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

[(Anonymous)]

My ego took a bruising last night when I saw the returns showing 80% "yes" votes on state initiatives to bar me from having the same priviledges as hetero folks when it comes to my choice of partner. I suffered a "how stupid can these people really be?" moment when I saw the election returns this morning.

I have to balance that out with that America did not vote for the "most popular" candidate from either party. That was decided for us by small pods of voters in the state of Iowa a long time ago (they actually didn't even cast a ballot--merely huddled in different corners of a room). I heard no calls last night or today that the electoral college should be changed, as I did four years ago. Not surprising. The morning-after pundits tell me this election was decided by Karl Rove delivering the vote from the WWJD crowd, forgetting Terry MacAuliffe allowed the candidates to destroy each other in a rather small arena to deliver a candidate for the Democratic Party without a protracted campaign, and we were left with one decided by the "What Would Marian the Librarian Do?" crowd from the bloody carcasses.

Nothing has much changed in America since last night, or in the past century, even. We still have to bow to the rules of the Old Dominion and their spawn who settled the midwest, regardless if we call them Southern Democrats, Neo-Cons, etc. That was the consequence of keeping the Republic together and fighting the Civil War.

Maybe we should have let them have the South after all.