6 ms·

I left the country in 2008, and I'm wondering if I'll ever go back. It's only gotten worse since I've been gone. It's almost to the point where I'm not even s

by beedogs 15y ago

I left the country in 2008, and I'm wondering if I'll ever go back. It's only gotten worse since I've been gone. It's almost to the point where I'm not even sure I want to visit any time soon.

michael_dorfman 15y ago
I left in 1997, and haven't visited since. You get used to it.
- nickik 15y ago
  Intressting. Where did you go? What did you find? What do you miss most?
  - sneak 15y ago
    Germany. Lots of liberty and smart people. Corn dogs.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- sneak 15y ago
  I left in 2008, and I visit a few times a year because your last assertion is dead wrong. It sucks, very very badly. I wish I could stop going back. But all of my people are there, almost without exception.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    I know you have your reasons to leave, but it makes me sad when the good people, the ones who could do something because they can see what's wrong, leave. The US may be far from perfect, but it's important as a country founded upon the right ideas. If it crumbles, we all lose, regardless of where we live.
    - sneak 15y ago
      I disagree. I think that the good people should all make an effort to leave, because the sooner it crumbles, the sooner it can be rebuilt. There's no un-ratcheting the loss of freedoms there. It no longer has basic liberties or the rule of law, and it's actively dangerous to anyone trying to bring about changes to that status.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        I still believe smart people can make a difference. The real danger is a country ruled by bad ideas with a strong military. Believe me: it's easier to bring change from the inside.
hellweaver666 15y ago
After posting that, you're probably already on the blacklist ;)
jsavimbi 15y ago
It's not that it has become worse, it's just that all those crazy things that happened after 9/11 have become institutionalized and bureaucratically entrenched. Good luck getting rid of stupid when stupid has a budget.
- electic 15y ago
  "Good luck getting rid of stupid when stupid has a budget." I love that line. Catchy.
  - GFischer 15y ago
    Similar quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" Upton Sinclair http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      Well that was humbling.
      - GFischer 15y ago
        Why? Great minds think alike :)
nkoren 15y ago
Same story here. Left in 2007, and no longer have any desire to return. My last visit, in 2010, left quite a bad taste in my mouth, with the creeping totalitarianism on display at the airports in particular. Welcome to America: don't forget that WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU. What's especially depressing is that the commitment to paranoia and the dismantling of due process, civil rights, etc., is 100% bipartisan; there are no serious political voices taking a stand against it. Bush was of course bad; Obama -- my last great hope -- has extended and amplified everything that Bush did. And Obama's opponents are essentially unified in their position that Obama's chief failure has been to not dismantle due process and civil rights quickly enough. At this point, I think that Obama is probably still the lesser evil, but that's too damned evil for me to vote for. I don't see any prospects for this reversing itself. Carry this trend out another decade or two, and it means the end of the American republic. There's nothing extraordinary about this thought: over long enough timeframes, great nations collapse all the time, and this is more or less the blueprint they follow when they do it: increasing paranoia about being beset by enemies both external and domestic; dismantling of internal political apparatus and centralisation of political power with a single individual; increasing inability to balance a budget, tolerate dissent, maintain infrastructure, etc. I fear that the present era will be remembered alongside Rome in the late 4th century, Spain in the early 1930s, etc. I hope I'm wrong, and that those who stay can somehow turn it around. But at this point I'm glad I left.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Don't forget Ron Paul as one of Obama's serious opponents that still advocates liberty.
  - nkoren 15y ago
    Eh, I'm not sure I'd call him "serious". He's definitely pretty good on some civil liberty issues. Rather less so if you happen to be female, non-white, or gay. Even if that wasn't the case, his understanding of economics is sufficiently loony as to exclude him from serious consideration, at least in my view. In any case, a belief in civil liberties shouldn't even be a discrete political position; it should be the bedrock on which all political positions are founded. When one candidate defines themselves as "pro-liberty" -- as opposed to all those other guys -- the game is already lost. Should they win power, they'll need to claim extraordinary powers in order to reinstate "liberty" -- undermining democratic institutions in the process, and thus the actual mechanisms that guarantee liberty. In fact this is more or less exactly what happened with both Bush and Obama, and I'm pretty sure that the same thing would happen with Paul. His message is: "I will give you liberty" -- not "I will ensure that the institutional checks and balances which act as guarantors of liberty are maintained and reinforced". In fact he rarely shows anything other than contempt for those institutions. Therefore I do not believe he would be a friend of liberty.
mc32 15y ago
I left in 2006 for two years. As a foreigner in East Asia, it felt freer in some ways. But I think that was a combination of one, perception and two, getting breaks as a foreigner. Foreigners are given slack because they aren't expected to know the small details of whats accepted and not. They expect we know the big goods and bads but not the small ones. And then there was perception --just not being aware of what was allowed and not. I do recall people telling me that mocking the president was not allowed. Anyhow, I'm back and I feel ok. It could be better, idealistically, I suppose, but it's not as bad as it would seem, vis a vis other places.
hezekiah 15y ago
Left in 2008 as well, last time I went back I was first denied entry because my American passport (issued a few months previous in Frankfurt) was "invalid". After some haggling I convinced them that indeed, it was a valid passport, and they should check their computer that in fact I was who I said I was. Eventually, after about ten minutes questioning, I was allowed in. Being of nth-generation pilgrim descent apparently didn't matter. Fast forward to landing in Germany, where I was not only not a citizen, I wasn't even a permanent resident. After looking at my passport for all of about two seconds, I was whisked through the border. It sucks to be treated like a criminal in your own country, but it's what the US has come to for everyone now. Sure has been that way for, at various times, native americans, blacks, the irish, hispanics, chinese, whatever. But now instead of treating everyone like a free citizen, the decision has been made to treat us all like potential criminals.

by beedogs 15y ago

I left the country in 2008, and I'm wondering if I'll ever go back. It's only gotten worse since I've been gone. It's almost to the point where I'm not even sure I want to visit any time soon.

michael_dorfman 15y ago

I left in 1997, and haven't visited since. You get used to it.

nickik 15y ago
Intressting. Where did you go? What did you find? What do you miss most?
- sneak 15y ago
  Germany. Lots of liberty and smart people. Corn dogs.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
sneak 15y ago
I left in 2008, and I visit a few times a year because your last assertion is dead wrong. It sucks, very very badly. I wish I could stop going back. But all of my people are there, almost without exception.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  I know you have your reasons to leave, but it makes me sad when the good people, the ones who could do something because they can see what's wrong, leave. The US may be far from perfect, but it's important as a country founded upon the right ideas. If it crumbles, we all lose, regardless of where we live.
  - sneak 15y ago
    I disagree. I think that the good people should all make an effort to leave, because the sooner it crumbles, the sooner it can be rebuilt. There's no un-ratcheting the loss of freedoms there. It no longer has basic liberties or the rule of law, and it's actively dangerous to anyone trying to bring about changes to that status.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      I still believe smart people can make a difference. The real danger is a country ruled by bad ideas with a strong military. Believe me: it's easier to bring change from the inside.

hellweaver666 15y ago

After posting that, you're probably already on the blacklist ;)

jsavimbi 15y ago

It's not that it has become worse, it's just that all those crazy things that happened after 9/11 have become institutionalized and bureaucratically entrenched. Good luck getting rid of stupid when stupid has a budget.

electic 15y ago
"Good luck getting rid of stupid when stupid has a budget." I love that line. Catchy.
- GFischer 15y ago
  Similar quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" Upton Sinclair http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    Well that was humbling.
    - GFischer 15y ago
      Why? Great minds think alike :)

nkoren 15y ago

Same story here. Left in 2007, and no longer have any desire to return. My last visit, in 2010, left quite a bad taste in my mouth, with the creeping totalitarianism on display at the airports in particular. Welcome to America: don't forget that WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING YOU. What's especially depressing is that the commitment to paranoia and the dismantling of due process, civil rights, etc., is 100% bipartisan; there are no serious political voices taking a stand against it. Bush was of course bad; Obama -- my last great hope -- has extended and amplified everything that Bush did. And Obama's opponents are essentially unified in their position that Obama's chief failure has been to not dismantle due process and civil rights quickly enough. At this point, I think that Obama is probably still the lesser evil, but that's too damned evil for me to vote for. I don't see any prospects for this reversing itself. Carry this trend out another decade or two, and it means the end of the American republic. There's nothing extraordinary about this thought: over long enough timeframes, great nations collapse all the time, and this is more or less the blueprint they follow when they do it: increasing paranoia about being beset by enemies both external and domestic; dismantling of internal political apparatus and centralisation of political power with a single individual; increasing inability to balance a budget, tolerate dissent, maintain infrastructure, etc. I fear that the present era will be remembered alongside Rome in the late 4th century, Spain in the early 1930s, etc. I hope I'm wrong, and that those who stay can somehow turn it around. But at this point I'm glad I left.

cookiecaper 15y ago
Don't forget Ron Paul as one of Obama's serious opponents that still advocates liberty.
- nkoren 15y ago
  Eh, I'm not sure I'd call him "serious". He's definitely pretty good on some civil liberty issues. Rather less so if you happen to be female, non-white, or gay. Even if that wasn't the case, his understanding of economics is sufficiently loony as to exclude him from serious consideration, at least in my view. In any case, a belief in civil liberties shouldn't even be a discrete political position; it should be the bedrock on which all political positions are founded. When one candidate defines themselves as "pro-liberty" -- as opposed to all those other guys -- the game is already lost. Should they win power, they'll need to claim extraordinary powers in order to reinstate "liberty" -- undermining democratic institutions in the process, and thus the actual mechanisms that guarantee liberty. In fact this is more or less exactly what happened with both Bush and Obama, and I'm pretty sure that the same thing would happen with Paul. His message is: "I will give you liberty" -- not "I will ensure that the institutional checks and balances which act as guarantors of liberty are maintained and reinforced". In fact he rarely shows anything other than contempt for those institutions. Therefore I do not believe he would be a friend of liberty.

mc32 15y ago

I left in 2006 for two years. As a foreigner in East Asia, it felt freer in some ways. But I think that was a combination of one, perception and two, getting breaks as a foreigner. Foreigners are given slack because they aren't expected to know the small details of whats accepted and not. They expect we know the big goods and bads but not the small ones. And then there was perception --just not being aware of what was allowed and not. I do recall people telling me that mocking the president was not allowed. Anyhow, I'm back and I feel ok. It could be better, idealistically, I suppose, but it's not as bad as it would seem, vis a vis other places.

hezekiah 15y ago

Left in 2008 as well, last time I went back I was first denied entry because my American passport (issued a few months previous in Frankfurt) was "invalid". After some haggling I convinced them that indeed, it was a valid passport, and they should check their computer that in fact I was who I said I was. Eventually, after about ten minutes questioning, I was allowed in. Being of nth-generation pilgrim descent apparently didn't matter. Fast forward to landing in Germany, where I was not only not a citizen, I wasn't even a permanent resident. After looking at my passport for all of about two seconds, I was whisked through the border. It sucks to be treated like a criminal in your own country, but it's what the US has come to for everyone now. Sure has been that way for, at various times, native americans, blacks, the irish, hispanics, chinese, whatever. But now instead of treating everyone like a free citizen, the decision has been made to treat us all like potential criminals.