Wade Hicks, Jr., was on his way to Japan to visit his Navy wife who is stationed there. But during a layover in Hawaii he became stranded as the US federal govenment has put him on a no-fly list. Doug Hagmann writes:
The above events took place on October 14, 2012. The victim in this case is one Wade Hicks, Jr., 34, a U.S. citizen and resident of Gulfport, Mississippi. I personally checked him out and verified his story. With his permission, I conducted a “basic” background check of Mr. Hicks, Jr. He has no criminal record. He is not a “wanted” man. By all normal and visible accounts, Mr. Hicks, Jr. appears to be a law abiding member of society. I did find, however, that he is an outspoken “patriot” and openly critical of the NDAA. He is a former talk-show host of a small, local radio station known for its “patriotic bias.” He is a member of “Patriots for America” and the Mississippi Preparedness Project. He is openly vocal about the erosion of our rights – and it certainly looks like he has been proven correct. Is that now a crime worthy of being denied the ability to travel freely within the United States?
This is an egregious and recalcitrant violation of the fundamental right of the American people to move freely within the country. The United States has become a totalitarian police state. This incident is the equivalent of a dead canary.
Here is the dangerous Wade Hicks, Jr., giving a speech during a Tea Party demonstration in 2009:
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” – President Harry S. Truman.
The tide of injustice, topped with a thick foam of utter insanity, is rising at an alarming rate and Wade Hicks finds himself swimming with so many others who have been wronged by the US gov’t with its legions of “security” agents and bureaucrats. I hope he finds a way home.
@Mark Twain
A taxation system based on consumption taxes alone will relieve the rich of almost any burden of supporting the government and infrastructure (except to the extent you introduce user fees and tolls). It would be an unjust and evil system, impoverishing the middle class. There’s plenty of theoretical work on this; I studied it decades ago at uni.
Furthermore cross-border operators would be taxed anyway abroad based on income and capital gains and (in France, etc.) wealth and could not deduct any of that tax against their US liability. And if you don’t have a VAT system there will be massive evasion plus double taxation at the retail level on (for example) tourist exports taxed again in the country of residence.
Why do you want to give a free ride to “libertarians” who want to rape the planet and leave no infrastructure for the next generation? Glib talk does not make for good policy decisions.
*I wanted to give you all an update since you were all very interested in the topic. Again I speak for myself as a private citizen and not as a member of the Armed Forces. My views in no way reflect theirs or the governments. You do not have my permission to use my words on any site but this one.
Wade’s issue was apparently briefed to the POTUS today and it was decided that the administration did not want a black eye right before the election. So they took him off the no fly list. We aren’t taking any chances though. He is hopping the first military flight back to the main land. I will be flying out myself very shortly to meet him back in California. I will not be comfortable until his feet are back there and I can see and hold him in my arms. Part of me is scared that some of this is going to back lash on me as his spouse so I hope I don’t get stranded anywhere. As for your comments about my participation in the military and if I understand what is going on… Lets just say that I did marry the man knowing full well how he felt. I cannot express my views but all I will do is confirm that my oath of office is “To support and defend the constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic and that I will bare true faith and allegiance to the same. I take this obligation freely with out any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter.”
Btw, I found this site by googling my husbands name to see what came up and was curious how far the news had gotten. looks like far enough because its getting him off that island. I just hope the flight has room for him. I will check back in on this site periodically to see if any more questions were raised. But for the most part I must let my husband do the talking.
Best wishes and thank you for your concern,
Mrs. Hicks
@punktlich:
“There’s plenty of theoretical work on this; I studied it decades ago at uni.”
Boy did they ever do a good job on you.
“will relieve the rich of almost any burden of supporting the government
and infrastructure (except to the extent you introduce user fees and
tolls). It would be an unjust and evil system, impoverishing the middle
class.”
If you read this blog and still cannot figure out what happens when parasites and sociopaths use the state for “social justice” then there probably isn’t much hope for you. Like the Hick’s family, you got what you deserved for supporting welfare states that come up with abominations like FATCA. You may not consider yourself rich, but I’ll bet 90% of the developing world considers you filthy rich and would love to have the NWO do some global wealth redistribution on you and your pension fund. Once you make property rights dependent on the states determination of fairness you have given up your property rights.
Its called communism slave. Only the nomenklatura get to have property.
Here is a great SNL skit that captures your kind of idiocy .
*@ConfederateH
“Boy did they ever do a good job on you.”
Your insults and trolling aren’t likely to convince anyone. As it happens my lead professor got a Nobel prize in economics. My own PhD dealt with taxation peripherally.
Those who accuse others of being “parasites and sociopaths” are of a bunch: Marxists and libertarians of the lunatic sort.
Trolls simply chase away anyone who could contribute usefully to a forum. You will wind up exchanging ignorant or prejudiced thoughts with others like you. I like to think I added some useful links to the forum. Perhaps I’ll come back sometime, but I’m off and won’t see any further insults you care to post.
*punktlich11, thanks for your comments. It’s been greatly appreciated. ConfederateH has a special and unique communication style which tends to treat everyone more or less equally. I doubt that it’s personal, so don’t let it get to you. The deeper, less visible content is what matters the most, not what one assumes of others.
@Mrs. Hicks, thanks for your contribution. I am happy for you that you found a successful resolution of your immediate issue. I was dismayed to see how little attention it received in the media and very surprised though pleased that you actually commented here. If the issue had received the attention it deserves, you wouldn’t have had time to contribute to our blog, for you would have been speaking to CNN, ABC, NBC, New York Times, Dow Jones, etc. But as you said, there is an election happening. But I am of the opinion that Obama is the media’s choice for president and this incident would/should normally dash his re-election hopes. So the media ignores what they think they can, if it will hurt their choice for president.
We live in difficult times. This site exists because of the terrible and unconstiutional treatment of US expats around the world–that has largely started since Barak Obama became president, though it was already for many decades since the United States has decided that expats must still pay taxes to the United States despite their residence in another country and being outside of the jurisdiction of the United States. Now, the United States believes that the entire world is its jurisdiction, and expats, who have no representation in Congress, are taxed, and fined for having bank accounts in their country’s of residence under FBAR. Many of the members of this site our experiencing a nightmare perhaps not too disimilar to what you and your husband have experienced over the course of the last few days. It is when we learn that the United States has huge tax payment and/or filing reporting expectations when we receive absolute zip, zero, nada from the United States and we pay our taxes in our countries of residence which provide us with many services, including security, roads, and even health care and education. But the United States will not even give us a damn thing and they expect us to pay our taxes as though we were living in the United States. It is clearly a case of taxing us for the benefit of those residing in the United States and it is an international travesty of justice.
As your husband is on a no-fly list, or was on a no-fly list, I am myself afraid that if I try to enter the United States I will face hostile treatment. Why? because I am the ringleader at this website and I have said some negative comments about the United States. This is what the United States has become, a place where opposing voices fear for their freedom. This was an excellent quote with which I agree completely:
*Mrs. Hicks, that’s great that the matter is being peacefully resolved and I wish the best for your husband and yourself. Unfortunately, I know little or nothing about this situation, so it’s difficult to judge on it. But I hope that situations like this do not become more frequent in the future.
Punktlich, the current tax system is not to tax the rich. It keeps anyone from becoming rich. If you are rich, then you can pay lawyers and accountants in order to find loopholes in order to avoid paying taxes.
I am not rich, but I’ve decided that I have to wind down my RRSPs earlier than usual. Then I learn that if I do it too fast, I will pay almost half of the withdrawals in taxes to the government. That’s a much higher rate that rich Romney paid. It was higher than the crony capitalist Warren Buffet paid. But I assure you this. If I have to pay half of my investment income to the Canadian government, I will never ever be rich like Buffet and Romney. Never. This has created a ceiling for the middle class that they can never break out of. I hate it. And I resent the elitists with Nobel prizes and PhDs who think that they know what is best for everyone in the world.
ConfederateH is not a troll. Some around here find him disagreeable–but he is, as far as I can tell a geniuine expat who has really renounced his US citizenship. That makes at least some of his comments interesting for the rest of us, just as yours are interesting because of your experience. But let’s set the record straight. This ConfederateH is the genuine article. We do not allow trolls on this website–for example, accountants and lawyers who are not making a contribution to the conversation, but just wish to advertise their website–our spam filter sorts out thousands of messages from trolls every single day.
There is a debate between the invited top six presidential candidates on Oct 23rd. (2 of them won’t be showing up though)
You can send in your questions in advance to the moderators.
These 4 candidates run on a policy of addressing issues that the other 2 don’t address
http://freeandequal.org/events/presidential-debate/
@MrsHicks.
So very happy there is a resolution to your problem. I suppose yo can say he is lucky it is election time.
The executive branch has the responsibility of enforcing laws enacted by the legislation, in a fair way that matches the constitutional principles. The head of the executive branch is responsible to set a direction so that those goals can be implemented by operating personnel in the field.
This is another failure of the top executive, in that his administration could not apply properly a fair decision. Any single incident which could only be handled at the top is a failure of the top manager’s administrators management capabilities. There were probably 10-20 agents muddling around for days that could not provide a fair solution.
Neither of the 2 candidates has addressed fairness at the TSA nor the intrusions upon rights since the Patriot Act. This president had said some gobbledygook during 2008 but when he got in, he and Billary have enforced more Patriot Act stuff with more vigor than the previous. In their retoric, they talk about making things more “secure” rather than more fair.
Look at the immediate public reaction to the terrorist acts in Norway versus the 9-11 reaction and the Patriot Act.
Last night I heard a (not the top 2) candidate speak about his goal to abolish the TSA with proposed bills in Congress. He then stated that if the bill could not pass, then it would remain his own personal executive responsibility to manage the TSA in way according to legislation and in fair way matching constituional responsibilities.
*Dear Punktlich, there are possible reasons for your ignorance but I would most likely say it is your youth, read on…
Regarding Nobel prizes and such, read up on Roman Bread and Circuses, Nobel prizes are such a circus, in the future be careful of allowing such a circus to enter the deepest parts of your brain. Understand that such circuses are meant to entertain you and not to provide meaningful information.
And regarding uni or anything you learned in university,
The
waters that quench people’s thirst are the knowledge and the rivers
where these waters flow are the educational mechanisms. Knowledge is
related to waters, because people need it to live, but it can’t feed
them, just like the capital. Knowledge “waters” the capital so that it
can grow but it’s not a capital in itself and it cannot manufacture
products. Thus, knowledge is to a system and a nation what water is to
humans and the earth that feeds them. Knowledge is enlivening but the
capital is the life giver.
From
the moment the NWO succeeded in controlling the American knowledge in
its highest level, they were able to control everything. Having control
of the most powerful colleges gave them in fact control of knowledge as a
whole. They either “wrapped up” that knowledge as copyright so that it
would yield profits which they kept for themselves or they gave it to
the simple Americans through schools.
The
ultimate knowledge turned into “blood”, held by private owners – who
alone decided who gets to “live” and who gets to “die” in the production
– and the simple knowledge that “quenches” people’s “thirst” was
provided in dribs and drabs. As a result, people “were left thirsty” and
the creatures and means of production “died”. It was only a matter of
time before any producer who could not afford to pay the NWO the
copyright would “die” and go out of market; it was a matter of time
before any simple human who could not afford a higher education to
“quench his thirst” would be condemned in a an eternal “thirst”, leading
a poor life at some ghetto.
Good description, Mark Twain — “…the Worst Law US has Never Known.”
@punktlich:
“As it happens my lead professor got a Nobel prize in economics.”
Bwaaaaaaa! Krugman, Stglitz, and for peace the EU and Obama! The Nobel prize is little more than proof of deceit in pursuit of Political Correctness.
“My own PhD dealt with taxation peripherally.”
Well whoopdie do. And apparently they brainwashed you with PC environmentalism as well. Is your PHD from Zürich? I have worked with several PHD’s from the Uni in Zürich and paint me as completely unimpressed as I am with Ivy League graduates, Rhodes scholars or Sciences Po. Murry Rothbard puts it far better than I can:
Since emigrating from Switzerland in 1860, my ancestors have been ranchers in Arizona and California. You know, fly over country where people believe in property rights and “who want to rape the planet”.
For a PHD you seem to suffer from poor reading comprehension, not at all uncommon. What I wrote was:
“If you read this blog and still cannot figure out what happens when parasites and sociopaths use the state for “social justice”
Clearly I did not call you a parasite or a sociopath, but you did call me a troll. This is the blog equivalent to calling someone a racist. It is something that one typically experiences from over educated liberal PHD’s.
@Swisspinoy, Petros: Thanks for your support. If you can believe it I have similar issues in the family (mostly inlaws) and that is one reason why I am in a type of self-imposed exile in Switzerland, now made much worse by a rapacious IRS. I always tell my mother “someone has to play right field”.
Mr Hicks is given a permit to carry a concealed weapon, has had all kinds of security clearances, yet lands himself on the no fly list. America is becoming more bi-polar every day.
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/u-s-military-dependent-detained-and-put-on-no-fly-list-by-customs-enforcement-is-now-free-to-fly/123
The Hicks case – beautiful evidence of how Brock can extend from focus on specific extraterritorial injustice to become a significant internet media tool for defense of other freedoms. There’s reason alone to Brock along forever. Too bad punktlich11 has to catch the flounce disease, and along the way expose already-contracted academititis.
Mrs Hicks, I’m glad it all worked out. You, and your husband’s case is exactly the reason why I haven’t stepped foot on US soil in 7 or so years. Best of luck to you all!
Kinda makes you wonder: my threat-o-meter was going off in 2006, so I packed my bags and LEFT! Now this sort of thing happens. Is it just me that thinks the US has regressed instead of progressed? “Reversion to the mean”, I understand, but this looks like the pendelum has swung a little too far.
Confederate & Punktlich:
This thread is about the Hicks family. Petros has some forum software installed on his server. Just click “forum“ above. There you guys can fight over ideologies all you want to without distracting from the original post. This is just a polite suggestion.
@geeez:
First of all I consider a 2 day old thread, number 4 in the list, a “stale” thread and IMO it is perfectly reasonable to discuss “ideologies” as they relate to an old thread.
Which gets to the second point: discussions about the state, which after all created this incident, are entirely relevant. You see, I have been a victim of the war on private property, the war on drugs, and my guess is that all of us are victims of the war on terrorism. I have been forced to drop my citizenship and my children and grandchildren have been placed in extremely awkward positions because of these “wars”. Frankly, geeez, I am quite pissed off about it.
And this is where we get to the Hicks family. She is in the military serving in Japan, he was a military contractor. He got stuck in Japan because of this misbegotten “war” that his family supports and derives its existence from.
@geez,
I agree with you that the arguments of the philosphies of US whatever would be better debated in the Isaac Brock Forum (http://isaacbrockforum.com/) (debate away to heart’s content, that’s what that was designed for) where it would not turn away “average” readers — the ones that are desperately looking for direction in finding good information to make decisions for themselves in their US citizenship-based tax situations. They, too, can look to the forum if they wish to and take part in debates of why this is happening. US Persons Abroad of all descriptions are looking for help, and philosophical debates of the why’s, I feel, scare away many people that could benefit from information we have at Isaac Brock.
Personally, I have gleaned much good information to consider in my case from punktlich! and I have also taken some things away from some of ConfH’s comments. And, at least I know what ConfH thinks of me (and others), so that is brutal honesty — but I could better read that at the forum. I don’t see any purpose of Issac Brock in scaring people away by attacking whatever their poltical views. Whatever our political views, we are all in this same cussed boat together and have to figure out how to get to safe port.
Calgary, I’m pretty sure that Petros configured the forum software on his server. There is a link which takes you to the forum. No need for even the URL.
Confederate, I don’t really consider this a stale thread because it’s still on the front page. I’m glad that it worked out for the Hicks family. It’s a real shame that is happened, but what can you expect from a country that is always on some sort of alert.
This “assault” you are talking about nothing new; it’s been going on since about the time of recorded history. I bet we end up paying more taxes in Brazil than either Switzerland OR Canada, or anywhere else. Take your pick. But what can I or any of us do about it? Not a whole lot. People seem to adapt to the taxation system and still complain about it. There’s an aweful lot of new cars on the roads here now. This tells me that despite the high taxes, people are still making money and enjoying a decent standard of living.
You asked me a few days ago what is the limit of taxes I’m willing to accept. I really can’t say because everyone else is living within the current system. If it ever became downright repressive, which involved confiscating high percentages of assets or money, it would be time to move. It hasn’t come to that here, yet. In the US, with the FBARs, it sounds like it has.
@usxcanada I agree that Brock is a good place for anyone affected by unjust or unconstitutional US policies. Although we concentrate on issues affecting USPs abroad, we are not disinterested in injustices suffered by homelanders.
The way I see it, because someone at Brock (in this case Petros) somehow became aware of the Hicks story, it increased the coverage of the story on the Internet. Brockers commented here and at other sites that were already covering the story. This may have increased visibility.
Mainstream media is now covering this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fly-list-strands-man-island-hawaii-17521926 http://now.msn.com/wade-hicks-jr-gets-stranded-in-hawaii-when-name-gets-added-to-the-no-fly-list Maybe such coverage would have picked up anyway, but I think the efforts we make here at Brock can indeed accelerate visilbility on such stories. I still don’t understand why European media have not yet picked up on this. Perhaps they will now that ABC and MSN have put out stories on the incident.
Also, people like Mrs Hicks and her husband will now be more aware of the issues we face abroad as they happen upon IBS when Googling the Hicks incident. Thanks for coming to IBS.
Were these the telephone interviews already posted in this thread?
In the infowars clip at :28 we find out that Hicks, not serving in the military but some kind of military contractor, is flying to Hawaii on a military flight and then hanging out in the Airmens lounge. Doesn’t it give you warm and fuzzies to know that your FATCA dollars are going to provide the new Paetorian class free transport to Hawaii? The whole thing stinks to high hell. Geeez may be perfectly satisfied with this on the grounds that all taxes are inevitable, but I certainly am not.