"His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.'"
So I circumnavigated America. I flew via Madrid, managing to beat the rest of my family to Mexico by 45 minutes; and yet I still seethe. It’s not just the stupidity of the rule that gets me. It’s the arrogance. What other country insists that because you can be one of its nationals, then you must be one of its nationals? Imagine if we told all British-born Americans that they could not arrive in this country except by use of a British passport. I haven’t seen anything so insanely possessive since the negotiations on the Common Fisheries Policy, when the Irish used to claim that the cod stocks of the Atlantic were still Irish in their fishy souls, even though they had long since emigrated to Portuguese waters.
As far as I can interpret the psychology of the rule, which has only been applied since 9/11, it is part of America’s new them-and-us mentality, the Manichaean division of the world into Americans and non-Americans, obliterating any category in between. Listen, buddy, the Americans seem to be saying. You got a right to be American? Then you do us the courtesy of travelling on the world’s number one passport when you come here. What you got to be ashamed of, boy?
I can tell you this: the American tourist industry and airlines will lose a lot of business if a lot of accidental Americans have to circumnavigate the US. This is dumb, dumber, and dumbest. I too seethe.
In an earlier post, I argued against renunciationguide.com that there is indeed a right of expatriation enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Now I believe that I’ve found the same right in the United States Constitution–the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Now since the American Revolution was the colonists’ major assertion of the right to expatriate from Britain and the King of England, it only makes sense that the Ninth Amendment must be interpreted as protecting that same right in the case of anyone who wishes to expatriate from the United States.
The United States government is acting like a trapped animal in a desperate attempt to keep capital in the United States. The New Berlin Wall consists of the various laws, many of them recent, which attempt to force American citizens and companies to keep their capital in the United States. But instead of having success, these laws will cause many to leave permanently, with no intention of ever returning. It will eventually result in a mass exodus if the U.S. doesn’t begin to implement measures that tries to entice capital to stay rather than measures that try to stop it from leaving. The exodus of capital is already occurring.
A reader responded to my first New Berlin Wall with the following comment, which I edited to protect her and myself from a rapacious evil government (I’ve changed the identity of her country to X and omitted her name):
I am in the exact same situation as you. I have lived in X for thirty years. I have been told by the IRS when I call as I have been a stay at home mom of a disable X-IAN child that I did not have to file since I did make enough to file but, that I might want to fine and use my husband *who claims me as a dependent** income, he is X-IAN. I do not have to file her as “American for tax purposes” but, was told I could. Why would I want to do that?
My health is not good and this is such a royal pain. It is exceedingly confusing. This year I inherited some money when my mother passed away. I will of course report it but, it’s right in the middle of this U.S. tax change for citizens residing in other countries. …
Why should people of lower middle income be subjected to this after living outside the country for so long. I no longer have any desire to be American because of these draconian practices. It puts such hardship on law abiding citizens. I want to renounce. The stress of it all is too much. I am only worried about being able to visit my family in the U.S. occasionally but, have no desire what so ever to EVER live there again.
Shame on you United States for this monetary slavery. We are not rich and my husbands income supports me *I have lupus and RA* AND my son with disabilities. Now you want me to feel like I’m a servant to you though I’ve done nothing wrong. This puts such a hardship on people.
I have already applied for my X-ian citizenship, I want to renounce American citizenship and not be penalized for traveling on my X-IAN passport. Thirty years of not living in the U.S. and we still have to contend with this ridiculousness.
Of course now that I will be travelling on Canadian passport, I can still visit the US but I can’t reside there any more. But expatriation and the relinquishing of my US citizenship is what I had to do to avoid the stupid and draconian legislation against Americans who live outside the country. The government is attempting to stop millionaires from expatriating their capital and is instead making life hell for stay-at-home mothers. Shame on you indeed.
That’s a really good idea. Now I have another. Let’s build a really high wall at all of the land borders and post guards with machine guns to keep Americans who owe taxes from leaving the country.
Leftists always claim to be on the side of victims, the poor, and the marginalized. Often these so-called victims are criminals, the worst elements of our society, who are sociopathic in behavior, e.g., substance abusers, and are unable to function in normal society. Some Christian leftists claim that since Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor”, these poor are the true church. They are the focal point of God’s love and care, not the “rich”. And you, because you are middle-class or “rich”, you belong to the oppressors. It doesn’t matter how many good jobs you provide and how many families depend on you, you are an abuser.
When you turn the tables on these leftists and claim, “I am a victim”, they ignore you, mock you, claiming that you are an extremist or mentally ill. But those of us who pay taxes are being robbed regularly by government. We work hard and we risk our capital, and the government expects its pound of flesh and strips us of our wealth, and then gives it to the “poor”–such as the banksters or the people who refuse to get a job and call their welfare cheque their “pension”. This is abuse and we are oppressed victims. We are like the people in biblical times called the Am haEretz, the people of the land, who were oppressed by Roman tax collectors.
Consider that Charlie Engle went to prison for mortgage fraud while not a single bankster went to jail. I’d sure love to put my mortgage broker in jail, but I’m sure he’s still free. I won’t mention his name to protect the guilty, but he received over $5000 in fees for his claim that my brother’s business could earn more than three times its historical cash-flow in SBA loan papers for a commercial building that he couldn’t afford. As my brother’s partner, I lost a lot of money on that deal. Yet Engle goes to jail, and the big fraudsters are free. And so are the Congressmen who pass the unjust laws and receive sweet-heart loans from the banksters.
Today I read an essay on “Morality and the IRS” which claimed that many people are so frightened and demoralized by their treatment at the hands of IRS that they commit suicide. Indeed, it doesn’t take long to find stories to that effect. Joe Stack who flew his plane into a IRS building in Austin, TX, left a public suicide note explaining that the IRS drove him to self murder–and the leftists who run the media call those who sympathize with Stack “extremists in the patriot movement“. One IRS agent testified to the Senate Finance Committee in 1997 that she knew of at least five suicides but thought that the number could be much higher. If the IRS threatens a person with prison and fines, or steals from their bank accounts and garnishes their pay cheques, then it can really cause a lot of domestic havoc, marital discord, and personal suffering. I know. My own wife is tired of hearing of my woes and is not above threatening me. Such tribulations could lead the weak among us to Selbstmord.
The socialists want this. They want big government that takes care of us cradle-to-grave. They begrudge even our little savings accounts, such as the TFSA, where we are allowed to gain interest without taxation–even though the pathetic returns from interest accounts don’t even keep up with organized government robbery called “inflation”. And yet government does a very bad job of providing services, and we would be much better off if they would just get off our backs and let us fend for ourselves.
The IRS–and probably every other revenue service in the world–is no better than the mafia. Consider that American citizens are required to pay taxes to the USA no matter where in the world that they happen to live. Non-residents cannot receive US healthcare, grants, education, or whatever the service might happen to be, because they don’t even live in the United States. But this taxation is justified because they receive “protection” from the US government. It makes me think of how Richie Aprile offers protection to Beansie (See video below: viewer discretion is advised because of foul language and violence). Yeah, the US government has the right to tax me here in Canada because it is protecting me from all the bad guys out there who want to harm me or steal from me. Wait a second, the only ones who are constantly threatening me work for the government. You see! The government has become a criminal organization and I am victim. Well, excuse me IRS sirs. I am now under the protection of Canadian organized crime. In order to make that clear, I’ve lost my right to live in the United States of America. Poor Beansie, Tony Soprano didn’t protect him from Richie. Hopefully, the Canadian mob boss will do a better job for me.
The Righteous Investor 