Memo to those Leaving US: Don't ask for validation

[bryant69]

It's hard to get everything one wants to say in a title.

First of all there are lots of reasons to leave the United States for a while or for good. You got a better job. You got new opportunities. You like other cultures and want to explore. You feel your family will be safer. You feel depressed/anxious living here and want to go somewhere you feel safer. All of these are perfectly valid reasons for leaving, and most of them don't require you to post on here seeking validation.

Those aren't, though, the reasons that cause all the fuss. The main reason that gets me riled up, and presumably others (although I wouldn't want to speak for them) is "I am leaving America because it's doomed and I don't want to go down with the ship." Or words to that effect.

When you come on here and post your leaving America announcement you want validation of your decision. Because any way you slice it, it's not a very heroic thing to do. We don't admire people who leave when things get tough - but we do understand when someone saves their family from a burning building. That is sensible and, in a way, heroic.

So when you post your departure messages, I would think you would want to hear people agreeing with you about what a mess America is and how there's little if any chance of saving it.

But to validate your position, I basically have to admit that I'm an idiot or a lacky of those who are dooming America. In other words, if you are right, and America is on fire, what kind of person must I be (and others like me) to choose to stay in a burning building? I mean what kind of person does that?

So if I validate your position, your decision to leave America, my own position looks stupid (or, as noted above, I'm a scoundrel who sees some profit in burning America down).

It's a bit like a Christian and an Atheist, I suppose. They can be good friends and agree on a lot but somewhere out there is a gulf that can only be crossed by one surrendering his or her position.

So, to sum up, I have no intention of validating people who want to flee America because they believe it is doomed. On the other hand those of you who have new opportunities in another country, congratulations - I wish you the best.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[BlueEyedSon]

1. So how do you feel about people who left Germany?

Just askin'....

[bryant69]

2. Good for them

I'm not sure I see the connection though.

Bryant

[Thtwudbeme]

4. For someone so bloody passionate about telling people

what to post, I am shocked as hell that you missed the Germany 1933 connection.

wait.

No I am not.

[bryant69]

7. People can post whatever they like

But I can see I need to be more direct.

Of course I see the Germany connection. But that's just another way of saying "Hey, why don't you admit America is doomed." The Jews who fled America lived, and those who stuck it out were doomed. The Democratic Undergrounders who flee America will live, while those of us nitwits who stick it out are doomed. Does that sum it up?

That's the core question - is America doomed or not. I say no, and several of you seem to say yes. lacking the gift of prophecy I don't know how we settle this disagreement definatively short of one of us just giving up. Or just agreeing to disagree.

Bryant

[Thtwudbeme]

13. yeah, but you just want a flame war

why don't you just post that 2 of the Duke Lacrosse players were indicted instead.

Seriously.

If someone wants to leave the US and post about it, it's really not your place to say who will validate them and who won't.

[bryant69]

18. Hmmmm

Anytime anybody expresses themselves in disagreement with others is that born out of a desire for a flame war?

But this is an issue that has been raised to day. I've seen a number of posts on it, and it's one that gets my dander up, so I chose to post on it. It seemed more interesting than those 2 Duke Lacross players.

I certainly apologize if you feel that I've wasted your time - I would refund it to you had I the power.

Actually no, I'd probably keep that time for myself.

[Reciprocity]

31. For those who would like to know what kind of Flame Warrior they are.

http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/

[JuniperLea]

15. There is nothing wrong about

Hoping/fighting for the best but expecting the worst. It only makes sense.

[cassiepriam]

5. Some of us do. And for those of us with children approaching draft

age, leaving may be our only option.

The despotic Bush regime will not get my child,
period. And I do not care what anybody else thinks.

[1monster]

37. Amen, Sister! (or Brother!)

[Name removed]

6. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. Good question! I'd like to see him answer that one, too.

[Taxloss]

17. This comparison is odious, and I wish DUers would stop using it.

Sure, there's a hel of a lot wrong with America and things are trending in a very bad direction. But the suggestion that things are anywhere near as bad as they were in Nazi or immediately pre-Nazi Germany is absurd and directly offensive to the victims of the 1933-45 regime. For a start, we're having this debate on a USA-based site. Secondly, hundreds of thousands of non-US-citizens marched unmolested through your cities last week. Thirdly, I doubt Hitler ever had a 38% opinion rating reported.

Stop with the Nazi Germany comparisons, please. It's crying wolf in the most unforgiveable way.

[WildEyedLiberal]

25. Thank you

I do believe Bush's government has frighteningly fascistic tendencies, but he has nowhere near the power Hitler's Reich did. I believe that if Bush ever attempted to install a police state and violently suppress popular dissent, there would be an uprising. Americans are conditioned to free political speech, and even most Republicans would be horrified if they saw their neighbors hauled away for expressing an opinion. If 2006 America was anything like 1934 Nazi Germany, we'd all be in camps right now.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. It's more like Argentina or Uruguay in the 1970s

I dislike the facile Nazi comparisons, too.

[BlueEyedSon]

34. we don't yet know how this will play out, but neither did they!

[bryant69]

35. That's my point above

It's a matter of faith. But both sides can't be right.

America can't be both redeemable and worth fighting for and, at the same time, pretty much doomed and a lost cause.

[wordpix2]

20. Germany 1930s is what came to mind when I read the post. My take is

that you have to decide what's best for yourself and to hell with the validation. When the repukes start herding certain "undesirables" into ghettos is when I'm outta here. I won't be waiting for repukes to be loading the "undesirables" into cattle cars and then waiting for those people to disappear. It hasn't gotten to that point though, and I'm going to do my part to make sure it won't.

When I graduated college in the '70s, I decided that moving away from my city roots was the best idea as I did not feel safe there. I was concerned about the warmongering (this was the end of Vietnam War), nukes, pollution, and I just wanted a quiet place with some earth under my feet. So I moved to Oregon and learned how to grow a garden, take care of chickens and so on. Meanwhile, the guy next door was swooping down on his farm fields spraying pesticides and the US gov was permitting the clearcutting of our virgin northwest national forests for a song. The trees were sold to the Japanese for almost nothing.

I lived on farms through the seventies and eighties. The last farm home I moved to, which I liked a lot and still do, was in a beautiful New England small town surrounded by farms. In the past 20 yrs., though, suburbia has moved in. Through all this time I have been very active in open space preservation but people are very dumb and short-sighted sometimes, especially in a town like mine, run by repuglicans. They are destroying the land and water but I am still fighting the development whores and ignorance. It is very disheartening at times.

I sometimes think I could do more by going to DC helping to help bring down BushCo rather than doing what I do here. I'm in the autumn of life where I think, if I help save the nation and younger generation and I get killed in the process it will be fine. Another part of me wants to retire to some quiet place (only quiet ones left are quite cold or buggy, IMO).

Bottom line is, you've got to figure it out on your own. Don't think that Canada or anywhere else is paradise, though. I lived in Canada for 5 yrs. and there are problems there, too (one of which is, it's damn cold!). I've been on one of the remotest Caribbean beaches in the world and it was littered with tons of plastic. Do what you can to make and leave the world better, wherever you go. To me, that's the bottom line.

[chicofaraby]

39. I would rather they had stayed

and stopped Hitler.

[Neil Lisst]

8. live and let live. If they wanna go, they get my support.

[Karenina]

9. OOOOH...

stuff a sock in it.

[bryant69]

14. This issue does seem to raise the level of debate, I've noticed.

[Karenina]

24. Kinda like water...

[JVS]

10. Memo to everyone: don't ask for validation. You're all on your own!

[JuniperLea]

21. Sorry

Not your right to ask for that. People can ask for what they want and some people may give it, some may not. It's not your place to demand anything.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ezlivin]

11. The Titanic was the greatest ship ever built, too

If I ever think the US is going the way of HMS Titanic, I reserve the right to get into my lifeboat and row away.

Right now it's a bit more like the USS Caine. And I'm steeling myself for the mutiny...

[JuniperLea]

12. Good God

Who pissed in everyone's Wheaties today?

Blanket statements serve no purpose and no person. Not ever circumstance is the same, yet you want to cover it all with negativity.


I want to believe we can put America back on track and I won't stop trying. That being said, if things get much worse, I would not blame myself for entertaining thoughts of leaving. If Bush manages to make himself dictator, or to cancel an election somehow, you'd have to be crazy to think you can set things right without some heavy friends.

[BlackVelvet04]

16. And why is that?

""I am leaving America because it's doomed and I don't want to go down with the ship." Or words to that effect.

Isn't that very much like the freepers who demand undying loyalty to the U.S. and the administration?

I think it is. Sometimes people have other battles to fight or have grown weary. Until you walk in their shoes you don't know what another person's beaking point it.

[JuniperLea]

19. Thanks!

Spot on. I'm pretty sick of blanket solutions.

[bryant69]

22. No it's nothing like that

Did you read the whole post?

If someone tells me they want to leave because they believe America is going the way of Nazi Germany than am I supposed to just assume that what they are really saying is that they have other battles to fight and have grown weary? Or should I take them at their word?

[Karenina]

27. I do recall...

I think it was on SmirkingChimp, an article about a German who had been in the U.S. for 50 (count'em... FIFTY) years and was moving BACK to Germany to live out the rest of his days as he'd already "been there, done that." Wanna second guess him too?

[bryant69]

29. Anybody can do what ever they like

Perhaps one out to seperate out theese two statements.

"I'm Leaving"

and

"Because America is doomed."

Anybody can leave anytime they want for whatever reason they want. But when they post on here that America is doomed or beyond salvation, than I disagree with that proposition.

[Generator]

28. I find it amazing that anybody on THIS board

doesn't at least GET the feeling. Have entertained the thought. Have had a mad rage-"DAMN these fuckers I'm leaving this hell hole!". Some of us have looked farther-immigration info. Counting our pennies. Secret funds. But I think for almost all of us-it's an angry dream. I wish I wasn't an American sometimes, I wish I was living somewhere else. I'm tired. It's like a nightmare that never ends. We are living in an America that's about 100x worse than the Watergate period and we have a la de da press and an propaganda effort to keep the masses placated that stagers the mind. But people still get it. They know Bush is a danger and they don't want this war-much less another one-and they have almost no representation of this fact. They have been used and abused by grief and war and terror and fear mongering and damn it all-saying "I'm leaving." is the only safety valve for some of us.

It's the cyanide pill. It's retaining control of your fate-something some of us FEEL we have none of-not even the great old Democrats that were supposed to at the very freaking LEAST speak for us. It's our way of saying-this is my life. They don't need validation. They need to be heard. It's despair. I understand despair. It's honest. It doesn't necessarily mean giving in. It means acknowledging all your options. It's actually a refuge of hope.

I don't imagine leaving unless things are very bad but I think about that imagined Bush v. Clinton on the ballot in 2008 and I don't know if I cand stand more of this charade.

[YouthInAsia]

30. I'm gping to beach house in Canada on Lake Erie when

we nuke Iran. Not permanently, just for a month or so.

[Vinnie From Indy]

32. Who died and made you Pope?

Gee Bryant, if you would just post your "Life of Bryant" guide for all of us we wouldn't be so confused as to what are the right decisions to be made in our own personal lives. I see you only listed a few "valid" reasons for leaving the US. Are there more? What about leaving the country because you can score better weed in Amsterdam? Would that qualify as a valid reason in the Bryant matrix of permissible reasons to leave? How about if you wanted to leave the US because you have always wanted to live your life wearing "lederhosen"? Would you throw a little validation love in that direction?

You write,
"So, to sum up, I have no intention of validating people who want to flee America because they believe it is doomed."

How about you just validate my parking ticket?

[bryant69]

33. I can validate the weed reason but not the leiderhosen one.

And I can't validate parking tickets without purchase.

[Toucano]

36. Your own position does not look stupid.

Is that how you feel?

You look at a situation and make a decision that's right for you.
Others look at a situation and make a decision that's right for them.

Fleeing an oppressive political situation requires an enormous amount of courage. I respect and admire all of those who've chosen to leave. I also don't think any less of those who have decided to stay.

[AlCzervik]

38. I didn't get the feeling the people leaving were actually looking for

validation, i got the feeling they were sad and angry and needed someplace safe to express it.