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

[substitute.livejournal.com]

apparently not, according to what Elaine is saying.

I still personally feel it's my duty to stay. This is the most powerful country in the world, and leaving the worst in charge of it and walking away seems both suicidal and immoral.

Walking away

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Is it absolutely immoral, or does it depend on the circumstances? In some conditions, if one's country was too far gone, would fleeing for abroad become morally justifiable?

I imagine that a lot of Jews in 1930s Germany made similar arguments against abandoning their cosmopolitan, vibrant homeland to Hitler and his thugs, and paid grieviously for it. I'm not saying that America is at this stage, though if things get too bad to stay on, will you know sufficiently well in advance to get out while you still can?

Re: Walking away

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I don't know yet. It's not 1933 yet, though. I don't see the President's private army roughing up opposition politicians, much less building concentration camps.

And if we must ring the Godwin gong (it was inevitable), all those people who keep talking about moving to Canada should remember how happy and relieved people were to get out of Germany into a nice safe Czech or Polish town. Whew! He'll never find us here! DING DONG PANZERS.

Really, though, I think it's an insult to the terrible suffering of those times to compare the current election's result to 1930s Germany.

Re: Walking away

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Firstly, Godwin's law doesn't mean "thou shalt not refer to the Third Reich as a metaphor". And comparing the polarised, intolerant, anti-liberal, post-Patriot Act mood in Bush's America to Germany around the rise of Hitler is not the same as comparing it to the Holocaust.

Secondly, those Jews who fled to America, or Argentina or Britain or South Africa, lived. (Those who fled to Poland or Czechoslovakia early on would have had a chance of moving to higher ground from there, which was more than those who stayed behind did.)

Though to keep the metaphor valid, it's not just the Jews we should be talking about here, but liberal-minded Germans; the numerous artists and architects and playwrights and intellectuals and homosexuals and freethinkers and cosmopolitanists, or in short the liberals, to whom Hitler's new, monoculturally primitivist Germany said "you do not belong here". (Which, incidentally, is why America got such an influx of talented film directors and such around that time.) The Bush team has not singled out any group for extermination (though they do like to whale on the gays a bit), though it has sent an unambiguous message to America's liberals: "you do not belong in our America". And it looks like, in today's polarised America, this message has majority support.

Re: Walking away

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I think we should probably stop this thread, since it's getting dangerously close to a fight between people who agree on almost everything, which is dumb.

I still maintain that it's not too late, that things change, and that there is a lot of hope for a better America. And I will still stay. I think it's important to do so and that things have not gotten anywhere near 1933, with the possible exception of GLBT folks whom I would not blame at all for leaving.

You've made a lot of damned good points but at this point I think I'll have to agree to disagree.

Re: Walking away

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Best of luck, and keep fighting the good fight.

Re: sure

[(Anonymous)]

What do you mean when you say that America is "the most powerful country in the world"? I'm sorry if this question is tedious. But what standards for "power" do you use when asserting that America is the most powerful?

America has the strongest military, but what does this mean? If there are potentially several countries that could destroy the whole world, America is definitely one of them. However, is America more powerful because it can hypothetically destroy the same area several more times than its next-most powerful competitor, or with more sophisticated weapons than this competitor?

Do you use diplomatic power as a metric? Diplomacy is unquestionably a powerful tool in the modern world climate. However America fails consistently to create and maintain healthy diplomatic relationships with even countries that have been our allies traditionally.

There are other countries with lower unemployment rates, longer life expectancies, and shorter work weeks. What does it mean to say that America is more powerful than they are?

I'm sorry. I'm not sure how I stumbled over this entry, and if I'm not welcome, I'll leave. But the statement that America is the "most powerful in the world" seems to be taken for granted by a large amount of people. What reasons do you have personally for invoking this statement?

Re: sure

[substitute.livejournal.com]

When I said "most powerful" I was referring to the military and economic reach of the United States, and particularly to my country's capacity for causing harm worldwide.

You seem to have interpreted it as a generic superlative meaning "best", which isn't what was intended at all.

In context, the point is that I feel responsible for my country's actions and obligated to participate in politics for the good of the entire world because of our often disastrous strength.