I'm sorry you don't live in California.

The case for California.

“Where are you from,” they ask. Oh boy. Here it comes. Should I make up something or say the truth? California. “Oh I’m sorry.” Well I’m not.

People don’t understand California. They think it’s all Los Angeles. That shows their own ignorance. California remains a spectacular place if you understand basic geography. Here’s why I love it here.

There are more Republicans living in California than in any other state.

The haters don’t know this, and I can even preempt their reply guy remark. “Well that’s because more people live in California.” Perhaps they should use that logic before talking about California as if it’s all LA and SF. Ever think of that? There are a lot of people here, and outside of the urban areas, it’s deep red.

I’m surrounded by Republicans. They are everywhere. People wear Trump hats at the gym. There’s alway some political event happening. I can’t even keep up with the schedule of events at The Lincoln Club OC.

Counties in California were more open during Covid than most red states.

That’s right. County sheriffs refused to enforce Gavin Newsom’s unlawful lockdown and curfew orders. Orange County did a voluntary lockdown for a couple of weeks to see what was up. Then people went on living normally. Meanwhile I watched what happened in Ohio. You guys had it worse in your red state than many of us had it in California. You couldn’t go to church. Bet you didn’t know that. Why do Republicans in Republican safe states elect people like Governor Mike DeWine? Well? Start worrying about that, why don’t you?

California people think anything is possible.

In most of the country, people are parochial. They’ll tell you why a business will fail. They’ll say you should stay in your lane. Think small.

Out here, people have heard way stranger ideas than anything you’ll come up with.

Go for it, you’ll hear.

Deal flow.

Everyone is up to something here. From start-ups in SF or LA to real estate developments in OC and wine country, you can get yourself awash in opportunity. Everywhere you look, new developments are going up. Construction. Housing. If e-commerce is your bag, the visionaires are in California doing it.

We held an open house for a private lounge a couple of weeks ago. Multiple founders showed up. One company is working on a way to have kid friendly streaming work at scale. Another is doing steaks and collagen ice cream. People are writing angel checks left and right. You can’t even keep up with everything.

Remarkable geography and physical culture.

Idiots will say to me on X, “I couldn’t live in California, too much poop to step in.” You mean horse manure? Yes there’s a lot of wildlife here.

Coyote crap, too. Turn off the “news” and fire up the All Trails app. Different worlds.

You can get a concealed carry permit.

In Republican counties, you can concealed carry. You can’t have the gucci guns, as California state gun laws are annoying. No AR-15. But if you can’t handle a self-defense situation with a vanilla Sig, Glock or S&W, then you need to spend more time on the range.

Everything cool starts in California.

Bitcoin? California. Look at where Coinbase is headquartered. Elon Musk is in Texas, which makes sense for him now. He started in California.

One of the first Orthodox Christian monasteries was founded in Northern California. Fr Seraphim Rose? California.

Josiah B. Trenham lays his head in Riverside County at Saint Andrew’s Orthodox Church.

Maybe the online “Orthobros” should spend less time sharing dodgy memes online and make a road trip out to California, if they can find the courage in their hearts?

California Moms led the fight against Covid and vaccine tyranny.

Before all of you started to wonder about vaccines, the California moms were showing up and fighting for their children. Where were you? Where was conservative media?

California is the center of the world.

Good or bad, the country will go as California does. There are a lot of problems within the state. Although I would ask my Republican friends in red states: Why do you keep electing RINO’s?

Fix your own problems.

We are working on ours.

And stop embarrassing yourselves with the California hate.