Thinking about Emigrating

Well, I came back from New Zealand convinced we should move there, at least for a couple of years. It's a beautiful, sane country, and who ever says, when they're on their deathbed, "I really wish I hadn't lived abroad. What a big waste of time that was."

Max was, as some of our readers have no doubt heard through private channels, less convinced. Mr. Biscuit is more cosmopolitan than Mrs. Biscuit, and expects a little bit more from a big city than Auckland can give him. Mrs. Biscuit saw lots of beaches, a couple of decent bookstores, fabulous produce, dairy, meat, and wine, and a possible future in which she never has to hear the words "wintry mix" again, and that was enough for her.

So we still haven't decided what we're doing.

Some people have commented to me that it seems like, since we got back from New Zealand, my reasons for wanting to leave are less about politics and more about what seemed great about New Zealand. This is true, and it is partly due to my actually having seen the place, and liked it. But it's also because I'm feeling a little bit tired of my role as the torture girl, and because telling people we're thinking of moving to New Zealand because I really like beaches and sauv blanc is easier than calling their entire worldview and existence into question by saying we're leaving for political reasons. Which would you rather hear at a dinner party? "I'd like to leave because I don't want to be a torturer, and I think our country has been taken over by insane people." or "Well, New Zealand just seems like a cool place, and I've never lived abroad before." One of those statements requires that you consider for yourself just how insane America has become, and just how much more insane you think it might get. One of those statements requires you to really consider that people might make real, life-changing decisions on the basis of politics. It requires you to think about the fact that our country tortures people. How much easier it is to leave the decision in the realm of the personal. Just an adventure we'd like to have. We almost moved to France a few years ago, cuz Max likes it. No one objected to that. Perhaps we would have returned eventually; perhaps not. Lots of people become expats for personal reasons. They leave, and they just never come back.

But to say "I'm leaving because the United States disgusts me, and I think the country is getting more and more dangerous (yes, even for us!)" -- this is unacceptable. "No," you say. "Stay and fight! It's precisely good people like you that we need." But I ask you, oh friends and family, would you prefer me to stay and go to protests and be arrested (perhaps for civil disobedience, perhaps for nothing at all, just for being there.)? Shall we spend our money on legal fees instead of moving companies? Or is what you mean that we should stay and fight, in a quiet way, in a safe way.? Why go looking for trouble?

Leaving is a radical option. Fine. Yes. But these are radical times. Time Magazine thinks Ann Coulter is an important public intellectual. The U.S. Air Force Academy is a hotbed of evangelical Christian harrassment of non-Christians. Bill Frist thinks the filibuster is being used as a weapon in a "against people of faith," while Tom Delay blames Congress for letting decades of judicial review go by unchallenged. Some dumbfuck on Fox News is propagating the meme that Iraq was behind the Oklahoma City Bombing. Republicans are blaming Democrats for turning Terri Schiavo into a partisan political battle. The White House, surprise surprise, is blocking investigation into who decided it was a good idea to pay Armstrong Williams to hawk No Child Left Behind. Rick Santorum complains that the Democrats are using the filibuster to "push through their agenda," and indulge in minority rule.

Don't tell me things will just get better. These things may go in cycles, but we cannot predict when we'll hit bottom, or precisely how far down we'll go before we do.

The truth is, I don't think I love this country enough, anymore, to want to stay and fight for it. Don't leave, you say? I already have.