My wife and I watched The Pianist last night and I couldn’t help but think that, as depicted in the film, the Warsaw Jews were awfully passive about their situation until it was way too late. I realize that this is a historical drama, but I have to imagine that some folks, Jews and Goyim alike, were able to see the writing on the wall and fled while there was still time and before it became commonplace to shoot people in the streets. Of course they may have just ended up in France anyway, but that’s besides the point.
So, the real subject of this debate is what would it take for you to flee your home and seek safer lands? Mass genocide in your country? Racial violence? High gas prices? FISA extension? What is your personal “writing on the wall” that would cause you to take your family (if applicable) and run?
How is it beside the point? You only run if you think you can be safer somewhere else. To up and leave everything you know - your friends, your support system, your property, quite possibly in this situation a significant proportion of your money, your job etc, requires a pretty high level of certainty that where you will be going will be safer. It’s a massive step.
It’s all to easy to look at it with hindsight. I just worked with some Holocaust survivors from Poland. I asked one person why her family didn’t leave when they could. She told me that it was because these were the Germans. The Germans were civilized. No one expected the bestialism of the Holocaust.
I just meant that if the goal were to escape the Nazis, ending up in France might not be the best outcome. I’m just using WWII Warsaw as an example of a situation where people may have been able to sense impending trouble and decided to get out while they could. I’m not criticizing people that don’t have the benefit of my 2008 hindsight.
However, at some point people began to realize, “Crap, we totally underestimated this situation.” The earlier people realized that, the better their chances for escape. What I’m looking for is discussion of where this breaking point is for different people. I don’t know, maybe I’m better off in IMHO.
That’s the thing. By the time someone realizes this it is almost certainly too late. Such draconian measures do not advertise themselves coming. They creep up on you. By the time it is clear you should leave you’ve waited too long.
Besides, most people do not have the means to just drop everything (and I mean everything you cannot carry in a suitcase) to leave.
I understand what you’re saying and maybe I’m not making my own topic clear. In the example from the OP, perhaps some residents of Warsaw decided that as soon as Germany invaded Poland, they were out. Maybe it was when the Germans forced Jews to start wearing armbands. Maybe some non-Jews fled when the Germans set up the ghettos and the non-Jews thought, “What if we’re next?” Everyone has some level of tolerance and for many people, that level was reached when it was way too late to think about fleeing precisely because, as you stated, “Such draconian measures do not advertise themselves coming.”
Let me put it this way. For some people, the US’ detainment of terrorism suspects without judicial review is scary enough that they’ve emigrated. Perhaps for others it’s the extension of FISA with the telco immunity clause or perhaps the (hypothetical) elimination of the 2nd amendment. Maybe others wouldn’t leave unless tanks are rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue or there are “security checkpoints” at the entrances to Harlem.
What would have to happen for you to flee your home country/city/etc assuming it were not too late to do so already? Or, if you prefer, at what point would you realize that you should have gotten out sooner?