I lived and worked in Alameda, only a short drive from Berkeley, for 6 months. I must have visited Berkeley at least 50 times. And I can tell you that this liberal paradise has sad-looking street people, young hookers on street corners, pan-handlers, pugnacious brats with boom-boxes, shabby little shops, some boarded up, and incomprehensible traffic rules.

But most ironically, there is a vast descrepancy between the rich and the poor. To see my point, just try the following experiment. Find your way to Telegraph Avenue, and start at the northern most end. Drive south towards Oakland. You'll see as stark a contrast between wealth and poverty as anything that disgraced the Guilded Age.

That is the great mecca of American liberalism. I couldn't get the fuck out of that area too soon. And incidentally, the Berkely people I worked with were punitive, officious, self-important and cold. Ths liberals can keep it.