Jeez! I love Louisiana, and would never say anything bad about it - unless you want to discuss your Governor, Bobby Jindal - so I don't know why you keep picking on California.
Because I spent most of my life there. I've seen what it was, and what it's become. It sickens me.
Two years ago, I buried my mother in the same cemetery where my grandparents and stepfather are, in Whittier (that's in Los Angeles, for those of you in Rio Linda). In thirty years it's gone from a prosperous, safe, quaint middle-class neighborhood to a third-world barrio with nightly gunfire. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.