This. I’ve lived here, and I’ve also lived abroad for a good chunk of my adult life. I have serious problems with the direction this country is going, but I really do have to believe that, with all my problems with McCain and Palin, anything has to be an improvement over Bush/Cheney. This country would have to take a really hard turn for me to move because of its government, although the more we move towards the religious right, the more possible my scenario becomes.
I don’t love my country. I don’t hate my country. I’m not particularly emotionally attached here, and I’m more than happy to flit about the world at my whim, should things become intolerable for me. However, McCain getting elected hardly registers on my intolerability scale.
As to the feasibility of leaving, I’m planning on going to medical school soon, and I was a German major. My German is still fairly decent, so I suppose I could apply to schools there. I’m young and single and have few debts, so it would be much easier for me than most people. If I had a family or a house or a steady job, it would be a lot harder to leave.
I have never threatened to do this before.
To be more precise about why I’d consider leaving: It would really bother me that people who supported Palin’s beliefs and values basically determine the outcome of elections and therefore have a huge sway over the government. It makes me wonder if George W. Bush would win a third term if he ran, because honestly she reminds me a lot of him. McCain himself does not bother me so much, it’s Palin, specifically her religious conservatism that appeals to so many.
I would also worry that democracy might overtake our constitutional liberties; that is to say, the protection of minority rights might be diminished because the majority doesn’t like it.
Because really, how many of those people does it take before this isn’t my country, anyway?
Should McCain, God forbid, win this election, I’ll be fervently hoping that things don’t continue to suck at quite the current rate of suckage, let aone get worse. But if they do, I’ll be thinking “Well, we pretty much had that coming, didn’t we?”
That’s actually the way several recent Presidents have operated–“I won, so what I want, I get,” rather than “I won by the narrowest possible margin, so I should really pay attention to the 49% of the people that didn’t vote for me.”
re: the OP, a friend of mine is pursuing UK citizenship in attempt to help her son avoid the draft, should one become a possibility. She wasn’t too thrilled when I pointed out that draft registration was started by Carter in 1980, so even if Obama wins, she might still need to go through with it. Don’t even know if it’d work.
If you didn’t leave when GWB got elected, you ain’t gonna leave now. McCain appears to be an order of magnitude better than GWB.
In fact, if it wasn’t for his insistance on continuing the war, I’d even half consider him. Very experienced, and massive personal integrity.
His veep? The vice-presidency isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. She was only chosen to balance the ticket. He’s moderate, she’s ultra-right, he’s an old male, she’s a young female, he’s moderate in his faith, she’s RR, he’s experienced, she’s not, etc.
It is a nice nod on his part to the 51% of the electorate, OTOH I understand why dudes are leery of her; but as a reason to either vote for or against him? Not so much.
I’m a Canadian who spent six years in the U.S. on an H-1B work visa. At the end of those six years, I had a green card application in process (and well along), which would have granted me an indefinite extension of my H-1B until the green card was approved or denied–and approval was pretty much guaranteed, according to the law firm handling it.
I left just before the election in 2004 because I predicted that Bush would win again, and I didn’t want to stay. I aborted the application and returned to Canada.
So for all the crowing over and mocking of those who see empty threats of abandoning the country if X wins… it happens. It was a relatively convenient choice for me, but Bush’s second term was the strongest of several reasons for me not to stay in the U.S.
Well, I’d like to live abroad for a year or two no matter who the president is, but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking . . .
McCain doesn’t bother me at all. I think he’d be an ok president. It’s Palin that scares me shitless. That said, no, I won’t leave. I’ll deal with it just like close to half of all voters have to deal with their loss in every election to make our beautiful republic work.
Palin is the reason McCain is doing so well RIGHT NOW. She’s a bright, shiny new toy for conservatives to slobber over. The same can be said for Obama after he gave the best keynote speech EVER at the 2004 DNC. It energized the base, and many moderates also.
But, and it is a big but, over the next 60 days we’ll actually learn something about her, the shine will come off, and then and only then, will there be a better idea of where we stand in this election. But, for now, we know next to nothing about her and she hasn’t even faced tough questioning or debate yet. She’s still got that fresh out of the box smell to her.
The Christian right wasn’t going to vote for Obama no matter what. Unless Palin does as the right think tanks wants and gets moderates and Christians who actually care about the poor and helpless like Christ and not about punishing homosexuals, it’s not a victory for the Christian right.
I don’t know enough about Palin, but the little I’ver read:
She may not actually advocate making creationism a part of the curriculum. "“I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum,” she said. She’s certainly way more open to it than a… normal person, but she’s followed her pledge not to pursue it as Governor
I don’t believe she’s for abstinence only (she describes herself as "pro-contraception and says kids should learn it outside of home too), she just doesn’t want “explicit” sexual education. What the hell that means is still up for debate. We just don’t know.
She didn’t “try” to have books banned, she inquired about it, but did nothing other than fire the librarian and then rehire her. She’s still nutty, but not as nutty as you make her out to be.
She is certainly anti-abortion.
You shouldn’t need to exaggerate her positions, it demeans the debate and ruins the credibility of the left.
We need to know more about her before condemning her. And by We, I mean normal people. Not the Palin-drones who have already unthinkingly fallen in love with her.
Not me. All my stuff is here. I would be very sad (AGAIN), mad (AGAIN), and wonder what the hell the American people are thinking (AGAIN), but I won’t leave.
I grew up in Canada, although I am a US citizen. My parents, my brother, and his wife and children are all living there now. Moving back to Canada has been something in the back of my mind for a while. My partner and I are married in Canada, but have no legal standing here in the US. Our family would have a lot more legal and financial protection up there. Not to mention universal health care. We’re lucky in that we would have a route into Canada through being sponsored by family. Anyway, we’ve been casually “networking” to see if there are decent job opportunities, etc.
However, we love where we live now in the US (the blue city, mind you, not the red state). We have great friends and a strong connection to our community. And good jobs. It’s kind of a toss up, and we haven’t really come to a decision. However, I would say that there is a decent probability that a McCain win could be the thing that would tip the scale and send us off to Canada.
For me, it’s not so much the idea of another Republican administration, per se. There are a variety of types of Republicans. The real kicker for me is the possibility that the McCain ticket would win due to the re-energization of the fundamentalist Christian right by Palin. The continued deference to their political agenda is something that I feel is a direct threat to me, my family, and our financial and social wellbeing. I prefer to live somewhere else – at least until the younger generation (who care less about teh gays) diffuses this political platform.
My concern is not a generic Republican administration . . . it’s the fact that McCain winning would be evidence of the strength and influence of the conservative religious base in the United States.
I don’t know where to begin with this. You’re 24 years old and haven’t experienced much of the real world on an adult level. And you’ve certainly never experienced adverse economic conditions. We currently have a low unemployment rate as well as mortgage interest rates.
I’ve worked at one company longer than you’ve been alive. In that time I’ve seen unemployment rates over 10%. I’ve seen home mortgage rates over 13% (early 80’s) and wage and price controls that caused gas shortages (early 70’s). People weren’t bitching about the high price of gas, they were bitching because stations ran OUT of gas. I’ve watched my own state raise taxes from the lowest quartile of taxation in the country to the highest and businesses have fled.
So while I understand your frustration with recent economic downturns I have difficulties reconciling your own convictions. From what you’ve said you disagree with Obama’s policies but you find him inspiring. It’s easy to get lulled into a sense of security with a good speech but when the dust settles they are only words. And when you look at it closely they are words written by hired writers who in turn use material gathered from hired researchers. ALL politicians, regardless of party, do their best to tell you what you want to hear. Political speeches are a blank check of promises written against a bank that doesn’t exist. What you have to do as a citizen is look at their proposals and judge whether they are sound and fiscally viable.
Donating money is basic. Go into your local office and help, if that’s how you really feel. The most expensive thing you have isn’t your money. It’s your time.
I won’t let anyone run me out of my home. Period. What may happen is I may get a little more loudmouthed, a little more crazy, and donate a little more time and money to NOW and Planned Parenthood. Anyone considering leaving is a chickenshit. If you believe in something* strongly enough to leave your home but not strongly enough to fight for yourself and others, well I’m sorry but I consider that a moral failing.
*in no way is my example of reproductive freedom meant to stand in for your own beliefs that may run counter to a McCain administration.
I lived in Tbilisi VERY well on < $1000/mo. At the time a senior VP of a Georgian bank was earning $400/mo so the cost of living was very low indeed. Of course the amenities are few and far between. You can’t have it both ways.
Scares the crap out of me too. And I kind of feel that our own immigration advocates believe we should let everyone in here that wants to come, and that “immigration reform” consists of refining and speeding up the approvals–while by contrast there are very few places where we would want to emigrate to, and would be allowed to do so.
What really concerns me is that we are eight years into the 21st century, and have yet to get past romanticized 19th-century notions of pioneers, cowboys, and ranchers–and the contradictory notions expressed by the phrases “Don’t fence me in” and “Stay off my land”. Too many of us still think that everyone needs their own quarter acre of land, regardless of the cost, and regardless of the fact that there are too many of us now to make that easily feasible. Too many refuse to believe there are limits to growth as water tables are drawn down and daily commutes become longer grinds, and the more recently a city has exploded population, the more it exemplifies this: Phoenix and Las Vegas have come to represent an extreme of Los Angeles-type sprawl, and Orlando doesn’t seem to have any real city anywhere in it. The fact that the Repubs are swooning over a woman who is a former small-town mayor and now governor of Alaska concerns me, because I don’t see what relevance such a background has to San Franciscans struggling to find affordable housing, or Angelenos afraid to go out because the MS-13 has been shooting people in the neighborhood. Small town and rural life continue to be held up as a sort of American ideal while urban issues have almost disappeared from the national political discourse.
If they win it will be hard to sustain any hope that this will ever change.