I felt bad about my last post. It had politics. My blog may not be a ray of sunshine but I try to refrain from taking a dump on my readers. If this election cycle isn’t the shit hitting the fan then what is? I did it anyway. I’m only human.
In search of redemption I’d like to discuss something positive. All that brooding sense of silence and calculation in my last post is nothing new and it has yielded far more than malaise. After all, silence and calculation indicates you’re seeking wise choices during difficult times. So here is:
“I have noticed a small but increasing number of Americans who are choosing to vote with their feet and they’re putting freedom front and center in their plans.”
You’ve noticed it too? Surely you’ve seen a few folks choose to move from less free places to more free places. Do you think people move to Texas because they like the weather? Do you think people emote over Montana because they like opera? It’s not a stampede… it’s a trickle, but it’s a steady one and for every person that seeks and attains freedom an eagle shits on a Prius.
Obviously it’s not a choice lightly made. Moving, for any purpose, is a massive pain in the ass. To uproot yourself and your family and then manage the endless logistics is a commitment. It’s a lot bigger commitment than buying another AR-15 to throw in the stack you’ve already got.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Why would you? Instead just check out my blog roll.
On Barking Moonbat Early Warning System you’ll notice a post that describes leaving California and moving to Ohio. He’s clear that he’s doing this in the interest of personal freedom. This is what he had to say (read it all).
“I will be moving halfway across the country. I don’t make it a secret that while I am a man of the right, I have also been a Californian born and raised. And what’s more, someone that has lived on the dread, died-in-the-wool-left Coast itself. My parents came from the Middle of the country decades ago to live here, and I have lived here in this house my entire life.
… the costs of uprooting from the home of 20~ years and moving halfway across the country to a place I scarcely know are less than the costs of staying. Taxes are high, a criminally insane water policy has all but insured drought will strike again, the ‘law’ tried to abolish concealed carry, and I still remember the times when Bernie’s Brownshirts attacked a Trump Rally down the street while two married Jihadists slaughtered a Christmas Party.”
He’s slipped the noose and bugged out. Way to go!
If you click over to Knuckledragging My Life Away you’ll be reading posts from another person who left California’s sinking ship. Earlier this spring he moved to Tennessee. He’s got plenty of posts about the joy of leaving California. Here’s one of his first posts after leaving (escaping!) (read it all):
“I swore I was going to uncase my guns, load my pistol and strap it to my hip the first chance I got after crossing into Arizona for no other reason than I could. But I didn’t. Why? Because I didn’t feel a need to – once I got out of California everybody was genuinely friendly. Seriously – I couldn’t get out of the truck without somebody smiling at me and asking how I was doing – and these were total strangers.”
One part of freedom is “friendly” and indeed California can wear on a man at times. I rejoice at a person who made the choice to find a different, freer home.
I should have put him first because The Ultimate Answer To Kings is a paragon. He leaves most of us in the dust! I’m impressed when someone packs their shit and moves to a different place but Joel went off grid. That takes balls of steel (not to mention patience with batteries and the willingness to shovel shit).
I salute him for going the Full Monty! He makes it clear that living in the desert is not Utopia for all but it suits him and his desire for freedom. Well done sir! May your chickens always evade the coyotes and the sun ever shine on your solar panels.
Claire Wolfe, who is working on her new website, never goes a week without discussing freedom. It’s sorta’ her thing. Obviously her choice of location is based on freedom but so too are most of her other interests.
Fred On Everything is an American who lives in Mexico. He’s written several articles referring to the greater freedom he found in Mexico. Here’s a quote to whet your appetite (read it all):
“They think that just because I went to Mexico, I left the US. They don’t understand. I didn’t leave the United States. It left me. It was a bait-and-switch operation. I signed on to one country, and they slipped another in under me. I want my money back.”
He elaborates…
“In the country I signed on to, things worked on the principle of individual responsibility. If you robbed a bank, which people generally didn’t, everyone figured you did it because you decided to, and you went to jail and everyone was satisfied, except you, which was the idea. Most people knew how to behave, and did. It saved a lot on police departments and you could walk around at night.
In the new country of course everything is somebody else’s fault, unless you are a white male, in which case everything is your fault.”
And it ends with something I’ve felt all too often myself:
“A lot of other countries struck me as fine places. But America was my favorite. It just suited me. I liked the people in their wild variety and the countryside and the music and the brash independence. It wasn’t perfect. Still, given the sorry baseline for comportment in human agglomerations, it was about as good as you could get.
I’m still fond of the United States. I just can’t find it.”
Incidentally when I’ve been in Mexico (which hasn’t been nearly often enough) it has indeed fell freer than most of America. It seemed like a fine place where you could drink a beer without being hassled, tinker with a car without the EPA shitting on you, and go fishing without needing a 200 page rulebook…. and really isn’t that what life’s all about?
If you click over to Captain Capitalism you’ll find thoughts about freedom that revolve around economics and personal choices (which is more important than seeking a magic geographic location). The Captain also spends a fair amount of energy trying to nudge youth away from self destructive decisions that’ll (you guessed it) chew up their future freedoms. I recommend “Worthless” to any person of the age where they’re still in the thrall (through no fault of their own) of school teachers. (I also enjoyed “The Curse Of The High IQ” and have been meaning to write up a review.)
If you click over to Sippican Cottage you’ll hear articles about moving to and living in rural Maine. In his case the source of freedom was outlandishly cheap housing (read it all):
“…Truth be told, it was much worse than a hovel. We aspired to live in a hovel. We thought we might be able to fashion a hovel out of what we’d purchased. We dreamt of wretchedness, and are still doggedly trying to clear away all the debris just to get to the dirty part, so we can live in it and be happy. …
…Why would we move to such a place, you ask? We had become instantly broke, and the house was free. That’s a great combination. OK, not free; but we bought a fairly big, 1901 vintage, Queen Anne house for $24,400. I consider any house for sale for less than a Kia ‘free.’
It wasn’t the “Detroit” version of free, either. I know you can buy a crackhouse in the Motor City for a double sawbuck, or trade it for a couple syphilitic chickens or something, but then you’ve got to try to defend its walls against all comers –the walls where the copper pipes used to live before the crackheads gave your new home its crackhouse soubriquet — but we moved to what’s considered a nice neighborhood in a quiet little town in western Maine. And in addition to a lack of Mogadishu-level crime, the taxes here are comparatively low because there’s a huge, stinking paper mill right in the center of town paying half the town’s freight, so our free house didn’t come with a bent number followed by a vapor trail of zeroes after it for back taxes, or front taxes or sideways taxes.”
Considering how hard it is for me to keep my shithole of a house standing, I salute him for keeping his house standing with far more grace and dignity than I. (Also his kids rock “The Girl From Ipanema“!)
Click over to MArooned to find another prime example. Early on, the whole point of his blog was being trapped in Massachusetts. Ugh! I can’t imagine surviving that! Massachusetts is East Germany administered by Dolores Umbridge but with higher taxes! (At least California has a great climate!) His subtitle was “trapped in Volkspublic of Massachusetts“.
So where does the author of the MArooned blog live now? Northern Virginia and happily so. That’s not an accident. It’s a deliberate planned move on his part.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another fellow who made the move. That would be yours truly. I did time in a snobbish, uptight, urban area and it sucked donkey balls. People were crawling up my ass every day; each dawn was followed by a new regulation, another fee, a different tax, a near miss on the highway, and the general misery of being swarmed by a hyperactive herd of retarded lemmings and their insipid, unceasing, inexplicable desire to drag me down to their level. I tunneled under the wall and set myself free. Where I live now the night sky is dark and I’m mostly left alone. It’s not perfect but it’s a step toward heaven!
It’s never really “game over” until you’re dead. So take heart and protect your soul carefully against the indignities that will be shoved your way. Take a deep breath, keep your eye on the prize and think “just hold on ’cause it’s not over.
Seeking freedom isn’t inherently grim. Lock and load and stacking ammo and watering the tree of liberty and all that shit sounds impressive but the little decisions matter more. Sometimes it’s a job interview, sometimes it’s a long drive, sometimes it’s a paid off debt… whatever. Freedom will flow through the mundane decisions you make throughout your life. With luck, forethought, and hard work those who seek freedom find it.
A.C.
P.S. If you’re on my blogroll and made the break but I missed it; sorry. Enjoy your freedom even if it doesn’t come with a high five from an unimportant blogger who talks to trees.
If you missed any of ’em, Bowling Pin Chicken will come to haunt you in your dreams. And he’ll be ridin’ in a freshly-waxed yaller AMC Gremlin driven by Spike…
}:-]
I’ve had another “bowling pin chicken” moment. A chicken wandered off a month ago and then showed up, fit and healthy, yesterday.
I’m starting the process of relocating from California to Tennessee; hoping to sell the house in CA before the election, and be fully resettled by the end of the year. After 28 years in one place, getting ready to sell (never mind making the actual move!) is a challenge.
Aside from political considerations, and the crowding and near-total loss of small-business habitat in Silicon Valley, it’s an opportunity to “downsize” to perhaps twice as much house, on 100 times as much land, with quite a bit of cash left over for working capital. I should be able to have a modest-sized hobby farm, a proper mad-scientist’s workshop, a test range for small UAV control systems, and some woods to hang out in. Maybe even a private fishin’ hole!
Alas, the crap coming out of DC makes life overly complicated and expensive in TN, too, but at least the state government doesn’t hate “my kind”.
Good luck. You’ll be glad you did it.
Yup. We in Texas don’t mind those that can stand on their own two feet (and the weather ;-D ). But, like Wyoming and Montana just to name a few, too many libtards are flooding in also. (And let’s face it, one is too many.) They’ve crapped in their own bowl of ice cream and instead of being made to eat it and learn to STOP DOING THAT, they drop it and run. Fortunately they’re packing in to the rat-hole big cities and will be grist for the mill when things go south.
Too many dipshits moving to a nice place and bringing the stink of the failure they’re fleeing embedded in their behavior… It’s an oft repeated theme.
Some examples I’ve noticed: Medford Oregon was once in a rush to become “Little California” and seemed set to become uninhabitable. Denver Colorado seems to have no actual native Coloradans present but a herd of Californians and a large pack of Texans. Bend Oregon which is where you go to escape Portlandia and then re-enact the whole thing again. Possibly Jackson Hole where you can look at the mountains and lord over the Wyoming born peasants (Vail Colorado and Missoula Oregon might be the same).
I thought of those in 30 seconds. There are many more.
I should have added something to my post; “If you’re moving somewhere to find freedom, remember it was freer before you arrived or you wouldn’t be coming there… so don’t be a dumbass and start the cycle again”.
Probably the Puritans were the first “Americans who fled an oppressive shithole to form a new oppressive shithole” and they did it before America was America.
50 states, 42 separate countries on 5 continents in 35 years between my dad’s time and my time in uncle sams traveling air circus… ive actually lived, ie spent more than 6 consecutive months,,in 8 states (2of which were ca & ny), and 6 countries. found what was, for me at least, abject paradise after 3 long years in the nightmare that is las vague-ass. in the last decade and a half it has descended into a misery of such biblical proportions i’m now looking to retire in a place you cant drive to, where being on grid means you have running water and some form of electricity, and where my nearest neighbor is a short 20 minute flight…..
Good luck. We’re pullin’ for ya’!
Alaska. My family moved here when I was 16 and that was 40 years ago. A lot of libtards are in Anchorage, but even there the winters change them or they move. People are different in a place that can kill them out of hand. Even liberals.
That is the exact truth! It’s our winters that keep the libs in check around here (high elevation, Idaho).
“I would be remiss if …”
This paragraph could be me. I haven’t been happier, ever, as I have since we moved away from Hell. As for Bowling Pin Chicken, we seemed to have acquired a small bird who insists on sticking close around the shop. He’ll walk right up to you and look you in the eye like he wants to talk. I’ve never seen a wild bird do this.
Of course, I think he’s a starling, so I guess – since we live around farmers &nash; I shouldn’t get too attached to him…
Well that was the gist of my comment on the earlier article… Example would be what the GLT did to San Francisco…Can the Liberty Folk do the same in areas around the Country… I live in the Bitterroot Valley of MT and have been offering to help anyone that loves Liberty move into this area…Jobs, housing, land I will do my best to help you out…
That’s genuinely kind. I hope someone takes you up on it. The Bitterroot Valley is a fabulous location!
I wish I’d made the move to Tennessee 30 years ago. I can’t believe how much better I feel without the gov’t looking over my shoulder. Matter of fact, I just now came in from shooting on my own property and guess what? SWAT ain’t on their way out.
-Wirecutter, from knuckledraggin.com
I have the same experience; my only regret is how long it took to do it.
Also I’m amused when people back in what I think of as “occupied territory” talk about whether they’re “allowed” to have a woodstove or build a shed or have a few hens in the backyard. It’s as if they’re kids with crayons aspiring to own a marker.
Enjoy Tennessee!
I’m looking around for my escape. Currently I’m about 200 miles inland North Carolina, my rural home now has subdivisions with a bunch of Biff’s and Buffy’s all around. I suppose they are living their dream of leaving the city and moving to the country, but they are bringing their urbane angst and associated mentalities with them.
I tell my wife I want a single-wide trailer with a 4 car garage, welder at one end, reloading bench at the other, sitting in a 20 acre gully where I can shoot clays off the back porch. If it catches fire and burns down to the axles who cares, I’m not taking a thing with me when I go, and it’s all just ‘stuff’? She’s not much on the single-wide trailer idea, but can live with the 20 acre gully provided she has a place to quilt, a She Shed.