Some folks here, especially Steven J. Mopsick, our beloved former litigator for the IRS who has now turned advocate for fairness and justice for Americans abroad, have really wanted to stop the Isaac Brock Society from going off the deep tangent of drawing analogies between the United States and Nazi Germany. Finally, as an editor and administrator here at Isaac Brock Society, I have to agree: Everybody, please stop it!
That felt good. It is always good when you feel that you are in control and can order people around!
Meanwhile, I got to thinking about my recent comment at Outraged’s eloquent post “Me, I’m a moderate”. I said there that the first step in a pogrom of course is not genocide but identifying the target of persecution. The Nazis made Jews to wear yellow stars. I once read if I’m not mistaken in a Paul Johnson novel, The History of the Modern World, that many Jews were essentially assimilated to Europe, having forgotten about their Jewishness until Hitler abruptly reminded them that they were not Arian. He then made them wear yellow stars.
This gave
me an excellent idea for Americans abroad. We could design a badge similar to the six-pointed yellow star, but this would help the banks overseas to identify US persons. Then, when an American walks into an FFI (Foreign Financial Institution) it’s easier for the bank to determine who is an US person who needs to be singled out by the FATCA law, and who are your ordinary natives and residents from every other country in the world, such as China, Bangledesh, UK, Ireland, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Uganda, Kenya, India, Indonesia (well, you get the picture). It really is very difficult to identify and treat Americans differently, if they are hiding behind a foreign passport or if they have assimilated into their countries of residence. Just as some Jews didn’t speak German with a Yiddish accent, some Americans living in Canada speak English with a Canadian accent, eh? And so they are virtually undetectable without actually making them take their pants down so that you can see if they have a “Property of the United States Government” tush tattoo.
As a former American in possession of Certificate of Loss of Nationality, I should have to wear one too. After all, my birth in Chicago taints me, just as something like a million Canadians: border babies (those born in a US hospital), accidental Americans, children and grandchildren of Americans, and obvious tax cheats like Peter Dunn who escaped to Canada, not to study and marry a Canadian, but to avoid paying US taxes. Really, American citizenship is irrevocable, and the tax-free status of a citizens of 195 other countries is something which should elude American citizens forever. So here is my design for the star, and it is easily printable and clipable: Y’all can just print a few hundred copies each (don’t forget to pay royalties, see below–this is an honour system), clip them out and give them to your friends for distribution. While US persons should have to wear them at all the times so that they can be subject to special treatment when walking on the street, shopping, or renting an apartment, it should be a capital crime in all countries in the world not to wear one of these when entering an FFI. Now if we all just volunteer to wear this star, it would save the FFIs millions of dollars in identification software, questionnaires and FATCA advertising.
All copyrights and patent rights reserved. Designed by Petros Research Inc. Please send to all Foreign Financial Institutions but insist that if they decided to use my design that they pay all royalties to Petros Research Inc. ($0.50 CDN per use).
“Just as some Jews didn’t speak German with a Yiddish accent, some Americans living in Canada speak English with a Canadian accent, eh?”
Can native speakers tell the difference between Americans and Canadians when they speak? If it weren’t for the Canadian flags that many attach to their rucksacks or suitcases, I would have had no idea who was Canadian and who was American during a recent holiday I just took.
I will use this space to regretfully take my leave of the Isaac Brock Society for the very same reasons so many others have well-articulated during the past week. Unless there is a change of leadership as was suggested, I think a really good movement has been high jacked here, and until there is a change, any message to the world coming out of IBS is going to be met with extreme skepticism and the question, “isn’t the IBS the group that started out capturing the cache of a great Canadian patriot but got side-tracked and downgraded into an “anything goes” “let it all hang out” screed?”
Please excuse one last attempt to talk about a legal concept which might be helpful here. The idea of the right to free speech relates to the government’s infringement of the people’s right to express their views. It has nothing to do with the way a web site conducts itself nor does it relate to the efforts of good-willed people to direct popular discourse away from bad manners, bad judgment, ignorance, and just plain poor taste.
There is a long track record now, if not a pattern of mean-spirited conduct over the past year on this website, with the “Bobby” Fischer “interview,” hilarious spoofs about the Fuhrer, and now the nauseating notion (as Blaze put it) that there is some kind of moral equivalency between the forced-wearing of a Jewish star during the Nazi era and the present efforts of the U.S. government in the international tax enforcement area.
I will continue to fight for tax justice for Americans abroad and common sense for recent immigrants to the United States and I will continue to speak out when I see obvious ignorance about how the government works but I will do so on my own blog and elsewhere.
Respectfully submitted,
30 Year IRS Vet
I am sure that we are all sorry to see you take your leave. You have clearly stated your reasons and it is no secret that there are others for whom this one issue has been the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
One thing that I would like to say though in defense of the analogy that has been drawn between the U.S.’s citizenship based taxation and Fascism is that I believe a lot of the objection to the comparison is based upon a false assumption that some how the U.S. is made of different stuff.
We see this in the continuing animosity that exist between the U.S. and Russia and in the constant refrain that is uttered on U.S. exceptionalism. What Americans don’t seem to want to acknowledge is that we are all made of the same “stuff”. The Russians aren’t evil because they are Russians. And the Americans aren’t good because they are American. Evil resides equally in us all. And if you give the tools of repression to evil men then they will use those tools of repression no matter how inherently virtuous they may believe themselves to be.
U.S. citizenship based taxation is a tool of repression that crushes the liberties of the individual with as great of a certainity as has any other repressive regime in human history. If I cannot get a mortgage so that I can refinance my house then the only way that I will be able to get out from under that debt is if I sell my house. But citizenship based taxation may even prevent that because even to sell the house I will need a bank to facilitiate the purchase. In the end my house is now worthless to me and I will be lucky to get whatever I can get.
America has done little but to change the way in which it is bringing about the despoiling of our property and lives. In the end the U.S.’s hands only “appear to be clean. Anyone who is willing to connect the chain of causality will easily see that it starts in Congress.
Tyranny comes via many avenues.
@ Mr. Mopsick, thanks for your participation in the past. However, your mischaracterization of our discussion has not been helpful and it has ultimately been hurtful in creating an echo chamber in which certain people like you want to create false boundaries for the discussion.
You do mention that a couple people (you said though “so many others”) who have contributed to and benefited from this blog are now leaving. But we have stayed true to our intentions. This blog has not been hijacked at all. Though YOU have tried to hijack, and make it into something it is not, you have ultimately failed.
I am happy to have added the blogger Joe Smith who made the Hitler spoof. He writes under an alias like a lot of us out of fear of the IRS. You have made sure that fear is present at Isaac Brock Society by saying that the IRS reads this blog and is waiting to pounce on people who want to resist them. I had to stand up for Joe Smith, as I did for Renounce when he put up the Bobby Fischer video (not as an endorsement but for reference purposes), and for Jefferson D. Tomas, who placed O’Keefe video in a comment (again for reference with an explicit non-endorsement); ultimately this particularly thread arises out of defense of Joe Smith’s spoof and is an attempt to show why it is fair to compare the marking out of Jewish people in Nazi Germany and FATCA requirement that Americans be singled out as customers of foreign banks.
Your government has committed severe injustices against my people. You come here as one who continues to benefit from an IRS pension and now as litigator defending victims within the system. Ultimately, you are sucking from the teat of the system, and you are not an impartial judge of our suffering. So please, when you are out there talking to folks, if this blog gets brought up, you will please refrain from saying we’ve gone off the deep end, and say rather, that we are suffering from the heavy-handed treatment of the United States Federal Government. But I am glad that you say you will continue to work towards justice. I wish you the best of luck at that.
Finally, save your accusations of mean-spiritedness to the people who really have been mean spirited: Douglas Shulman, Timothy Geithner, and Barack Obama. The many people who have said to me, “Don’t let the door hit you in ass on your way out.” Who have called me and others here a traitors and a tax cheats. We are not being mean spirited here. We are defending the rights of the victims.
*Stephen, Thank you for your contributions. I support your decision to withdraw. Cheers.
Queen of Surrey.
Mopsick wrote: “…that there is some kind of moral equivalency between the forced-wearing of a Jewish star during the Nazi era and the present efforts of the U.S. government in the international tax enforcement area.” See this is what I mean about being insensitive to the victims. The victims are saying that we are being set apart for special treatment and have become second-class citizens, persona non grata, in our countries of residence and in most cases our countries of citizenship. Then, an American who worked for the abuser, the IRS, comes on here and tells us that this IS NOT like what happened in Nazi Germany, because WE are just trying to enforce our international tax laws (which are, by the way, an abusive violations of Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and we haven’t killed anyone (yet). So we are not being Nazis.
How is anyone supposed to fulfill the vow “Never again” if anyone who makes an analogy to what happened in Nazi Germany is immediately confronted with: “You can’t say that. That’s off limits.” For crying out loud.
My question is not what people say today, but what will historians say in 50 years from now? Oh, some Brockers saw it coming, but no one took them seriously. Or, some Brockers showed that it was like the yellow star and other cases of singling out people, and so the US change course and avoided a disaster. How do you stop the insane leaders in the United States from implementing this asinine policy without showing them in vivid terms how what they are doing is actually criminal and a step towards strengthening the police state?
Don Pomodoro – Canadian “accent” does not exist as a single thing. Think of a country that is roughly 4000 miles long and 100 miles wide. This then becomes much more a matter of east-west segments, with continuities crossing the border southward. The only really striking native English-language distinctive I have ever noticed in Canada is people from Newfoundland, readily identifiable, and that was years ago. On a recent first visit there, not so noticeable! Scattered words and phrases do not constitute an accent. What genetic modification is doing to plant diversity, global media is doing to regional accents everywhere. I have also encountered an interesting thesis that the future of English may resemble what was one the future of Latin, to fragment into mutually incomprehensible varieties. I have experienced a degree of this in dealing with offshored call centers, where obviously educated people thought they could understand what I was saying, though it became clear to me that they simply could not. Partly accent, but more a matter of syntax and lexicon.
Curiosity is about to attempt a landing on Mars tonight but I think that where curiosity is more needed at this time is in the land of its launch. Unfortunately curiosity will not darken the doorstep of those who refuse to welcome it. Too many Americans appear unwilling to look for touchy topics like US extra-territorial tax tyranny (perhaps due to misdirection from mainstream media) and should they ever happen to begin to explore the problem they are too quick to retreat when they detect a different perspective than their own and heaven forbid if the manner of expression is not to their liking as well. It’s regrettable because without curiosity and a better developed sense of injustice in a preponderance of the population I see little chance to advance towards a saner tax system. That being said, I have sympathy for people who are desperately trying to keep their heads above water right now because they have neither the time nor the stamina to explore whatever has created the flood waters they find themselves in. That’s why it’s such a good thing there are people here at IBS willing to devote their time and energy to take on the myriad of problems arising from US tax policy, no matter what direction they come from. Of course, it’s always sad to see people drop out of the fray but everyone is free to do so. At least they are better equipped to proceed on their own having gleaned so much valuable information from this site.
Move along , nothing to see here.
How did the Nazis know if you were Jewish:
Finally,I see that Steven is right. Suspected Americans don’t have to produce a certificate of baptism to prove, but a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.
Here another site:
Peter: cut the drama! As Patty Loveless once sang, “you can feel bad if it makes you feel better.” You just don’t gety it Old Pal: I am talking about your manners! Your bad judgment! and now with your last two posts, you really sound like a raving moron!
I hate to take the gloves off here Old Pal but you should really think about giving it a break. Get back to THE MESSAGE: CITIZENSHIP BASED TAXATION IS UNFAIR AND AMERICANS ABROAD ARE THE UNINTENDED VICTIMS OF THE BANK SECRECY ACT AND FATCA.
Your “man the barricades!!” approach had great cachet in the beginnng but its a little old now. And as far as the IRS is concerned, in its slow behomoth way, it actually published a couple of things in this area (the “low compliance risk” thing and something about Candadian pensions) which show there might be someone paying attention at 1111 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington.
Recall that I offered to work FOR FREE FOR YOU and help draft a response to a letter which everyone agreed could be viewed as an invitation for a dialogue between the Isaac Brock Society and the White House.
You were supposed to get in touch with me but you never did, apparently because you thought there was more bang for the buck by hitting the top of a garbage can in an alley somewhere screaming about Hitler.
Please also recall Sir, that I offered to represent FOR FREE, any Canadian in a nursing home who was being harrassed by the IRS for failing to register her bank accounts with the IRS but I havent heard from anyone yet. Could that be because its your bluff being called this time…….? I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
Seriously Dude, chill…. why don’t you take a leave of absence and let someone else take over a great cause for a while..Come back to us when you feel better…
Respectfully submitted,
30 Year IRS Vet
@ Steven, welcome back. Sorry, I have uncouth manners. I grew up in the state of Alaska where we have to kill our meat. Calling me a raving moron, that’s polite. Cheers.
*@30 Year IRS Vet
I would like to thank you for your contributions made to myself and, no doubt, others who will visit this site in the future (and will find your words) when they come here seeking direction. The responses you have made to various participants’ questions, as well as to my own, have provided a grounding to those of us who are still in the midst of trying to get clarity as to how to proceed through what can feel like a mine field; wanting to move forward while at the same time fearing that one might set off an unfortunate chain of events that can have a life altering impact on those who we love most. I am grateful that you added your voice of reason to this forum’s discussions and am saddened that you will be leaving because I think it will be a significant loss.
I am heartened by your words that you will continue to fight for tax justice for recent immigrants and Americans abroad; and, you are better placed in position to have influence having been an “insider”. I hope that your continued efforts to advocate for justice will help turn the tide of a government policy that, I believe, is reactionary and fear based and will ultimately cause great harm both to itself, it’s citizens, and immigrants.
Gratefully submitted; and, all the best to you and your loved ones.
Therapist604
Good point, Steve. I’ve been wondering, too, if Brock’s presence has played a role in those changes at IRS because they know their victims are getting organised.
That relates to something I posted earlier today about the importance of communication and presentation:
And thanks again for your offer of professional help on those issues you mentioned.
Which reminds me that I believe Brock really has the potential to make a difference. We’re obviously having growing pains this weekend, but with all the resources we are all bringing to the table, I really think theUS
I probably shouldn’t say anything, since I haven’t been here much except as a lurker.
But I liked this site. Petros, I learned a lot from you, and while I’m about as far removed as possible from you politically, I admire your combativeness, even if the partisanship has made me reluctant to participate. Thank you.
I’m not an apologist for the U.S. I don’t travel there, I don’t have any money there, and I don’t cross-border shop – and that was the case long before this tax and citizenship situation blew up. Bluntly, I have never wanted anything to do with the U.S., and at the moment, that’s my problem. Even so, I think that Steven Mopsick’s contributions – along with the threads on U.S. impingements on other countries’ sovereignty – were a large part of what made this site so valuable. (Partisan U.S. politics and reflexive anti-tax activism, not so much.)
I’m not a conspiracy theorist; I don’t believe this site has been infiltrated, but just for argument, say that an unscrupulous PR firm charged with selling FATCA to the Canadian public came across this site. They saw that it was gaining traction, and they wanted to destroy its credibility. I don’t think they’d do that by assigning astro-turfers to recommend civility and attention to the sorts of rhetoric that might effectively win over a sceptical readership. It would be far more effective to nudge things towards positions that would make people who stumbled on this site, and who would otherwise be sympathetic and engaged by the issue of U.S. extra-territorialism, dismiss it without further investigation.
Or, in fewer words: I agree with Pacifica’s comments on another thread about the importance of not alienating a huge body of potential allies because of how the central message about the damaging effects of FATCA is being presented.
Over and out – but still, with many, many thanks for what I’ve learned.
*One problem is it is difficult to determine what exactly the final “goal” should be. For example if a constant and consistent effort was made over the next few months as to why from a law enforcement perspective it is necessary for US citizens outside the country to file an FBAR next year on June 30th (Remember the IRS now has form 8836 which has a $250,000 exemption for overseas citizens) I suspect you could have a very good shot at getting the FBAR filing requirement eliminated before the next one is due. Now the problem is whether that is good “enough.” My answer is no it isn’t but do you want the pursuit of perfection to over take everything else. I guess that is the question.
@Tim- nothing else than perfection will do. Exemptions, deductions, exclusions, must all be done away with. Citizenship based taxation must be done away with. The U.S. government must acknowledge that it has absolutely NO jurisdiction over the treasury issuances of another country.
The U.S. treasury takes absolutely no, responsibility, for the treasury notes that we use and our government services are not valued in U.S. dollars. So we derieve neither and active nor a passive benefit whatsoever from the existence of the U.S. Treasury. It is the responsibility of the U.S. Congress to acknowledge this fact and it is only this acknowledgement that will do.
We cannot be made to live as play things at the end of the Congressional string while the IRS bats us around.
*to all who have expressed kind words on this thread and others, I will be responding to you personally on my blog in the days ahead.
*recalcitrant
The point I am making is for a lot of people who are sole US citizens and/or can’t/don’t want to renounce for all sorts of various reasons not having to file an FBAR(and the penalties going along with it) next year would be of considerable help. I don’t think for them in all or nothing position that results in nothing would be desirable. I don’t think that should be an end goal but I have to say the odds of completely eliminating citizenship based taxation prior to June 30th 2013 are extremely low. Banging on garbage cans ala Pauline Marois(something only Canadians will get) I don’t think will increase the odds. With sustained effort something like eliminating the FBAR prior to June 30th 2013 I think is very well possible. Maybe I am completely wrong.
*30 Year IRS Vet
As others have done I want to thank you for your comments and input. Thanks
Tim
I think that everyone is making a good point. It is very important that people are able to express themselves, such expressions can lead to controversies and controversies may help or weaken a cause. Which is better or worse, is hard to say. Angering some may win friends with others. The loss of a few may result in the gain of many, or vice versa.
In the case of Nazis and Stars, do a google on “Nazi” and “Arab” or “Palestinian” or “Arafat”. One will quickly see that many Jews, Zionists or pro-Israelis frequently and eagerly resort to Nazi comparisons for their political purposes. This is nothing new. It’s not a unique activity. If such is wrong, then why do so many do it and where is the opposition to such? I agree with the ADL that it is best to avoid Nazi comparisons to not offend some Jews (not all Jews are offended with such), but what I fail in seeing is any serious action being taken against the many Jews, Zionists or pro-Israelis who are making Nazi-comparisons for political purposes. So, for those who are upset with this thread, please, by all means, do everything possible to combat all Nazi-comparisons including those made by some Jews, some Zionists and some pro-Israelis. Until then, all of the complaining in this thread on the topic is pointless and hypocritical. Everyone has or should have the right to be a Jew or to act like one!
When I went to the banks the other day, I felt like a Jew being discriminated against for wearing a star, and if I’m evil or wrong for that, then sue me.
@Petros at 5:06 PM. Wow.
Who is dictating the terms of discussion and discourse? Steven Mopsick, a guest who has taken a lot of abuse and repeatedly come back? Who started out as someone pretty adamantly opposed to the notion that expats are abused, and now believes that they have genuine cause to feel aggrieved?
Or you, who relentlessly criticized him during the past week?
The answer is pretty clear to me.
Another thing.(I don’t yet know how to quote from a post.)
“Your government has committed severe injustices against my people.”
How egotistical. I am not one of ‘your people’. I did not appoint you, literally or figuratively, as my leader. I am an adult of sound mind, perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I do not need you to show me the way out of the wilderness into the promised land nor do I want you to, thank you very much.
Petros, dude. I agree with Mr. Mopsick that you need to go off into the wilderness and introspect for a while.
This is not about you and your perceptions about the US Government, its minions, their motives, and what you perceive as their evil intent. While it seems that this is (largely) your forum and therefore you have wide latitude about what goes, it’s not about you.
It’s about educating people and fighting against a common adversary which (I believe) is misguided and incompetent, nothing more. It’s about helping people learn what they need to know to make the best decision they can. Driving away a contrarian voice did not serve IBS, it hurt IBS. I believe that you need to take responsibility for driving him away.
Seems to me that engaging in comparisons to Nazi/hitlerian conduct only encourages and attracts the already radicalized. I believe that such comparisons do little if anything to attract the empathy and attention of people – politicians, shareholders in a politician’s campaign, voters – in the States, Canada, Europe, wherever – who can really matter. They will knee-jerk away.
————————
Based on the recent dialogue the opinion I give other expats about the IBS has changed. Instead of an enthusiastic no reservations recommendation it’s now ‘well, you need to understand that there is an axe being ground.’ That’s a very damning thing.
I have no emotional or intellectual investment in IBS, which makes it pretty easy to say what I’ve said. As annoying, irritating, even offensive as some recent posts have been I’m not quietly fading away.
I will have to be thrown out the front door. 🙂
@Tim- no one should have to choose between being a U.S. citizen and not having to file ANY IRS form. The burden of citizenship based taxation is a global burden and not just one that is restricted to a question of whether or not you have to file this or that form.
The personal investment restrictions that are involved are an interference with your ability to build your wealth. The pension restrictions, the burdens that surround self employment, not being able to save for your children’s education etc. U.S. citizens should have to live only under one tax reporting regime, that of the country in which they reside.
What we are asking for is not something that is technically impossible for the self proclaimed most advanced country in the world to do. It is just a matter that the U.S. lacks the moral backbone to do it. The only reason that they won’t do it is because they still hold on to the false idea that they would be giving up something that is rightfully theirs when in fact what they would really be doing is ceasing to live off of ill gotten gains. It is a simple as that.
Neither FBAR nor any of the other tax reporting document requirements can be done away with for expats as long as citizenship based taxation exist.
@ Extex, I took a pledge to the Queen of Canada. I have a people. My people are being assaulted by the extra-territorial tax reach of the United States. That is what I was referring to. In other words, a member may say “My people” without implying that they are the leader of that people. I apologize if you were offended by that.
This is not MY forum. It was started by a group of people and I would step down and blog elsewhere if that group says that’s what they want me to do. Otherwise, apart from being an administrator and occasionally writing a thread and commenting, I am but another one of the crowd. I serve as an administrator does not mean that I control what is put up at this blog. I only have control over what I write.
Mopsick has continued to show an utter disregard and disdain for the editorial policy of this blog, which is that of it being a free forum–this means that he wants me or the other editors to control the content and manner in which people comment and the content of posts. The Free Forum aspect of this blog is part of our DNA and why we started it in the first place. That is why Steven Mopsick can come onto this blog and call me a raving moron, because we have this policy. It is also why he is able to participate in the manner he has. So you have me and the rest of the steering committee to thank for his participation here, as well as Steven Mopsick himself, though we are sure that he has gained something in return–including an audience for his ideas.
Mopsick would want me to control posts and the content of comments. I will not do that as the editor. So your task and Mopsick’s would be to convince the rest of the committee that I need to go. Just write it in a comment, and they will get the message.
@Petros, one of the most valuable lessons I learned in discussions, is to not name people. Focus on the the ideas and messages, but not the people. Naming people may create the impression that one is attacking them, and such attacks tend to create a negative impression which may defeat one’s argument. I’ve also learned that free speech is far superior to censorship and that discussions can be guided through popular pressure.
@ Extex, Let me say further that I have had this argument with Mopsick on several occasions. Each time I had to vigorously defend our editorial policy, and each time the steering committee supported that decision. Mr. Mopsick is free to leave. But he should respect our decision and policy to have a free forum. But he does not respect it.
That is one reason we moved it to Canada–to make sure that we have a better chance to remain free, outside of the influence of people like Mr. Mopsick.