The Corruption of California | Hacker News Reader

The Corruption of California

unherd.com

24 pointsjseliger14 comments

I like the lack of self-awareness.

It mentions Republicans did something to lose the confidence of the Californian voter.

Followed by a long rant about how immigrants are destroying civilization by doing non-european things, like speaking Spanish, forming unions, making people queue for things, and loosening beaurocratic rules during infectious pandemics.

Racism is a really powerful cognitive fallacy. Once you let it in, it's tempting to just start pointing it at everything, like author is doing here.

I got to the part where he's describing Hispanics at the DMV and had to check if this was an HP Lovecraft story or something. Yikes

If the DMV sucks, and there's no republican party, maybe go complain to the Dems about it? I understand that decisions are being made are entirely within that party, because nobody likes the other guys. Maybe vote in the primary?

A garbage article with nothing to say other than thinly veiled racist tropes.

Can you elaborate?

To get a smog certificate in California, you take the notice that they send you to any of a number of clearly marked smog test centers. They run the test for a small fee. The results are transmitted to the dmv who send you the sticker.

There is no mysterious Chinese bribery involved and the process is easy.

Source: lived in Los Angeles for two decades in predominantly immigrant cities.

What if your car is not in the best condition and will possibly fail the test?

Then it's against the law, and you need to get it off the road.

Sorry, more convenient for me to pay the chinese lady.

Who, when I was trying to smog my 1986 Dodge Aries, would've been a godsend.

Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I see cars on the road in CA that somehow pass emissions but are in extraordinarily bad mechanical shape since there is no safety inspections. As long as the air is clean I guess.

Since I'm no longer in CA I will readily admit that I've had more than one sideways smog done. Their rules on things like an intake needing a CARB EO is ridiculous. This is the same state that said the Elantra N has too loud exhaust, stock, even though it meets federal limits. Their BAR inspector ran it in "sport" mode instead of "normal" which is against their policy.

I too have lived in California and there is definitely bribery going on with many smog shops.

The article mentioned a Chinese woman producing fake smog certificates, but I must have missed the bribery.

I'm afraid this was quite a meandering story and didn't seem to have a point.

I think it could be summed up as:

Republicans have done things which have alienated California.

Democrats are now unafraid of the voters as they know they will win, so are taking bribes.

This means the DMV is inefficient and corrupt.

The author was able to get smog certification from a Chinese lady

Therefore foreigners are the pressure valve for the system by introducing bribery

The rest of America doesn't have this issue, only Europe, therefore Democrats bad

Wow, I don’t love the DMV but I had a much easier and faster time getting a smog certificate than the author did. Didn’t even need to bribe anyone. But on the other hand I didn’t get to write an article about how an entire state is corrupt.

God that article was painful to read. 'California is like a developing country because you have to go through a third-party to break the law' is certainly a take.

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