I Can’t Go Back

Okay, this isn’t going to be a funny one. I’ll warn everyone right now that this will be political, and I’m left of center. If you aren’t comfortable with politics and/or don’t want to hear anything but right of center political views, you need to leave. I will not sugar coat this, and I will not change my mind on this. You have been warned and will not be warned again.

I’m originally from America, but in the last five years, I’ve only stayed there for about nine months. There has always been the option to move back; it would be difficult, but it would be doable. I never did because I enjoyed living abroad. I was working and had friends, so I wasn’t motivated to move back.

Now, it has changed from a lack of motivation to a genuine concern. It started to shift back in 2021. When the capital was raided, there were so many pictures. That wasn’t surprising in and of itself, but I was shocked about how many people showed their faces. They weren’t scared, weren’t ashamed, and being covert never crossed their mind. They didn’t think they would get in trouble for attempting to overthrow the government by threatening to kill people.

Most worrying, I can see how they got to this idea. In the previous four years, the president had shown open contempt for the rest of government and showed respect for no one. The police didn’t help. So many news stories show them assaulting civilians protesting Trump decisions, and not all those news stories took the protester’s side.

That might be how we got where we’re at now. We had another of our many mass shootings, and instead of defending us, the police left the kids to die. And as frustrating as it was to watch them cover their ass and say how blue lives matter (more than your children’s), the court decisions to loosen gun control laws made me want to pull my hair out.  

And that brings me to the main reason I am writing this. Court decisions. They have not just decided that we need more guns. Roe v. Wade is done. States now get to decide whether abortion is legal, and many states have already decided that it isn’t. Doesn’t matter why you need it, doesn’t matter the situation around the pregnancy, there is no getting it.

I’ve never been a big fan of abortion; the whole idea makes me uncomfortable. Even then, I see the necessity. And I’ll be honest, if the options are abortions being legal with no caveats vs. dead women, rape babies, and thirteen-year-old mothers, there is only one real choice.

While Roe has been taking up most of the attention right now, there have been other decisions that have caused me just as much concern. Vega v. Tekoh isn’t nearly as famous, but it being overturned is just as dangerous. Without it, you can no longer sue a police officer for failing to inform you of your rights, namely your Miranda rights (You have the right to remain silent etc.). This means there is functionally no repercussions for the police if they ‘forget’ to inform you of your rights and get information out of you. And if you are thinking this won’t be abused and all the information the police will get will be legitimate, you have not taken a hard look at our legal system.

Those are the decisions SCOTUS has made so far. In the wake of Roe, one of the justices has voiced his intention to reconsider the decisions around contraception, marriage equality, and freedom to choose sexual partners regardless of gender. Outside of the court, voices that once could have been counted on to be ignored are calling for the overturn of interracial marriage. I would have said that was insane at one point. That time has passed.

Even if this is as far as things go, it isn’t a good scene.

Most of this won’t affect me directly. I’m a straight white guy who grew up middle classed. I’ve been pretty well protected for all my life, and I’ll go on being so even with all this. That isn’t true for my fiancé. That won’t be true for my future kids.

I am not going to subject them to a country that is moving to be openly hostile to them. To a country where guns have more rights than them and police can do what they like because their lives are more important. To a country where some angry man with an AR15 could appear anywhere. 

So, I’ll only be visiting the U.S.A.

This is not to say I am giving up on the country. I agree with Mark Twain that we should have “Loyalty to country always, loyalty to government when it deserves it”. I am in a very privileged position being able to leave the country and live somewhere else. The people who will be most affected often can’t leave, and they don’t get to ignore what is happening. I will be voting come November. It doesn’t matter where you live, if you are an American, vote. Throw out the government and make them earn that loyalty.