
Why I Left the U.S. 20 Years Ago and Why I Won't Be Coming Back - arunc
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/personal-proffitt-lemarchand-why-i-left-the-us-20-years-ago-and-why-i-wont-be-coming-back_us_5adf7407e4b07be4d4c57b26
======
dang
All: the flamewars that raged in this thread are bannable offenses on HN. It's
no excuse that the article was bait; the thing to do was to flag it and move
on, as others fortunately did.

We're not going to let HN go down in the flames and fumes of nationalistic
battles. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that. Do this
instead: when someone provokes you with an egregious comment, flag it
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html))
and/or email us at hn@ycombinator.com to be sure to get moderator attention.
Don't reply, and especially don't reply aggressively.

In other words, call the fire department, don't pour fuel, and don't start
fires of your own. Sounds easy, but it's not, because it requires tolerating
the burn of annoyance inside oneself instead of taking it out on the commons.
That's actually what tolerance means. It's a physical process, just like any
structure can tolerate a certain load before snapping. Containing this energy
does not feel good, but it's the capacity we all need to build if if we want
this community to survive as a place for curiosity.

------
Aaargh20318
This is an interesting article from the point of view of someone living in
Europe. She moves away from the US because she wants out of the rat race:

> "I grew up believing that having money was an objective to strive for and
> that life was a ruthless competition. I worked hard in school and got a good
> job because that was what was expected of me. That was the path that was
> supposed to bring me happiness, except I followed that path, and I wasn’t
> happy."

Finally, she ends up living in Europe:

> "I certainly could say more about the work-life balance provided by the
> 35-hour workweek, the five weeks of paid vacation I enjoy each year, the two
> years paid unemployment benefits I would receive should I lose my job, my
> access to free health care, paid maternity leave, affordable child care,
> free education from age 3 through to university or the state-provided
> retirement pension I will receive at age 65."

The funny thing is, that as someone who grew up in Europe, with all those
things she raves about, I feel exactly like she did in the beginning of the
story. I feel like being in the rat race just like she did. Those 5 weeks of
paid vacation feel more like an insult than a benefit. You get to taste a
little bit of freedom for a short while and then it's back to dayprison.
Retirement at 65 is a pipe dream, the boomers spent all the retirement money
already and retirement age is slowly rising (currently at 67), by the time I
turn 67 in 30 years I'm sure it has been raised even further or more likely
there won't be any kind of state pension anymore.

Not that I expect to ever get that old. 8 hour workdays are insane, it's an
arbitrary number and yet the whole of society is based around it. It leaves
people too exhausted to enjoy life and causes so much stress I'm actually
surprised anyone makes it to pension age. I fully expect to die of a stress-
related heart attack or similar way before I get to enjoy any kind of pension.

~~~
candiodari
Ever notice how retirement age is rising at roughly 0.5/years/year ? That
means, of course, that by the time someone in their 30s retires it will have
moved again.

So if politicians want to keep spending like they do now (assuming deficits do
not matter and do not raise spending further due to interest), a 30 year old
person will retire at age 104 at this rate.

~~~
Aaargh20318
When they raised the retirement age in my country to 67 they also snuck in a
provision linking it to the average life expectancy. So as life expectancy
goes up, so does the retirement age.

As I expect a cure for ageing to be available within the next couple of
decades, this basically means no more pensions.

------
javajosh
She is on-the-nose about the upsides, but doesn't talk about the downsides
enough, IMO. It's tough leaving friends and family behind. Also, the creature
comforts! They don't have Costco or Trader Joes or good diners in Europe.
Knowing where to buy things, knowing the language (the worst thing is
navigating phone trees in another language), knowing how the various systems
of which you are a apart work. You realize how much knowledge has seeped into
you, almost by osmosis, that you take for granted, and now it's gone. New
knowledge will seep in, in time, and meanwhile you must be okay being
ignorant, and therefore at risk.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> They don't have Costco or Trader Joes or good diners in Europe.

That you include chains of whatever on the list of downsides to leaving your
country, says something. Maybe something about you, maybe something about your
country. It's not good what it says though.

EDIT: I think you might be the kind of person the author is talked about when
she says "brainwashed". If the specific franchise of restaurant that you like
is such a huge factor in your life, maybe you've just been brainwashed. And
this is not even mentioning the breathtaking ignorance of saying there's no
good diners "in Europe".

~~~
d1zzy
Don't dismiss the knowledge of store chains as something silly and bad. It's
about life's little needs. You need to know where to buy tons of little items
for the right price/quality and moving countries means all that knowledge
needs to be rebuilt. Since I buy most of these things from the various chains
then yes, moving countries means having discover again the chains/stores that
I need.

I actually felt this when I moved from Europe to the US. Suddenly I had no
idea where to buy food ingredients, kitchen items, etc that weren't too
expensive but were not of crappy quality either. Even the relative value of
things (ex. is a $4 loaf of bread expensive or cheap? Converting to the
previous currency and comparing prices doesn't work at all). Also, Europeans
don't realize but the US has a lot more choices for almost everything (well, I
guess except broadband Internet and some other things, heh). That's great in
general but it's overwhelming to the newcomer.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
I moved country twice in my life and I never had much trouble with the things
you mention. I acknowledge they exist, I just don't agree they're a big thing
(in the sense that knowledge can be re-build relatively quickly).

------
grosjona
I wonder if that photo at the top was taken in Guadeloupe? The vibrant green
color of the plants and trees seems to indicate this.

~~~
JeanMarcS
Probably. I asked myself the same question, as this is where I live at the
moment.

So if not Guadeloupe, it surely is somewhere in the Caribbean

------
Alkatori
Confused, her information is wrong. I was talking with a French gun owner who
owned an AK and AR-15 both chambered in .222 Remington. Just because she
doesn't know any gun owners who have them doesn't mean "military style
weapons" are banned there.

------
knolan
As a European looking out the US is often befuddling. The insanity of
healthcare, attitude to firearms, extreme media bias and seemingly
unquestioning nationalism are worrisome to say the least.

I’ve been there several times for conferences and I’ve always been happy to
leave. The constant feeling of being bleed for cash at every opportunity
coupled with the fake over sincerity is frustrating.

As an Irishman there is a strong connection between our countries and many
colleagues have made the move and seem happy. I can’t imagine wanting to live
there, at least in the world described in the article and around big city
conference centers.

Also the chocolate is atrocious.

------
josephh
As a self-proclaimed libertarian, this is the first thing that came to mind:
we need more people like her! The more people we have who feel this way and
start leaving/fleeing the country, the greater incentive for the society to
correct itself in order to minimize the losses.

------
amriksohata
There's a thought that the only people that can mentally hack capitalism and
the stresses that come with it are a very few number of people, they often
becomes owners of companies or directors. The rest of us have to follow the
system to work and earn in it and dont always subscribe to it's ideals. That's
why I like her courage to use the word brainwashed, something American media
think only happens to people of other governments.

~~~
mpweiher
Why do you think the main issue is "can" and not "why on earth would you want
to"?

I remember a very poignant New Yorker cartoon, with a bunch of elderly gently
WASP-ish looking folk and one whispering to another: "Money is life's report
card".

------
throwaway84742
Choice is still a thing. If you want all those government benefits in exchange
for making 1/3rd of what one makes in the US, go right ahead. Their
immigration laws are quite a bit more restrictive than ours, so it won’t be
easy, but it can be done. There are literally hundreds of millions of people
who would like to move here. Tens of millions in South America alone, in spite
of long vacations, “free” healthcare, and “pensions”.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> If you want all those government benefits in exchange for making 1/3rd of
> what one makes in the US, go right ahead.

Over here we don't consider that healthcare and education are a "government
benefit". We consider them rights.

But you sound slightly offended. Like now you're trying to prove that some
people like the USA. You don't have to prove anything dude.

~~~
dang
You have been one of the worst offenders in this thread full of horrible
violations of the HN guidelines. You've also been uncivil on HN many times
before. This is really bad.

I'm not going to ban you, because your recent history hasn't been as bad as
this, but if you do this sort of flamewar on HN again, we will ban you. Please
do not pour any trace of nationalistic poison, regardless of how badly other
users are behaving. If you do, you're as bad as they are. This of course goes
for every user, not just you.

Please (re-)read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and do a much better job of using this site as intended from now on.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> You have been one of the worst offenders in this thread

I obviously disagree with the characterisation of what I said as
"nationalistic poison", but I will no longer talk politics on HN to be on the
safe side.

------
ItsMe000001
I only want to say something about the "gun" subject in the article, since she
gives it a prominent place.

I'm from East Germany originally (used to live in the US for a decade). That
country was the true successor of Prussia as far as militaristic traditions
go. While we did have "gun control", so no weapons other than air guns at home
for most people, shooting was very much part of culture. I was taught marching
like a professional soldier as part of school, before job training and
studying. Same goes for shooting (small caliber weapons), throwing hand
grenades (replicas of hand grenades were used in throwing exercises during
normal sports lessons), how to use chemical protection gear and a gas mask,
and a lot more.

The real difference, and this is my point that I think is usually missed about
US gun culture, was that never, ever did it occur to me as a gun-obsessed
child that if I had more than two air guns at home, or even for those, _that I
should ever want to use weapons against my fellow citizens_.

Weapons were always for only three purposes: sports, hunting (organized and
government regulated and controlled, not "for fun") and military.

In all the discussions about US gun culture, to me this is the far larger
factor than just having access to guns, that the thought that this could be
used in "self defense" against your own people exists. I sure had a lot of
"gun fantasies" as a child and would happily have owned a "real" gun, but
never, ever would it have occurred to me that I could use this against people,
except for in military conflict.

You can restrict access all you want, and I'm sure that will limit some
problems, but to me it seems unless there is a much, much deeper change in
attitude that will only be a band aid removing the worst symptoms of a problem
that goes deeper and is much more broad. This probably cannot be changed
though. It's an attitude I find in too many movies produced in the US (unless
it's romance or comedy and has no guns), it's all about fighting/shooting
people.

~~~
duckMuppet
For all her ranting, she seemingly still has a U.S. passport which gives her a
great deal more freedom than if she had a passport from central America. Let's
see if she renounces her citizenship anytime soon and put her money where her
mouth is.

I don't find this article particularly offensive, just extremely naive.

For all it's problems, in the U.S. we still enjoy both freedom of speech and
freedom from the tyranny of socialized govt, both have reared it's ugly head
in pretty spectacular ways recently..

Namely, you can end up in jail if you teach your dog to salute at Heil Hitler,
or if you decide you want to present the middle finger to your govt overlords
on a traffic cam, or if you think you might like to send your child to a
different hospital that offers hope, no matter how grim the ultimate outcome,
or if you defend yourself in your home from a robber with a knife.. Just to
name a few..

The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the world.
Statistically most people are very unlikely to encounter such gun crimes like
school shootings, but you'd never know that because we have a media and
culture driven by ratings and agenda.

But there is a lot of truth that people have much less value for life. That's
not just a U.S. problem.. I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can criticize the mayor of
London openly without fear, but their plans(or talks) to remove any and all
knives from stores and the hands of their citizens is a pretty good example..
But no knife, no problem, you can do it pretty effectively with a truck, I
recall 80 or so were killed a few years ago, and at least 10 were killed a few
days ago in Toronto. And anyone with any sizeable amount of intellect could
probably devise a plan that is highly effective by stealing a semi.. Someone
with actual intelligence could probably devise a scheme to drop small IED's
via drones and could probably be pretty lethal and remain effectively safe
from capture, let alone any of the other mainstream methods..

And on top of it all, even with all the gun bans, one of the worst gun
massacres in recent history occurred not in the U.S., but good old Europe..
Many countries have effectively banned all weapons, But that just means that
the law abiding citizens are the ones who become defenseless.. I've
sarcastically argued numerous times that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were fake
news, and the people were just made up, after all, such firearms are actually
banned there, so such an event isn't actually possible to happen, those
weapons are banned..

It gets even better when looking at countries like Mexico, S. America etc,
where the police may actually be part of the mob, flip a coin as to whether
you'll survive if you call for help (I suppose if your passport is blue or
from the euro block they probably try to take care of you for tourism sake)..

In any case, I think a recent episode of econtalk with Jonah Goldberg
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html)
summed up a lot of truths about the place we are at in our society, especially
in the U.S.. It's quite worth a listen.. Because ultimately, though the above
is bad, we often forget that gives have historically persecuted people far
worse, and though it's 2018 (as if somehow that means something), it's still
happening ( IRS/FBI)etc..

Ultimately, These are problems govt cannot solve, and the answer the govt will
give might not be an answer that's good, for average Joe at least.. But I do
think, in the U.S., It's a road we are heading down..

~~~
mpweiher
Hmm...

1\. She has dual French/US citizenship, says so in her Bio. Not sure what
"Central America" has to do with anything. A lot of US citizens renounce their
citizenship because of the insane tax requirements. But of course the US also
makes renouncing very hard, for example taxing you on _unrealized_ profits.
It's a mess.

2\. You find the article "naive"? How much experience do you have living
outside the US, if I may enquire, for example in Europe?

3\. Freedom of speech is actually quite comparable, and in many ways better,
as for example corporations are prevented from denying your freedom of speech.
The limitations the US corp. I worked for recently tried to put on employees
were laughably illegal in Germany. Yes, we are a bit down on Nazi symbols. Can
you guess why?

4\. I would like to see what happens to you in the US if you give the middle
finger to a police officer. Can you assert your 1st amendment rights from the
grave?

5\. "The first and second amendments of the U.S. are unlike very few In the
world." Actually the first is pretty common, with very slight alterations. The
second is uniquely US-American and, surprise, the US is a uniquely violent and
deadly place.

6\. _Statistically_ , you are about 10x more likely to get shot in the US than
you are in a Western European country. And at least 4x more likely to get
killed in a homicide. So no, the violence in the US is not made up by the
media, it is a statistical fact.

7\. Whereas the much publicized terror attacks in Europe are exactly what you
claim for the US, a statistical blip. They are only noticeable because (a)
those countries are so much less violent overall and (b) media coverage of
anything that can be counted as "terror" is of the charts.

8\. Not sure what you mean with "one of the worst gun massacres". The Charles
Hebdo attack? Sorry, that doesn't even crack the US top 10, and is not even a
day's worth of gun homicides in the US.

~~~
duckMuppet
1\. I didn't see her dual citizenship status. I'll hazard a guess that she's
using her U.S. passport though. I mentioned central America because she
mentioned Honduras, among other places before settling in Europe at some
point.. It's my understanding that one of the benefits of the new tax code
abomination recently signed was making it less painful to renounce citizenship
tax free. I'll wager that she won't though..

2\. I've lived in Germany for 8 years, Czech republic for 3, and a few shorter
stints in several other countries. That experience or lack thereof doesn't
preclude one from being able to make sound judgments or understand people. I
find that people who tend to sandbox someone in like that usually have a
deference to authority or to the "experts".

3\. The only speech that needs protecting is hate and offensive speech. If you
don't protect that, why bother with anything else, your safe so long as you
don't commit a thoughtcrime..

4\. I do think police brutality is starting to become an issue in the U.S. and
it's unfortunate because groups like antifa and BLM distract from a very real
issue that for many years, exacerbated under Bush, put on steroids under
Obama, and I can't imagine Cheeto Jesus actually helping this problem. When
you train cops like marines, dress them as marines, give them MRAPS and other
equipment from the wars in the middle East, I'm not sure how ppl can believe
they won't act as marines. On top of that, add in things like civil asset
forfeiture and there are problems. That being said, I can tell you I've seen
what the Polezei do if your simply under suspicion, or if you make some
mistake. I've literally seen them handcuff someone and wail on them with that
baton before taking them to jail for very little. And unlike the U.S., you're
generally not suing them to get fair recourse, you shut your face, literally.
However, in general, compared to some places, you can and for the most part do
live your day to day life without being taxed by the police.

5- again. It's not a problem for you, you seem to be ok with whatever speech
they have assigned to you. You think US is a uniquely violent and deadly
place, how many countries have you lived in, because I can assure you, you
don't say that after actually spending time in someplace that's truly violent
and deadly.. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, try living Mexico or Pakistan for a
few months. You'll literally worry about the police as much as much as you do
about being taken for ransom monies. Wonderful ppl though..

6- we all cherry pick datas. how about these:
[https://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-
us-...](https://crimeresearch.org/2016/01/compared-to-europe-the-us-falls-in-
rank-for-fatalities-and-frequency-of-mass-public-shootings-now-ranks-11th-in-
fatalities-and-12th-in-frequency/)

[https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-
still-o...](https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-
the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/)

[https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-...](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2016/tables/table-12)

The truth of it is we should probably ban cars if we are really serious about
saving innocent life Data is data, it says whatever you make it say..
statistically what they want to say.. Analysts invoke ahh number of methods to
statistically say what they want their intended audience wants to hear. Which
I find most silly, because people tend to hear What they want regardless of
what's actually said..

7- I'm not even sure what this means. But I can clearly see your doing the
same thing that you're accusing me of. I used to love living in Germany, and
still do (I'd give anything for a good doner kebop). But I always noticed a
widespread disdain for the Turks among my German friends though. To me it
seemed quite foolish and something I was never really able to wrap my head
around. But as I traveled even more, I realized, that most of western Europe
is quite homogenous in its race and ideas. I think this sets the U.S. apart
even further, and you can see many issues that are coming to head in Europe
denote the ethnic shifts in the countries. You can say what you like, I can
read as well.

8- those are different instances, as I said. My point with the Hebdo attack
was that it actually didn't happen.. The firearms allegedly used are banned
there. How could it possibly occur if it isn't actually possible because they
didn't have the firearms, it was literally fake news......... /sarc

The worst attack did occur in Europe, in recent history anyway. Feel free to
look it up...

The U.S. is changing. for better and for worse. We might be far more
ethnically diverse, but we have far less diversity of thought now, that is
really to its detriment I believe. And, as they implied in that podcast, more
and more politics and govt is becoming the religion and the god for those
without any belief system, and that is a dangerous path, that's what I see
historically anyway. Who knows. It's 2018, maybe that's all silly stuff from
the past.

~~~
eesmith
In 1. you wrote "I didn't see her dual citizenship status. I'll hazard a guess
that she's using her U.S. passport though."

She got her French citizenship in 2015, and according to the article visited
the US in 2017. US citizens are required to enter the US under a US passport.
Therefore yes, you are almost certainly correct that she is using her US
passport, at the very least to visit the US. Otherwise, there appears to be no
need for her to use it.

But .. so what? Would you change your mind if she _did_ renounce US
citizenship? And if so, why, and by how much?

She mentioned Honduras because after visiting there for a work-related trip
she decided she wanted to experience living in another culture. There was
nothing otherwise special about Honduras - to use your phrasing, I'll hazard
that had she instead been in Germany or the Czech Republic she would have had
the same thoughts.

She chose to first go to Guadeloupe, which is part of the EU, and then "the
Caribbean and Latin America."

In 3 you commented about US protections on government interference in free
speech. In 2, however, markoman pointed out that US companies expect to be
able to control employee speech which is "laughably illegal" German.

The threat of being fired, while not the same as being jailed, still has a
chilling effect on free speech. The more so in a place like the US where the
socialized "safety net" is rather weaker than in Germany.

5\. "with whatever speech they have assigned to you" .. I believe the
prohibitions on Nazi symbols in Germany was partially based on restrictions to
free speech imposed by the Allied powers, including the US.

Note that some speech - I'm thinking of speech which is the US is classified
as obscene - is more free in Germany than in the US.

7\. I don't understand your transition from terror attacks to German
discrimination against Turks. Yes, it's there. So what? How does that indicate
something which sets the US apart, given the long history of 'disdain' in the
US towards blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics - discrimination which
exists to this day, though no longer enshrined in the legal code.

You write most of Western Europe is "quite homogenous in its race and ideas"?

Could you define "race"? Does it mean something other than "has white skin"?
Eg, the traditional US viewpoint was that southern Italians were a different
race than northern Italians, the English were convinced of the superiority of
the Anglo-Saxon race, and of course there's also the Teutonic race, as in "The
realm of France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman and Teutonic
race" from Ivanhoe.

I don't understand why you think that Western Europe is more homogeneous in
its ideas than the US. That is, don't Western European also think Americans
are also homogeneous? Could you explain how you came to this conclusion?

Going back to your earlier comment concerning "tyranny of socialized govt",
hasn't the US been a socialized government since the New Deal? I can easily
find many people making that claim, and I think they are right. (I don't think
that's a bad thing either.) Or are you saying that that the US _is(
socialized, but it_ isn't* tyrannical about its socialized government, while
other European countries are?

------
fwn
This otherwise great article is interrupted by a native ad in favor of gun
control in the US.

While that might be a worthwhile goal as well, I do not get the need for both
sides to cram it into so many unrelated pieces.

~~~
wiredearp
It could be argued that shooting your classmates is not that different from
backstabbing your office colleguages in order to live out the american dream
of coming out on top of everyone else; or at least that is what this guy does
in [https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-
collapse-b...](https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse-
be04d9e55235).

~~~
fwn
Well, fair enough. The goal should be society mentally healthy enough so
people don't want to hurt each other.

I understand that people think about that as a technical problem (people hurt
through weapons, therefore decrease availability - problem solved) however
this is not solving the problem at all:

You wouldn't want a society of violent people who just never got the chance to
hurt others either.

The technicality of decreasing the availability of weapons (which, as said,
might as well be valid) feels so out of place in the article since the rest of
it is actually about culture.

It appears to me that the author points at a cultural problm and then
interrupts everything to feature this US gun thing.

------
holydude
I have just sold my 1m$ property to move from Europe to the US. Seriously
Europe is a fucked up place and I aint coming back.

