Running Away IS Your Only Choice

[Yavin4]

Look, comparisons to the Nixon and Reagan eras are not valid. In both of those eras, you had strong Liberals in the Congress like Alan Cranston, Birch Bayh, and Ron Dellums, and you had strong Liberals on the Supreme Court like Thurgood Marshall. You also had a tough media that really dug into corruption. Name me the modern day Woodward and Bernstein. You don't have any of that today. You don't have any check on this new Christian Theocratic government. Remember how horrifed you were at the Republican convention in 1992? Well, all of those people now run your government.

Also, don't compare this to the Civil Rights era as well. Jim Crow laws and discrimination were illegal. The Civil Rights marchers protested against illegal discrimination. What's going on today is not illegal. There's no protest to make, and even if we did protest, they control the courts unlike they did in the 60s. This is much, much worse.

Your only option is to flee. I'm over 40, and I do not plan to grow older in this nation. As you age, you become more and more dependent on other people, and I refuse to proclaim my love for Jesus in order to get a prescription filled. If you stay here and hold onto your current politics and beliefs, you will be persecuted and shunned. Your children will be indoctrinated into the Christian faith through school. In short, we've become a regressive nation, a Christian Theocracy.

Call me any name you want. I'm moving to Vancouver, hook or by crook.

[kick-ass-bob]

1. Jim Crow laws were not illegal - they were immoral.

Only later were they deemed illegal. Children in the south were indoctrinated in schools to hate blacks.

If one doesn't fight, it won't change. You obviously don't care enough to try to change it.

Have fun in BC - and hopefully the 'new America' you envision somehow doesn't influence its neighbor.

[Yavin4]

5. Jim Crow Laws Violated The U.S. Constitution

In particular, voting rights. That's why the Civil Rights movement was successful. Additionally, you had a Supreme Court rule on Brown vs. The Board of Ed that opened the door for the Civil Rights movement. You don't have that in place today. In fact, you have just the opposite.

Tell me, how are you going to "fight it"? How are you going to reason with someone who believes that homosexuality should be illegal and they put that issue before healthcare and the economy? How are you going to reason with these people?

[Lorien]

6. I keep hearing about "fighting"

but I haven't seen any concrete plans for doing so. Since nearly every activism thread I've posted here in the past two years has fallen like a stone, I can't help but feel that all this talk of "fighting" is just that. Ten percent will take action, the rest will whine about how awful things are and condemn those who choose a better life elsewhere.

[fauxpas]

8. re: You obviously don't care enough to try to change it

> If one doesn't fight, it won't change. You obviously
> don't care enough to try to change it.

I disagree. It's in the best liberal tradition to be unwilling to foist our views and values on those who don't want them. America made it abundantly clear that they don't want religious freedom, gender equality, racial equality, tolerance, a humble foreign policy or common sense economics. Those values aren't in the American mainstream anymore, and it's not my place to tell anyone else how to live.

It was different when we all thought we were fighting against a squatter administration who ruled without the consent of the governed. We should all pay attention to the message we got on Tuesday; George Bush is exactly what America wants in a leader.

[fauxpas]

2. Sadly agreed

My girlfriend and I have started to look into getting our Canadian work permits. It's a damn shame. We love this country more than anybody I know.

We realized yesterday, while talking over our future, that what we really love is an abstract idea about a nation, a culture, and a set of values. It so happened that for a while, that abstraction happened to correspond to the nation of our birth.

It doesn't anymore.

The one thing that's become clear as the last couple days have unfolded is that Bush isn't the cause of our nation's problems, he's the symptom. He was elected in what looks very much like a legitimate election, with record high turnout. We can't claim he doesn't represent the mainstream anymore. Sadly, that means the mainstream isn't all we thought it was.

It's time to face it. America is synonymous with bigotry, arrogance, murder, misogyny and greed. Our insistence to stay here and fight the good fight doesn't change that any more than it would if we were in Iran fighting for secular humanism.

George Bush is a reflection of mainstream America, and I for one want no part of it.

[sweetladybug]

3. Yavin4, can I go with you? I don't think I can take another 4 yrs of

Jesus Bush and his crime family

[LauraT28]

4. I'd like to stay and fight..I mean a real Physical Fight

I don't think it would be that difficult to defeat the chickenhawks...I'm ready for the revolution. I feel it's come down to that..Or we are Germany in the 30's...Eventually, that will be the choice.

[Cobalt Violet]

7. True because as bad as this is now, wait until 2006..

When they have the supermajority and can do ANYTHING they want. The horror.

I may move, I may not but I will put a plan in place to move in 2006 if I need to.