I mean, Australia’s great and all, but I pay taxes. I don’t owe “Australia” anything. As soon as I get my degree I am outta here! I want to live in Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and who knows where I’ll settle in the end?
So all the talk of loving your country or getting mad at the Americans who want to leave because they don’t agree with the election result leaves me a tad bemused.
Anyone else feel the same nationless way?
I am livid that Bush, aka Satan, won.
But I certainly don’t hate the USA. Good to know at least 48% of my fellow citizens have a clue.
That said, I know where you are coming from. I left the US after college and travelled, settled in Germany, taught in Switzerland…14 years and loved every minute of it.
But I eventually moved back to the States with no regret. Lots of reasons. Suffice it to say, I could also move back to Europe in a megasecond with no regrets, but don’t feel the need to - well, at least not yet.
Don’t be all that sure that you are never going to return to Australia. Maybe you won’t, but I wouldn’t burn those bridges just yet.
Go. Travel. See the world. Then, if you should decided to return, you will at least have a different perspective of the world and be able to take a lot of crap with a grain of salt.
Bon voyage!
The USA is awsome! The people however…
I can relate…
I almost decided not to answer because of the negative in the thread title, ie I don’t qualify to answer because I DO love my country. Yeah, warts and all (smartini refrains from a 51% joke here…and it would be a joke) ) it is the country I love best.
Think about it: where else can you stay home and still see the world? I guess that is my favorite part – the overwhelming diversity. Not a dull moment here. I may get smacked for saying this but even though “my side lost” I am thankful for every minute of argument and debate. It means we feel and I shudder to think of living with the opposite of that.
For anyone who didn’t catch it that comment about staying home and seeing the world is made with tongue in cheek. Of course you can’t do that. So, Silentgoldfish , you are right to travel and see all of the world. I wish I had done more of it when I was younger and less obligated. I don’t regret for a moment eschewing some material things in my youth to travel a bit. When you come home? Then you decide.
Have a blast!
Yup. I loved New York and Washington but I’m seriously reevaluating any future attempt to cross the border, owing to my legal status.
I did that. I’m happily living in London now, the best city I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Oddly enough, I love Australia more desperately than ever.
There’s no place like home.
I’ve enjoyed my experiences in the US, a wonderful country I could happily live in. But there’s no way I’ll be visiting a red state in the near future, for similar reasons to matt_mcl. The idea is repugnant.
I don’t hate my country. But I’m deeply disappointed by the election, because it reinforces attitudes of American separatism (not the word i want, but I can’t think of the correct one). I think the industrially advanced democratic nations of the world are stronger together than apart. And I want my country to be more like Europe, more like the other industrial democracies. Nowhere else does the Christian Right have such influence in the halls of power. Nowhere else does the Christian Right even exist practically speaking. And this in spite of the fact that nowhere in the historic founding documents of our country, do we encounter the name Jesus.
What’s wrong with Australia?
I mean, why does the OP dislike living in Australia?
I do love my country. I wish the election had gone the other way (although I have reservations about Kerry, I have more about Bush), but I do love the US.
My grandparents were immigrants. They had a better life here than was possible in their home countries, and thus so did my parents, and thus so did I.
Distaste for the Bush administration does not translate into a dislike of the United States. I wish the people of this country could have seen more clearly that Bush is the wrong choice. I wish the Democrats could be successful in helping the people see that, but they’re not. They’re terrible at it.
So – I loathe the leadership of both of our major political parties. I’m fine with the U.S.
I’m going to try to paraphrase the OP to a certain extent (with my own spin).
Some folks have expressed a desire to leave the US after the results of the election.
Some other folks have called these people whiners and quitters for abandoning their country when things got tough.
If you “love your country”, then perhaps this criticism is valid, but if it is just somewhere that you currently live, and the political atmosphere has turned inhospitable, is it cowardly to leave? I think not. One could call it the pursuit of happiness.
I don’t hate my country, although I am very dissapointed in it at the moment. I’m going to do what I can to send my country back in the right direction (the opposite of the direction it’s going now). But patriotism all strikes me as a bit silly. We’ve all been socialized to “love” America simply because we grew up/were born here. (I was actually born in Germany, but I was born an American citizen.) If I had been born in Canada, I’d have been taught to love Canada. If I were born in (insert country here), I’d have been taught to love (insert country here). It seems ridiculous to be proud and jingoistic over a random happenstance. Since I’m female, I’m very glad and thankful I was born somewhere in the Western world and not into a place where females are very oppressed; but I don’t think I’m more free of repression than women in Australia, Canada, France, the UK, etc., etc. It’s all about the same, freedom-from-repression-wise.
I like my country; it’s my government I distrust.
Not that I haven’t considered moving to another country. If too many ridiculous laws and amendments get passed, then it would become a definite possibility. But then I’d miss American culture; it’s most familiar therefore easiest to feel at home in.
Have fun exploring, Silentgoldfish, and maybe you will find another country to be the perfect place to live, but you may also want to ask yourself how important your familiarity with Australia is.
“Love” is a pretty strong word. No, I don’t love my country. We’re just friends.
My country (England) is beautiful, with an amazing history, a culture in which I feel comfortable, and I intend to move back there one day. But I don’t love it any more than any other countries I’ve visited or lived in that I liked; everywhere has advantages and disadvantages.
I love what the U.S. originally represented, and the faint remnants that still occasionally exist. And I have to keep reminding myself that even today, so many people all over the world would risk their lives to become Americans.
But I abhor the fact that we’re rapidly becoming a Christian theocracy, and I’ve totally lost all hope that things will turn around in my lifetime. I think the next Big War will be between Islamic fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists, and we’re already seeing the early skirmishes.
I honestly don’t know where else I’d rather live (the rising anti-semitism in Europe scares the bejeezus out of me). I guess there’s always Canada; if they could loosen up their immigration policies, they could very well become the next bastion of freedom.
** silentgoldfish** but aren’t you Canadian by origin?
I don’t love Australia – it’s a good country (except for Little Johnny Howard) but it’s not the place of my heart. If things had gone differently in my life, I’d still be living in NZ. NZ is the country I do love.
Australia’s a fine place, but I don’t get the whole ‘love your country’ thing. Love your family, love your friends, sure…but your country? No, I’m not into the whole ‘sunburned country, land of sweeping plains’ malarkey.
If my family and friends could magically be transplanted with me wherever I went, I’d not have any especial ties to Australia that I couldn’t break.
I might miss the food. Actually, I’d almost certainly miss the food. There might be better stuff out there, but where else in the world could I get a pie floater?
I’d miss the anti-gun policy. The idea of the general populace having access to implements of simple death-dealing isn’t one that fills me with happy feelings. (Plus, it’s cowardly. If someone’s worth killing, they’re worth killing with a makeshift weapon, up close and personal. )
At any rate, once I got over the food thing I dare say I’d be okay anywhere.
I love the climate here, does that count? I really like all of the restaurants and coffee shops that I grew up around. I love the California coast and I love spending time in Santa Monica. I envy Canada their government, but good lord IT SNOWS THERE! :eek: I envy Europe’s history (I don’t think there’s a building over 150 yrs old in Arizona), but I don’t know how I’d feel about driving on the left side of the road.
I think that most of us (myself included) confuse love of familiarity for love of country.
I was born in Sydney, but I’ve lived a third of my life here, a third in Canada, and a third in PNG, so that could be a reason I don’t feel any real connection to any place.
There’s nothing wrong with Australia, but how do I know that I won’t like living in, say, Brazil more?
I don’t love America. I don’t hate it, but I always felt out of place there, even though I lived there most of my life. The willful ignorance of/lack of interest in the rest of the world which characterises so much of the US population is simply repugnant to me. Events of the past week have done nothing to change my feelings on this subject.
There are a lot of good things about America. It does do some things better than my adopted country, or any other country I’m familiar with, does. But it’s just not the place I want to live my life in.