Then Leave!

April 1, 2003 9:46 AM

Don't like the US? Then Leave! Somebody posted this to a newsgroup I read from time to time. Evidently, if you sign an agreement to leave the US for a year, you'll get a portion of what has been donated to the website (currently $53).
posted by synecdoche (38 comments total)

Paging McSweetie...
posted by Karl at 10:00 AM on April 1, 2003

Sigh.

Right-wing extremist nutjobs are incapable of making the distinction between loathing them and "hating America".

Part of what makes them so loathesome is their arrogance.

A perfect example of their arrogance is the inability to distinguish between loathing them and "hating America".
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:10 AM on April 1, 2003

pretty lame they have to redirect thenleave.com traffic to www.asmincorp.com/thenleave/. would you trust your donation to people who can't even set up their server?
posted by danOstuporStar at 10:28 AM on April 1, 2003

I give it a 50% chance of being a hoax and a 50% chance of it being someone needing a clue who should be hoaxed.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:29 AM on April 1, 2003

Yeah, what Armitage_Shanks said.

Furthermore, plenty of people do leave. Others stay and try to change the status quo.

Furthermore, the last time people really didn't like what was going on in these parts, they threw a good and proper revolution, overthrew the government they didn't like, and started over. The current powers that be and their followers would be wise to remember that, as should we all.
posted by padraigin at 10:29 AM on April 1, 2003

What if they leave... and then still "hate" America?

(leaving aside the fact that very, very few Americans actually hate America, but simply value its lofty and good ideals so highly that when they see an action out of harmony with that they're very vocal about it)
posted by namespan at 10:34 AM on April 1, 2003

It's damn hard to leave.
You have to prove you have quite a bit of money/assets to get citizenship in most civilized countries...

Becoming an expat is a long, hard process.
posted by Espoo2 at 10:35 AM on April 1, 2003

Leaving is easy. It's getting a permanent resident visa somewhere else that's hard. If this site were willing to help out with that I might just take them up on it.

What a wonderful country this is - every idiot is free to drape themselves in the flag and make the rest of us look stupid.
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:39 AM on April 1, 2003

Paging McSweetie...

don't get my hopes up!
posted by mcsweetie at 10:44 AM on April 1, 2003

That's a good point, namespan. Conservatives should understand the tough-love angle - "the fact that I rail against the government is PROOF that I love my country!" (sniff, sob, cue the patriotic orchestra swell and the slowly waving stars-n-stripes background.) Maybe we can turn it against them: "how dare you fail to support your government by offering constructive criticism! why do you hate freedom so much? maybe you should move to Cuba."
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:46 AM on April 1, 2003

Got a grandparent born in Ireland? You are eligible for Irish Citizenship by Descent.

And since Ireland is in the EU, you also gain the rights of citizenship in an EU member.

The United States does not recognize citizenship of other countries unless you renounce your American citizenship, and Ireland does not require you to renounce your existing citizenship to claim Irish citizenship. Ta-da, you now have dual citizenship.
posted by dglynn at 11:07 AM on April 1, 2003

If only you could say "Ta-da, you now have Irish grandparents!"
posted by Espoo2 at 11:10 AM on April 1, 2003

Ta-da I have Irish grandparents.

hmm very interesting.
posted by bitdamaged at 11:12 AM on April 1, 2003

What about the people that hate America, but just don't know it - like the President, the veep, and Attorney General Ashcroft?
posted by rocketman at 11:14 AM on April 1, 2003

I would rather drive the owner(s) of that website out of the country.
posted by moonbiter at 11:14 AM on April 1, 2003

I am so gung-ho for this! I was already planning to return to live in Brazil for a while later this year. This could be my ticket back! I'm making as strong a pitch as possible:

Colin Brayton
[e-mail]
Destination: São Paulo,Brazil
Timeframe:July-August 2003

My weblog has consistently excoriated the current administration's policies and actions vis a vis the "war on terror" and its erosion of civil rights. It has, moreover, covered the World Social Forum, an infamous gathering of left-wing social movements from around the world, in person and in depth. Yes, I speak a couple of foreign languages, including a bit of Arabic, and have been influenced by non-American ways of thinking. Of course, I would continue these activities online from Brazil, and register early to vote in absentia against the current administration, as a majority of the electorate did in the last election. The one drawback, sadly, is that I love the United States, which, for all its flaws, is still the world's greatest democracy, despite the best efforts of Ashcroft to erode our civil liberties. It's just that I believe this ill-considered war and the diplomatic and economic miscalculations surrounding it are fucking it up big-time.

Feedback? Any grant writers out there? Free airfare would be really great!
posted by hairyeyeball at 11:22 AM on April 1, 2003

Maybe you should dumb it down a bit hairyeyeball. Gotta play to your market. ;-)
posted by squealy at 11:30 AM on April 1, 2003

if anyone has the wherewithal, fuckyouiamstaying.com is available.
posted by condour75 at 11:47 AM on April 1, 2003

If they get enough would it be possible to set this up as some kind of trust fund? That way even more people could be rescued.
posted by biffa at 11:53 AM on April 1, 2003

In a few years, I'm hoping to go live in Italy for a year, once I learn how to save some money. Maybe we'll be at war again so I can get a portion of money from a whacko website.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 11:55 AM on April 1, 2003

I left fifteen years ago, disgusted after the Iran-Contra scandal. And I love and defend the United States daily, trying to convince Europeans that America is not only McDonald's and Bush and Joe Millionaire.

I hope to return someday to help set up a system of rice paddies at re-education camps that will be set up to house out of work Republicans.
posted by zaelic at 12:18 PM on April 1, 2003

To quote Spalding Gray, I moved to Manhattan because I wanted to live on an island off the coast of America.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:30 PM on April 1, 2003

1) Do you actually have to leave to collect, or do you just have to sign the agreement?

2) Furthermore, the last time people really didn't like what was going on in these parts, they threw a good and proper revolution, overthrew the government they didn't like, and started over. The current powers that be and their followers would be wise to remember that, as should we all.

That's why we'd better hurry up and take away the prols' guns ASAP!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:27 PM on April 1, 2003

Hahahahaha!

I hope its real. I will sleep better tonight knowing that the USA can produce a steady stream of nutters like this for my amusement.
posted by i_cola at 1:32 PM on April 1, 2003

2) Furthermore, the last time people really didn't like what was going on in these parts, they threw a good and proper revolution, overthrew the government they didn't like, and started over. The current powers that be and their followers would be wise to remember that, as should we all.

Okay, I'm sorry to bring Iraq into this, but we're already halfway there in this thread and I have an honest question. From various reports we're to believe the rate of gun ownership among civilian Iraqis is extremely high. Also we have the Second Amendment logic that an armed populace deters tyranny. Aaand...well, an armed populace doesn't seem to have deterred tyranny very well in Iraq, or in any other totalitarian Arab government come to think of it. Is this just cultural? Or does it speak to a great flaw in the logic behind the Second Amendment? Is it perfectly possible to set up a tyranny amongst a well-armed people? Because it kind of looks like it's not a real problem to do.
posted by furiousthought at 1:45 PM on April 1, 2003

Furious: Weren't most of those guns issued by the Iraqi government to Ba'ath party loyalists? One could argue that they are part of the tyrannic system, rather than oppressed by it (or at least are complicit in their own oppression). Not sure if that's comparable to gun ownership by private citizens in the US.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:54 PM on April 1, 2003

Does any one recall when it was that rednecks co-opted the term conservative? I think I might have been on vacation when this happened.

Every time I hear the word conservative, I think of relatively well reasoned folks like Barry Goldwater, Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley... and not redneck populists like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and the legion of stooges that work at Fox News.

Man, I gotta get in step with the times.

Btw, this is not at all intended to be a troll... and it slightly off topic, but just curious how this all happens. When the NY Post touches the zeitgest of mainstream American political thought, we are all in serious trouble.
posted by psmealey at 2:00 PM on April 1, 2003

From the forum: '...we need to get an equally compelling system for academic leftists and feminists. Establishing and subventing a man-free, no-return feminist nation for feminist man-haters is again a win-win situation. Any female deficit can easily be countered with imports of well mannered women from Japan, Korea, China and Thailand.'

This is comedy gold!
posted by i_cola at 2:03 PM on April 1, 2003

Goddamnit, why wasn't this around when I moved?

I could've gotten some cash!
posted by Katemonkey at 2:28 PM on April 1, 2003

I have an honest question. From various reports we're to believe the rate of gun ownership among civilian Iraqis is extremely high. Also we have the Second Amendment logic that an armed populace deters tyranny. Aaand...well, an armed populace doesn't seem to have deterred tyranny very well in Iraq, or in any other totalitarian Arab government come to think of it. Is this just cultural? Or does it speak to a great flaw in the logic behind the Second Amendment? Is it perfectly possible to set up a tyranny amongst a well-armed people?

IANAConstitutionalLawyer, but.... I think you have a good point. The effectiveness of an armed populace as a check against state tyranny has waned quite a bit as (a) the gap between citizen armaments and police/military armaments has grown bigger (b) the ability to project and focus police/military force has increased and (c) communities have become more disconnected. You could probably make a list of succesful standoffs against police/army actors up through the early 1900s (Native Americans, the South, the Mormons in Utah, maybe more), and even perhaps with organized crime up through the 20th century, but the ability of any group -- even credibly armed -- to withstand armed federal might has been steadily waning. Ask David Koresh.

However, the right to keep and bear arms still has a place. The state, even when benign, can't always protect all citizens from criminals/enemies. It's not a bad thing to let citizens do that for themselves. And who knows... I was talking with a friend of mine who is a National Guardsman, and he thinks that perhaps if the state were to actually tick off enough of the populace, you could potentially get some military desertion and absconded modern firepower to go along with typical civilian arms.
posted by namespan at 2:32 PM on April 1, 2003

I availed myself of the "email" link:

Is your site un-navigably ugly? Is your message hateful and ignorant? Have you spent $70 to register a domain name, yet gathered only $53 in "donations?" Then you are the proprietor of ThenLeave.com!!!

My message for you is tit-for-tat:
If you don't like diversity of opinion, if you don't like the freedom to disagree with the president, if you cannot stand the ultra-left pinko nation this is becoming...

T H E N   M A K E   L I K E   A   T R E E,   A S S H A T !

posted by scarabic at 2:48 PM on April 1, 2003

the right to keep and bear arms still has a place

Of course. Let poor people shoot each other over drugs or a pair of Nikes. That'll keep them from noticing the real enemy at the top.
posted by ed at 2:49 PM on April 1, 2003

Thenleave.com? If you're gonna do this, it needs to be done right:

Thenleave.us

Can I receive a piece of the pie for vowing to leave the country after W was elected? Sure, I knew I was leaving regardless of the results but it's the thought that counts, right?
posted by Dick Paris at 2:49 PM on April 1, 2003

Weren't most of those guns issued by the Iraqi government to Ba'ath party loyalists? One could argue that they are part of the tyrannic system, rather than oppressed by it (or at least are complicit in their own oppression). Not sure if that's comparable to gun ownership by private citizens in the US.

That would make sense, and that one article I linked (a quick lazy Google, there) mentions such cases, but it also goes into describing a wide-open arms market that sells not only small arms, but grenades and RPG's and the like, and a significant black market - so it sounds like it very much is private gun ownership. Of course I don't have any real way to know how much of that arms market is tied to Iraq's security apparatus. It does seem as though having that many weapons floating around in a totalitarian state would at least complicate things, security-wise.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen also have high gun ownership rates, I believe, and the mechanisms behind that may be more transparent. However, my non-lazy Google fu is failing me.
posted by furiousthought at 2:51 PM on April 1, 2003

The state, even when benign, can't always protect all citizens from criminals/enemies. It's not a bad thing to let citizens do that for themselves. And who knows... I was talking with a friend of mine who is a National Guardsman, and he thinks that perhaps if the state were to actually tick off enough of the populace, you could potentially get some military desertion and absconded modern firepower to go along with typical civilian arms.

That's how rebellion works in countries without Second-Amendment style rights of course. (That and imports from interested foreign parties.) Also wasn't there a bit of that in the American Revolution, what with rebels seizing cannons from various spots? It's been a long time since I've studied that era.

I'm not anti-Second Amendment, by the way, but the safeguard provided by an armed populace against tyranny was a huge part of the founding fathers' logic here, and it seems like there's a number of real-life counterexamples floating around. With Iraq and to a lesser degree SA there is overwhelming firepower provided by the military, but what about Yemen and the like? I guess what I am getting at is: to what degree is tyranny possible through purely social methods, circumventing an armed populace?
posted by furiousthought at 3:20 PM on April 1, 2003

1. This is probably a joke/hoax.
2. And I can't believe nobody said this yet: Don't like USA? Then give it back.
posted by spazzm at 3:25 PM on April 1, 2003

How about those trying to become a citizen. We forget least, when we were born with it.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:49 PM on April 1, 2003

did you guys hear about my idea?
posted by mcsweetie at 4:29 PM on April 1, 2003