Pineslayer said…
Can you assimilate on a moments notice?
Aesop said…All good questions, but imagine asking them of yourself as a Jew in 1937 in Berlin. Then imagine asking yourself the same questions, in 1941.
Or as an Afrikaaner in Capetown. Yesterday.
It would certainly suck to be a socially awkward and barely literate Eastern European living in London in 1912.
But not when the alternative was third class passage to NY on the Titanic.
“Any port in a storm”, and all that…
Pineslayer said…Ryan here: My thoughts are as follows.
Leaving your home temporarily because of imminent danger is an easy decision. Get out of the way of the fire/ hurricane/ riot. The idea of leaving for a longer period is harder. You might never get home. The thing is this is only really worth considering when staying home is going to get you killed or some other really bad outcome.
Think of it like you are in the kill zone of an ambush or right in front of a raging wildfire. Staying where you are is going to get you killed. You might not be sure where a safe place is but you know what place isn’t! Get out of the really dangerous place right now! Worry about where else to go once you get away.
One thing I would say about America is that it is unique in a couple of ways. First it is a huge country. A massive event can make one area uninhabitable. Hurricane Katrina comes to mind. It may be that you can “bug out” to a few hundred miles away in Arkansas or Texas. The same could be said of a riot in Los Angeles or whatever. In a small country a regional event might mean you have to leave the country entirely but in the big awesome USA it doesn’t necessarily mean that.
The other thing I would say is that if your concerns are political in the US the answer may be moving within the US. Things that might potentially happen in California, Illinois or New York aren’t anywhere near as likely in say Texas, Idaho or Alabama.
