Go to Ohio!
Oct. 21st, 2004 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinI've heard a lot of Americans insist that if Bush wins the election they are going to flee to Canada. Statements of this sort are pretty common in presidential election seasons.
If you are having such thoughts, please consider the following. I have nothing, in general, against people moving to other countries. There's certainly no danger of the US becoming depopulated, since people continue to move here. But I do have a problem with people fleeing because the wrong person won the election, because it's a positive feedback cycle. Seen from the perspective of a dissenter, by taking their dissenting opinions away they're making it worse here. Furthermore, it isn't as if they're going to escape all the consequences of the US going completely nutty by going somewhere else.
There are cases in which fleeing is logical. If you have a good reason to believe that you'll be killed by the authorities if you delay leaving any longer, by all means go. I don't think that the US is quite there yet, at least for the case of most American liberals. Sadly, if I had an Arabic name I might think differently.
If you're not in that situation, and you're currently announcing your conditional desire to flee the country, consider this alternative. If you're really willing to pack up and leave everything you know for political reasons, why not move to a swing state instead? Maximize your leverage! It seems to me that in the category of solutions involving moving somewhere, this is the easiest way to stand and fight. It's easier than emigrating, too.
If you are having such thoughts, please consider the following. I have nothing, in general, against people moving to other countries. There's certainly no danger of the US becoming depopulated, since people continue to move here. But I do have a problem with people fleeing because the wrong person won the election, because it's a positive feedback cycle. Seen from the perspective of a dissenter, by taking their dissenting opinions away they're making it worse here. Furthermore, it isn't as if they're going to escape all the consequences of the US going completely nutty by going somewhere else.
There are cases in which fleeing is logical. If you have a good reason to believe that you'll be killed by the authorities if you delay leaving any longer, by all means go. I don't think that the US is quite there yet, at least for the case of most American liberals. Sadly, if I had an Arabic name I might think differently.
If you're not in that situation, and you're currently announcing your conditional desire to flee the country, consider this alternative. If you're really willing to pack up and leave everything you know for political reasons, why not move to a swing state instead? Maximize your leverage! It seems to me that in the category of solutions involving moving somewhere, this is the easiest way to stand and fight. It's easier than emigrating, too.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-21 06:09 pm (UTC)That's assuming that in the next four years, we're not all forced to hang pictures of Bush in our living rooms.