This Space for Rent

How to get me to want to emigrate, in one easy lesson

Have lefty weblogs lecture me on how I am obliged to lash myself to the mast because, well, it's there, and that's what liberals do.

It's not only not convincing, it's offensive. There are good reasons for staying in the United States (if you're straight, that is. I find it harder to develop much enthusiasm for Oregon now that they've made me a second class citizen. Fuck Oregon! was, I believe, my comment when I discovered that the Hate Amendment passed. And my state taxes are subsidising the people who voted for this piece of bigotry -- if I moved out of the big yellow house and into Washington, I'd not be a second class citizen for a couple of years longer, but it would be very painful to have to emigrate from a city where I had, at least up until 3 days ago, expected to spend the rest of my life. And if we uproot, it will be just as painful to move across an ocean as it would be to move across the Columbia) and taking up the sword of political battle (I'd leave actual violence to the minions of the Evil Party, because they seem to enjoy that sort of thing), but there are equally good reasons to move out of the United States (not being resident in a country that tortures people is a good moral reason to get out, and not paying taxes to the US Government is a good practical reason to get out.)

Note that neither of these options require that I do them just because they're there. The existence of Canada, the UK, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa does not commit me to moving to any of them, and the existence of the United States does not commit me to staying here. I don't particularly care what the Evil Party apologists have to say (they're all lying, and, better yet, they reek of desperation even while they're destroying evidence) but I am curious; if you're a liberal and you're thinking of (a) staying or (b) getting the fuck out of Dodge, why?