California Can't Keep the Lights On

California is staying true to its reputation as the land of innovation -- it is making blackouts, heretofore the signature of impoverished and war-torn lands, a routine feature of 21st-century American life.

More than 2 million people are going without power in northern and central California, in the latest and biggest of the intentional blackouts that are, astonishingly, California's best answer to the risk of runaway wildfires.

Power -- and all the goods it makes possible -- is synonymous with modern civilization. It shouldn't be negotiable for anyone living in a well-functioning society, or...