Something is rotten in the state of California.

It seems to be the people who live there -- people in my parents' generation (and, increasingly, in mine) -- who squandered in 30 years the hard work and dedication of three generations of their forebears.

In the article linked above, Victor Davis Hanson lays out the problems that have brought California from the land of plenty sought by the Tom Joads of the world 70 years ago to the quasi-failed state it has become today.

Perhaps because have-it-all Californians live in such a rich natural landscape and inherited so much from their ancestors, they have convinced themselves that perpetual bounty is now their birthright -- not something that can be lost in a generation of complacency.

Californians count on the wealth of farming but would prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped. They like tasteful redwood decks but demand someone else fell their trees for the wood. Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you drill for oil off your shores rather than they off theirs. They pride themselves on their liberal welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them.

Californians expect cheap imported labor to tend their lawns and clean their houses, but are incensed at sky-high welfare and entitlement costs that accompany illegal immigration. Lock 'em up, they say -- but the state is bankrupted by new prisons, constant inmate lawsuits and unionized employees.

In short, after Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not enough food, fuel, water and money to act like the gods that they think they have become.