Game, Set, Match

Yes, I have griped about New York before, but this guy nails it so thoroughly and so convincingly that I urge you to read this article. Here are a couple of key excerpts, the first dealing with the Empire State's self-delusion:

The numbers only begin to tell the woeful tale of New York, but they make a stark beginning. The figures - on tax burdens, public spending and population transfer, among others - outline a story of a government run amok and a state run into the ditch.

But numbers are cold. They only hint at the repercussions they have dealt to the residents of this woefully mismanaged state: fractured hopes, lost opportunities, divided families. The reasons behind those misfortunes are multiple and complex, but from a public policy standpoint, they distill to Albany's deluded belief that New York is still the Empire State, a realm so splendid that Americans will pay any price to live within its golden borders.

And this one so thoroughly and succinctly nails the so-called Republican Party that I want to high-five this guy from across the state:

Much of the reason for New York's idiosyncratic government traces to downstate, a region of enormous political clout, vast disparities of wealth and about zero interest in Albany. Overwhelmingly Democratic, it elects liberals who have so weighted state government to the left that Republicans - never too conservative to begin with - are satisfied with playing me-too politics.

Instead of offering a competing, perhaps healthier, vision of state government, the putatively conservative party has at best surrendered and at worst joined the opposition. New York Republicans are the ideological prisoners of their political adversaries, and content to be so.

Unchecked Republican control could be awful, too, of course (see Washington). The problem arises from the failure of a democratic imperative: a vigorous opposition.

Holy Toledo! And yes, God has a sense of humor. Y'all know what I have gone through these past few weeks, and this is the most devastatingly on-point precis of what stinks about this state that I could have written and that I have ever read. But what do you make of the fact that the spotlighted family to begin the article is named "Toledo"? A wink from heaven above!

PS: Please no public comment on recent personal events until I have had such time as to notify the appropriate parties.