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   Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Feb-2025 17:19:59 JST Madeleine Morris

   To stay and fight or to leave?

   Who has a moral obligation to stay and fight for one's country?

   I've been pondering this question hard ever since Russia invaded Ukraine.

   I, like thousands and thousands of Europeans, offered up space in my house for refugees. But when I started getting a lot of applications from young single men, I refused them, prioritizing women, children and the elderly.

   But was that right? Was I, for instance, being sexist? Agist? I've chewed over this for a while. 1/

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     Flaki (flaki@flaki.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Feb-2025 17:19:57 JST Flaki

     in reply to

     @Remittancegirl I am a white affluent Hungarian living in Estonia. When (and ever since) I decided to leave my increasingly autocratic and repressive home country I have pondered the same: am I coward, for leaving, when I should be staying and fighting the regime? Ultimately, no satisfying conclusions here, either. On the one hand, when I left it was clear I was powerless to do anything more than showing up to vote every four years — why the regime had an outsized power over me, if I stayed (and I did not want to further legitimize and support it through my taxes paid on well-paying international tech jobs). I also didn't feel the rising tide of disenfranchised Hungarians rising up against the system; it feels like a sort of prisoners dilemma: it's hard to justify staying and fighting if you feel alone in that determination, which of course weakens the resistance even further.

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     Madeleine Morris (remittancegirl@mstdn.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Feb-2025 17:19:58 JST Madeleine Morris

     in reply to

     And I haven't come to any satisfying conclusions. I've seen a lot of Americans consider leaving their country out of disgust with Trump's administration. Some are people who are persecuted minorities with very pressing reasons. But many are middle class white people who simply have the resources to leave.

     It's entirely understandable not to want to live under fascism. But how do you end it if everyone leaves?

     I'm interested in hearing your views.

     Adrianna Tan repeated this.