I often make throwaway comments about how I could live in France, or the Britishland, or Vienna — usually when looking at some café street scene, or a magnificent pub, or a lovely country cottage. I love Montreal, and Paris, and London, and Vienna, and, and, and…
The plain fact of the matter is that I couldn’t live in any of those places — spend a vacation there, a week or two, maybe even a month — but not forever.
People often say in Comments to one of these posts that they couldn’t go there because of the gun laws — which is a perfectly good reason — or because they can’t speak the language — also a good reason, because if you can’t read the newspapers or watch the television, you fell terribly isolated after a while.
It goes deeper than that. Even if we take language out of the discussion, that would leave us with only a few spots available, i.e. the English-language (Anglosphere) countries. (I’m going to ignore countries that speak English as a matter of course — India, South Africa and so on — because ugh.)
And since the Covid bullshit has happened, the Anglosphere hasn’t been looking that hot, either. Whether it’s masked mandates, lockdowns or the thuggish actions of the police when suppressing demonstrations in Australia, New Zealand and lately, Canada; or whether it’s the intrusive British cops arresting people for posting “hate speech” on the Internet, they’re all awful. This website, for example, wouldn’t last longer than about a week in most of the Anglosphere, because to the authorities I would be completely disqualified from the “right” to express myself because of the hate, misogyny, racism, and [insert current favorite here] that litters the landscape of this corner of the Internet.
Let’s not even go into my feelings towards government:
Now layer horrible gun laws over all of that, and it becomes really clear that when it comes to personal freedom, none of the people living in those countries have any. Oh sure, you’re “allowed” to own a shotgun in Britain, as long as it isn’t semi-automatic, and also in Australia, as long as you keep it locked in a safe all day, and oh by the way, your shotgun can be taken away from you at any time or for any reason by the State, because they know that you own one. Let’s not even speak about handguns, or semi-auto centerfire — I’m sorry, I mean “assault” — rifles.
Derek Hunter talks about all this, and here’s a good excerpt:
It’s easy to look at Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc., and think they’re just like us because we have so much in common. We speak the same language, enjoy many of the same movies and much of the same music .
But there’s significantly more we do not share than we do. First and foremost, among them is our commitment to individual liberty.
…
One thing to notice about the coverage of the Canadian Freedom Convoy is how the American media, particularly from conservative outlets, didn’t reflect the will of Canadians. You’d think Justin Trudeau going full totalitarian, turning into a little Fidel Castro would bring about a collapse in his popularity, but it hasn’t. Most Canadians were upset he didn’t act sooner.If Trudeau were really unpopular, Parliament would hold a vote of no confidence and force a new election. There isn’t even talk of that. They don’t have to wait 4 years to rid themselves of a leader, they could do it in a few weeks. That they haven’t even tried tells you something.
Canada is not like the United States. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms grants Canadians various rights that, if you don’t think about it, are similar in a lot of ways to the rights we enjoy here. But there’s a major difference.
Our Constitution grants exactly zero rights to anyone, it acknowledges the rights with which we were born and denies the federal government the ability to infringe upon them. The Canadian Charter gives citizens certain rights, explicitly. If a government can grant rights, there is no justification for them not being able to take them away, temporarily or permanently.
When Trudeau invoked emergency powers, US conservatives recoiled in horror. Canadians did not.
And:
It’s easy to look at Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, etc., and think they’re just like us because we have so much in common. We speak the same language, enjoy many of the same movies and much of the same music.
But there’s significantly more we do not share than we do. First and foremost, among them is our commitment to individual liberty.
Yeah, discussion of freedom and freedoms in places outside the U.S. always involves a significant number of asterisks, much as it will when the same topics come up with our own Left — the European wannabes. You can own this gun but not that gun, can publish this idea but not that idea, can donate money to this cause but not that cause — the list is endless.
Even here, we have allowed our freedoms to be compromised — but at the back, there’s always the bedrock of the Constitution to fall back on — which is why the Left wants to denigrate it and make it malleable.
Oh, and one last thing: to all those people who think that if our government were to become as totalitarian as, say, Canada’s, let us be under no misapprehensions about the role of the police (and armed forces) when it does eventually turn to enforcement of the oppression. The Canadian and Australian police have shown us exactly how they’d behave — and I don’t want to hear any guff about how our cops are different from theirs, because I’m not prepared to test that, nor give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
More likely, law enforcement will do exactly what they did in Portland (stand back when Leftist paramilitaries burn, loot and attack government buildings) and in Ottawa — bring violence to a peaceful protest because those were their orders.
I’d like to believe differently, but I’m afraid I can’t — not when there’s so much evidence at hand.
I feel that at some point, I and many people like me are going to be backed into a corner. I have no idea what will happen when that becomes intolerable. But there’s always history (and note the emphases I’ve added):
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
There it is, right there, and the rest of the Anglosphere has no such rationale.
So here we stay.
Carry it a step further. The same applies to certain states as well as nations. The Constitution may be a bulwark, but it’s become a weak one at best. Too many examples to list (all gun control laws) but asset forfeiture is one of my favorite examples.
Yeah, I forget what post it was that I was commenting on, but the Anglosphere, outside of Red America and some parts of Canadia seems to be collapsing at least as it pertains to individual rights, and the Enlightenment concept of the correct relationship of government and governed.
There are places in America that are lost, where the Constitution has no durable or dependable meaning. I fled from one almost 20 years ago, and I fear I did not flee far enough. Actually, I did flee far enough at the time, but I literally watched a well orchestrated political takeover adjust the lines right over me during that period.
There is literal culture shock that takes place when denizens of each area travel to the other. There is shock when a shop keeper has the gumption to demand that you don a mask, and shock again when he is genuinely surprised when you tell him to go to hell and you’ll be taking your custom elsewhere.
As it stands, there is the specter of Jan 6: 20,000 national guardsmen sleeping in the cold behind instantly erected fences across our capitol, and the large number of arrestees from that event who are still in jail, still awaiting processing. There are also the cadres of Blue Americans who pored over tapes of the event to narc out participants that they could recognize.
And….the American Truckers Convoy is coming. The issue is coming to a head, and the “Thin Blue Line” is going to be confronted with a stark choice of who and what they really serve.
Meanwhile, mayhem is touching off in Ukraine, no doubt an answer to the fervent prayers of the Democrats for a tail to wag the dog. As I’ve heard said, “Democrats want to fight in the Ukraine down to the last Republican.” Or at least have another handy pretense for abusive powers, now that Covid Credibility is fading faster than ice cream on the pavement in July.
I’m not all “Black Pill” as the parlance would have it, there are plenty of Americans left in American Occupied America. I just need to get my ass to back behind friendly lines.
I suspect we’re about to see what happens when Democrats throw a war, and no Republicans come.
“I just need to get my ass to back behind friendly lines.”
My wife and I have been talking about this. We are in a very red area of a purple state dominated by a big blue city. Now that the “scratch a leftist, reveal a fascist” quip has been proven by demonstration, I’m no longer comfortable with that state of affairs. I’m still undecided on where to go though. We tried living in the sticks for awhile. It was not good. The brain drain has left a totally dysfunctional culture in many places. I don’t know where we belong at this point.
Start by looking here: https://www.freedominthe50states.org
We’re thinking FL, TN or NH
Things aren’t looking so sanguine for Taiwan, either. or perhaps they are, to use a less metaphorical meaning for the word.
When you consider that Canadians descended from the people who did not rebel against the crown, and waited until the crown wanted to give them more freedom — err. . . leeway, this shouldn’t have been a surprise.
The Milgram experiment already proved 65% of us would be likely to say “I vas only volloving zee orders” when the authorities told us to pull the triggers.
That’s not something unique to Zee Chermans it seems.
I constantly hear and read Americans spouting off about freedom of speech in countries where there is not, and has never been, any such thing, Canada once again providing an excellent example.
Americans who don’t think we’re unique aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are. And we’re busily working on eliminating that freedom,. Thank you social media.
Covid proved most of us are sheep if anyone needed recent proof.
I wish it weren’t so but even here in Texas in the cities. The rural folk, “the hicks”, “the bumpkins”, Hillary’s deplorables who still have their Trump for President signs posted, they only about half complied from what I saw, but the cities are so all in with being herd animals that I still see 25% of them wandering around with their sheep masks on here in the Metroplex months after we were freed at the state level.
Apart from enjoying nature, the reason we’re building in East Bumpkin to escape the stupid that cities seem to breed.
I lived / worked in Canada for 12 years. Even got into the ‘gun culture’ such as it is.
The good? Once you have a PAL (possession and acquisition license) you can call up any gun dealer in the nation and order a gun which they will ship to you. If it’s a legal gun.
A S&W Revolver with a 4″ barrel? No. How about a Glock G30 with a 3.9″ barrel? Hell no. The barrel must be LONGER than 4″. What about putting a threaded barrel on the Glock? Do that, even possess the barrel, and you have a prohibited item, a silencer…
OTOH, you can go to Canadian Tire and buy a Norinco M14…
Oh, and once you have them, the po-po can come into your home any time they want to inspect that
It’s – sort of – easy to see how Australia got that way: having started out as penal colony, a significant portion of its population is descended from jail-keepers. Oddly, our State of Georgia shares that history. Sometimes some people are just brought up with a hole in their soul where the compassion module should fit.
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Just finished a bio of James Madison. I was not aware that the ConstitutionAl Convention had folks recording the debates for each day. The founders were stone cold geniuses. They were versed in the classic languages, had studied world history, religions, government forms. We were blessed by the Good Lord.
The best reason to stay is to fight the leftist bastards and wherever possible to push them back and to preserve what we have.
Just to show everyone what the hell has happened to us here in Canada and the UK, a story. In 1962 my parents schlepped the family back to the UK and Germany to visit family. Dad always liked to be armed and and wanted mom to be armed. She had, and knew how to use, a beautiful little gold plated semi-auto .22 hand gun.
On the trip dad took his p38 and mom took her .22. When we got off the boat in Southampton we were selected for a baggage search. They found my mom’s .22.
Ooooh, what a nice little gun says the customs guy handing it back to mom.
Times have changed and for the worse.
I am lucky enough to live in one the most beautiful places in Europe, tuscany, gorgeous house lovely views, but I would move to the US in heartbeat if they’d allow me,for all the reasons you describe.
Maybe I should brush my Spanish and come in across the rio grande…
I had no idea you lived Over There. Maybe next time I’m in Italy… just don’t hold your breath, sadly, as my family travel commitments are overwhelming.
We are watching the Canadian “democracy” descend into Progressive Totalitarianism; it will be interesting to see what happens when the American Trucker Convoy hits the road and arrives in Capitol City.
It just might be a moment that marks the future of the American Republic.