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This special report will chronicle how such voter legislation stripped California naked, leaving it unable to respond to external shocks such as the current economic crisis. This story is of global interest, for California has inadvertently made itself a negative model for other democracies. As Nathan Gardels, an adviser to the Think Long Committee for California, a new and promising reform effort, puts it, California has become a “diet-Coke civilisation of consumer democracy, of services without taxes, like sweetness without calories, of rights without duties”.
What is unique about California is not its set of challenges, which differ in scale but not in kind from those elsewhere. It is its brand of democracy California thus stands as a rare, and perhaps unique, counterpoint to the many countries whose main problem is a lack of democracy. At a time of turmoil in the Arab world, California is a reminder that democracy, like capitalism, can take many different forms, and that it is intended as a means to an end, the end being liberty. Should it ever mutate into a counterproductive form, reform becomes necessary.
Fortunately, such reform has now become not only possible but likely. For the state retains a potential unsurpassed elsewhere. It has the most diverse population and economy in America. From Stanford and Apple to Hollywood, it is a magnet for talent, which is why venture capitalists invest about as much money in California as in all other states combined. Californians still have the imagination and frontier spirit that August Schuckman once had. And they know that sometimes one must burn the wagons to keep dreams alive.

A. 어휘
chronicle 연대순으로 기록하다. voter legislation 유권자(투표자)입법.
external 외부의. current 현재의. inadvertently 우연히, 무심코.
democracies 민주국가. puts it 언급하다.
diet-Coke 모순적인(다이어트 한다면서 콜라를 마시는 행위).
counterpoint 對位法(대위법). turmoil 혼란, 동요, 소란.
reminder 생각나게 하는 것(사람). means 수단. end 목적.
mutate 變異(변이)하다, 변화하다. counterproductive 반생산적인.
retains 보유하다. potential 잠재력.
unsurpassed 능가할 자가 없는, 비길 데 없는, 탁월한.
diverse 다양한. magnet 磁石(자석).