Here’s the latest reader rant, along with my reply!
ExPatTom writes: Oh such a perfect article (Fleeting Feeling of Freedom). This ol’ guy does fondly “remember when” . . . first bike ride, no helmet, down a steep hill, crashed, learned a really good lesson then, first shot fired from Gramp’s .22 rifle. on his Ozark farm; I was ten, etc.
I also remember the very first time I got roughed up by that got-damned TSA gestapo goon; my mind got made up real quick – to get the hell outta dodge – and here in Manila I am! And I shall never leave! Have not felt this free in years, and the cost of living is 80 percent less than in Hawaii. I made the mistake of too many years there. Have loved all of your articles’, love your attitude about all the things you write about. Thank you much for all of your thoughts!
My reply: Well, someone’s got to be here to turn out the lights, eh?
I’d leave, too – were it not for my contumacious nature. It gets the better of me at times and your leaving is probably the sounder policy than my staying. But – for me – there is more than just avoiding the Gulag-a-‘borning. I am told I can write and sometimes seem able to do it – and that is or at least can be a mighty weapon. Ideas are everything. And if, even if only slightly, I can via my writing cause a few people to reconsider busybodyism (which always comes around to bite them in the buttocks, just as they bit others in theirs) then it will have been worth it.
I also still have hope that just maybe the U.S will come apart relatively peacefully, as did the Soviet Union. Decentralization is, ultimately, the key to everything.
If it were possible, as an example, to simply move from say the Democratic Socialist Republic of California to the Free State of Montana, there would be so much more freedom – and not just for those living in the hypothetical Free States. The actuality of freedom across a nearby border would put pressure by example on the DSRC, et al – just as the view across the barbed wire from East Berlin into West Berlin led, in time, to the collapse of the entire East Bloc.
That could happen just as well as other things might. I’m doing part, such as it is – and to the extent I am able!. . .
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I’m with you Tomm! It’s gotten so bad here, that just about ANYWHERE else is better (Except Europe, Canada, Oz. etc. they’re all the same, like the US). What’s the point of staying here, where we know it’s just a matter of time (and not much more time at that) until we lose everything, including what’s left our liberty? Why throw one’s life away to stay in this abominable place, surrounding by all of these cop-sucking troop-loving assholes who voted for all of this, when we could still be living like men and enjoying the remainder of our lives in normalcy?
Here, we only remember what it was like to not have to look over our shoulders all of the time to see if there’s a cop; and to be able to do as please in our own lives as long as we are not harming someone. Life has become a series of dotting i’s and crossing t’s because it is now a “crime” not to, and will result in financial penalties, kidnapping and or violence inflicted upon us.
Men don’t live like that- only abused animals do.
I love it when I see an Expat post…as it gives me hope, knowing that I will be one before long- ah! And the joys that await! (Great thing about Manila is, you probably get those tan folders really cheap!)