If you could leave the US permanently, would you do it?

I ask because I live outside the US and have for about half my life. During the Bush years, it was both tough (people thought I was a bloodthirsty asshole because I was an American) and easy (all I had to do to ensure very interesting conversations was wear my "Impeach Bush and Cheney Too" DU shirt).

But now I'm suffering a combination of buyer's remorse over what Obama hasn't tried to do and how he may make a hash of health care reform, and genuine revulsion over "real Americans" at the various teabaggings and town halls. I hate what I'm seeing. I don't want to share a country with these lumps of ambulatory smegma.

In fact I *won't* share a country with 'em. I have no intention of returning to the US to live. I have about 15 active working years left and I'll spend them as an expat, and then find a civilized country to base myself in while I continue my first love, travel.

So how about you? If you could leave it all behind and set up house in the country of your choice (presuming you could find employment and an equivalent lifestyle to what you have now), would you do it?

That'd be more like one time travel.

But at the end of it, you're in some other country and the opportunities for travel (as in extended tourism) become more practicable.

As far as my carbon footprint re travel goes, I don't know anyone who's ready to abandon fossil-fuel-based locomotion, so while I'm eager to participate in lower-impact ways of getting around as they become available, I'm not going to restrict myself to only those places I can walk to in the meantime.

Despite the problems and disappointments, my South African friends really feel that they are engaged in a huge collective effort to build something new and great.

I would love to be settled somewhere at the foot of the Magaliesberg Mountains.

Are immensely grateful to have escaped the place.

I don't mean to ask that flippantly or suggest that they are racist -- only that it's a matter of perspective.

All my South African friends are black, and mostly would be described as middle class, and having been middle class even under apartheid. From their perspective, they've moved from cramped, crime ridden, dirty, unpaved townships often without flush toilets, to Johannesburg. To them, Johannesburg, even in its current state, is a huge improvement over Soweto and Alexandra.

But if you were white and had lived in Johannesburg before the transition, it seems like a tremendous decrease in the living standard.

Many years ago, a (white) professor of African studies I knew predicted that when majority rule came to South Africa, it would appear as though the country would be in decline. But in fact, average living standards will have gone up, but the built in subsidies for the white lifestyle will be taken away, which will look like overall decline. He was right.

I remember in the 80s how white South Africans used to laugh at white Rhodesians who had fled to Johannesburg and thought it was this huge step down. I remember one said something like, the Rhodies think that if you're a white shop girl you deserve three servants and a swimming pool, but it isn't like that in South Africa. (Although oddly, the South Africans had pretty skewed expectations themselves.)

I also understand that among white South Africans today, there is a huge amount of resentment about affirmative action -- which I find almost bizarre considering the severity of racial employment discrimination that existed in that country for 80 years.

My friend who presently lives in Yoeville, Johannesburg also says that the crime wave seems to have abated. Police response time in central Joburg is now measured in seconds thanks to British style surveillance cameras and a police philosophy of "swarming" the central business district.

And the one black guy is married to a white SA expat, and so has successfully crossed that particular divide. But the consensus among them all is that people (of whatever color) flee SA not because of rebalancing of the racial scales but because of one, in-your-face issue: violent crime. They attribute this not to a decline in competence of police authorities, but rather to the widespread chaos in southern Africa generally, which has led to millions of rootless and brutalized people wandering the continent and crashing into one another.

If there has been a reduction in criminal violence in SA (and particularly Jo'berg) it's happened since my friends left (the most recent arrival to where I'm writing this from -- Australia -- being about 4 years ago).

My rental car was stolen, so a police officer came to where I was staying to take a report. We talked about the crime wave. He said that when the war in Mozambique ended, the soldiers were not demobilized in any orderly way and just walked off the battlefields with their weapons, which they sold in the market at Maputo for about R5 -- and that was helping drive the crime wave. He said people drove from Soweto to Maputo to buy van loads of weapons to sell back in SA. Once I went with a friend to a kind of discount Walmart type store and it had a sign that said, check in your automatic weapons here -- and that was in a white area.

That said, the levels of crime that came to Johannesburg had always existed in Soweto. It had just been invisible to whites.

The government's biggest failure was not securing the borders and the millions of refugees and immigrants have made the situation much worse. On the other hand, it seems the southern African countries generally have an open borders policy leading toward a southern African common market.

As for getting crime under control in Johannesburg, that is a recent development.

I'm Canadian, but my spouse is American. We went through so much hell during the Bush years that moving to another state was an idiotic option. My family's here, they've been a huge help (financially and otherwise), and although it's depressing to see what's going on in the U.S., we feel like we have a bit of breathing room. Tough adjustment on many levels, but there are things we don't need to worry about anymore (like health care).

Frankly, I'm still floored you guys had elections last year. Of course, it's starting to look like it didn't make that much difference, which is tragic.

But I liked what I saw.

Perhaps when I retire in 6 years.

Immigration rules and categories have changed.

Since asshole U.S. Immigration policies decided to make everybody's life a living hell, Canada (and I suspect other countries) are returning the favor. It sucketh large. :(

No one wants the refugees caused by *'s messes!
England (a bit of a hole anyway), the Netherlands (always a fun destination....until you get here) the North (Scandinavia), and other bits of Europe, ALL are cracking down on immigration.

I'm married, tried (and fail by ONE PIECE OF PAPER!!!) to emigrate my wige to the US, am STILL going through the process 5+ years later... but that's because of the anti-immigration, racist zealots currently gaining power (google wilders - this asshole was in religiousous if you can believe it) and general growing Xenophobia.

anyway i'll stop before I get into another rant =]

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immigrant father as well as my mother's family who has been here since the late 1600's.

I want the terrorist white trash snake handler republican sheep fuckers on a boat back to where ever they came from. And I want it NOW!!!!

This is NOT their country.

mark

Which is pretty much why they're as insular, stupid and massively anti-change as they are.

I saw the footage of the knuckle-draggers who slumped around after Palin and I thought they were a tiny population of subhumans. Turns out they're ten times as numerous and fifty times as vile. I don't have the stomach to deal with 'em.

The fascists now rule the country. They're on the air 24/7 calling the president a traitor, communist, racist, Marxist, terrorist. Why? Because he wants every american to be able to afford health care.

They bring assault weapons to O's appearances, and no one can stop them. Pretty soon one will kill the president, and hate radio and Fox "News" will go merrily on their way, with no one lifting a finger to stop their terrorism.

We lost. Probably the best opportunity to stave off the fascist rule was 1995. When it was revelaed that McVeigh was a Limbecile, we the people should have decided right then that Rusty presented a clear and present danger to the country and its people, and dealt with him accordingly. Since then the fascism and hatred get worse every day, and we are powerless to do anything about it.

Rather, you do - I bought mine when W. was president.

mark

GUNS threads get flushed down there soonest, so now they're smearing their gun thuggery all over perfectly respectable threads ...

You never fail to make me laugh!

Thanks again.

mark

parading around trying to look all progressive. Given up on that seemingly never-ending stream of right-wing gun militant sites you were all the time posting in the Guns forum, have you?

Anybody who happens on this thread might want to visit Guns and see several of the folks here in their natural habitat. Not a pretty sight.

Fought a war for this country and it has some of my blood in it, so I will stick around and fight another war with the repugs to get it where it should be.

hear the sentiment and have it said to them over and over again every time they oppose the President - turnabout is fair play and they deserve it.

Most of our ancestors arrived here under hardship.

If you hate the U.S. so deeply that you "would leave permanently if you could", then grow a pair and get out.

Parts of America have become: bigoted, vicious, narrowminded, and intolerant.

I remember something like "When in the course of human events . . . "

Sorry, but I have no sympathy for you or any of the other whiners on this issue.

I'm so sorry this topic upsets you so. Perhaps you need some breakfast. Or just to go back to bed while the adults have a conversation.

What's your background? Are you one of those with no spine who'd rather leave than make a difference?

Need some money for airfare? I'll start a collection.

I'll want to go to Japan, which will cost extra, so stop slacking, get off your ass, and get me some money, fool!

The world is my country.

...were the "bigoted, vicious, narrow-minded, and intolerant" ones. They were the fundie nut cases of the time that colonial Europe, with an entire continent at its disposal, dumped over here.

A good history course would teach such things, rather than the "yearning to be free" bullshit American creation myth.

The Australians got the cons and the US got the religiously insane Cotton Mather witch burner types.

I've never met an Australian without a sense of humor and a certain disdain for institutional hierarchy. I've met plenty of Americans who completely lack wit, humor and irony, while spending life as frightened pawns in the wage/debt slave "natural order of things."

And before the howls of hypocrisy go up... yes, they both slaughtered their indigenous populations. At least Australia is trying to apologize (inadequately, at best), while the US does its usual three monkey act and sees, hears and speaks no evil about this, and all other racist outrages.

Like the anti-bellum south; like Manzanar and Tule Lake; like the current racist war against Islam; like the current racist drug war that sentences crack users (i.e., black people) to ridiculously long terms while white boys get off easy as long as they just use the powder; like the current racist war against "them thar wetbacks takin' arr jobz" (the ones that nobody but illegals seems willing to do anyway); like the Germans and Italians rounded up and jailed during WW II; like the class war fought against the peasantry every single day (and won) by the richard scumbags; like the war on organized labor and the union leaders imprisoned or killed -- sometimes one and then the other ...

So which continent do you suppose got the better deal?

Excluding Canada and Mexico, of course, since the former seems to have avoided the perils of an influential number of bible thumpers and the latter shares almost no cultural imperatives with El Norte.



sf

The range of peoples and reasons for coming to the Americas is as broad as humanity itself, and includes both those who were fleeing intolerance and those who were intolerant themselves. I learned that in "good" history classes.

The rest of your post I mostly agree with, although there are plenty of contradictions in Aussie culture too.

I got caught in the generalization trap. You're right, of course, about the mix of the intolerant and those fleeing intolerance. You can see the effects both groups had on the culture by examining the prevailing American creation myths -- the rugged individualist; the witch hunter; the battling progressive; the biblical literalist.

But I don't want to generalize too much here... :toast:



sf

...MAYBE...other than Canada...where else in the world is there tolerance and love?

Racism and hate is found in EVERY FREAKING country since the beginning of time.

Folks...the US has problems, but let's not pretend that the rest of the world is puppies and fucking rainbows.

What are you talking about. It wasn't as if enlightened people founded this country.

Jesus H. Christ on a Harley, the puritans were so uptight the BRITISH kicked them out. Now that's uptight. Baddabing.

have always been bigoted, vicious, narrow minded, and intolerant. I lived in country in the 60's. It isn't anything new.

I am waiting for socialized emigration; a single payer emigration system to fund me.

Most of whose ancestors? And, why did THEY leave, exactly? Most of my ancestors left Britain, upon a time, because there were better prospects in the New World, with, in many cases, less chance of religious/political repression. (Being Catholic in 17th century England, not so good, necessarily.) So are you saying that just because someone's ancestors came to America, centuries ago, because they thought that it was a better option than where they were then, that they shouldn't make the same decision and go somewhere ELSE where they think they and their children will be better off?

Mennonites have been accused of being traitors and/or cowards on the grounds that they are conscientious objectors (i.e. they refuse to perform military service).

Would you say that citizens of the USA who opposed the war in Vietnam and nevertheless fought in that war were cowards and that other citizens of the USA "grew a pair" and relocated to other countries?

...money (or lack of sufficient amounts of it) and a high-maintenance chronic disease (Hep-C) and resulting liver damage. I hired a Canadian immigration lawyer based in Vancouver (always wanted to live in BC) the very day Bushie clinched the GOP nomination in 2000. No shit.

I figured that was the clincher that this country had officially gone down the toilet. And, after eight years of watching the Bush International Crime Syndicate and Drug Cartel rob the country blind -- and get away with it -- my assessment seems to have been on target. But anyway...

I qualified to move to Canada under the point system, but was rejected on medical grounds. That left buying my way into the country via the investor category, which required at the time about US$400,000 to open a new business or expand an existing one. And you have to commit to hiring at least one Canadian within the first year of operation. Sounds just like enlightened US policy, eh?

Of course, I could always go the illegal route and sneak over the border, but I hate spending life looking in the rear view mirror.

Or I could get a 6-month tourist visa, leave for a day when the visa's expired, then do it all over again. But that practice is getting very unpopular with provincial and federal govt.s and may have been outlawed already for all I know. Plus, you can't work there under those conditions; nor can you participate in their fine health care system, which is now a necessity (more on that below).

Also, if you're going to leave the US, it may as well be for a decent destination. An upgrade, if you will. The third world doesn't qualify unless you like constant US covert ops intervention, environmental degradation (largely due to IMF/World Bank/US loose lending policies and draconian debt repayment structures) and the stench of diesel exhaust everywhere.

Getting into Western Europe is tougher than rocket science. Same for New Zealand. Unfortunately, the Australian drought in the most fertile areas -- the Murray-Darling river system -- continues, with water stores near record lows, Reuters reports. So they're not interested in a new wave of water-consuming American expats.

And finally, the coup de grace of life in America: now I need a liver transplant within the next two years or it's check out time. This means I have to come up with monthly premiums in the $700 range (and sure to rise next year) or I'm off the transplant list.

Since the disease pretty much robs you of your brains, energy and career skills, it gets harder to get that $700 each month. Absent rich parents, anyway.

And here we are, living in the only "advanced" country in the world where lack of money for medical insurance is a capital crime.

So, would I have moved to Canada back in the day before the Hep-C virus was identified as a separate strain (pre-1989 or so)? Is the bear a pope?

Had I the full understanding and awareness of the intrinsic nastiness of a laissez-faire market economy I have today, not to mention the sheer greedy malevolence of the wingnuts who hijacked the GOP, I'd have fled this place in a "New Delhi minute."


sf

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On a fucking progressive message board, by a supposed progressive?

I've seen it all now.

:wtf:

:banghead:

:puke:

n/t

other than that I could leave in a heartbeat

Not too easy to immigrate to another country at my age unless you are financially secure. I could have at a younger age as I am trained in an "occupation of preference' but that won't get you into most countries past the age of 45, which I am.

and I am single for any reason, I would travel until the day I die - criss-crossing the world to every little nook! I wish my girlfriend was obsessed as I am. I am considering the Festival au Desert held by the Touaregs in Essakane, Mali In January! I want to see every province of every country! Life is short and my goal will never be reached, but I will die trying!

working for an airline? Great way to see the world for less.

I like to get to the really hard and difficult places to reach - that requires hiring guides here and there, renting 4X4s, hitching, etc.

One thing that I would seriously consider however, would be to part of a crew that helps film wildlife in far out places in Africa, or Siberia, or Borneo, or deep in the Amazon, etc- that way I could really get around to so many places the way I want to see them - I would sacrafice my earnings potential at my current job for a real shot at that - of course, my girlfriend (who is almost a fiance) would promptly dump me as she is looking for a more standard and very comfotable lifestyle. I love a good adventure though and the journey is always the best part as opposed to the ultimate destination - perhaps, one day I will get her to see eye to eye!

going to out of the way places that most tourists or even most people, even the natives don't go. I've mostly only done the first,
been to unusual places outside the usual tourist haunts because friends living in that country took me, but one time I did the
latter, when an old boyfriend and I went to some incredible caves in Puerto Rico. We had to hack our way through a mile or so
of rainforest and climb quite a bit to get to them, and also get permission to do so from the farmer whose property the caves
were on. It was a great adventure though! Unfortunately we startled some bats in the cave and they all flew out -- never saw
so many bats at one time in my life.

Yes the journey is always the best part about the trip too. Hope you realize your dream of documentary film-making some day! :)

and have no regrets.

Each time I visit the USA I feel assured that I did the right thing. I love Canada and all it stands for.

or I would have come back sooner. Last Thursday would have been 30 years since I landed in the States. I don't even want to visit. :scared:

Welcome to DU! :hi:

This is my country and I am planning on staying here.

I love this place. But politically.. morally.. I don't share much with what seems like the majority of Americans.

what i learned to do is not have the need to protect. with all the shit u.s. started doing last decade i came to embrace that we are not so great, so superior, so just.... that we are who we are in all our disfigurements. it allowed me to let go of any "loss" i may feel and with that i no longer feel a "pride". that kind of attachment. i dont fight to make us number one. if we lose eveything, lose "super power" that is so ok in my book.

i am not explaining it well. but letting go a need to defend was a great thing for me.

When I began noticing how proud of their countries just about everybody else I ran across was -- and generally not proud as measured by similarity/dissimilarity to the US, but just for the things they loved about their countries.

What has soured me is not America vis-à-vis the rest of the world, but the sliming-up and dumbing-down I see in so many of my fellow citizens, to the extent that I think the cancer of unAmericanism represented by these people is inoperable and fatal. And the tectonic shifts of the last few weeks -- the emergence of nascent brownshirts -- are beginning to be very reminiscent of Munich 1933, which makes me verrrrrry nervous.

i am not seeing it so very different in other countries. i am seeing the same ill effects in other countries as i do here. i think these brownshirts are easier to deal with than a more insidious problem our society has that goes beyond the u.s.

again, i think living in the panhandle of texas, my kids going to a christian private school for a number of years as this escalated, the family i have of repugs, has taught me things, allowed a growth that manifests opportunities for us.

i do not believe the other countries have it all over us and are doing so much better. there are some answers in other countries, and lots of problems too, just like u.s.

No Iraq (been there, done that), no Myanmar, no North Korea, etc., etc.

But aside from the obvious, it's a very big planet and a lot of civilized places that are very glad they *aren't* America.

It doesn't have to be a perfect system, just a fair one.

If we don't get that here - I'm out.

So that restricts countries like NK or Iraq from consideration.

And it makes sense that most of us would not move if a result would be a lower standard of living.

That said, I don't think I'm overly picky - just nowhere too cold.

Yes.

Where do you want to live instead?

What is keeping you from moving?

On their first overseas assignment, I'll tell you that cultural dislocation is really destabilizing for a lot of people, especially if the culture is 1) not English-speaking or 2) otherwise substantially different. A certain amount of anxiety about a change of that magnitude is reasonable.

Also, unless you want to live as a backpacker, it's somewhat tough for US people to get work in a lot of places (not so much in others, and if you have skill and moxie you can make it anywhere).

Felt like coming home when I went there a few years back, but can't afford to. Maybe after the kids are all out of the house...

2. Can't get a job that I want to do

Keeping me from moving is the fact that it is illegal in most places to go somewhere and stay with the intent of living there without permission from the authorities. Almost nowhere worth moving to just does this without restriction, and mostly, those restrictions are related to having lots of money.

After 20 years abroad we returned for our children so they could experience America.

Now we are saving for retirement when we will return.

As buddhists it is much easier for us to live in a buddhist country where sensibilities atleast try to bring a normative perspective against violence. No on parades around with guns or macho shit there.

1)Canada, Australia, England top the list. Any of the three would be nice.

2)Combination of things. Money is an absolutely giant one. Another is being a silly little college student with no real work qualifications as of yet. Factor in the complexities of international immigration laws, and well, that's that.

Why? No nukes, nice lefty government, great environmental policy, gorgeous countryside, respect in national dialogue, cheap seafood, great baked goods, universal health care.

What is keeping me?
I tried to move last October but my job offer fell through when the economy collapsed and I lost my visa. You can't move to New Zealand without a job offer in hand and it's almost impossible to get a job offer without a work visa. It's a catch-22 which screens out 99% of applicants. I'm going in on a student visa, studying for a job that's on their immediate skill shortage list and then hopefully getting a job in two years. This is pretty much the only way to get into New Zealand. It's a scam to bring foreign money into their university system but it's the only way if you don't happen to be on their list of jobs they need. So it's going to cost me about $30,000 in tuition and living expenses in the next two years, but it will be worth it.

Also, to get into New Zealand you have to pass a physical. If your BMI is over 40, you will not be accepted. If you have diabetes, or have ever had cancer, or any other serious disease on their list, you will not be accepted. If you are over 40, you will not be accepted.

So, "what is keeping you from moving?" in most peoples' cases would be 1.) not having the money to start their careers and educations over from scratch 2.) not being able to pass the physical 3.) being too old 4.) not wanting to give up pets or move so far away from aging parents 5.) not having a job offer (which in the current economy is literally impossible to acquire from overseas)

But since you asked:
1) Germany
2) Canada
3) Holland
4) Australia

Tho to be honest if I had a good job come up in Canada I think i'd take it in a heartbeat.
I MISS the culture back home. I miss the people, and while Canada is still a different country, eh?
Canucks have always seemed very similar to Americans.
Here it's so ... alien. The Dutch are not a warm people - even to each other.
There are exceptions - my family mostly... but still...I miss thanksgiving.

I still love the U.S., but I abhor the nonstop ear-shattering drivel from the RW noise machine and what it's done to the country. Since most people don't seem interested in seeking the truth, the spin and lies are what rules.

I'm tired of attempting to actually converse with freepers who insist that theirs are the only opinions that are patriotic. There's no reasoning with them. To them it's Rush/Sean/Ann/Bill/Glenn = good and anything Dem/progressive/liberal/thoughtful/empathetic/compassionate = bad.

:rant:

Barack Obama has disappointed me a number of times, but I still think he's the last best hope for the United States. I hope he'll have a decent chance.

Hello, Australia! Goodbye, America, I hardly knew you. Man, it took a while to arrange such a move, but was totally worth it.
I have to go now throw some shrimps on a barby. No worries, mates.

it's something i've been pondering over the years, not so much for political or societal reasons (though those do play a role in my thinking); I just want to see what else is out there in the world...

ultimately, i am looking to leave, but it needs to be a good situation before i go....

Before that, I don't think I really knew what I was missing. Don't get me wrong, I like Seattle, but during the Bush years, I just didn't want to be an American anymore. When Obama won, I thought that would fade. It hasn't.

This is a mean country in which to grow old.

I fought for this country and I'm staying here.

Holy smokes. You must be seriously old cause the last 2 wars that were for America was either the civil war or the revolutionary war. Need a crutch. Badabing.

Seriously tho' where did you fight?

I would answer. But since you want to be an ass, I'll say none of your business.

How long were you in?
Are you retired?

My dad was navy during v'nam and I'm ever so grateful that his captain always found OTHER ports to be in.
Because of his Veteran status he has access to the VA, and his 30 years with "uncle sugar" his retirement is set.
It's funny... Of all the people on this board, and friends I have, my immediate family are the only ones I don't have to worry about.
My dad n step mother are retired military and government - so they're well covered for medical and retirement
my step dad is a retired teacher - with so much tenure he literally could have retired a YEAR early because of his vacation days
my mom run;s his SAT testing business (both are now on Soc Sec with Kaiser from his UNION retirement)

My sister *cries*... she has breast cancer. She underwent an operation because they thought they got it in time... it spread to her lymph nodes already. She has to go in for chemo and radiation :crys:
My Brother in law is Coast guard. My sister's treatment are gurantee'd... and dear sweet god/goddess/FSM that she comes out of this alive and well.

But I'm not concerned if the treatments will bankrupt her. My BiL's commander has already set up a transfer for him to move to a base 3 hours driving from Seattle. My mom n step dad will be up as regular babysitters I think. The treatments are a foregone conclusion.

Tricare is the best there is. and I wish all americans could experience it... or at least something like it.

I spent 23 months over seas. 12 Nam and 11 Germany. I enlisted to get the college benefits offered through the G.I. Bill. Only way I could continue my education.

I am sorry for your sister.

ouch 12 months in Nam, that seriously sucks!
Back when the GI bill was worth something.

Thank you again.
Hopefully I'll have good news in a few months on her condition.

Congrats. I'll probably live out my last 20 years in misery in Beckland. I wouldn't even need an equivalent lifestyle - just a job doing what I like to do. I'd be out of here faster than Limpballs eats a triple cheeseburger.

Too many who are disappointed with their perception of current trends would rather turn their back and leave rather than show the courage to ensure that changes are made.

Very illuminating.

That's always fun in the morning, evidently.

Just wondering. The poll explicitly addresses those who feel there's important work to be done in the US and so leaving is not for them. Doing any important work?

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part of the solution rather than part of the problem but that seems an iffy assessment to me.

And "screaming"? Puh-leeze.

Frankly, your opinion is meaningless because you have removed yourself from any part of the discussion. You are, by choice, irrelevant.

But it was adorable how you started this poll to try to gather some level of affirmation for your decision. Feeling better? And what contributions are you making for your new home country? I'm sure you'll be a real asset if things get tough.

Who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty confident that you're angry and doctrinaire and reflect exactly the type of behavior (from the left perhaps, rather than the right) that I find so repulsive in the US today.

People's responses to this topic -- and your posts, incidentally -- suggest that my opinion isn't meaningless to others. Also, I still pay my taxes, I still vote, I still carry a US passport, and regardless of whether I choose to live removed from despicable right-wing crazies who are intent on wrecking my country, my opinion still qualifies for consideration.

I wasn't looking for affirmation, I was polling for opinions. I'm quite happy with my choices and so -- aside from the sad fact of having to make the choice at all -- this poll hasn't made me feel better or worse.

But thanks -- no one's called me adorable for some time. Not sure what you meant, but I'll take it as a compliment, because that's the kind of person I am.

In case you haven't noticed.

And I'm not talking about people I disagree with. There are some extremely level headed people that I often disagree with who are really on the ball.

And then there are just assholes. They're angry, all their posts are just petulance and flippancy, its their way or fuck you, etc. Interestingly the remind me exactly of the health care astroturfers shouting people down at town halls - all pissed off and incapable of holding a rational thought.

:shrug:

-- Not to mention good sense -- on our side.

as we love the United States.

Me I consider the whole rock as my home and I would be happy anywhere, I am very pro homo sapien.

Living abroad doesn't take you out of conflict resolution, education, peace making or eliminating poverty. In some cases it becomes much more personal and a daily routine.

without healthcare and a reliable pension that I can live off of, it's impossible for me.
My wife has diabetes, so returning permanently is impossible.
hell returning once every 2 years is questionable because the propaganda (and TV) keeps getting WORSE!

I desperately miss living in the US (from the bay area) but every time I visit it feels like things are just getting worse and worse, at every level.

So this is a necessary step for me personally to return, much as I want to anyway, as my family comes first.

I spent as much time near SF as anywhere else I've lived in the States. But I don't really want to come home. I'm not sure where I'd be willing to settle because -- as you point out -- things are getting worse every day. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a rightwing putsch is not out of the realm of possibility (which would mean, of course, Civil War II).

I'm not facing the same financial challenges you are, but that could change very quickly if my company gets whacked by another wave from the economic downturn. We'd go through our savings pretty quickly if we were back in the States and unemployed. And of course there's that health care thingie. If I went out on the open market post-COBRA, I can't begin to guess what I'd be paying.

My plan is to stay employed. So far, so good.

and return to the US, if you want to part of the solution. :crazy:

yeah they can go fuck themselves.
I vote state and national, i don't vote local as I dont feel i should.
I maintain a US address and accounts because I love my homeland and miss it terribly.
But i'm too smart to let sentiment control me...completely anyway.

point taken tho.

And best wishes to your wife that she stays healthy. :hi:

and thank you
:hi:

... you should sacrifice your wife with a dull butter knife, then clutch it between your teeth, yell "sempre fi" and make a dash across the border in a suicide run on Rush.

Snort.

If I found a better economic situation in another country, I'd take it. A middle-of-the-road job in a country with universal health care would be an example of a better situation. But there would have to be a job there. I'm in a field where people find employment in other countries fairly frequently, so it could happen.

if I could find work elsewhere.

I would love Europe or the UK or Ireland, especially. The sane social policies would be the a relief.

Don't goto the UK then!
And for the rest...

it's harder to get in to Europe than a virgin's pants during finals!

If I wasn't married I would not have gotten into The Netherlands, or pretty much any other part of the EU, and they're making it HELL for me to (want to) stay! I've ranted on that ad nausium so I won't bore you.

The rest of the civilized world seems to not want Americans if they can avoid it, and a lot of their immigration policies seem to reflect this (if you are non-eurpean in decent it's especially bad. Turks and Moroccans are really not wanted here)

If you have fairly pure German blood (no less than 1/16 iirc) Germany is a possibility.
Scandinavia is wonderful, but also hard to get in. I hear they are more accepting of foreigners once you do jump through their hoops though.

Not meaning to dash anyones hopes but aside from VERY expensive (immigration costs are streamlined for me and already over a couple thousand Euros - and then there's the cost of actually MOVING your stuff, getting a place to live...) it's very difficult. It helps if you have a job already who will sponsor you... but it's hard.

Then there's the homesickness. 5+ years and I'm still not over it. It was easier to ignore when * was running things. But with this (false?) sense of hope from Obama, it's getting worse again....

but the US is my home and I will always consider it home. I will never leave permanently.

I'd have to weigh a lot of different aspects of such a choice before making a decision of that magnitude.

I lived overseas for a number of years and have traveled mightily. I'm happy for the experiences.

However, America is my home. More than my home, it's my house. When my house gets run down, I don't look at it, shrug, and wander off to find a new house. I fix the leaking gutters, patch the roof, tinker with the pipes.

The trick about houses is that once you fix one part, there are always seven other parts that fell into disrepair in the meantime. It requires constant upkeep, constant devotion, constant effort.

All things worthwhile in life do.

My experience with American expats - and remember, this is only my personal experience - is that they move from the U.S. but do not become seriously engaged in their home country's politics or communities (and knowing the cashier at the quaint local produce market you just adore is not "involvement in the community"). It's as if they want to check out of humanity entirely and enjoy an extended vacation. Which is their right, of course, but then I cannot abide the constant denigration of America from people who contribute nothing to their new homes. They did nothing here, they do nothing there.

It lends itself to a peculiar breed of expatriotic insufferability.

Having experienced them myself, I know what you speak of. I can recall having more substantive, productive discussions on American politics, history, etc. with my Chinese students than with some of those Amerexpats. Fortunately, I encountered few. As for the European (Western) expats, most of them were insufferable for their almost incomprehensibly intense attitude of superiority.

Come to think of it, I avoided voluntary contact with expats whenever possible.

. . . and I couldn't wait to get out of London after meeting the expatriot community there. They had plenty to say about how horrible America is while knowing only the parts of British culture they could absorb from TV and radio, had almost no knowledge of British history, couldn't explain the workings of British government or the UK system outside of the fact there was a Parliament and a Queen, and could not be less interested in the political and social issues of their adopted country. I very quickly found a nice (gorgeous) corner of Cumbria where I was the only resident American for miles around. I loved every second of it.

I found similar expat attitudes in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. This unreserved sense of superiority over American citizens living in America, that they were somehow incomparably better people for having moved to Europe and enjoyed themselves thoroughly, even though all they really managed was to displace and inflict their ignorance elsewhere.

People don't form negative opinions about us based solely on how they see Americans in America behave on television. I think an undeniable part of it is the Americans they encounter living in their own countries.

i wanted to leave America with a terribly bad desire during the Bush years. i finally got to study abroad, a 'vacation away from America' as it were, and found that i am far more American in culture, attitude, and expression -- and like being so -- than i previously thought. i also saw that Americans are pretty decent guests on average compared to some of the heinous behavior from Europeans and Asians i saw in my study abroad.

that and the sheer cosmopolitan opportunity pretty much everywhere in America and the endless questioning and challenging of biases and prejudices by educated (i think that's key) Americans versus other countries' citizens really cemented my connection to 'home'. sure some can talk a good game about where some small European or Asian country is, and which royal family fought such and such ancient war, but they in turn don't know where Nebraska is, land of immense corn production to the world, and how mass production and global distribution chains work. they can chide Americans about being racists, but then blithely state that 'of course, all Gypsies are thieves' and should be kicked out of "their" country and that there's a "muslim problem." such hypocrisy from Europeans, Asians, et al, followed by a handful of elitist, holier-than-thou expat Americans, got on my nerves and i really found that home isn't nearly half as bad as i thought it was. ignorance can work both ways and we're far too casual here in DU to assume it only goes one way. not all Americans are stupid... and vice versa.

life in a country just takes work; civic willpower is needed to maintain and improve your home and way of life. life takes work and there's no easy solution or escape.

i think i really needed to see that. America has a lot of things wrong with it, but it also has a lot of things right with it, too. no land is perfect; no people are perfect; there is no purest, liberal, elite paradise requiring little to no effort on one's own part. and seeing snobby American people essentially play escapism, like college grads endlessly putting life on hold to party it up in Acapulco or backpack across Europe, as some sort of grand political gesture while spending minimal to no effort reinvesting themselves in their new homes offended me. that's not how i was raised as an American. some of us can be incredible idiots, to be sure, but i expect Americans to understand the desire of having immigrants integrate themselves to their new home -- to invest themselves with their new neighbors. we complain about people being bad immigrants by not adopting their new home and investing their time, money, sweat, and blood here; how can we get off from doing the same when we emigrate to somewhere else? i don't want to be 'the bad immigrant' only taking and not giving back; i cannot be that expat on terminal vacation from America liberated from all civic responsibilities and free to denigrate others.

all countries need work. and one should be invested in where they are and who they share their food with. and whether i be at home or expat, i cannot let myself sit on the sidelines like some ungracious guest criticizing the hors d'oeuvres while the curtains are on fire. it's just a terribly shallow form of self-congratulatory narcissism. i may need a break from the rigors of civic life, but i cannot wholly retire and then mock those who don't do the same.

And I think you hit upon my major problem with the fantasies of expatriotism. Many people who profess them don't seem to realize that other countries have the exact same problems America has. Yes, we're a bigger, wealthier nation so our problems are somewhat magnified. We have far more policy and military influence over the rest of the world, so every tiny thing the American government does resonates.

However, racism and xenophobia are not American problems. Poverty is not an American problem. Violence is not an American problem. Homophobia is not an American problem.

The anti-Muslim bigotry in Europe absolutely floored me. The equivalent n-word to describe Arabs, Persians, and East Asians tripped off tongues with an openness and ease I have never experienced here in America.

Folks is folks. Things aren't necessarily better elsewhere, only different. Your community and country are what you choose to make of them.

Is Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham, Savage, "Patients for Prosperity," etc., etc.

And while official Saudi Arabian TV, madrassas in Peshawar, and religious crazies of every stripe blasting from radios around the planet (and any other international analog you might think of) are appalling, there's something especially disquieting -- to me at least -- about the American hatemongers I just listed. Frankly, I expect better of Americans, given the free flow of information and proliferation of information sources the country's blessed with.

Manufactured fanaticism -- which emerged into public view most notably with the "Brooks Brothers riots" of 2000 -- is a relatively new development which scares and dispirits me (and a lot of other people). Maybe that's the key issue: fanaticism. I've had it up to here, and America is suffering a big dose of it now that I'm not seeing in other developed countries. Even the European-wide antimuslim sentiment doesn't (on the whole) rise to such levels.

In full disclosure, I haven't been in Europe for about 3 years, and things may have turned darker since I was there last.

When you have countries with multi-party systems, the radicals will generally congregate into an isolated corner with no hope of gaining much real power. Britain, after all, has the BNP which are practically the KKK. However, in recent years, the racist right is in a grand ascendancy across Europe. Switzerland has the Swiss People's Party which earned 28.8% of the vote in a campaign where they advocated deporting entire immigrant families if a child committed a crime. The far right and virulently xenophobic Dutch party, Party for Freedom, made massive gains in this years elections. France had that Le Pen debacle a few years ago and race riots in Paris' northern suburbs.

If you open google and enter the name of a European country and "anti-immigrant party" you'll find gains after gains after gains in the past two years. The divisions are getting pretty bad over there. We just never hear about them much.

In our two-party system where the politicians must scrounge for every scrap of their coalition, the radicals are able to play a disproportionate role. It's a flaw in the American system, IMO. In a sense, we sort of have to put up with the radicals because a one or two percent can mean everything in somewhat evenly divided nation. Nader in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 showed us just how much a difference a handful of nutters can make. So politicians cater to them to some degree - on both sides. Right now we have the Birthers. After 9/11, we had the Truthers, and some politicians created some rather crafty answers to the Truthers that simultaneously disavowed their premise while dog whistling that they secretly shared some of their concerns. It's a game everyone plays, right and left.

However, that does not mean Europe doesn't suffer from similar impulses and fanaticism. They do. They just don't fess up to it, especially not to Americans. They have a certain image and self-regard for themselves when making comparisons to those uncouth western cowboys across the pond, and pride doesn't allow acknowledgement that we're all really in about the same place on the same issues. We simply deal with different expressions of it unique to our respective histories and cultures.

As I'm an American, I'm not ashamed of the shortcomings of countries other than my own (although I reserve my right to criticize 'em all). I certainly hung my head during the Bush years (which I spent, variously, in the UK, Kuwait, Iraq, Romania, Hungary, and Australia, as well as the US), but, as my original post indicated, also held my head up when I was able to engage people from those countries in conversations that let them know that not all Americans were bloodthirsty cowboys.

Post-Bush, I've had great hopes for Obama, and I'm finding it increasingly disappointing to watch him not execute the power *we* gave him, and to play the game so conservatively that I'm afraid he's going to lose -- that the 'Licans will win just because they're bigger assholes. Or more precisely, sociopaths who know they'll win if they just refuse to play.

Add on to that the NeoGoebbels brigade of hatemongers and the dumb-as-dirt tools who listen to them and you've got a recipe for real alienation. Layer on top of that the relative sanity of the average Aussie and the US is looking less and less appealing to me every day. Not that racism and religious intolerance are unknown here (not to mention social inequities that would make a stone weep), but such hatreds are generally despised by the mass of the people and brushed off with an insouciant "beer is much better than that brew you're drinking, mate" attitude that refreshes me whenever I run across it.

Now I've never lived in the US for longer than a few years at a time, so maybe I'm not the center of anyone's demographic, but I think I do represent a certain strand of Americans who'd rather think of themselves as world citizens first. The fact that that's an unattainable fantasy doesn't make it any less appealing. 'course, maybe it's because if things get bad somewhere (as they have in some of the places I've lived) I've been able to relocate.

I dunno. Is rootlessness a blessing or a curse?

If Australia works for you and brings a certain kind of contentment you haven't found anywhere else, I fully support your decision to live there. Rootlessness can be a great thing. My wanderlust allowed me to experience a lot of different cultures from which to draw many different perspectives that guided evolutions in my thinking that I don't think I would have gained had I never left America.

I do think the Internet warps perspectives a little bit. I often can't entirely reconcile the image of America - or any nation for that matter - often depicted online with the actual country I experience. Online and media seem less like reality and more like a collection of perspectives, shadows on the digital wall, groups of people seeing what they wish to see based on their prejudices. In Europe especially, the ideas people had about America based on what people read online were a little inexplicable. I found myself, more than anything, going "No, seriously, living in America isn't like that at all."

As for Republicans vs Obama . . . two-party system. I truly believe that is at the root of our major problems and why were are not advancing as quickly as we ought to be. Imagine, for example, if the Birthers could be spun off into some kind of Natural American Party to fester in isolation from the mainstream political process. How much might we accomplish if we didn't have a major party that felt even partially beholden to that kind of extremism?

After the 2004 election was stolen--again--hubby and I started looking around for an escape hatch.
We settled on Panama because of its excellent benefits and friendliness to retirees.

I never wanted to go live there permanently--I love Chapel Hill too much. After Obama's election, hubby
lost interest. Plus, he'll be 67 this year and has noticed he no longer has the energy he once had.

Yet, we have sold the house that was being built in Panama--we expect to get our final
money out of it in September. Yet, hubby wants to keep our Panamanian corporation alive for one more
year--just in case. He's beginning to show interest again now that the health care reform appears
to be only insurance reform--in favor of the insurance companies.

He still thinks there's going to be a tremendous economic dislocation in the U.S. and that we "ain't seen nothin' yet".

I hope he's wrong, but I'm beginning to think that he may be correct. How long it will take for everything
to fall apart--who knows?

I'm engaged; my fiancée is a British citizen. I spent six months in the UK earlier this year, and have recently returned to the UK on a marriage visa. After marriage I'll be getting a spouse visa and staying permanently; I'll have dual citizenship in three years.

about 5 1/2 years in England and 1 1/2 in Ireland. There are cultural advantages (pubs, beer, history), but overall, once you get used to it, your life isn't that different. You still have to get up too early in the morning to go to work, and you get home too late. You still have bills, and worse, you have to keep money aside to travel back and forth to the States. I'm not saying I'm sorry we did it, but I don't think I'd live in the UK again. Maybe Ireland, but I don't know. It really is a big lifestyle difference, much more expensive and salaries are much lower. Everything is old, creaky and leaky, which is ok, but does wear on you after a while, especially if you're from a 'new' area of the States (like Houston). Not to mention,as I believe someone upthread said, the bureaucracy can be stifling in government and business.
I do miss going for a beer at lunch, though!

The commute, specifically. And the weather. And a clinically depressed boss. And living in Sugar Land.

You must've had some commute!
But seriously, you're right, the commute from Sugarland is awful. Luckily we don't live there. I know a guy that drives every day from south of Sugarland to the Woodlands for work. Crazy, but he's trapped now, with there not being a ton of jobs, and oil prices vacillating.
Always wanted to visit Oz, have a friend who moved to Perth a couple of years ago and loves it.

My previous post could be taken a bit wrong, but I intended it to just be joking and glib. No offense!

from pogroms and that Holocaust thing. I'm quite happy here myself and I don't really desire to live elsewhere, except maybe to have a pad in Toronto where I went to college to make visiting my friends easier.

I lived in Europe, and would go back there if, as you say, I could have an equivalent lifestyle there. Easier said than done, though.

No... that would require too much work.


"Waahh... it's not how I want it.. I'm going to leave!"


Just go, then. You're of no help in our effort to make it better. You're just extra weight we have to carry around in our effort.

The world does not revolve around you, you know.

I'm pointing out to those that are ready to give up and leave that we need people who have the ethic of "love it AND FIX IT"....


The OP is ready to give up and leave.

With that attitude, he might as well go. He's of no help in fixing it.

Have fun.

I daresay he is, if not a Democrat, then a sympathizer with Democratic Party principles and/or agenda.

These numerous harsh "love it or leave it" responses should be deleted as worthless flames.

One would like to think that such anger would be better directed towards those on the other side of the aisle.

and have you lived in the same state your whole life, or did you cowardly move to another state when the going got tough?

My wife and I have discussed this.

Not that the sun rises and sets by Obama, but he's still a breath of fresh air as compared to the last 8 years of insanity.

I fear, that if Obama isn't reelected we are going to be subject to a massive retrograde in American policy, ethics and morals.

I just barely got through the last 8, I don't know if I could handle another 4 years of stupidity with a possibility of 8.

We are looking at two countries Canada or France. My wife speaks French so either nation will work for her. I will do the best I can to learn. I will still probably be looked upon as an ignorant American especially if we elect another ultra right wing moron, or just because I'm American who doesn't riot in the streets for my rights like the French do.

Meh, I can live with that.

However, if Obama does get reelected, then more than likely we will be heading up to Portland. This Texas insane heat is finally getting to me. 55+ days of +100 degree temps. No thanks and it's only going to get worse.

x(

But yeah, if healthcare in this country does not improve radically, Mr. Maru Kitteh and I are outta here in the next 10 years or so.

Now that I am retired, I am able to live there (Switzerland) but must still fulfill certain conditions such as paying into local health insurance, paying into the local social security system when I get consultancies (which I still must do to a certain extent because the cost of living requires more assets than I have saved up unless I totally deplete IRAs, etc.), filing tax returns for both countries, paying local service fees, etc. I do return often to visit family and friends, although even they are beginning to come to visit ME with some regularity these days. I am their "haven."
I was nearly ready to return in 2000 and had planned to even though the RW hysteria, idiocy and hypocrisy around the impeachment of Bill Clinton had shaken me badly, but the shenanigans around the 2000 election and BushCo policies and warmongering in 2001 reminded me too much of events in pre-WWII Germany and I did my best to stay put. I saw nothing in the BushCo years to change my first bad impression; if anything, it was reinforced.
Having grown up in the West (Montana) and having witnessed with my own eyes at an early age the kinds of RW religious nutcases that seem to be the darlings of the US MSM today (they were in the wacky minority even then; now the media cachet has given them "respectability"), I was mightily disheartened by my country's actions generally from December 2000-January 20, 2009. I have not yet given up on my fellow Americans and was especially heartened by the national election results in November 2008. If it weren't for the "internets" and many places like DU and other progressive blogs, however, I would have had no idea that like-minded Americans existed, outside certain of my family members and friends and various progressive op-ed writers. That is not the picture that we abroad receive from our bought-and-paid-for MSM.
Like others here, I see Obama and progressive Dems (not necessarily one and the same as Obama) as the "last best hope" for the US. I will never stop fighting for my country's return to sanity in the meantime because I still believe in and love the ideals that we SHOULD be striving for. No country has ever had such an ambitious agenda and we have indeed served as a role model for other, dare I say more successful, democratic societies today. The problem now is that we have regressed from our ideals. We have been dumbed-down as a population and brutalized into believing that Government is the problem, when it has been so clearly demonstrated, time afer time, that corporations have only one raison d'etre ... to make money for their shareholders. Anytime there is a conflict between that goal and actually providing any worthwhile product or service, it is not the shareholders who lose.
Essential services simply should not be privatized. That is the most basic of bottom lines. Providing services beyond the essential can be a worthwhile function of the private sector but ensuring effective government oversight of those privately-furnished services is absolutely necessary.
And religion must be completely separate and distinct from the public sphere. In every way.
If anything, this last is primordial. Without that separation and distinction, I remain firmly convinced that we will not survive as a nation.

If the social conservatives and corporate elites see their agendas go down the drain due to successful passage of gay-rights legislation, healthcare reform, increased minimum wage, higher taxes on the wealthy and marijuana legalization, then I'll stay.

If Obama is stonewalled by the Repukes and he loses in 2012, I may very well think about bailing out and heading for Canada or Europe.

I have been overseas for a few years now. Love it a lot. I think some Right-Wingers should take the time and travel, get out of the parent's basement/attic and meet people who don't need Rush Limpdick to tell them what to think.

It's hard to sit on the sidelines and watch things sink into the toilet, but in the era of the internet it's still possible to engage. I send letter, make calls, sign petitions and vote. It's not much but I'll half-ass a job before I no-ass a job.

Nonetheless, Bush's foreign policy moves and economic skulduggery can be felt all around the world.
Food riots? Bush's fault.
Massive poverty? Bush's fault, sort of.
Water wars/conflicts? Bush's fault, mostly.

Even in enclaves like Western Europe you can feel the effects. Not to mention, what if the next administration in 4 or 8 years screws up royally on the foreign policy front? Even if you're not visible, angry anti-american protesters will find you. Whether or not they hurt you depends on a lot of variables.

So travel, but don't disengage. And don't lose sight that nations aren't islands (even if some are physically). What happens here in the US can have far reaching implications around the world. Like it or not, that is our fault/responsibility/duty/curse/blessing/moral gray area/cross to bear/ax to grind. And going overseas doesn't absolve any of us from that.

Much of Europe is pulling out of the depression, due mostly to the fact that the governments subsidized the people who were struggling. Also, since everyone else in the world has health care and housing, moving away from rushland is a good thing to do.

Of course, no country would want me for the same reason I need to move...

Why only one country to reference?

If I could find a Democratic socialist country that I could live rurally in, perhaps.

I would miss western North America, though. I am tied to the land of the west much more strongly than I'm tied to any government.

My ideal place to live would be Amsterdam.Or Prague.

If your US employer is not transferring you to another country for a job, how does the average American move to another country and get a job? I would love to explore leaving the USA but just don't know how to go about it. We'd go to Canada, Australia, or western Europe somewhere in a heartbeat. Anyone have good resources where one can learn how to do this?

The #1 problem is money.

I ended up with a pretty well paying job here; can't get it back in the UK. I'm also lucky that the job does come with decent healthcare.

If I could get an equivalent lifestyle back in the UK it would be sorely tempting, especially right now with the family situation.

Mark.

I love the political environment. the Northeast Kingdom is the place I feel at home. I've traveled and I'll keep traveling, but this is my home.

it many times, and who knows what the future holds for me...but in all honesty, I was born here, I am living here, and I'll probably die here. Part of my ancestry left a crap life in Europe to come here and start anew, to live in tenements under the El, work as seamstresses and shoe cobblers, carry heavy blocks of ice up umpteen flights of stairs, fight for their country against a fascist menace, raise a family, and so on. To just get up and leave where they left off, to me, is kind of a big middle finger to them. I have traveled abroad many times, and I plan to continue to do so in the future, but I will probably keep returning here when the journey is over.

I am also well aware how insufferable and stuck up some ex pats can be (living in a new country in which they know little or nothing about). Sure, Europe is great now. But it wasn't always like that. It took great struggles and time to get it to the place where it is now. And it is a hell of a lot older than this country.

I guess I am more of the stick around and fight sort of guy. I am just going to have to find one of the least bat shit crazy places to live in this country, batten down my hatches, and stick out the shit storm. This country is really a great place of natural beauty; so diverse, complicated, and very interesting, as to be expected from a land that is larger than the whole continent of Europe. It's not its fault that it has become home to a shitload of backwards ass right wing yokels.

I hope things get better, I really do, but if worse comes to worse...well...I guess I will just have to go down with the ship.

strike up the "Nearer My God to Thee" for all of us DUer's who will be staying behind.

I guess I'm a bit masochistic, but at this point I'm so used to being on the losing side of just about every issue that it feels normal to me.

If I had a job opportunity (including good medical like I have here) I would take it in a heartbeat!
Of course that makes 3 places I'd live.
back home in the Bay Area (god I miss it)
Seattle (visited there, ti's beautiful, the same comfortable feeling as SF, but not as suffocating somehow as SF)
and Anchorage Alaska

I don't like LARGE cities, I like large enough. Most anywhere in the bay area is large enough. I could never live IN SF, or Seattle but I could live near them.

I think I could live IN Anchorage however.

Amsterdam? oh hells no! I would not mind living closer to the randstad but my 800 year old town of Zwolle is really perfect. Not as close to work as i'd like, but the city itself, our house, perfect. =]

Your favorite places are mine, as well. I love the Bay Area and we always enjoy visiting the Seattle area. You are correct about Anchorage -- it's just the right size. We have all the conveniences, but it's just a short skip into the wilderness. The only thing I don't like about Alaska are some of the really backwards people we have living here (i.e., SP and her ilk) but maybe it just makes the progressive and liberal community more determined.

at least what I can gather from their political priorities.
Wilderness protection does seem to be a priority, like y'all like to keep it wild - which I TOTALLY agree with.
but there is a desire to keep the oil n gas flowing too because of the um.. AFB(?) that you get every year.
I've seen Alaska politics as a strange mixture of ideologies.

When I was up last year I went to the public market in Anchorage. There was a guy on the podium reading assorted poems and stories about Alaska. I was reminded of the stories of Jack London who wrote of the hardships in Alaska during the gold rush.
I suppose being born there has always given me a special connection, but when I went, I was truly amazed.

Anyone who sees that glacier in glacier valley and the foto of where it was 100 years ago, and STILL doesn't believe in global warming is a fucking TOOL!

Anyway =] I'd definitely move to AK if I could... if only to be able to say "i'm from aaacckkkkkkk, up north"

since I haven't, I guess the answer is no.

Americans immigrate to their land.

He wants that retirement he's been promised even though I say life's too short, let's go!

There is a chance he can retire in 5 years, otherwise we have 9 more years to go.

Even though there are things I will miss, I can not wait to get away from the fundies and the freepers! :yoiks:

It's interesting and informative to watch the histrionics of the land of my birth from a distance. I have much more successful communication in my adopted Yurpean city than I EVER did in the states. The assimilation into a new country has been a blast! The LANGUAGE thang is SO MUCH FUN!
It's not for everyone. ;-)

:loveya: naaaaaah duuuuuu! wie gehts? :hug: beijos do Brasil! :* :* :*

:hug::loveya::hug:

What does Geil in german mean?
Because in dutch....
well lets just say I don't EVERY try to say the word yellow for fear of getting slapped.

Dat is een heel mooie geil jurk!

Of course it's funny the other way around...
Ik voel me geel! - I feel yellow =3

ee and ei sound similar to a non-dutchie like me, and im not very good at proper pronunciations to begin with...

But it was taken over by the teenies, then the media and its meaning as an interjection has been rehabilitated to: TERRIFIC! SUPER COOL!!!

I think my respect for the germans of today has gone up a notch (not that it was low at all)
Looks like their sense of humor as a people is definitely returning :)

I already know the words to 'O Canada'.

and already having an established job before I finished university (he had been working for one year), it was better for me to move here than him moving to the US due to my dual nationality.

A lot of things Britons here take for granted, especially the NHS. I play on a darts team and seriously, I've met people who were saying that the UK was boring and the US was more exciting.

:)

I'd move to Australia in a heartbeat. I visited there in November, and fell in love.

I love this country, blemishes and all. Of course, I would make some changes to it if given the chance.

on the 10 at ANY time, I say go for it, and take your car with you.

to a teenage kid with a cell phone, a car, decent parents who screams and stomps and say "I HATE YOU! You are the worst parents in the world and I'm going to run away"

No wonder change never happens. It's the good ol' "I got mine" attitude rearing its head again. Fuck helping to improve your country, just GO to a society that is already in great shape (if you can afford to)! Somehow I don't think that that strategy works in the long run and history seems to back me up on that.

Goodbye and good riddance. If you want to leave for and find a "civilized country" then you never were civilized to begin with. Your selfish attitude will surely tarnish whatever new country you go to. Perhaps that's what's wrong with the US. It is made up of too many people like you who would rather have come here than stay in their home country and push for reform. Well, you can't run forever, and moving won't improve the world.

We'll keep fighting the good fight, you go sit on the sideilne. Bu-bye! :hi:

If you have read the above comments you'd see that statement is more than a little insulting - especially to those of us out here 'in the wild'.

We are doing our civil part. We vote, we write letters, we call our congress people, we pay taxes, and we sure as hell KEEP our passports up to date!

Nearly every immigrant, ex-pat et-al I've talked to has come here for reasons other than blithe desire to jump a sinking ship - that WAS NOT SINKING WHEN THEY LEFT!

Few people life abroad because they want to. Often it's because they have to.

Look at how well "represented" we have been in congress for the last 30 years (the memory of most people), and it's only getting worse it feels.

We vote, we march, we yell and scream, we play by the rules....and we loose. We ARE the majority... and does it matter?

Can you blame people for being exhausted?
Rage only carries you so far.

you can be mad at us, but don't for a moment dare to blame us. We did our fucking level best, and what, WHAT has it gotten us?

but it's no excuse to give up. And I do understand that in SOME countries, the conditions are so poor that people WILL leave. But that is not the case in the US by a long shot. If you want to leave because your exhausted and not because your family is being hunted by death squads, it's kinda a hard comparison to make.

Nothing wrong with expressing your frusterations. But to ACT on them and GIVE UP and basically admit defeat is unacceptable. Republicans would rather that you ALL leave.

If you don't like a place, leave it and move somewhere else is your motto. What kind of world would we have if that was the case?

I guess that's a resounding no. All of the immigration from Mexico (legal and illegal) has only helped to keep their corrupt government in power. The brain drain from Africa continues to make progress there next to impossible.

Indeed, immigrations simply because you don't like where you live have sparked plenty of jingoistic posturing and chauvinism-inspired wars. The US gained the land it has today through such expansion. And all the countries that the immigrants were leaving from in Europe continued their own reign of terrors and imperialistic expansionism. It's all so easy when you have the pressure release of emigration.

You seem actually upset by people leaving the US.

Give it time. n/t

I already know I will not marry an American and my degree is in International Studies..

my dh loves mexico, has spent a lot of time there, but a lot of that time was before all the tourism, and 'you can't go home again'- i am a western girl, love the big skies of kansas, and formerly montana. i loved driving down the roads near the mississippi a few weeks ago, and think about traveling down the big muddy by boat some time. i love canada, western canada at least to calgary, but am pretty much done with severe winter weather. to me the political situation is worth trying to make better, for i love this land. i wish people were taking better care of it, but mexico hasn't been very good either which would be the only easy place for us to go to. if all my children moved to the same country, i might have to change my mind, but they won't. they live in portland.

doesn't really go with the question. If the work you do can't be done outside the US, you can't leave the US. However, you can still answer the question "If you COULD leave ..." with one of the other options.

For example, it would be VERY hard for me to get a job outside the US (not impossible but very, very hard). A little easier for my partner but also pretty hard (we are both in academia). But if I could leave the US, I would.

Please point any country that is a utopia.....can't? Because it doesn't exist! I was raised to fight for what I believe in and if I can't win, well I'll go down swinging.

I'm an American and a Hoosier. My family has been in Indiana since before it was a state and I'll be damned if I'm going to cut and run. I've traveled aboard and those trips were great experiences but no matter what I saw or experienced I never was tempted to stay.

So you won't share a land with people who disagree with you or fight with you? I'm sorry but that is cowardice.

Why do you keep a US passport or pay taxes if you've not willing to fight for your ideals?

and have traveled quite a bit. Nothing beats home for me. I could do it but until it gets totally intolerable I am staying put.

I won't let the ignorant bastards drive me out of my own country - I will stay and fight

...and Australia was just like the US, I'd probably think about moving somewhere else if I could. Maybe I wouldn't miss it coz I'd never have had it, but I couldn't imagine living without a public healthcare system. People running round with guns and getting all militant about any attempt at gun control would scare me silly as well. And that's not even taking into account anti-choice weirdos, Birthers, and the whole barrage of extreme RW loonytunes who'd be all over the place. I'd be trying pretty hard to get myself moved to the US, where in upside-down world, there is public healthcare, a proper social security safety net, and very few extreme RW nutjobs...

Back here in the real world, I'm eternally grateful I live in a country where things make sense. I still don't understand why ordinary Americans who are RW are so strongly opposed to a public healthcare system when it will so clearly benefit them.....

Honestly, I don't regret it at all. I have spent a total of three weeks in the US since, and even then felt like a stranger in my own country.

Yeah, there was a time, between the election and sometime this spring where I thought the US would be on the mend and that I might want to return. But there's way too much batshit crazy there for my liking.

Plus, compared to the states, I am living the American dream, here in Ukraine. I have a lifestyle better than I had in the states. Lord knows there are problems here, big ones, yet I suspect by the time the batshit crazies are finished with the USA, the problems here will pale in comparison.

I work with someone from there, and there was a gal in my language/integration lessons from there.

both are here in the netherlands for love (seems to be at the top of the list..... followed by "the USA blew the SHIT out of my home land")

What drew you there?:)

and besides, it seemed in the states we would be spending most of our time working just to keep our heads above water. Of course, her good fortune (and ultimately mine) seemed to be more of "the right place at the right time." But I'm not complaining.

I'm not under the illusion that everything is all unicorns and rainbows over here, though. The government here just recently claimed the title of "most unpopular government" ever, at least since the advent of polling. And the economy is still on the verge of sucking everything into a black hole. But "change" seems easier to accomplish here.

which would be "no, because i love america"

the closest choice is "no, because i'm american" which is not the same thing.

there are several countries that i very much like: costa rica comes to mind. i also like france. i find parisians kind of annoying, but i wouldn't live in paris, anyway. i'd live by the coast and surf a lot.

i can't think of any country that i would rather live than the USA, but i'm always open to finding one. i also feel a lot of loyalty because america has done well for me and for my immigrant ancestors (on both sides of my family).

Even if every single soul on the Titanic picked up a bucket and started bailing the ship would sink eventually. While we aren't there yet, I can certainly respect and have considered leaving the country due in part to the insane culture we have and the rampant excesses of the right wing going largely unchallenged. While things are not as bad here in New England and I may miss some aspects of the region, I wouldn't risk self preservation if it came to it, especially if efforts are obviously futile.

Has the country improved or deteriorated in the last twenty years? Forty? I know the "we'll fight to the end" and "I'll die swinging" is all very macho and romantic, but it simply isn't practical or even realistic. If a country is decaying and it wants to decay, it will, and no amount of collective bailing is going to change that sociological phenomenon until it is complete. Look at the track record of nations who underwent a fascist or quasi-fascist metamorphosis and you'll see that their transformation is almost inevitable. Hell, in some historical situations the very act of people leaving may be a good thing, it certainly hits the authoritarians hard when they encounter a brain drain. Fascism and corporatism is a sickness of the nation's very soul, and one that is not easily cured. Once again, take a look at what it took to cure that same sickness in other nations, usually it is horrific and you simply cannot fault people if they want no part.

Being on the Titanic, scrambling as they were, they could not see the damage... they did not understand the scope.

The people watching do and can.

I can not tell you how soul crushingly depressing it is to be on the outside with crystal clear perspective on what's going on.

To say it's hell really is the understatement of the century.

You all really don't see how utterly FUCKED you are... and you won't listen to us on the outside, desperately trying to help!

you also don't have to meet your victims.... I do... we, the ex-pats do.

Going through inburgering (immigration lessons) was heart wrenching because of all the Iraqis and Afghans I met. Good, honest, hardworking people, whose families, lives, and countries are completely destroyed.

"Yes Saddam was a bastard, and we all hated him...but we were safe, we had jobs, women had rights, I have a master's degree and I can't get hired at McDonalds!"

When you get your heart ripped out of your ribcage with many stories like that, you come back to me and bitch. (not aimed at Mix...)

Welcome to DU, and thank you for your understanding of the Expat plight.

I think it's in the interests of America, and indeed the world that logical minded Americans stay in America maintaining voting weight against those Republican lunatics. If you all leave, all will be left is a country full of batshit crazy people, who will dictate an insanely illogical foreign policy.

If I didn't have family here and a deep connection to the particular place I live, where my family has lived for generations. I'd move to Denmark, where my ancestors came from, in a New York minute.

Not only are we watching the decline and fall of America, but the moronic uneducated hordes and their fascist leaders like Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin are shoving it along the path faster.

And my state, Rhode Island, has crushingly high taxation, most of which goes not to public services which I could see being a viable situation as in the Scandinavian countries, but to corrupt state employees who can retire after twenty years with pensions and benefits the rest of us could only dream about. I have cousins living high on the hog, no work for the rest of their lives, as they turn fifty or before. And we probably have the most blatantly corrupt state legislature in the country.