A common response to people planning to leave is “you shouldn’t go, you need to stay and fight!”.

But what does this “fighting” look like?

For me, staying and fighting brings to mind what the Estonian “Forest Brothers” did under the Soviet occupation: they had lost the war, but kept on fighting guerrilla style. They took their guns and went into hiding in the forests.

They didn’t want to surrender to the clearly illegal Soviet regime (knowing they would almost certainly be killed if they did), and decided to rather kill or be killed. In this, they were successful in a way – they were able to keep up their resistance for over a decade.

While that is a very noble mindset, I hope those times don’t return. Those scenarios may make for great stories, but it would be a very brutal way of existence, regardless of what side you’re on. Certainly not something to hope for!

Fighting with guns is a non-starter

I think it’s more or less fair to say that the fight against socialism has been lost in most western countries. The state is taken over by socialist-minded forces. You can vote socialism in, but you can’t vote it out. That “war” is lost.

This isn’t a fight you can fight with guns. The socialism (whatever name you call it, that’s what it is) works through the machine of bureaucracy, and shooting the bureaucrats and state workers (such as police) would only be murder – plain and simple. These are just your fellow countrymen trying to make a living, and shooting them would clearly solve absolutely nothing.

Same goes for all violent approaches – it’s just a non-starter, both because it would be very quickly quelled by the state, and even if you could hope for some limited “success” (some kind of rebellion), it would not change anything because people would be against you.

The majority of the people want this level socialism, and you can’t use violence to change their minds.

What is meant by fighting?

For this reason, I don’t understand the use of the word “fight”. Or I do, in a way, in the realm of ideas (that’s what I’m doing right here!).

If you fight in the realm of ideas, what use is there to “stay and fight”? How is your staying helping in that fight?

Sure, perhaps in theory you could try to talk to people face to face, but I don’t think this is what people mean when they say “stay and fight”. Even if you did, the average person really doesn’t care when you try to talk to them about politics. It’s not a very effective way of fighting, and can quickly become counter-productive!

In practice, all I see is “stay and whine” – the stayers whining (mostly online) to people who are actually doing something practical: improving their lives by moving.

So next time you ask others to stay and fight, please be specific. Fight how? If you can’t define what “the fight” actually looks like, you’re whining, not fighting.

Withdraw your support of the regime by leaving

Staying means implicit acceptance of whatever is given to you from above. It is a very strong message (a “vote”, if you like) that whatever is going on in your country is actually ok for you. Your fighting should be meaningful enough to counteract this acceptance. Is it?

If you mean fighting by voting in elections, you should be aware that you can do that even if you live abroad permanently.

You might want to vote with a more effective method, a method that has a clear, immediate and effective impact – vote with your feet. Don’t stay and whine, move and prosper!