On departing the U.S. (simulcast at contentgoeshere.com)

[substitute]

Since a lot of my Internet-linked friends and acquaintances are either liberals, libertarians, or leftists I have heard a lot lately about leaving the U.S. because of disgust with or fear of the current government and their policies.

Let's talk sense about this.

1. You can't just "move to Canada" or Sweden or France or the U.K. or anywhere, really. Unless you're independently wealthy and/or retired it just doesn't work that way. You have to go through an immigration process and it's long and painful. It can easily take years for even an experienced professional with a job offer to get through the thicket of bureaucracy that any well-run country erects for immigrants.
   
   
2. You can't run from Imperial America. Canada is an especially laughable choice here; when we sneeze, they get a cold. The long arm of U.S. power extends to every place in the world, certainly to every place you could stand living. Go up there and watch things get worse here if you want. At some point an apologetic Mountie will arrive to explain that you're being deported back because of a joint security agreement.
   
   
3. Foreign countries, surprisingly, are different. The peculiar luxuries, freedoms, and opportunities of our country will not be present there. Things cost a lot more, the weather is different, and the justice system may shock you. If you're not already an experienced traveler who enjoys surprises and strangeness, it's entirely possible you'll hate everywhere but home.
   
   
4. Cowardice is not rewarded, either in respect or in results. Stay and fight for what you believe. Whether you are a libertarian who despises Ashcroft's new police state, a liberal who rejects warmongering and theocracy, or a core leftist despairing at corporate America, there is work to be done here. Defeatism is a self-fulfilling apocalypse.
   

In sum, don't leave unless you have another good reason to do so and a plan for achieving it. The wealth and privilege and freedoms you have as your birthright carry with them the obligation to serve your country in its time of need. Be a citizen first for a change. If you leave here, your new home will demand no less of you.

Comments

Re: sure

[(Anonymous)]

Coming from someone who saw the fundy republic coming and who has, in fact, marginally survived moving to another county...Do it, do it now if you can. The first thing to fall will be Roe v. Wade and everything after that will just be icing on the cake. Barring a civil war, liberals will have no home in the US, over the next four years and possibly ever. Get a grip and get the fuck out. I know I won't be flying home anytime soon as Osama got just what he wanted. Bail. While you still can. Shit ain't that hard to get outside the US and you won't really miss it...save maybe for cheese-its and corn dogs. There is no honor in sticking with a losing team.

Re: sure

[substitute.livejournal.com]

We've had this conversation before. I think we just need to agree to disagree. Besides, you had other reasons; you married someone from there!

There is honor in sticking with a losing team that might still win. It isn't 1933 yet and it probably will not be.

I survived Reagan; we'll survive this.

Re: sure

[(Anonymous)]

True...but Reagan wasn't a religious born again freak and I wouldn't have moved here without knowing that America is/was fucked. Going down with the ship is a romantic notion...the rest of us know that jumping ship is a good way to survive. Once he gets 2 surpremes, it's all over. Look at the rest of the elections. It's too late......

Reagan not a born-again freak?

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

I believe Reagan was a born-again Christian Fundamentalist. For one, he did have his street renumbered because his house had the number 666.

Re: Reagan not a born-again freak?

[substitute.livejournal.com]

He was and he wasn't. He promised those nuts everything but basically ripped them off. All he really wanted to do was get his friends rich while waging war on the left. The moral conservatives got very little out of him.

Bush is far scarier; he appears to be a true believer and makes decisions based on religious intuition. He's what Reagan pretended to be, I think.

Re: sure

[xtreme-pr0k.livejournal.com]

All you need is the third term. Once the almighty W gets to run for a third term, we're fux0red. And once he wins, I don't think there'll be much more than a couple years before the cleansing.

Re: sure

[fimmtiu.livejournal.com]

Might still win how? Jesus Christ, I was scared enough by the thought that the present Supreme Court is considered "moderate". Rehnquist* is about to kick off, and the odds of one of the others dying in the next 4 years are pretty good. If they get the next presidential election as well, they'll certainly get to pick another seat or two. The thought of what they'll be able to accomplish with the entire government, the plutocracy, and the media in the hands of far-right fundamentalist conservatives makes me piss myself in fear. Oh, right, and the companies that manufacture voting machines.

I'm not sure exactly what kind of "fighting" I'd be able to do in the States, had I stayed. There's no tangible enemy to fight. The enemies are greed and ignorance, and those are time-honoured traditions in human behaviour that haven't changed at all in the past 5,000 years. I mean, look at Iraq. It's been over a year now, and it's been conclusively proven that Iraq didn't actually have any weapons of mass destruction. Even El Presidente eventually admitted that publicly. Yet here's a poll from last week which found that half of all Americans still believe that Iraq was building nukes and supporting al-Qaeda. There's no demonstration or public debate that can change these people's minds, because they stopped thinking a long time ago and are just sucking their opinions from Fox News' foul teat. The fruits of the Republicans' gutting of the public education system are a generation of apathetic drones, and it's not like that's getting any better. What kind of "fight" can any given person put up that will force people who are comfortable with not thinking to think?

I'm not a hero. I'm tired to the core of waking up every morning and cursing mankind when I read the news. The sheer frustration of watching people mindlessly fall in line behind this shit despite everyone else's efforts is making me a more bitter and hateful person every day. I just can't keep it up and keep my will to live at the same time. So yes, I'm being a coward and a defeatist. But it beats battering my head against the wall of human stupidity until the social and political pendulum eventually swings back left, or jumping off a bridge. At this rate I doubt, however, that we'll see things swing back in our lifetimes.

(* Another fellow Milwaukeeite, incidentally. I didn't know that.)