It is no secret that the big cities of California have a politically leftist bent.  They will call themselves progressives, democrats, social democrats, and even sometimes socialists.  But if this is what the progressive consider progress, we should want no part of it.

The big cities of California – Los Angeles in particular – have become a haven for homelessness and poverty.  In some areas of Los Angeles, you can drive for blocks and blocks and see tents lined up along the streets.  These tents are what thousands of people call home.

The political left prides itself on looking out for the poor.  Or perhaps they pride themselves more in going after the rich, at least in words.  But even the rich supposedly go after the rich.  This is especially true in Hollywood.

The Hollywood leftists (mostly a redundant term, unfortunately) will lecture us on how we need to take care of the poor.  Of course, what they mean by taking care of the poor is expanding the size and scope of government.

Do these Hollywood elites really expect the politicians in Washington DC, let alone Sacramento, to solve the problem of poverty.  The Hollywood leftists will lecture middle class America while poverty runs rampant in their own backyard.  If they are so kind and caring, why is Los Angeles one of the top spots for homelessness in the United States?  You would think they could at least eradicate homelessness within a 100 mile radius.  Instead, it is much worse where they are.  They are an example of major inequality.

This is the glaring contradiction that the left ignores.  We don’t know if people pretend not to see the elephant in the room, or if they just can’t apply basic logic.  If they can’t get their statist policies to work in one city, how are they going to work in a country of 325 million people?

If you point out the obvious to them, they will come up with excuses. Some will say that we need more government, but this ignores that California (and Los Angeles on a local level) have a more invasive government than areas that do not have widespread homelessness.

As is typical with government programs, the exact opposite happens as compared to the stated goal.  They say they want less poverty and homelessness, so their policies create more poverty and homelessness.  When you stifle the marketplace through high taxation and regulation, it makes most people poorer on net.  They have made housing so unaffordable in Los Angeles (and San Francisco too) that you inevitably get homelessness.  The middle class can barely afford to live in a decent place.

In a free market society, you don’t end up with tent cities.  It’s not to say that homelessness is impossible because someone could still choose to live that way.  But having a free market environment sets up a situation of prosperity, even lifting the lower class.  And there is so much wealth created that there is plenty of charity for the few who can’t prosper on their own.

This is why you don’t see miles of tents lined along the streets of Singapore or Switzerland.

There are various factors for these poor living conditions, but most of them point back to the state.  Whether it is the war on drugs, zoning laws, taxation, or regulations, you can blame various levels of government for creating this situation.

The only sustainable way to help the poor and homeless in Los Angeles and other areas is to drastically reduce the size and scope of government at all levels.  In other words, the left has to stop “helping” these people with their destructive policies.  And if the Hollywood elites truly want to help, they should volunteer their own money instead of volunteering everyone else’s money.