Howdy! I think it's fairly well known, by now, that social media apps cater our feeds to feature content we have a history of reacting to, whether positively or negatively. My social media accounts are brandishing content that is in agreement with my leftist millennial biases. Meaning that while the U.S.A. economy appears to be in shambles from my personal perspective, and that view is shared by those I follow and interact with, there are certainly many who feel the opposite. I simply don't come up against that opposing mindset online, for the most part.
In real life though, when stating my political and economic stances, I meet push-back, sometimes from people I care deeply about and respect. And what's interesting to me isn't that their perspectives oppose mine, but how they react when disagreeing. I'll list ways the have-nots are forced to fend for themselves, or starve and die in the U.S.A., and rather than my peer explaining why they don't believe food, shelter, healthcare, and education are human rights that merit allocating more of our tax dollars to, often their reaction is to tell me to leave. Ditto for when I'm complaining about the U.S.A.'s warmongering abroad. Recently, I was explaining why I have been actively boycotting companies who are complicit in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, why I've been signing related petitions and contacting my elected representatives, etc, and someone dear to me, asked why I don't move to Palestine. That's a uniquely ignorant reply for many reasons, but for the purpose of this post, I'll treat it like that popular conservative comeback, which is, "If you don't like it here, then leave."
I take umbrage with liberal voters as well, choosing the supposed "lesser evil," all while shaming those of us who vote with our consciences, but it's not generally the liberals telling leftists to leave this country rather than stay and work to improve it. But it's not that moral backing preventing, I think, the majority of leftists, from abandoning the U.S.A.
Do conservatives not know how expensive it is to move overseas? It can cost thousands of dollars simply to move across the states, let alone to another continent, just in the literal travel expenses. Plane tickets aren't cheap, as a baseline, but obviously there is also the cost of either moving furniture and whatnot, or buying all new belongings upon arriving. And that's the easy part. Every nation has its own requirements and process that must be abided by in order to legally reside there, after having been born elsewhere. Those standards may vary, but nowhere is it easy nor affordable to gain permanent residency, let alone citizenship. It's not that there aren't U.S. Americans so dissatisfied with our leadership that they haven't applied for some variation of residency abroad. So many U.S. Americans applied for Canadian residency when Trump was elected President, that we crashed Canada's immigration website. In order to earn a work Visa, the applicant needs a skillset the desired home-nation is in want of. Applying at all is a costly endeavor. When attempting to move to those nations with purportedly the most lax immigration standards, applicants are still advised to hire immigration attorneys, which again, are expensive. Some countries have even imposed formal barriers against the immigration of neurodiverse and disabled people. Sure, I don't have any such diagnosis, but I'm not the only leftist being told or asked to leave the states.
For the record, the majority of my relatives are some variation of conservative. They or theirs worked hard to get to where they are and believe those who, in this country, lack their standard of living, simply didn't work hard enough. While they may or may not, depending on the individual, oppose current social safety nets, the lot oppose expanding those nets further (except for veterans). To me, the inability or refusal to acknowledge that others can be born lacking what privileges they grew up with, shows a deficiency in sympathy on their part, while they find me, at best naive, at worse, stupid. And I'm sure they're just as frustrated with how I perceive these large-scope matters, as I am regarding them and their stances. We can agree to disagree and vote as we see fit, while remaining reasonably amicable, but once someone demands I leave this country, I cease taking them seriously. They've proven themselves either remarkably ignorant or callous.
The individual who asked why I've not left for Palestine is well aware of how expensive travelling abroad is, and is reasonably informed regarding the cost of emigrating legally. So why would they say that? I explained why I'm emotionally invested in ending a massive injustice being funded by our tax dollars and their gut reaction was that I should be, at least removed from their presence, though the literal take of their reply is much more severe. Were they stating their desire for Israeli forces to starve and/or blow me up?
This odd instinctive reply is a demand to cease all considering of the injustice at hand. There is little point arguing nor explaining further. The other has chosen not to care, to disregard the many suffering. My peer, and many similarly minded conservatives, got theirs. Our system is good enough as is, let the bombs fall where they may.
Normally, I'd write a cheerier blog topic for Christmas week, ideally something holiday related. And I really did try to thin of anything else worth rambling about. But those words keep reeling around my head. They said "Why don't you move to Palestine?" and I can't even attribute it to ignorance this time. Take care. I drop a new blog post every Monday. Toodles.