@CanuckDoc found this story and suggests that it should be given a separate post, as it is a mainstream story about Banks shutting out Americans Abroad.
The story was originally posted at USA Today and then picked up at ABC News. It will be interesting to watch today to see if it starts showing up elsewhere. It it ever gets discussed on Brian Williams NBC nightly news, so my 86 year old mother sees it, you will know the story finally came back to the homeland! I don’t expect to hear or see it there, however.
@usdesignatedserf: Expatriation is a fundamental right. Putting a barrier in front of a fundamental right is unconstitutional. I suggest the United States place poll tax of $450 to vote and see how long it takes for a court to strike it down. There is no question that the $450 fee and the exit tax are both unconstiutional and the sign of United Soviet Socialists of America: (The USSA).
@WhoaIt’sSteve…
Gosh, when you decide to weigh in, it must feel like you are almost ganged up on! LOL It is always fun for me, to see that you have posted a comment, as I know it will generate a lot of back and forth. Frankly, many of the regulars here, are looking for that outside input that isn’t just an echo of the consensus of what they have come to passionately feel. Thanks for contributing yet again. I am with @Renounce here, who likes hearing from you. Wished we had more that would engage thoughtfully.
Yesterday, I just posted this story quickly, and then went on a long hike up near Mount Baker while the weather still holds. In fact, this year, I have hiked most of the major trails, and have found a new appreciation for this area that I did not have before I moved to New Zealand. I especially love how many Canadians I run into who have braved the border run to come hike here, stop and shop at Bellingham’s Costco for milk and gas, and then return home without experiencing any undue hassles at the border. They really help the economy.
Was surprised when I saw all the comments when I got back late last night.
As I have said in previous posts, I am now in that half way house. I am too invested in retirement in the US. Homeland and family commitments to give up my U.S Citizenship,…yet. Though, since I have been chastened by my treatment in the OVDP, I have fallen into the CCW group. I have arrived at a decision, consciously, to “Complain, COMPLY and Warn” and remain in the Citizenship club.
However, I fully understand that others here are in the Complain, Renounce and Warn club, CRW, and many other variants. I am sure there are many still in stages 1 and 2 of grief that America would do this to them. They are not yet coming to terms with being forced to make a conscious decision of how to deal with the loss they are feeling.
I really think much has changed in America since 2009, and I certainly view Citizenship (by luck of the birth lottery for me) differently than I did prior to that time. Thank you Commissioner Shulman! Citizenship is something that more Americans, especially those living abroad and invested in their residency status in another country, have to re-consider more seriously. New immigrants need to be warned about what they are signing up for, so they are making a fully informed decision. The club they are joining is different than the “myth and the dream” that brought them to the U.S shores. America is “exceptional” for sure, but not in the ways that so many were brought up to religiously believe.
For Americans abroad, making a decision to leave this selective club that they never consciously decided to join, is a very very tough one. It is as painful and costly as any personal divorce decision. Just like leaving a wife and child, the decision is emotional roller coaster ride, and I would encourage you not to dismissed it lightly. Frankly, America makes it harder to give up your citizenship than obtain a ‘no fault’ divorce these days.
Think back on your own young life. Maybe there is some very traumatic personal decision in your history that you too had to make. Try to recall the turmoil that preceded it. If you have had none, then you are a very lucky young man. I can think of 4 major ones in my life time, and while the agony of the decision has diminished with time, (in fact some I can chuckle at them now) I still recall how long and hard it was to make the decision when I arrived at that fork in life’s road.
Many who comment here have already come to terms with a conscious decision to ‘stay or go” but still are resentful of having to decide. They now have their CLN, but really probably did not want to have to go through what they did to get it. Others are still asking themselves if they going to remain in this “Tax, Form, & Penalty” membership club for the ‘children’s sake’ inspite of feeling like a jilted lover who has been treated shabbily. This is an unwelcome decision being forced on them that they never wanted or thought they would have to make. It doesn’t feel good or right. Decisions in such a situation like this are conflicting and NEVER EVER easy.
While on the surface, it seems that a decision on a membership is just a simple cost/benefit analysis, few us are ever that rationale or good in our decision processes to not experience a lot of stress. We are really irrational beings!!! Here is a video that @Victoria inadvertently sent to me that I enjoyed. How to make better decisions. Maybe it all comes down to math! Maybe there is a formula for the Citizenship / Renounce decision that would make this difficult struggle simpler. LOL
However, easy or not, that is what we have to do. DECIDE! Not making a decision is a decision too! After 3 years of unrelentingly offshore jihad, of which, in the beginning, I don’t think they/we were the targets, decisions DO have to be made. In the world of unintended consequences, IT is what IT is now.
When you are in a region targeted by a drone, you can complain about it, or move out of the way. That is why I think the numbers renouncing will continue to go up, but then again, maybe many will figure the cost of club membership still outweighs the downside. I don’t know. Remember, decisions are not rationale. Outside factors influencing a decision are often not perceived, and the results can be contrary to conventional thinking.
Inspite of a story like this post, few in the Homeland will read, know or care. Neither will they empathize with Americans abroad like you apparently do. They are too focused on their own trivial complaints of bad replacement ref calls in a silly Packars / Seahawk professional football game that suck the life out of cable news and internet coverage in America. That subject gets more tweets, blogs and press then collateral killings from drone strikes or the plight of American’s abroad. So it goes.
*A couple of thoughts
1. If you are someone considering immigrating to the US but also intend to or believe you will have to retain some responsibility for managing the financial affairs of your parents/family that remain outside of the US I think right now you have to consider permanent immigration to the US as being out of the question. I suppose there are many people who come to the US on temporary work visa etc and they are in a different category but in the first example I think Green Cards holders either have to decide that they won’t have any foreign financial ties or they will give up their green card if needed at somepoint in the future.
2. If you grew up in the US and are a citizen by birth then the question is what are the odds of you leaving the country and when. Perhaps things will change for the better in a few years who knows. However, once you make a decision to go at this point I do think you need a plan at least as to how you are going to obtain citizenship in your new country and ditch your old US citizenship. Moving to a country that does not allow naturalization easily is perhaps not the best decision. A country like Canada however, which allows naturalization in three years and is changing the rules i.e. stricter language testing in ways that would benefit Americans by reducing the waiting time for naturalization compared to other immigrants should be looked at more fondly.
3. The “type” of people and their social “class” who actually have influence in Washington I suspect are some least likely people to ever leave the US nevermind renounce. How many attorneys working for the IRS General Counsel’s office wake up one morning and decide to giveup their job and move their family from some tony Washington DC suburb like Potomac MD to a foreign country and then naturalize as some other type of citizen and then renounce their US citizenship. Like zippo zero. As I implied in a post last night almost any US Tax Lawyer will make far more money and have far more prestige working as a US Tax Lawyer inside the United States than becoming a tax lawyer in a another country litigating another countries laws and court systems compared to staying and doing what they currently do in Washington DC.
*Now that the IRS website is using persistent cookies, I refuse to use it. I am curious to know what form TDF 12.34 is all about.
@Tim
I suspect that US tax lawyers working abroad can and will do very well. I also think that non-US lawyers who are up to speed on this will do very well.
As I suggested in a comment last week, I am slowly reaching the conclusion that US citizens abroad should work with professionals in their country of residence. Their advice will be more objective. There are too many lawyers in the US who:
A. Don’t have a clue about how this interacts with other countries tax laws;
B. Just want to get people into OVDP which is a financial annuity for them.
C. If the practice before the IRS are more worried about their status before the IRS – all this Circular 230 stuff.
@calgary411:
“seeing the multi-culturism, people of all cultures interacting on a
daily basis. Sure, we have big city problems, but I feel a difference.”
I have lived the past 21 years of my life in a small Swiss farming village in a narrow valley in the alps. My children were the only Auslanders in the school where 90% of the children had one of 3 or 4 family names because those families had intermarried for generations. The kids would go barefoot to school, come home at lunch, go to school on Saturday mornings. My oldest son had the most problem getting acceptance since he had learned high German in a German kindergarten near Frankfurt. He was often bullied and after complaining to his teacher I ended up at the school presidents office. The school president, which is a part time job with a very low stipend, was a farmer. He had no sympathy about the bullying. He said the teachers, who were at coffee break during recess, didn’t have time to monitor the play grounds. I had later run ins with the school president but he never once gave an inch. The village was very harmonious and there was never any crime. When a boy got thrown out of his apprenticeship the local builder gave him an apprenticeship as a brick layer and mentored him to help get him on the right track. In summer the shooting range opens up and the teenage boys ride in on their bicycles and mpoeds with their fathers’ SG-90 assault rifles slung on their backs. There has never been a shooting or a robbery in our safe and serene little village.
The reason I tell this is to illustrate that there is a lot to be said for cultural harmony. And in the vast majority of cultures through out history that harmony is linked very closely to race. To try to deny this fact is to deny reality.
Now the farmers in my village have no obligation to want to mix with people from other cultures daily. They didn’t even want to mix with my son or myself as long as we only spoke high german, a language that many of them don’t speak.
So my point is multiculturalism may be fine and dandy for some people, but everyone else has an equal right to want to segregate and stay among their own culture. And these people’s wishes, and often rights, are trampled on by the left in their rush to use multiculturalism as a hammer to suppress anyone who doesn’t accept multiculturalism so that the left can achieve perpetual power. And this is what the left has done in so many places. I hope Don Pomodoro will comment on what Muslim immigration, encouraged and egged on by the same left as in Canada, has to say about what has happened to Belgium in the last 20 years.
And it isn’t even the Muslims or the Multiculturalism that are the real issue. It is the use of these by the left as a tool to achieve and keep power. It is happening in North America and in Europe and there is a method behind this madness.
First let me apologize for inflaming, I had to look back to see what triggered my initial semi-angry post and it was the literally absurd notion that Patrick Henry here is in league with the Founding Fathers. I’m sorry Sir, but I find it hard to believe you have accomplished anything near the awesome magnitude our forefathers did. You might want to check your ego.
@ConfederateH Wow, are you serious? That is basically antithetical to the entire societal construction, the expectations of behavior and tolerance, of the past 60+ years. Basically you’re just making excuses to be racist, close minded, and intolerant. The downside of your “quaint” little “idyllic” village with only 4 families is that inbreeding like that leads to a loss of genetic diversity, and nature doesn’t like that at all. Nature wants and requires diversity and punishes those who don’t increase diversity with genetic illness and eventually sterility.
@Whoait’sSteve; I think you misjudge Confederate–while most people here seem to find his comments distasteful, I think he’s got an important point in his last comment, which I found quite remarkable, perhaps because I also lived in Switzerland. Even Swiss people themselves often have trouble when they move from one village to another because of the natural tendency to become insular as a protection mechanism. But you have no sympathy at all for the way of life described by Confederate, and how he has shown great courage by raising his children in face of such difficulty. Kudos.
The same insularity is true of many enclaves around the world. I just had a visit at a First Nation in Canada and it is very similar. What you show is that the multicultural dogma is itself internally inconsistent, contradictory and impossible to implement. The reason: Multiculturalism allegedly accepts all cultures. But the problem is that most cultures in the world have built in protection mechanisms that protect them from foreign incursions and influence, else they would cease to exist as the stronger elements in world would commit cultural genocide against them. Hence, the First Nations may tend to be tight-knit and xenophobic–but they have experienced continual cultural genocide for centuries now. So cultures fight against the “multicultural” doctrine which would destroy their unique way of life. They have no choice. Otherwise, “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!”
One of the problems of your “multiculturalism” is that eventually only the strong survive. And frankly, this is what I so dislike about the American incursion into the world. You folks want to assimilate everyone in the world. Well, too bad you guys didn’t balance your budget, because when you Americans retreat from the rest of the world with your tails between your legs, it will be because you failed to achieve fiscal sanity and your vision of the world died with your inability to get the rest of the world to accept your worthless currency. So much for American exceptionalism, which is just one more dominant culture which is trying to commit genocide of all the different cultures in the world (starting with the First Nations).
@Whoait’sSteve: As for your suggestion that we check our ego: how paternalistic of you.
@ConfH,
I leave it to others to debate this issue. It seems, to me, there are no answers. I only know what I am comfortable with based on my experience.
My growing up years were in a community in upper New York State – our family (my dad from Ontario, Canada, who moved to NY State with his farm family when he was four, and my mom from the harsh plains of South Dakota, five kids (the others younger than me) and a dog, little money – we were by today’s definitions poor, but like so many then, didn’t realize what we were “missing?“). During my early years, we lived on a street with mostly Italian and Polish families with the odd family from Ireland –and likely a few other places. We walked to school and had our classes with persons we are now identifying as African Americans. I wish everyone could have experienced the childhood growing up years I did – times were different for sure but we lived in what I remember as a safe, caring environment. We idyllically all played together – at school and at home, nothing organized for sure and my parents easily mingled with their neighbors.
My dad was a machinist who moonlighted setting pins in a bowling alley. When I was almost 13, my dad, out of work for whatever reason (I was not privy), our family moved from New York State to Washington State, where my dad got work as a machinist in a town with a naval shipyard. We lived with my grandfather on a chicken farm for part of the first year; we then lived in what was called “the projects”. When my parents were finally able to purchase a home, it was close to that naval shipyard and, again, with no specific nationality as the norm. Those, my junior and high school years were, again, uneventful in my mind, free of racism. Looking back, I guess that the commonality was families working hard and trying to make a living for their families. One of my strongest memories was my dad emphatically telling his “eastern” brother who was visiting our family on the west coast, that he couldn’t talk like that in our home, using what we knew as a dirty name to describe whatever “person”. My dad, as a “dirty, greasy machinist”, worked hard every day with many others from different places, etc., etc. He respected them all, except possibly the occasional jerk but it had nothing to do with their ethnicity. Similarly, to my mind, my move to Canada had nothing to do with racism. It was, like my dad, a move for work and a move from the times (and I won’t go into again the sacrifices of my family for Vietnam war times).
Before my retirement in Calgary, I worked many years as an administrative assistant at a big oil and gas company. At that company, I again worked with wonderful, talented people from all over the world. They, as well as I (I think), were assets to the company we worked for. So, when I say that I am in a city where I treasure the interaction of different cultures, not saying there are not problems, I experience what I see, what I experience as positive. Perhaps our kids or their kids or even theirs, in evolution, will eventually leave behind many of the prejudices we all live with.
So, no, I certainly don’t have answers and I’m not qualified to debate with you or anyone on what is what regarding the connection between the controlling ways of US citizenship-based taxation for us and racism. I’ll leave it to those “more educated” than I to debate the answers. I am a retired mom (many of my years as a single mom) who looks upon where I live and what I treasure of that society and speak only of my experience. Your family’s experience was much different than mine. I’m sorry you suffered racism. I’m sorry your children experienced bullying. It is indeed a problem in many schools and, hopefully, better being addressed these days. (My son was indeed bullied in school, for much different reasons and I grieve that any kid is subjected to bullying.) It is bullying that the US subjects on us, its expats. I, personally, don’t get the connection between our fight here for what is to you white flight, racism, whatever you are trying to educate me on. I’m a tired old dog and I probably can’t change my view. My energy cannot be wasted on this argument, however relevant it is for others.
@ConfederateH. I don’t want my silence to be interpreted as assent. Re your comment, and others on IBS in a similar vein: “The reason I tell this is to illustrate that there is a lot to be said
for cultural harmony. And in the vast majority of cultures through out
history that harmony is linked very closely to race. To try to deny
this fact is to deny reality.”
Even very small and insular communities and countries have histories of armed conflict and violence. You never define ‘race’, and conflate it with culture in your example re language differences in your community. Human individuals are far more similar to each other than they are different. We have common ancestors. And the path towards race based segregation and exclusion has always ended tragically. DNA is not destiny, nor should it be.
You’ve got only one theme, and it is far too simplistic to usefully describe the complexity of reality.
…….”A final complication arises when racial classifications are used as proxies for geographic ancestry. Although many concepts of race are correlated with geographic ancestry, the two are not interchangeable, and relying on racial classifications will reduce predictive power still further.
The fact that, given enough genetic data, individuals can be correctly assigned to their populations of origin is compatible with the observation that most human genetic variation is found within populations, not between them. It is also compatible with our finding that, even when the most distinct populations are considered and hundreds of loci are used, individuals are frequently more similar to members of other populations than to members of their own population. Thus, caution should be used when using geographic or genetic ancestry to make inferences about individual phenotypes.”…… http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1893020/
I’d rather talk about citizenship and taxation.
@WhoaIt’sSteve, I don’t think Patrick Henry was comparing his achievements to those of the founding fathers, I think he meant to say that renouncing citizenship to be free from taxation is very similar to what the founding fathers did. The US declaration of independence was in practice a renunciation of British citizenship, and they did that to avoid paying what they considered to be unjustified taxes. Moreover, I wouldn’t ascribe “awesome magnitude” to the founding fathers. They were not gods. If you actually read what they wrote at the time, you’ll see that they disagreed on many things, often for personal gain (see the two main compromises of the US constitution). There is also the infamous incident where one founding father killed another. The founding fathers were certainly great leaders, and incredibly better than the leaders we have today, but I get annoyed when Americans talk about them as if they were perfect. And by the way, I live in the US too, just like you.
@ConfederateH, I tend to agree with WhoaIt’sSteve somewhat on this one. I expected the Swiss people to be more civilized. I agree that multiculturalism is not sustainable because sometimes cultures conflict on their most fundamental values, but American and Swiss cultures aren’t that different. According to what you described, the intolerance from people in your village is more because of trivial differences such as the dialect you speak. (Yes, I am aware that high German can sound irritating to a person who speaks Swiss German, but don’t all Swiss people learn high German in school anyway?)
And as someone who suffered from bullying in school, I have to tell you, it’s like hell. Adults often don’t realize how unbearable bullying can be for a child. Being forced to go every day to an environment where others make fun of you endlessly, and to spend your formative years with few or no friends, leaves permanent emotional scars on a person.
My two cents about race:
I first learned that there were three human races: the often cited Caucasoid (white), Negroid (black) and Mongoloid (Asian). Then I did some research about the subject, and I kept finding various other races: Capoid (Bushmen), Australoid (Aborigines), Malay, Negrito (some Southeast Asia islanders), American, Melanochroi (Mediterranean), and others. Then I finally understood why today scholars say that the concept of human race is in decline. It’s not that races don’t exist, because people clearly have different appearances, but it’s that the classification is not well defined. For example, it’s not very logical to say that Swedes, Italians, Arabs and Indians are the same Caucasian race, while Negroid and Negrito are separate. My conclusion is that human races are continuous, especially because of miscegenation, and that any definition of race has problems.
I’ll start out my response to the last few comments by making the connection between multiculturalism to citizenship and taxation. That intersection point is the right of secession.
For some reason Steve thinks that he and the country he loves and supports have some say in my decision to secede from the US. Steve would probably start with some “you didn’t build that” argument even that though we moved to Europe 25 years ago and raised our family here. He and the homelanders would say that as long as the IRS and the progressives can come up with some claim, however nebulous, to any of my wealth or earnings, that somehow they can expropriate as much of said wealth as they deem appropriate.
For some reason the multiculturalists think that as soon as they can gain enough power to make a trojan horse offensive against those who might oppose them that they have the right to steal someone else’s right to want to be among their own. For you Canadian readers I want you to step out of your north American immigrant mindset (and Steve to step out of his member of the most exceptional empire mindset) and think in terms of a Swiss village, or even a region or Canton, whose families can trace their ancestry, traditions, folklore, and even feuds back dozens of generations. The people are honest, hard working, and financially very responsible. That is staying power that has stood the test of time. Now the multiculturalists kick in the door and say “you WILL allow anyone we demand into your community or you are a racist”. “You WILL pay for their integration and if they don’t or can’t integrate and contribute you WILL pay for their and their and their offsprings’ offsprings social services or even internment” (actually the multiculturalists are part of a far larger movement but we won’t go into that here). The villagers have become slaves to the welfare state that is using multiculturalism as a tool to make them subservient (compliant).
The case of the tax resistor (say Eric Severin) would be like this: After years of repeated tax-rape every April, Eric decides that he no longer wishes to comply with the demands of the most exceptional empire. Eric moves to Singapore. He knows that the IRS will come with claims against “deemed values” and shadow gains due to the Fed’s dollar inflation and other tax-parasite bullshit.
So what is the answer in both cases? Secession. The right to be sovereign and to secede, all the way down to the smallest unit. The degree of your right to secede is directly proportional to the degree of your freedom. And if you can’t secede at all you are a slave.
@Petros: Well put, you seem to understand a lot about Switzerland. I realize that many consider my comments “distasteful” and probably most skip over them, but I don’t care anymore. They don’t want to be disturbed, they are still sleeping.
@Confederate re: “think in terms of a Swiss village, or even a region or Canton, whose families can trace their ancestry, traditions, folklore, and even feuds back dozens of generations”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1275602/
…”ethnicity, like race, is a malleable concept that can change dramatically in different times or circumstances (Waters 1990; Smelser et al. 2001).
Ethnic groups may come into existence and then dissipate as a result of broad historical or social trends. Individuals might change ethnic groups over the course of their lives or identify with more than one group. A researcher, clinician, or government official might assign an ethnicity to an individual quite different from the one that person would acknowledge (Kressin et al. 2003).
“Finally, despite attempts to distinguish “ethnicity” from “race,” the two terms often are used interchangeably (Oppenheimer 2001). Ethnic groups can share a belief in a common ancestral origin (Cornell and Hartmann 1998),
which also can be a defining characteristic of a racial group.
Furthermore, ethnic groups tend to promote marriage within the group, which creates an expectation of biological cohesion regardless of whether that cohesion existed in the past.“………
“Furthermore, the exponentially increasing number of our ancestors makes ancestry a quantitative rather than qualitative trait—5
centuries (or 20 generations) ago, each person had a maximumof >1 million ancestors (Ohno 1996). To complicate matters further, recent analyses suggest that everyone living today has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors who lived as recently as a few thousand years in the past, although we have received our genetic inheritance in different proportions from those ancestors (Rohde et al. 2004).
In the end, the terms “race,” “ethnicity,” and “ancestry” all describe
just a small part of the complex web of biological and social
connections that link individuals and groups to each other.“
Am J Hum Genet. 2005 October; 77(4): 519–532.
Published online 2005 August 29.
PMCID: PMC1275602
“The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research” Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group*
and,
http://www.nchpeg.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=142&Itemid=64
..” How much genetic variation is there in Homo sapiens? How different are human populations from each other genetically, and what is the meaning of those differences biologically?
Populations of humans from different parts of the world are surprisingly similar genetically, given our large numbers and worldwide distribution. This low level of variation suggests that the size of the human population was much smaller – perhaps just a few thousand people – in the relatively recent past. This finding further supports the idea that modern humans evolved as a relatively small group in eastern Africa within the past 200,000 years and then spread out to occupy the rest of the world, with little or no interbreeding between modern humans and the archaic humans that they gradually replaced.”…..
I think that Eduardo Saverin moved to Singapore because of business, not at all because he was a tax resister. He found that he could not effectivey do business in Singapore with his US citizenship so did the logical thing and renounced that citizenship. As far as I know, he complied with the US law, paying a vast sum for his Exit Tax, etc. That the US then attempts to put in place a new punitive law based on Eduardo Saverin’s legal renunciation and then for others who dare leave, the perception that they are traitors is, to many of us who live abroad, incomprehensible.
@Petros No challenge from me that the treatment of the Native Americans by the British, and Early Americans, was unjustified, and cruel. Although I’d disagree with you that current multiculturalism (i.e. “The Salad Bowl” as opposed to the “Melting Pot” an important distinction,) is a conquering of other cultures and replacement, every culture has its rightful place in my world, there is no culture that is not worthy of being recognized, and celebrated. Isn’t the more important question why are cultures disappearing, and what features do they just not inherit that allows them to be overtaken?
You say paternalistic, but personally I wouldn’t compare myself to great explorers like Lewis & Clark, or Sir Edmund Hillary for finding a destination without Google Maps, or wandering off a marked path in a park. The poster Patrick Henry may have accomplished some good even great things, but I’m thinking not in the same league as founding a huge democracy like this country. I don’t think I know better than him, or that I am better than him. I’m humbled by most of your stories about braving the World outside the US borders, although I still wouldn’t compare you to the founders of our nation.
@Shadow Raider If that is the case then I offer a heart felt apology and retraction. If it is just a case of a metaphor that I personally and irrationally find distasteful then I apologize. Although comparing yourself and your dislike of paying taxes and disclosing account sums to someone with a passionate revolutionary cause who utters “give me liberty or give me death,” verges toward the dramatic side for even me, who has been described as a drama queen, lol but to each their own. That was the part that got to me the most actually, bullying is the sure fire way to destroy any semblance of a child’s self esteem, and personal security, it should never be tolerated, ever.
*Not to pour any more gasoline on this fire the same type of insularity that occurs in Switzerland also occurs in parts of Canada. Think the Beauce region of Quebec(perhaps the most scenic part of Canada) where a lot of people identify themselves as Beacerans first and Canadians and Quebecers second. Many of these people despite the history of Quebec nationalism among francophones consider themselves Canadian Federalists as they Canadian Federalism as protecting the ideals of their community far stronger than Quebec Nationalism. This is the area that controversial Quebec MP Maxime Bernier(of Hells Angels fame) represents.
On an even broader scale it is no accident in my opinion that we don’t have any consulate reports for Quebec City(The Quebec City catchment area would include the Beauce to the south all the way the Saguenay to the north). The Quebec City area simply put is not that diverse. An even more controversial figure is someone like former MP Andre Arthur who previously was a French language radio “shock’ jock” in Quebec City.
Link to Andre Arthur and the infamous CHOI-FM radio station in Quebec City.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Arthur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHOI-FM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Fillion
@Whoait’sSteve: You are creating a strawman. Nobody here is saying we are like the founding fathers. We are saying, however, that the tyrannical US government is worse than King George towards us, and some of us, like Patrick Henry, are finding inspiration from the so-called founding fathers: there is no need to check one’s ego when finding inspiration from hero.
But as for your paternalism, I doubt that you are aware how you coming off. It is after all, your right as an American to be paternalistic. You seem to come by it naturally and honestly. Even as you apologize for inflaming, you can’t help yourself. Even ShadowRaider’s comment that he thought the Swiss were “more civilized”, i.e., not that much different from Americans. It is this attitude that the US is the quintessential expression of civilization, and it is a compliment to say that the Swiss are not that different.
When I was in Switzerland, I found that the Swiss had the attitude that they had to educate Americans about how to talk and behave. They saw themselves as the teachers and the Americans that they met as childish. The Swiss don’t see themselves as less civilized than Americans–not in my experience.
@Petros, I would be among the last people to claim that the US is the essence of civilization. I know very well that the US did and still does many wrong things. I also apologize if my comment was too general: I wasn’t referring to the Swiss people as a whole, but to those that ConfederateH described. It doesn’t matter the nationality, it’s not right to mistreat other people because of their accent or dialect, especially if they are trying hard to learn your own language and culture. In fact, what I meant to say was that I was surprised that Swiss people could behave like that, given what I know about Switzerland and the nice Swiss people I’ve met. And I didn’t mean that the Swiss are good because they are similar to Americans, I just meant that since their cultures are similar, it should be easy to adapt to each other’s country.
It seems like my previous comment comparing the plight of America’s ex-pats to the plight of the Americans who declared independence from Great Britain 236 years ago may have touched a nerve in at least one blogger here. I think this is good, because it should touch a nerve in anyone who considers themselves as being an American.
If the powers-that-be would only take the time (about 10 mins) to read the US Declaration of Independence they would immediately see the absurdity / outright hypocrisy of their policies towards Americans living abroad. Such policies are a blatant insult to the original values from which America was created.
By mistreating ex-pats and punishing those who say “enough is enough” and renounce their US citizenships, the powers-that-be may as well issue an Executive Order retroactively assuming that the signers of the US Declaration of Independence were all criminals unless their descendants can prove that they had complied with all of the requirements of Great Britain’s “Coercive Acts” (Stamp Act, Navigation Acts, etc.)–the equivalence of today’s FATCA, FuBAR, Exit Tax etc.
It would be interesting to know if any Congressperson in the Americans Abroad Caucus is able to justify with good conscience the fairness of “Citizenship-based Taxation” for ex-pats after reading the US Declaration of Independence and knowing that the slogan of the American Revolution was “No Taxation Without Representation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation
The correct link to Navigation Acts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Acts
Sorry for not getting it right the first time.
PH
Petros – In support of your “misjudge Confederate” post. To expand the perspective. The globalization phase of the colonialist resource extraction project that began with “discovery” of a “new world” to pillage after genocide is now in its death throes. We may be lucky if 10% of the population on the planet survives what seems to be coming. Here’s hoping for rough justice – that “less developed” peoples in the hinterlands are most of the survivors, still knowing how to farm and work with their hands and whatnot – and that the “first world” becomes the last and deservedly perishes for its heartless foundation in greed and injustice. Look at the accelerating loss of diversity of species. Look at the deliberate creation of dangerous monocultures by corporations like Monsanto. Look at the mad frenzy to commoditize massive resources as fast as possible with no regard to the future. Look at the Ponzi governments struggling not to topple. Look at language death. Look at the masses of consumerist individuals happy to eat up and to trash just as much as they can as fast as they can. While they can. Ever egged on by demonic “marketing.” Human brains and appetites and spirits are geared to tribal and local community life. The empire disease goes back about about 7000 years. People have been around much longer than that. So-called “progress” that moves too fast inevitably has to bring on its own destruction.
*WhoaIt’sSteve, I’m white, liberal and I tend to agree with both ConfederateH and yourself. Much of my childhood (or life) was a battle against racism against whites in white-majority, liberal multicultural societies. Most people probably don’t understand this racism and have no means of understanding it because they tend to confuse or limit their understanding of racism to physical features like skin color. Yet, the only race is the human race. All humans are more or less the same. What makes racism relevant is the difference of the individual. An individual may be hated anywhere and in any society simply because they are different, or they may be loved anywhere regardless of their skin color. Nature wants and needs diversity, but humans tend to fight against such to protect themselves from the unknown or foreign infiltrations which may change their favored lifestyle.
What America is currently doing in Switzerland is a federal crime in the US, and there is a good reason for this. Pressuring for Americans to be treated differently in Switzerland encourages discrimination agaisnt them based on national origin. This is criminal in the US and Switzerland is rejecting and resisting such crime while US politicians are sticking their heads in the sand like how they did so with concentration camps during WWII. America is currently defending and honoring criminal racism against its citizens living abroad. The result of this is that it is pressuring us to become less American since our focus is to be integrated and not discriminated against where we live.
I realize that this may be difficult for some to understand. I’d probably have to write a book on it to explain it in better detail. It is difficult to write about such a complex matter in just a few words.
*Patrick Henry, I understood your point. As sad as it may be, under existing conditions, it is American patriotic and a great American honor to renounce US citizenship. American patriots want freedom, liberty and justice, not a demorepublican two-party dictatorship which wrongly accuses the innocent of being “tax cheats” simply because they live and work abroad and pay taxes without doing anything wrong.