Yes, here too. The political and social climate of the US is changing fast, and getting ugly. Here's this week's news, and the reason my husband and I are staying up late checking property prices in Dunedin:
- a bid to make illegal the buying of property for the express purpose of [b:97a5e27cb6]not[/b:97a5e27cb6] developing it. (Dick Cheney brainchild.)
- local new 'sport' : Extreme Fighting, bare-knuckle boxing in a closed cage. Advertised seats 'well within blood-spatter zone': $65
- when Mr. Bush visited the next town over in October, the security guards used pepper spray and plastic bullets on a crowd that included old men, women, children, as well as able-bodied non-soldiers. They were holding protest signs, silently.
- housing prices in this town have risen 300% in the past 5 years.
- a Democracy Now forum in town drew the obvious interest of the CIA and the FBI. Worrisome.

We're not radical left-wingers, we're just concerned business owners. Racism is expanding, the rift between rich and poor gets bigger. There are, frankly, more civilized places to live. We're hoping that NZ is one of them. Sure, there is an unpleasant, belligerantly ignorant element everywhere. But here, it seems, it's becoming normalized.

The draw specifically to NZ is not just the similar climate and language, but the sense that we get that NZ is safer, more open-minded, with less of the uproar that's going on here. Like Jon said, we just don't fit in here anymore. NZ has all that we want: university towns, beaches, hotrodders, Quakers, Buddhists, opportunities. The things that draw us are also the things that NZ [i:97a5e27cb6]doesn't[/i:97a5e27cb6] have: the death penalty, a high crime rate, rampant industrialism, etc.

So, if we had our way, we'd be emigrating as soon as possible.
Thanks for listening!

- Phantasm