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#Post#: 19099--------------------------------------------------
Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans are v
oting with their feet: to leave
By: SHL Date: August 12, 2019, 11:16 am
---------------------------------------------------------
According to Yahoo News, Americans are seeking to emigrate to
other countries now in droves out of fear for their own safety
due to gun violence nobody will do anything about and because of
Trump.
„These are not recent immigrants who feel threatened by
nationalist rhetoric coming from the White House and Congress,
but for the most part middle-class or relatively affluent
Americans disheartened by the turn in American politics since
the 2016 election. And it is not necessarily Canada — the
default destination for agitated Americans over the decades —
where they are threatening to move, because work visa
qualifications there are tight. Instead, they are casting a
larger net across the globe.“
“I am acutely aware of how not everyone can do this,” says
40-year-old Janelle Hanchett, a writer, who sold everything she
owned in Northern California in July and moved with her husband,
Charles MacDonald, a union ironworker, and their four school-age
children to the Netherlands. “We are not rich, we have crippling
student loans, but we had equity in a house and the means to
pick up and leave.”
Tired of what Hanchett describes as “the specter of this rising
authoritarian regime, and of feeling unsafe all the time,” they
applied for a “freelance visa” that the government of the
Netherlands created to thank America for liberation during World
War II, and that allows Americans to live and work as
freelancers. (If they become employed by a Dutch company full
time, their status switches to a sponsored visa.)
Charles MacDonald, second from left, (photo omitted) next to his
wife, Janelle Hanchett, surrounded by their children — from
left, Rocket, George, Ava and, in front, Arlo — at San Francisco
International Airport on their way to the Netherlands in
July.....
“It feels saner, more humane,” she says of her new home in the
city of Haarlem, the capital of the province of North Holland.
“The people seem happier. And there aren’t guns.”
Under the program, they are entitled to all the country’s
benefits, including universal health care, a payment from the
government of about 250 euros per child per quarter, and
admission to a “Newcomer” school that costs 3 euros per month
and helps children learn Dutch and transition to their new
country.
When they learned about the school, Hanchett says, “we started
to cry from happiness.” The principal told them, “Americans
always react this way.”
In addition to being aware of their privilege, these emigrants
are also aware of the many layers of irony.
Irony in the fact that they have, they concede, come to sound
somewhat like the conspiracy theorists they accuse the “other
side” of being — one group stockpiling guns and building
bunkers, afraid the government is coming for their guns and
immigrants are coming to take their jobs; the other keeping
go-bags by the door and hiding cash for airplane tickets for
fear that the government will start rounding up members of
certain nationalities, religions and races.“
....
„Another irony is that many are looking to return to places
their own ancestors fled — and that at a time when one group’s
badge of patriotism is to chant “Send her back," they are
essentially sending themselves back to the countries their
ancestors came from.“
.....
„Hanchett also understands the criticism of those who opt to
leave, and admits to some guilt at “abandoning” her native land
at a time she believes it to be in trouble.
On the one hand, she says, “after experiencing the safety that
we feel here and the sense of well-being that permeates” her
life in the Netherlands, “I can’t see going back.”
But that, she says, “is a grieving process. I miss my mother, my
brother, the Pacific Ocean, my country. I hope I’m wrong. I hope
that America turns around and gets it right. Right now I feel
like I abandoned a sinking ship — and everyone I know is on it.”
Those are just a few examples, but this is unprecedented.
I myself have been in too much of a state of depression after
having returned to the US last week, so much so I can barely go
to work and doubt I can post here much longer.
The US is the most embarrassing, humiliating and horrible place
in the world to be and have to be trapped living in. It takes
the energy out of you even wanting to go on living.
#Post#: 19100--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: Nikola Date: August 12, 2019, 11:26 am
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Cheer up [s]Charlie[/s] Steven.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM9Yvlr_klE
#Post#: 19102--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: Truman Overby Date: August 12, 2019, 12:57 pm
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So one tender little feller is scared of spiders and wants to
spend his days riding a child's toy down sand dunes: "The Lewins
have rejected Australia because “they have huge spiders there,”
Josh says, and he is about as scared of spiders as he is of mass
shootings. He has set New Zealand as his goal, intrigued years
ago by the popularity of the extreme sport of “drift triking” —
riding nonmotorized Big Wheels-like contraptions down huge
hills."
And when he's not fantasizing about playing on kiddie toys he's
lying: “First it was a shooting once a year, then once every six
months, then once a month, and now it’s every day,” There are
NOT mass shootings on a daily basis in the USA. They are quite
rare, in fact.
Meanwhile, Janelle most likely admitted the real reason she's
fleeing the US: “We are not rich, we have crippling student
loans, but we had equity in a house and the means to pick up and
leave.”
And Kami has trouble thinking clearly: Kami Lewis Levin believe
those who think the country is on the wrong track have a
responsibility to try to fix it — which is, in a roundabout way,
why she is packed for Costa Rica. Only by living elsewhere, she
believes, can they have a clear lens on what is happening back
home.
I say if people want to leave, they should. It doesn't hurt my
feelings in the least. As we used to say in the 1970s in answer
to the cowardly, unpatriotic clowns who fled to Canada to escape
the military draft: "America, love it, or leave it."
#Post#: 19126--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: Susan Date: August 13, 2019, 9:50 pm
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SHL, Most fears are not rational. Fear of living in the U.S.
because of mass shootings certainly is NOT rational. Do people
go around fearing that they are going to die by falling? The
odds of that happening are much higher than dying in a mass
shooting. The odds of dying by motor vehicle accident are much
higher. Heck, check out the very long list of things people die
from that are much more common than mass shootings or even gun
assaults (and many gun assaults happen to people living a
dangerous lifestyle-- such as staying in an abusive
relationship.)
HTML https://www.businessinsider.com/us-gun-death-murder-risk-statistics-2018-3
Anywhere that people live they have to learn to ignore the media
hype or they are going to live with anxiety.
The U.S. is a really big country. With a really big media
outlet. Not surprising anxiety is a big problem.
But the vast majority of people who write about leaving the U.S.
do not stay away long. Perhaps those who are fleeing student
debt will stay away a long time. But most people come back after
they learn that ¨the grass is not so green on the other side of
the fence¨ and most of their personal problems go along with
them when they change countries. Some of these people may be
leaving because they don´t like the President, but if they stay
very long they are probably going to have leaders in their new
country they don´t like either.
Everyone is free to try to find the situation that makes them
happy. Hopefully some of the people will be happier. If not, I
guess at least these people are taking action instead of just
whining.
#Post#: 19127--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: Pasha Date: August 14, 2019, 3:42 am
---------------------------------------------------------
America is really scary place. Brain-eating bacteria is going to
eat your brain.
HTML https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/26/health/brain-eating-amoeba-kills-swimmer-trnd/index.html<br
/>
Just imaging having those bacteria in your head eating your
brain. Yuck. I suppose it is not that bad comparing to
brain-eating WORMS.
HTML https://gizmodo.com/a-deadly-brain-invading-worm-is-disturbingly-widespread-1796514141<br
/>
#Post#: 19130--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: Nikola Date: August 14, 2019, 4:01 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Pasha link=topic=1327.msg19127#msg19127
date=1565772155]
America is really scary place. Brain-eating bacteria is going to
eat your brain.
HTML https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/26/health/brain-eating-amoeba-kills-swimmer-trnd/index.html<br
/>
Just imaging having those bacteria in your head eating your
brain. Yuck. I suppose it is not that bad comparing to
brain-eating WORMS.
HTML https://gizmodo.com/a-deadly-brain-invading-worm-is-disturbingly-widespread-1796514141<br
/>
[/quote]
That would explain why Trump was elected.
#Post#: 19133--------------------------------------------------
Re: Frightened by mass shootings, appalled by Trump, Americans a
re voting with their feet: to leave
By: SHL Date: August 14, 2019, 10:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Susan link=topic=1327.msg19126#msg19126
date=1565751033]
SHL, Most fears are not rational. Fear of living in the U.S.
because of mass shootings certainly is NOT rational. Do people
go around fearing that they are going to die by falling? The
odds of that happening are much higher than dying in a mass
shooting. The odds of dying by motor vehicle accident are much
higher. Heck, check out the very long list of things people die
from that are much more common than mass shootings or even gun
assaults (and many gun assaults happen to people living a
dangerous lifestyle-- such as staying in an abusive
relationship.)
HTML https://www.businessinsider.com/us-gun-death-murder-risk-statistics-2018-3
Anywhere that people live they have to learn to ignore the media
hype or they are going to live with anxiety.
The U.S. is a really big country. With a really big media
outlet. Not surprising anxiety is a big problem.
But the vast majority of people who write about leaving the U.S.
do not stay away long. Perhaps those who are fleeing student
debt will stay away a long time. But most people come back after
they learn that ¨the grass is not so green on the other side of
the fence¨ and most of their personal problems go along with
them when they change countries. Some of these people may be
leaving because they don´t like the President, but if they stay
very long they are probably going to have leaders in their new
country they don´t like either.
Everyone is free to try to find the situation that makes them
happy. Hopefully some of the people will be happier. If not, I
guess at least these people are taking action instead of just
whining.
[/quote]
People who leave the US never come back. That is untrue. Would
you return to a prison if you had a taste of freedom?
Most people in the US are trapped in the country by economic
factors and immigration restrictions imposed from the outside
free world and US citizens can't move away unless exceedingly
wealthy or they have a home to go to abroad already.
And when you live in a sick society after awhile you think the
sickness is normal. Just like a battered wife in an abusive
relationship. The US citizens are the abused wives of their
abusive husbands, the US government („he‘s really a good person
deep down. He just has his ups and downs. He didn‘t mean to hurt
or almost kill me. After all, he said he was sorry for the black
eye.“)
Everyday you get a black eye from your government and make
excuses for it. But there is no excuses for it. The relationship
the US government has with its citizens is an abusive
relationship like an abusive marriage. And we all know where
abusive relationships can lead if one doesn’t escape it (and it
is an escape, not a departure, because the abuser never wants
the abused to leave).
[img width=234
height=300]
HTML https://i.ibb.co/7k0Fb9n/CE2-EC84-A-8694-4463-B4-A7-7-B96-D374-A519.jpg[/img]
HTML https://ibb.co/DrjnLq9
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