The story of the Hebrew Bible is, at least in some part, the story of God punishing the wicked.
Welcome to , or as The Post so poetically put it, HELL.A.
I don鈥檛 mean to suggest that Angelenos somehow deserve the them; to do so would be not only misguided but unforgivably cruel.
But as we鈥檙e reeling from one of the greatest disasters ever to befall an American city, we must be brutally honest, especially if we want to prevent this kind of calamity from happening again.
And a brutally honest assessment points to one inconvenient truth: The devastation of Los Angeles occurred largely as a result of people in power adhering blindly and madly to a very bad religion.
It was the woke religion, which judges people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character, that to the highest office in town.
When the warnings started trickling in, days before the inferno, that LA might be looking at 鈥渢he Big One,鈥� Bass to partake in some utterly meaningless bit of 鈥渄iplomacy,鈥� as if attending foreign inaugurations were part of an American mayor鈥檚 job.
When she finally returned, Bass stared silently at a British television reporter who asked a host of barbed questions, then in which she directed anyone seeking assistance to 鈥淯RL,鈥� a blooper that would鈥檝e been hilarious if it wasn鈥檛 so tragic.
It was the woke religion that led Bass to shave $17.6 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department鈥檚 budget so that she may have more money to coddle the city鈥檚 increasing 鈥� and increasingly unhinged 鈥� homeless population. The $23 million cut she had originally asked for was even bigger, clearly reflecting the mayor鈥檚 priorities of virtue-signaling over actual safety.
It was the woke religion that inspired the mayor, a champion of the gospel of diversity, equity and inclusion, to appoint a string of incompetents to the city鈥檚 all-important water board, and to dream up fantastic projects involving recycled wastewater and then shrug when deadlines were missed, budgets swelled and the city was left high and dry.
It was the woke religion that led California Gov. Gavin Newsom to address the United Nations about climate change and in his state by 2035, while slashing $150 million from California鈥檚 wildfire-prevention budget.
He then went on to wildly overstate the number of acres treated with fuel breaks and prescribed burns by a whopping 690%.
And in one more mind-numbing act of succumbing to the woke religion鈥檚 fanatical environmentalist dogma, Newsom of the 3-inch-long delta smelt fish, denying Los Angeles of at least some additional water supplies it sure could鈥檝e used when the reservoirs emptied out mid-day Wednesday.
In the coming weeks and months, we will no doubt hear a string of pious excuses from various progressive politicians, explaining why it was a series of unfortunate events 鈥� not their own ruinous policies 鈥� that contributed to this unprecedented devastation.
But voters, as the most recent presidential election proved beyond doubt, no longer care.
They understand that the Democratic Party no longer truly thinks about constituents, policies or outcomes. All it has left are articles of faith.
Democrats continue to bray about 鈥渃riminal justice reform鈥� while crime spikes and spirals out of control in every major city they control.
They preach diversity and inclusion while actively excluding some groups 鈥� most notably Jews 鈥� from their rainbow coalition.
They drone about social justice while forging new forms of discrimination.
They condemn 鈥渢he patriarchy鈥� while destroying every institution Americans have come to trust and respect.
And they do so because they see themselves not as servants of the public 鈥� that unwashed mass made up of imperfect human beings 鈥� but as priests of a cultish ideology that must be served, consequences be damned.
The LA fires ought to come as a reckoning, but they鈥檙e not the only example that this cult is inflicting nothing but suffering on ordinary Americans.
The same ideas have turned Chicago into America鈥檚 murder capital.
They鈥檝e turned New York鈥檚 previously safe subway system into an .
They鈥檝e turned Philadelphia into the leading American city in drug-overdose deaths.
Everywhere you turn, misery stems from the same set of misguided convictions, funded by the same sources and boosted by the same political organizations.
LA鈥檚 plight should be all the proof we need that enough is enough.
It鈥檚 time we reject 鈥� completely, utterly, vehemently 鈥� not only the servants of this bad religion, but the bad religion itself.
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