California is where freedom goes to die. Its annual legislative orgies consist of politicians stealing billions of dollars for special interests and finding exotic new things to ban.

In 2024, California Democrats finally banned plastic bags to ensure that anyone who isn’t shopping with a car or with a bag can’t buy more than a handful of items in a supermarket.

They also made national news for trying to set the Constitution on fire by banning memes.

And just for the hell of it, they also banned octopus farming.

Octopus farming was banned on the theory that the undersea creatures, unlike California voters, are “highly intelligent” and have “long-term memory.” Also unlike California Democrats, octopi have “a high level of problem-solving ability” which means you couldn’t go wrong with replacing Gov. Gavin Newsom with an octopus. Unlike Gov. Newsom, octopi are also “known for their ability to learn, use tools, and exhibit behaviors that suggest a level of consciousness.”

So Dems are banning octopus farming to keep them from multiplying and learning to vote.

Most people had no idea that there was such a thing as octopus farming. Well there isn’t now. Other things that don’t exist anymore in California are affordable houses, affordable gas and crime free cities. But California Dems are focused on the big ‘octopus’ issues facing the state.

And it’s legal to steal items under $950 in California, as long as one of them isn’t an octopus.

60% of Californians believe the state is going in the wrong direction. Rather than try to fix that, the Democrat supermajority decided to pass the “California Racial Mascots Act” which outlaws calling any team the “Chiefs” (calling a team “Redskins” had already been banned under a previous ‘mascots’ bill passed by the hardworking California Democrat legislature.)

Poverty rates on California reservations are at 34%, but at least the state’s American Indian population can take comfort in knowing that the Santa Fe High Chiefs will have to change their name to something less offensive. Perhaps the Santa Fe Octopus Farmers.

Speaking of schools, they’re banned from notifying parents if the staffers have decided to transition their son John to ‘Jane’ and get him castrated as soon as he turns sixteen.

While California Democrats are happy to test out untested puberty blockers on little kids, they did express concerns for their fellow parasites by banning even more forms of rat poison.

Medieval rat-borne diseases like typhus have already made a comeback in the City of Angels. In an episode of poetic justice, typhus spread to Los Angeles City Hall which is currently infested with both kinds of ‘rats because California voters are dumber than an octopus.

Dogs are also dying of rat-borne diseases, but the rats always come first to Democrats.

California’s official policy is that the only lifeforms who can be subjected to poisons and medical experimentation are public school children. And in that spirit, schools have also been banned from removing graphic pornography from library shelves as long as it’s LGBTQ graphic pornography. This has been inaccurately described as banning book bans rather than the more accurate mandating the exposure of children to graphic identity politics pornography.

Along with the rest of the banning spree the corrupt political supermajority also banned legacy admissions in colleges (it’s still however okay to bypass the affirmative action ban passed by voters to accept unqualified students due to the exact shade of their skin), online sales of flavored tobacco and food dyes like the beloved Red 40. The basis for the ban is a mostly unsupported claim that food dyes cause autism. Even the FDA doesn’t believe it’s true.

Also California Democrats wisely banned Voter ID because honest elections would send them flying out of office faster than a dyed octopus with a plastic bag applying to UCLA.

Few of the bans make much sense.

California banned “sell-by” dates on products because Democrats claimed that discouraging people from eating spoiled food caused food waste. But manufacturers and supermarkets have no vested interest in throwing out good food. Democrats were concerned that consumers reading “sell-by” dates on the food they already bought and had lying around for years might then throw it out. They could have one of their multitudinous government agencies put out a guide to what food is safe to eat, when to eat it and let people make their own decisions.

But Democrats have as much faith in the free will of the public as they do in a higher power.

California Democrats are desperately running out of things to ban, forcing them to legalize the things they previously banned and then ban them again in order to have something to do.

After legalizing drugs (and then fighting a drug war over untaxed drugs), California Democrats turned around and banned CBD ‘medicinal products’ leading to a lawsuit by Cheech and Chong. This will be followed by the legalization of the banned products and then by banning them again.

The good news however is that there are plenty of things still legal in California. Like crime.

Go ahead, commit as many crimes as you want. California is opening up its prisons and even as it bans plastic bags, octopus farming and voter ID, it’s making sure that criminals can freely roam the streets and steal as much stuff as they want. (Preferably under $950.)

Hamas supporters assaulting Jewish students on campus is also considered a victimless crime and about the only ones who have been arrested were the Jewish students who fought back.

Special interests stealing billions in tax dollars is not only legal, it’s practically mandatory.

And while it might seem as if California is running out of things to ban, its cities have recently banned everything from smoking in your own home to breeding French bulldogs to installing gas stoves to slaughtering meat. LGBTQ activists in San Francisco are trying to save gay people from smoking by banning tobacco and localities are trying to ban single family homes.

The future is bright for banners and bans. Just not for California.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

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California Bans Everything – 2024 Edition