A San Francisco Refugee Visits DeSantis Country

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This Florida activity seems strange and alien to San Franciscans

3 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs and Other Egghead Stuff was privileged to visit CO World Headquarters over Labor Day weekend and meet up with highly esteemed CO operatives—namely, the Roving Correspondent for Affairs, the Correspondent for Thinly Researched Conspiracy Theories, and the COW* and CO themselves.

Aside from the usual subversive, anti-democratic exchanging of semi-fascist ideas—or so Joe Biden has told us—CO, the COW* and the Thinly Researched Conspiracy Theories Correspondent were gracious hosts, showing me and the Roving Affairs Correspondent around the area, taking us out on a friend’s boat, and soaking in the sun between political reform charter meetings.

As I was toured around the land of sun, sand, and palm trees I made a few observations about the free state community that is Boca Raton.

Having lived in San Francisco for over eighteen years, there were some customs and day-to-day goings-on that I didn’t recognize and needed time to adjust to.

For one, there were strange structures everywhere that looked like frames with big empty spaces inside, sometimes with people walking underneath wearing yellow plastic hats.

The other four CO Nation agents, all being Florida residents, informed me what I was witnessing is called home construction, an old bourgeoisie activity that has been all but criminalized in San Francisco for thirty-plus years. 

However, I proudly retorted that we have not only one, but two special activities of our own in the City by the Bay called 1) “banning all new housing construction,” and 2) “complaining about the housing affordability crisis.”

Note: The Economics Correspondent has written in greater detail on San Francisco’s self-inflicted housing crisis previously at:

http://www.cautiouseconomics.com/2021/11/short-bites-19.html

One evening we walked from a live band concert back to CO Headquarters through downtown Boca Raton’s geographical center: a large, grassy city block reserved as a public park. But as we skirted the grass something seemed to be missing. 

Visually, the park just didn’t look right.

As we crossed the next street it hit me like a bolt out of the blue: the park was completely void of homeless tent encampments and trash. 

It also smelled kind of nice.

I also felt a little strange—almost inadequate—that I hadn’t worked hard enough when traversing the sidewalk. You see, I got to walk in a straight line without even once dodging left or right to avoid piles of human poop or syringes gleaming in the streetlamp lights.

It was odd (but nice) being able to walk on a sidewalk with my head turned towards CO and the COW* and carry on a conversation without my eyes constantly surveying the next few feet of concrete as if negotiating a minefield.

I advised CO and the COW* that San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors would double their efforts with overtime to add, shall we say... special ornamentation to that park if they ever gained political power in Boca. The park might be green, but San Francisco politicians would add plenty of “color diversity” like yellow and blue nylon tents, and the ground and sidewalk would be adorned with the brown and silver of human feces and used needles. 

The surrounding downtown buildings were also full of shops and many restaurants that were still open at 10:30PM, a rarer and rarer sight where I come from. There was also no trash on the sidewalks or in the street gutters.

Two more things San Francisco needs to come over here and fix PDQ.

Oh, make that three things. There were so many white people patronizing the restaurants and San Francisco liberals simply can’t stand for that.

OK I did see an Asian couple eating ramen outdoors but I’ll take it upon myself to educate the Boca Raton City Council that Asian is the new “white adjacent” due to their high salaries, SAT scores, and achievement in general that frustrates the racism/victimization narrative. 

Unfortunately on a Saturday night City Hall was closed so I’ll have to educate them on their racism during my next visit.

We discussed many things political and CO Nation-related over a great steak which came from real grass-fed cows that emit methane flatulence—not locally grown, organic tofu fair-trade-awareness raising substitute.

All in all, I’m not sure I could adjust to life down here as the weather was not only hot and humid, but there was way more of this thing called freedom than I’m used to in the Bay Area. CO and the COW* also warned me I’d have to learn getting used to something called “free speech without getting your head bashed in by Antifa” and one final adjustment: figuring out how to survive zero state income taxes. 

Strange since I was told that tool of capitalist exploitation had been abolished worldwide since 1867 which coincidentally is the same year Karl Marx published Das Kapital, the proletarian treatise that San Francisco government adopted as its de facto legal code the very same year.

The list of remaining different and bizarre customs in this red state that I’ve been told is a bastion of DeSantis fascist bigotry is too long to provide in its entirety here, but I will close out on all the “Trump 2024” and “Let’s Go Brandon” signs and bumper stickers I saw everywhere. 

What was amazing wasn't so much the signs themselves but rather I don’t believe a single one of the BMW’s or Mercedes-Benzes adorning those bumper stickers had any windows smashed out in tolerant San Francisco fashion.

*Cautiously Optimistic Wife