In other words, give up?
I find it ludicrous (and terrifying) when statements like this are made. This isn't some web-app whose terms of service you don't like, it's a nation state. People throughout history took to the streets to win freedom/voting right/etc. If no-one's left fighting back then expect to get trampled. Soon there'll be nowhere left to move.
Historically, it was much harder and more expensive to move your entire life to another country (and maintain your social and economic ties). People were vastly better off staying put.
Today, that's simply not the case. I moved across an ocean to avoid participating in the US economy in a positive way (insofar as that is practically possible being a denizen of the Internet) for under $1500 and all while maintaining my personal and professional connections to those still resident there.
Perhaps this antique notion of "taking to the streets to win freedom" was the appropriate choice, then.
I know for a fact that today it is not only demonstrably ineffective, but also entirely unnecessary.
It might be less bad in Luxembourg than it is in the US, but it is a common trend that if a small group of countries move their laws and regulations in a particular direction, other countries with a comparable culture and standard of living are prone to follow sooner or later.
You can keep fleeing to the next non-sucky country, but in theory, you're going to run out of countries at some point. Maybe not in your lifetime, so your solution is practical, but if it becomes widely adopted, I think we're going to get a problem.
Afaik, there's no indication that countries whose people leave en masse change their laws, regulations and institutions to try and fix it. Thus, I doubt that "voting with your feet" like you can do in a market economy works with countries. Try and find a Macedonian with a university degree in Macedonia, for example.
Eventually, some countries are likely to decide they want to suck less, or get changed by revolutions etc, and then you can switch to one of those.
It's complicated, of course. The smaller the ruling elite, the less prosperous the whole country will be, but the ruling elite itself is just fine with that.
You can move to a country with a different culture, or at least different enough. Some of them are in the East, like Hong Kong and Singapore, but there are some in the West too, like Iceland. According to Transparency International they are less corrupt than the US.
The education that gives you the skills that allow you entry to another country cost significantly more than $1,500.
Don't you still need to file tax returns in the US?
And yes, but I get to claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. I pay zero US personal income tax.
We can already see the effects of this trend in how the US tries to "harmonize" copyright/patents/etc. law in other countries with its own. Any time I'm in an airport in a country where the US deems security insufficient, there's extra security at the gate for flights to the US. These things spread slowly, but surely.
Therefore, it will take several years, and will require the vast majority of the people who comprise the US's competitive advantage over other countries leaving, first, before the true change really starts.
You don't undo things like the NSA's global wiretapping efforts with a direct, frontal assault. If they cared about the fact that it is blatantly, totally illegal, they never would have begun it in the first place.
You have to attack the roots, and that's the economy, and the tax base. This will likely not be solved in my lifetime, unfortunately.
To change the USA politically, it's necessary to change it culturally.
Attacking the roots means attacking the ideas, not the economy.
Say the economy totally collapses, which seems to be the strategy you're advocating. Will the outcome you want come about? No; we will see more facism; the collapse will be blamed on the country not being godly enough by the conservatives, and on capitalists being too greedy by the liberals, who will insist on running even farther from economic freedom (and prosperity).
The solution is to change the ideas of the society to be more principled and pro-freedom.
I do agree with you that it's unlikely to be solved in our lifetimes, though. Changing a culture traditionally has taken generations. Now we're in the information age, so that might help, but there are too few fighting for good ideas; the vast majority of people are accepting more bad ideas, and most people who are fighting are fighting on the wrong side.
You say "we", as if in that scenario you'd still be there.
I see no other practical method of getting the US government off the fiber backbones and out of the closets of carriers short of undermining the country's competitive advantage in the world economy, and even that will take dozens of years.
The USA PATRIOT Act was 10 years old in October of 2011. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendments are dead and buried, and the only response to new laws further abridging those rights we used to have under them is "lol" (e.g. The Daily Show, Colbert Report).
It's delusional to think that it's going to somehow get better when doing so would require large popular support from people who really don't give a fuck about anything and can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to (e.g. the most recent series of presidential debates).
They're never going to stop doing that, unless we have a complete cultural upheaval. They'd get rid of all other government spending, and then try to tax at up to 100%, to continue domestic spying and other basic violations.
In other worlds, in a total collapse, the last sphere of "economic" activity still existing would be the bad stuff run by government thugs.
> can't be effectively reached en masse save via military-industrial-complex controlled mass media channels that dissenting opinions aren't given access to
If you think there's some kind of conspiracy to control the media, the burden of proof is on you. The incompetence and bizarreness you're observing is because our intellectual culture is just that bad.
I mean, intellegent people still learned about the "major" alternative candidates (e.g. from the Libertarians and Greens) in this election. Things are still way better than in the time of pamphlets and horses and stuff.
But yes, I'm with you that it's possibly too late for the US, and I'm open to leaving in the future, even though I actually love it here and wouldn't prefer to live anywhere else.
Q: Why are so many jews pessimists?
A: Because all the optimists stayed in Germany.
> It would be ironic if, as hackers fear, recent measures intended to protect national security and intellectual property turned out to be a missile aimed right at what makes America successful.
Short of violence, I would like to do everything possible to accelerate that realization in the minds of as many Americans as possible.
I think the best way to do that is to respond appropriately: leave, and go live/work in, support, and pay taxes to other countries instead.
Can you imagine the next Facebook or Google being started somewhere that isn't the USA? I can. Those that are paying attention are starting to realize just how bad the situation there has become.
- The USA is one big country one over 300millions people, one main language, one main culture, one currency ... and a shit lot of money ready to be invested
- When you start a company in France only 60 million people few investors, a small startup world, ... And if i want to expand my company to europe, i need to get the different languages, different culture, different bank and sometimes different currency.
And if you want to invest it's harder because the VC system is different, they are not much a big fan of competition.
It's a pain is the ass to grow big quickly there and also the mentality is different.
There are plenty fighting back - just not in the USA, as the window for meaningful and peaceful dissent there is now closed.
If you don't see that this is true today, I urge you to research the history of the US federal government's suppression of dissent over the last 20 years.
Even under your analogy, you're giving one interpretation. You could be over-exaggerating the effect of the tree because you're a perfectionist who runs from the least bit of trouble. The tree might have fallen, broken a couple of roof tiles, an eave, and a window. Sure, snow and rain can come into the bed, which is right next to the window, but a tarp can easily cover the damage and you can stay in the house while you get someone to fix it.
Just because you say that the situation in the US is unlivable doesn't mean that others generally agree with your view, or even that you are right. No amount of argument by analogy, no matter how visceral, will help.
I'm glad that everybody doesn't think like you do.
When you can't freely transfer money or have private electronic conversations (telephone, SMS, email, whatever) as a median citizen not under suspicion of a crime, you must leave the place in which you are, just as you would have to leave your private home if it were completely flooded or exposed to the elements.
And it seems to work.
And by the way the people who already left the country and are actually living in europe did nothing because they now have a jobs, families, ... So they have way more to lose by fighting for the right of they original country than doing nothing.