Escape.

My wife and I have one crucial goal for 2023: Escape from New York. 

I used to be proud to be from New York State, I truly was. I was born here, grew up here, went to school here, got married and settled down here (mostly in the city itself, now north of that, west of the mighty Hudson). I liked everything in the state, from the excitement of the city up to the gorgeous countryside in the north and the hardworking cities of the west, three of which are so tough they have survived despite being in the top seven snowiest cities in the entire nation. It was a state worth being proud of. 

Now? It's a dump and I want out. 

It's not the winters. Yeah, they are tough here, but the spring and fall are so gorgeous that I am willing to suffer the cold and frozen precipitation. 

Who doesn't like salt trucks doin'
doughnuts on the cul-de-sacs?

And it's not that the city is becoming an unlivable nightmare of crime and filth, as I have avoided going into the five boroughs for a couple of years now and see little chance of having to go there again soon. 

No, it's that the state has become irredeemably stupid and corrupt. 

We were not a one-party state until recently. Our last Republican governor left office in 2006, and our last Republic Senator in 1999. The state senate was last run by Republicans in 2018 and may never be again. I'm not saying those guys were not corrupt and stupid (several were brought up on charges); I am saying that when it's a one-party apparatus there's no one able to hold anyone accountable. That's where we are now. Since Pataki left Albany we've had two Democrat governors resign in shame, and yet the people are content to pull the D lever no matter what now. So we're on our way to becoming California: Cold Edition.

Speaking of which, every stupid idea doomed to failure that comes out of that West Coast Feudal Empire finds some traction here. Fortunately the obsession with light rail and bullet trains hasn't taken over New York yet -- who wants a bullet train from New York to Buffalo? 

But: Outlaw the sale of gasoline powered cars? Check! Close nuclear plants? Checkarooni! Hey, where's the electricity going to come from to power all those electric cars, let alone the rare minerals needed for the highly polluting batteries? Don't bother us with details! We're too busy giving ourselves a 29% pay raise because we work so hard and we deserve the highest pay in the nation! And they also love to crush small businesses with taxes and regulations, because that always helps, especially in economic downturns.

Stupid to the point of belligerence. I'd say childishness, but children have a reason to know nothing. These morons not only know nothing, they don't even suspect. 

You may not believe this, and I would have to make a better case than I can here, but New York's decline began with the end of the Erie Canal as a major shipping course after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959. 

I'm serious. It's hard to believe in a Manhattan where nothing is made but lies, debt, and bad musicals, but New York City once led the nation in manufacturing, and all those cold, snowy cities upstate thrived on the Erie Canal. What do we have now? Rochester, which is sinking as fast as its ko-dependent company Kodak; Buffalo, where the steel industry left and everything else is hot wings and government graft; Utica, which can't even keep a single-A ballclub anymore; Albany, whose only industry now is bull. Even Junior's Cheesecake is now made in New Jersey. It's been a long decline for the Empire State, but with the current irreplaceable leadership it looks like the rest of the slide to third-worldism will come pretty fast. 

Many things were out of New York's control, but now it seems like everything is out of control in New York. Meanwhile, the state government thinks it can fix the climate. So, we have to leave. This much dumb in one place is likely to open a black hole of stupid that will suck in everything around it. It breaks my heart, but the New York state of mind is insane.