'We don't believe local governments should benefit monetarily because of state government regulations that drive up prices for consumers,' said Starr ...
Related Topic: Electric Power
California's Blow Against Property Rights, by Sheldon Richman, Dec 1997
Discusses the concepts of private property and property rights in view of California's law forbidding smoking in bars, beginning in January 1998
Discusses the concepts of private property and property rights in view of California's law forbidding smoking in bars, beginning in January 1998
California likes its reputation as the trend-setter of the nation, but let's hope it won't be true this time. On New Year's Day, it will become the first state where smoking is forbidden in bars. Most people don't smoke, so they may be pleased with this news. But that would be short-sighted, indeed ... The organized antismokers apparently believe that they have a right to smoke-free air wherever they are. That just is not so. They have a right to avoid smoky places, to organize boycotts, to open smoke-free bars. But they have no right ... to demand that the state legislature impose a smoking ban.
California's Energy Meltdown, by George Reisman, The Free Market, Mar 2001
Examines the causes underlying the problems of California's electric power system, countering those who claim they were due to deregulation and the free market
Examines the causes underlying the problems of California's electric power system, countering those who claim they were due to deregulation and the free market
The state of California has experienced a meltdown in its electric power system. For months, the system has repeatedly run at or near the overload point, necessitating brownouts and even rolling blackouts. Incredibly, the fiasco has been blamed on deregulation ... [I]n the last decade, only power plants using natural gas as their fuel have been allowed to be constructed, and such plants now account for most of the state s generating capacity ... The rise in the price of natural gas has been especially great in California, where lack of adequate pipeline capacity has limited natural gas supplies ...
Central Planning of Electricity Must Fail, by Sheldon Richman, 20 Aug 2003
Explains why deregulation was definitely not responsible for the widespread power outage in Aug 2003 in the northeast and midwest United States, also examining deregulation effects in California
Explains why deregulation was definitely not responsible for the widespread power outage in Aug 2003 in the northeast and midwest United States, also examining deregulation effects in California
California, the land of alleged power deregulation, is often used to indict free markets. There the authorities froze retail electricity prices even when wholesale prices were rising. (Other stifling regulations were also imposed on every stage of the industry) ... [H]igher demand would have raised prices, signaling ... end-users [to] conserve, [but] price controls [prevented that]. Demand continued to rise, squeezing utilities, whose prices were not capped, until a crisis hit. In the name of keeping consumer prices low and preventing profiteering, the controllers made a vital service unreliable.
Drug War Dementia, by James Bovard, Freedom Daily, Nov 1996
Details various police, military and school actions and legislation in the government's war on users of certain banned substances, and the generally unrecognized side effects of these policies
Details various police, military and school actions and legislation in the government's war on users of certain banned substances, and the generally unrecognized side effects of these policies
In a 1989 California marijuana-suppression operation, military-convoy trucks crashed through environmentally sensitive areas that had previously been banned to any heavy trucks. Garberville, California, residents were threatened with $1,000 fines and a year in prison for hiking on their own property in violation of a government order cordoning off large areas of land being searched for drugs by the military. Army infantrymen with no warrant trampled private property in sweep searches to try to find the illegal plants. Federal judge Fern Smith blocked the federal-enforcement effort ...
Four California tax increases defeated, Libertarian Party News, Dec 2004
Reports on the successes of the Libertarian Party of California in opposing several tax increase proposals in the 2004 Santa Clara County elections
Reports on the successes of the Libertarian Party of California in opposing several tax increase proposals in the 2004 Santa Clara County elections
The LP joined with the Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association ... to oppose 13 of the 15 tax increase proposals in [Santa Clara] county ... They succeeded in defeating four tax increase measures on Election Day, saving local taxpayers millions of dollars over the next few years ... One measure alone—Measure K, which would have levied an additional annual tax of $50 per parcel of land in the East Side Union High School District—would have cost taxpayers $51 million ... [A]ccording to the California budget, state spending per student continues to increase, not decrease ...
Related Topic: Taxation
"Free-Speech Zone", by James Bovard, The American Conservative, 15 Dec 2003
Provides various examples of "free speech zone" incidents as well as reactions in the U.S. and overseas
Provides various examples of "free speech zone" incidents as well as reactions in the U.S. and overseas
One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the port of Oakland, injuring a number of people. When the police attack sparked ... media criticism, ... [a] spokesman ... told the Oakland Tribune, "You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest ..."
Give Me Liberty [PDF], by Rose Wilder Lane, 1936
Originally published as an article titled "Credo" in the Saturday Evening Post; describes her experiences in and history of Soviet Russia and Europe, contrasting them with the history of the United States, emphasizing the individualist themes
Originally published as an article titled "Credo" in the Saturday Evening Post; describes her experiences in and history of Soviet Russia and Europe, contrasting them with the history of the United States, emphasizing the individualist themes
California was torn from Mexico as a surreptitious personal adventure of General Fremont's, connived in by Senator Benton of Missouri who sent him word to move quickly before he was stopped. It was done at a time when no one dreamed there was gold in those foothills and thoughtful men knew that California's soil was worthless because the United States already had far more land than Americans could use, and for centuries to come the population on the Pacific Coast would not be large enough to be a market for farm products.
Related Topics: American Revolutionary War, United States Bill of Rights, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democratic Party, Economic Resources, Economics, Farming, France, Germany, Government, Hungary, Italy, Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky, Liberty, Individual Liberty, Militarism, Nonviolent resistance, Personal Responsibility, Political Parties, Republican Party, Socialism, United States
Hookers and family values - the GOP's strange bedfellows, by Brock N. Meeks, 9 Aug 1996
Comments on the behind-the-scenes activities at the 1996 Republican Party presidential nominating convention
Comments on the behind-the-scenes activities at the 1996 Republican Party presidential nominating convention
Such activity is "absolutely, absolutely" business as usual, says Norma Jean Almodovar, executive director of the Southern California chapter of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), an advocacy group for prostitutes. Almodovar ... spent a decade (1972-1982) as a Los Angeles cop ... As host ..., San Diego's population will swell with an influx of 7,500 delegates, ... some 12,000 journalists — and hundreds of out-of-state pros-titutes ... "... the liberal Democrats have passed the most sexually repressive legislation that we have (in California) regarding prostitution, rather than ... Republicans," Almodovar says.
Related Topic: Republican Party
I'd Like My Money Back, by Mary Theroux, 14 Apr 2009
Letter to President Obama, California Congresswomen, the California Governor, the Alameda County Tax Collector and the Mayor of Oakland, pleading that they return "all monies previously remitted, for non-performance of services"
Letter to President Obama, California Congresswomen, the California Governor, the Alameda County Tax Collector and the Mayor of Oakland, pleading that they return "all monies previously remitted, for non-performance of services"
As documented in numerous ways by countless researchers, the United States public school system is an abysmal failure, with California's among the worst of the worst ... Your gazillion-dollar rebuild of the Oakland-San Francisco bridge, ostensibly necessitated by its failure in the 1989 earthquake, was originally slated to open this year at a cost of $1.1 billion ... Oakland is virtually the poster child for violent crime in the U.S. The tragic recent deaths of four police officers are just the latest senseless murders for this city ranked fifth in crime in the U.S.
Leonard E. Read: A Portrait, by Edmund A. Opitz, The Freeman, Sep 1998
Memorial and biographical essay, focusing mostly on Read's life before founding FEE; written for the centennial of his birth
Memorial and biographical essay, focusing mostly on Read's life before founding FEE; written for the centennial of his birth
[Read] eventually was able to get a job with the tiny Burlingame Chamber of Commerce outside of San Francisco, where he did well enough to be invited to head the much more active Palo Alto Chamber ... California is a state of mind, or a mental state—take your pick. There was—especially in southern California—a mixed bag of share-the-wealth enthusiasts: Marxists, socialists, social creditors, Townsendites, technocrats, followers of Upton Sinclair, and the like ... But there was in the Los Angeles area a small cadre of businessmen who were critical of all New Deal policies.
Libertarians help California county save $98 million in school taxes, Libertarian Party News, Apr 2004
Reports on the defeat of a proposed bond measure for school construction in Santa Barbara County and the activities of the county Libertarian Party to prevent the measure from passing
Reports on the defeat of a proposed bond measure for school construction in Santa Barbara County and the activities of the county Libertarian Party to prevent the measure from passing
In Santa Maria—a city of about 85,000 in Santa Barbara County, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco—voters rejected a proposed bond measure that would have cost them $98 million for school construction ... [County LP chair] Wagener has had a public access television show for about three-and-a-half years, and he used his platform to remind voters in Santa Maria of another time the local school district got a bond approved with a promise to build a school ... "They were supposed to build a new junior high school about two decades ago, and they never have gotten around to it," Wagener said.
Related Topics: Libertarian Party, Taxation
Orchestrating Energy Disaster, by Walter E. Williams, 23 May 2001
Discusses the problems in California's electric power industry, deriding comments by Paul Krugman and columnist Robert Scheer that the problems were due to "deregulation", and emphasizing the benefits of federalism
Discusses the problems in California's electric power industry, deriding comments by Paul Krugman and columnist Robert Scheer that the problems were due to "deregulation", and emphasizing the benefits of federalism
Here's how California created its supply crunch. It takes two years to build a power plant in business-friendly states but four years in California. Sunlaw Energy Company wants to build a $256 million natural-gas-fired plant in Los Angeles; community activists are stopping it. San Francisco activists killed a proposal to float an electricity-producing barge in the bay, even as the city faced blackouts. ... California currently has two nuclear plants, Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, that could solve its supply problems, but California has constitutionally banned nuclear power and is decommissioning its nuclear plants.
Political Plundering of Property Owners, by James Bovard, Nov 2002
Details the effects of local government land and property seizures allegedly for urban renewal purposes, for improving "blighted" neighborhoods or for the benefit of sports team owners
Details the effects of local government land and property seizures allegedly for urban renewal purposes, for improving "blighted" neighborhoods or for the benefit of sports team owners
The Los Angeles Times reported in 1991, "In the tiny but wealthy desert city of Indian Wells, the council sought to resolve a budget crisis by declaring almost the entire city blighted. It planned to use redevelopment funds to build a championship golf course and other incentives to attract luxury resort hotels." The city council of Mission Viejo, California, sought to declare the entire city "blighted by traffic" ... Columnist Dan Walters noted, "Vallejo, California, used redevelopment powers to declare a golf course to be blighted so it could be folded into the MarineWorld Africa USA tourist development."
Related Topics: George W. Bush, Eminent Domain Protections, Illinois, Michigan, New York City, Private Property, Washington, D.C.
Senator Feinstein and property rights, by Thomas Sowell, 10 Nov 2003
Discusses Dianne Feinstein's comment that private property is "alive and well" in San Francisco as evidenced by its high property values
Discusses Dianne Feinstein's comment that private property is "alive and well" in San Francisco as evidenced by its high property values
It was front-page news recently that an 18-story condominium building is to be constructed in South San Francisco. It took two decades for the builders to fight their way through all the politicians, courts, bureaucracies and environmental activists. ... Far down the income scale from Senator Feinstein is a nurse who, according to a local newspaper, 'has finally bought her dream house' near the long-delayed condominium. This is a 2,400 square foot house selling for $850,000. High housing costs in California are not due to people living in mansions but to bungalows costing what mansions cost elsewhere.
Related Topics: New York City, Property Rights
Videos
Ron Paul March in San Francisco 9/13/07, 13 Sep 2007
The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "California" as of 17 Sep 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.