> and relatively little friction if you decide to move to a state that better reflects them.

True when compared to emigrating to another country, which is much harder than most assume.

Moving is extremely disruptive if you have a lot of family and friends nearby, though. You go from having a huge community and social circle to almost nothing. Maybe some work friends to begin seeding a new social life, but everything has to be rebuilt.

This is why “if you don’t like it, you can leave” (the parent commenter didn’t claim this, I’m being it up separately) is not a good argument for tyrannical government decisions that get imposed on citizens of a location. They are invested in that place and have built lives there. Telling them to abandon it all and start over somewhere else is not a reasonable response. Some things have to be fought.

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Ajedi32 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Fair point, though I still think it's a pretty good backstop if the worst thing a tyrannical government can do to you is force you to move 100 miles.

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r14c 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For context, states within 100mi of Salt Lake City are:

- Wyoming

- Idaho

100mi doesn't get you into the population center of either state. the western US is BIG, really you're talking like 1k miles to get anywhere that's meaningfully different from utah. Depending on where you live in utah, that might not get you out of the state either.

	▲	lxgr an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Also, how high are the chances that these two states will never pass similar laws? As far as I can tell for similar laws (e.g. age verification), once one state moves ahead on some controversial issue and gets away with it at the Supreme Court level, others follow suit very quickly, and then your odds quickly go to 50:50 when you thought you were picking out the best of 50.
	▲	nostrademons 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Colorado is 150 miles away as the crow flies, and Nevada is 120 miles. It's true that both cases will get you to parts of the state that are probably more conservative than Salt Lake City, or in Nevada's case, have literally nothing there. But Boulder is about an 8 hour drive from Salt Lake City, and has a dramatically different culture and political climate. If you look at past instances of people fleeing political repression, most of them would be thrilled to be able to drive a day without crossing a national border and live in a completely different situation.

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magicalist 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Where are you moving to 100 miles from Salt Lake City?

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jermaustin1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I hate slipper slope arguments, but the march to tyranny is a very shallow slope of ice. Tomorrow it's "move 100 miles." Next year it's "pay $100 for the exit toll." In 2030 it's "we only allow 100 people to exit per day."

	▲	Ajedi32 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, this doesn't work in sovereign nations, only in federalism where there's a federal government that can guarantee some minimal set of freedoms to everyone (like the freedom to move to another state without impediment). Otherwise you just get the Berlin Wall.

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Barrin92 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The fact that moving is looked at this way, rather than as a chance for transformation is one of the biggest reasons for the current day malaise. Intra-country movement is in most of the developed world at an all time low, yet it's one of the most straight forward ways to change your life.

Culturally, especially in the US, the idea of packing up your bags, going somewhere else, or even to a new frontier used to be a big part of its appeal even and national identity. This isn't in contrast to fighting for things, in fact people do neither and that's probably related because both involve a level of risk and starting over that's now entirely foreign.

Especially in a world that is changing as fast as ours does now not being able or unwilling to start new or reinvent yourself is a big problem. It was the internal superpower of the US compared to other countries that it had so many people who were just willing to go and build a city, or even a state or a new religion somewhere just for the sake of it.