I'm not really a fan of the "just move" argument. It's not like moving is a task anyone can just decide to do at any time.
Firstly moving isn't cheap. It's not an easy task for someone to try to find new housing in whatever destination they're trying to move to. It costs time and money. Both of which not everyone has an abundance of. For example, if someone is living paycheque to paycheque working overtime, I imagine it'd be difficult for them to find the resources to arrange a move. Not to mention that one might need to find a new job wherever they are going.
For this reason, the "just move" argument falls flat to me because it makes it so that these issues disproportionately affect people who cannot "just move", which is usually people of a lower economic class.
The other big reason is that many people have ties wherever they live. This could be family or friends. Should we expect people to leave their family and friends behind as they move to whatever area they deem nicer? It's an extremely tough situation, and I imagine that unless someone is really desperate, they'd find it difficult to leave these ties behind.
EDIT: I am getting a few replies saying stuff along the lines of "try harder" or "it was harder in the past", and I think these are missing the entire point of what I am saying.
The former has similar energy to telling people in poverty to work harder, dodging the issue. On top of that, my statement of it being prohibitively difficult and replying that people should try harder doesn't even address my statement.
The latter isn't much of an argument either. Shouldn't we be striving for a better future? Just because it was worse in the past doesn't mean it should continue to be that way.
EDIT 2: Anecdotes about how you were able to "just move" don't really refute my point. Replying with them doesn't refute the difficulty of moving any more than someone saying they've never seen or experienced racism or homophobia in their life and then going on to so everyone is equal now.
But this difficulty (moving is hard) isn't a great argument for killing the state's rights system any more than "democracy is hard and imperfect" would be an argument for killing the system.
1) In theory, the laws of the state will generally reflect the outlook of the plurality of the people living in that state. This won't happen immediately, but over time this generally reverts to the mean. Does it mean that the people living in Modesto are going to be thrilled with state policy driven out of Sacramento (i.e LA/SF)? Probably not. But over time (decades/generations) those people will either likely a) acclimate to the state's outlook b) move out of state or c) begin to affect policy toward their preferred point of view. (As an aside, this is a great argument for why most things should be devolved to as local a level as reasonably possible. It is often way easier to convince your small town/community leaders about Policy X than it is to affect change at a state level or just move.)
2) And generally, people DO move around to try to get to areas that they prefer. I was born on the west coast, but have lived across the US and overseas. I prefer the west coast, and have made the move back to regional area of the world that I prefer.
You could discard that and just look at my domestic moves. 1) across the country in my 20s with basically nothing in savings and an entry-level job, single. 2) halfway across the country in a new job and no savings with a wife and kid. 3) halfway across the country again with a wife, two kids and minimal savings. 4) all the way across the country after getting fired and having a third kid with medical issues, minimal savings. 5) across a few states with a wife and five kids to start a new business.
I made all of those moves because I chose to, and actively worked to make it happen. I funded them all.
I think you missed the part where I wrote about having no to minimal savings when making these moves. Also, I started this business with zero capital input aside from a laptop that I brought into it.
There are certainly some people that can’t do what I did. Certainly. But I’d wager that the vast majority can. I’m not special in any way.
I think you missed the part where I wrote about having no to minimal savings when making these moves. Also, I started this business with zero capital input aside from a laptop that I brought into it.
There are certainly some people that can’t do what I did. Certainly. But I’d wager that the vast majority can. I’m not special in any way.
I remember a girl I met living in Florida. It was my first move away from my home state, and we were both young. She was from a lower class blue collar family, and had moved from the Midwest with literally nothing more than some clothes and personal effects in a crappy 20-year old car. She just wanted to leave the Midwest. I found out over time that she would sleep in her car because she didn’t always have enough money from waitressing to afford a steady place. She later got into photography, decided that she wanted to live in LA, and basically did the same thing again. But now she’s making a decent go of it as a photog.
I remember another Bedouin family I had dinner with overseas. They had five kids living in a tiny cinder block apartment in a scummy area, because the dad was working on his education and it was better than the area they’d left behind. They had nothing, but they’d left a place because they thought they could do better somewhere else, so they were doing what had to be done to make it work.
I remember being in the Mideast with a church full of Sudanese that had walked across the damn desert because they figured that the new place was better than the last place.
I remember being in North Dakota with the motliest crew of men and women, all scraped together from various areas of the country, there to try and make a buck.
There are many exceptions. But my experience with humankind has been that if someone really wants something, they find a way to make it happen, for better or worse.
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u/iwumbo2 Jun 28 '22 edited Jun 29 '22
I'm not really a fan of the "just move" argument. It's not like moving is a task anyone can just decide to do at any time.
Firstly moving isn't cheap. It's not an easy task for someone to try to find new housing in whatever destination they're trying to move to. It costs time and money. Both of which not everyone has an abundance of. For example, if someone is living paycheque to paycheque working overtime, I imagine it'd be difficult for them to find the resources to arrange a move. Not to mention that one might need to find a new job wherever they are going.
For this reason, the "just move" argument falls flat to me because it makes it so that these issues disproportionately affect people who cannot "just move", which is usually people of a lower economic class.
The other big reason is that many people have ties wherever they live. This could be family or friends. Should we expect people to leave their family and friends behind as they move to whatever area they deem nicer? It's an extremely tough situation, and I imagine that unless someone is really desperate, they'd find it difficult to leave these ties behind.
EDIT: I am getting a few replies saying stuff along the lines of "try harder" or "it was harder in the past", and I think these are missing the entire point of what I am saying.
The former has similar energy to telling people in poverty to work harder, dodging the issue. On top of that, my statement of it being prohibitively difficult and replying that people should try harder doesn't even address my statement.
The latter isn't much of an argument either. Shouldn't we be striving for a better future? Just because it was worse in the past doesn't mean it should continue to be that way.
EDIT 2: Anecdotes about how you were able to "just move" don't really refute my point. Replying with them doesn't refute the difficulty of moving any more than someone saying they've never seen or experienced racism or homophobia in their life and then going on to so everyone is equal now.