@VictoriaFerauge "On being American" http://t.co/2cadr0QECl interesting read if u feel u are forced to #expatriate by @Barackobama admin
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 3, 2013
Very nice post from @MopsickTaxLaw http://t.co/p45vzhb7Cb "What it means to be an American" – Never forget US is more than the government.
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) August 3, 2013
The posts referenced in the above tweets are interesting and are “food for thought” for those American Abroad considering renouncing U.S. citizenship.
On Being An American.” I trashed a draft blog of my own “on being an American” which I was struggling with before the Fourth of July. I was searching for words to express the feeling Victoria captured so eloquently below which I am sure has resonated with Americans abroad.
And Victoria’s post – On being an American – includes:
I had an epiphany the other day. I may have spent most of my adult life outside the U.S. but I was born and raised here in Seattle. No one can take away the first 20 years or so of my life. I am an American and will always be one even if I decide to forgo the pretty blue passport. Cutting ties by relinquishing/renouncing will mean cutting my ties to a political community but here’s the kicker: America is so much more than that.There is a nation beyond the government and perhaps it’s time to start putting the people above the state. Yes, if I renounce I would no longer be an American citizen, but I would still be an American by culture, blood, language, and inclination. I am part of the collective memory of this country and no one on this planet (not the US Congress or the President or the homelanders) can take that away from me.
And they can’t take it away from anyone else either. To the Canadian/American reader who left a comment about how distressed she was about giving up her U.S. citizenship, I’d just like to say that as far as I’m concerned she’s an American as long as she wants to be one with or without her U.S. passport. So she won’t be able to vote anymore in US elections. Big deal. It’s not like American citizens themselves do that with any regularity.
Thinking about it this way makes me much more serene about the whole business. What do you think of this motto for those of us thinking about renouncing? “Forget the state and just be a child of the nation.”
America is clearly more than the government. That said, the question of “What is America?” is different from the question of “What is an American?”
The question is:
What does it mean to be an American? It must have some meaning if one is “an American as long as she wants to be”. This implies that “being American” is somehow different from the political community or the country as a larger entity. What exactly is “the nation beyond the government” and what does it mean to be an “American”?
Is it really true that “renouncing citizenship” means only cutting ties to the political community? Isn’t the problem that Americans abroad have no ties to the political community to begin with? There are no ties to cut.
I believe that Victoria is saying that the act of renouncing U.S. citizenship should not “diminish your personal identity”. True enough. If you want to think of yourself as an American that’s fine. Nobody can take that away from you. This is important. Why? Because the Obama “Witch Hunt” against U.S. citizens abroad has forced people to reevaluate many of their fundamental assumptions. Few Americans abroad still view the United States as “that great citadel of freedom and justice”. Few Americans abroad see themselves as “tax cheats” because they have offshore accounts. As a former professor of mine once said:
“Citizenship is part of who you are.”
If you cease to be a citizen, do you cease to be less of who you are?
Some believe that if they cease to be U.S. citizens they will become less of what they believed they were. Many Americans abroad are experiencing a crisis of identity. Who are they? What is the United States of America?
But, again, what is an American? Does it have a meaning? Is it anything you want it to be?
Thinking about his reminds me of an earlier post by FoxyLadyHawk titled:
Why I will not renounceHe/she writes:
What is exceptional about America is not that the people are better, or that the government is wiser, or even that it is the richest and most powerful nation in the world – for now. Empires rise, and inevitably they fall. What is exceptional is the form of government, based on the documents we all know about: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, powerfully reiterated by the Gettysburg Address. What is exceptional is the system of checks and balances, and the means of amending the Constitution, which were designed to keep the government in check and maximize the freedom of the people to live their lives as they please.
America is exceptional because it is the only country that was built on an idea, and that idea implies a promise. The idea is that all men and all women are created free and equal and that a proper government is one made up of freely elected peers, in which any citizen – * any * citizen – may run for public office. The promise is that because of that idea, anyone has the right to do whatever he or she chooses to do in order to improve her lot in life and live as she wishes, beholden to no monarch or officer or class structure for her future or her fortune. She is not promised happiness – only the lifelong freedom, the natural-born right to pursue it in her own way.
It’s interesting to go back and read the comments to the above post. It’s almost two years old. Have people’s views changed?
The “Why I will not renounce” analysis assumes that America is a true democracy. A democracy where citizens participate it the political process. A democracy where where candidates represent the interests of the voters and not the political parties. Surely true democracy requires more than the right to vote. Incredibly there are certain situations where U.S. citizens abroad do NOT have the right to vote.
What does this suggest about being an American? Is it that as an American you are a member of an elite and privileged group who is free and able to choose what one wants in one’s life? This is not true for Americans abroad. Furthermore, this does not separate the idea of being “American” from “America”.
Is it really possible to renounce U.S. citizenship and still be an “American”?
In his 2013 State of the Union Address President Obama commenting (if he knew what was in his speech) on the meaning of citizenship said:
We are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.
In fairness, I would say that he does try to separate the idea of “citizenship” from government or the political community at large. Is he suggesting that all American citizens are somehow American? He doesn’t say that if you are NOT a citizen that you are not American. But, would renouncing U.S. citizenship make you less of an American?
Patriotism and being an American
Must one be patriotic to be a real American? Could renouncing U.S. citizenship be an act of patriotism?
So, what is an American?
I don’t know. The answer to this question is way above my “pay grade”. But, it does seem to me that that there must be some meaning (beyond paying taxes) to be being “American”. If you think of yourself as American, it might be worth considering what that means.
82 thoughts on “What is an American? Forget the state and just be a child of the nation – but what does this mean?”
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Some have suggested that to be American is to believe in the ideals of the Declaration of independence, the constitution, etc. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said:
“Where liberty is, there is my country.”
http://quotationsbook.com/quote/23238/#sthash.aifW0sL8.dpbs
No liberty left in the “land of the free”.
Check out the book “Liberty’s Exiles” by Maya Jasonoff.
https://renounceuscitizenship.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/loyalists-in-the-american-revolution/
There always were countries that had more freedom than America.
@USCitizenAbroad,
With the Mopsick comments and worldview in mind, I couldn’t help but be surprised for the frank level of comment and criticism that comes through in the FATCA / RBT vs. CBT interviews by La Torre Jeker, with Bill Yates – a former IRS Senior counsel http://blogs.angloinfo.com/us-tax/2013/07/22/residence-based-taxation-interview-with-bill-yates-former-attorney-office-of-associate-chief-counsel-international-irs-2/ . Yates is described as; “…recently retired from the Office of Associate Chief Counsel (International), Internal Revenue Service after 31 years of service……….recipient of 10 awards, including the Albert Gallatin Award, Treasury’s highest career service award. The Gallatin is awarded only to select federal employees who served twenty or more years in the Department and whose record reflects fidelity to duty. Bill received the Gallatin award for his work throughout his IRS career, including his work on implementation of some of the compliance requirements of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)….”
I doubt that anything we say will have any more effect on Steven, but perhaps the words of his former colleague will.
Thanks, Wondering and WhiteKat,
A very good suggestion to keep in mind if and when push comes to shove — and the US is stupid enough to take action against accidentals like my son — or our Canadian banks. RBT!!!
@ Crystal London,
“I say …. paraphrasing you……YES we owe it to them to repudiate [a country that wants to tax income earned and assets gained in “the places where we’re at” ]”
Yes, though in hindsight, I should’ve worded it a bit better by saying, ‘….then don’t we owe it to them to repudiate that damned country, (the USA) along….’ for clarification.
But not just to pick on the USA specifically, that quote could go for any country that would employ such tactics on its own people.
@monalisa1776
Yes, I also feel that I am ‘collateral damage’ in this mess. I’m just too small to even be targeted.
And yes, individual Americans are okay as a people. It’s just that once we leave the US, it’s hard for them to make the leap in order to understand our plight. It’s as though there is more to the border than just a line on a map. A psychological border that shows up, once issues of living abroad are discussed. I believe that people in general would rather not discuss issues that they don’t understand. Then of course, there are the ones that are hopelessly indoctrinated, and full of self righteous vitriol. I’ve never appreciated those kind of people. They’re ‘useful idiots’ at best, and can be quite dangerous at their worst, as evidenced from our recent history in the Nazis.
@USCitizenAbroad, the last IRS staff that I spoke with stated that he didn’t support some of the policy and I’ve read similar about other IRS staff. Most working for the IRS are likely just ordinary people who have to do their job to feed their family, even when they don’t agree with the rules. So, if Mopsick doesn’t agree with some of the rules, then I’d say that he’s typical former IRS staff. Like with many things, the problem is the management or law-makers.
@Swisspinoy, that doesn’t surprise me about many individuals in the IRS being privately sympathetic towards expats. I gradually have concluded that it’s actually some in the tax compliance industry who are realistically the bigger threat to us. I have been fortunate to find a preparer who believed I had reasonable cause and thus kept me out of OVDI.
She is expensive though and her total accounting fees will have cost me over a year’s salary. One thing that was emphasized at the recent meeting in London was how tax preparers can legally whistle blow on you if you go directly through them but subsequently aren’t prepared to pay any taxes owed, etc. It thus gives them a power over their clients which effectively makes them henchmen. It’s also why anyone with questionable situations should be prepared to approach the accountant via attorney privrlege or to run the numbers through anonymously…
I will always remember how the IRS man at the desk at the US Embassy implied a don’t ask don’t tell approach when I tried to explain about my mistakenly under-reported income from my local mutual funds…he implied that they could have been filed just as normal dividends rather than pfics. I would probably have done it that way prospectively had I not been able to find an accountant willing to amend my returns via quiet disclosure because Obsolete would have ruined me….
Thank you for starting this thread, USCitizenAbroad. I was in Vancouver for a few days and was only able to catch up on my Brock reading today. Here are a few thoughts I had after reading the comments.
Yes, my fundamental assumptions have been challenged by the CBT/FBAR fiasco. My US passport was the public demonstration of my ties to the country of my birth. But as I think about citizenship in general and US citizenship in particular, I now see that the word “citizen” throws together a lot of disparate elements which can be (and perhaps should be) separated from each other. At least I think it’s worth untangling each thread and examining them. There are many different dimensions to being a member of a nation: political, cultural, social (family and friends) and psychological. Not all of these have to be present for someone to feel that he or she is a member. It’s some combination that makes us feel that we belong. But of them the political may be the least of these things. Why? Because there is nothing particularly special anymore about American democracy. Democratic nation-states abound. For some of us there may even be a sense that our host countries have a political community that is better than the US one. These are places where people actually vote, for example, or where their rights are better protected. And certainly there is better if one is a global migrant since other citizenships offer much better representation and actually welcome political participation in the home country political arena.
But my argument is that cutting one’s ties to the political community does not effect the social, cultural and psychological dimensions of membership in a nation. Furthermore, these are things that simply cannot be taken away – the US government does not and will never have the power to take away my identity. If I renounce my American mother and father will still be my parents, I will still have a West Coast American accent when I speak French, and my mother-in-law will probably still refer to me as her American daughter-in-law. If I renounce I will still love Seattle, I will still have my degree from the University of Washington and I will still follow with great interest what is happening in the Pacific Northwest.
In short, I will still care and I will still be tied to the US nation in ways that I’m thinking are MORE important than just membership in a political community. It’s only the state I would shed, not the people or places I love.
My fear (and it is shared) is that the state will punish me and others for even thinking about renouncing (essentially turning us into reluctant involuntary citizens in the political community) by threatening the other ties we have to the US nation. And I cannot express how much I resent that. I don’t think they have a hope in hell of succeeding but the fact that they (Reed and Schumer) would try just gives me yet another reason to renounce. If they would do that, just imagine what else they have under their hats? If this is the level of representation and leadership the American nation-state offers, than I want none of it.
What I hate is that self-destructive idiotic policies are forcing so many very fine people with good values to renounce their US citizenship. What tremendous loss it will be to the US when it loses its human representation in the world.
I just sent this letter last night to as many of my representatives in my district that I can (I’m just a little po’d):
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing this letter as a US citizen and a non-resident of the USA. The current situation that exists between US citizens and the US government is intolerable for the millions of Americans living abroad.
According to The Association of Americans Resident Overseas, the US’s extraterritorial taxation of US persons abroad has resulted in Americans being subjected to:
• Restricted access and limited choices to banking due to FATCA reporting and interpretations of the Patriot Act
• Additional IRS reporting requirements
• Sales of foreign assets can lead to fictive capital gains in dollars
• High tax preparation costs averaging $2,000 per filing
• Subject to taxation in the foreign country of residence and the US.
• Often double taxed due to incompatibilities between US and foreign tax systems
• Contributions to foreign pension plans are not tax deductible
• Employer’s contributions to foreign pension funds are added to individual’s taxable income
• Restricted to less than 10% ownership in a foreign company due to IRS reporting
• Restricted choice of investments and securities
• Must file the FBAR, and now under FATCA, also full disclosure of foreign-based financial assets with the 1040
• Additional reporting requirements for foreign pensions funds, insurance companies, etc
• Substantially higher penalties on errors or omissions on tax filings
“Many foreign financial institutions are already refusing Americans as clients; this trend will accelerate as the deadline approaches, yet Americans cannot operate in a modern economy without access to foreign banks. Many Americans living abroad have already had difficulty maintaining US financial accounts in the absence of a bona fide address in the United States.”
It would be difficult to dispute that US citizens are being openly harmed by their government’s current policies, and it most certainly makes it no less of an atrocity when those citizens happen to be living abroad.
The question I ask is whether this harm would be considered ‘punishment’ or the ‘persecution’ of US citizens living abroad, and how any government can justify inflicting either on its citizens.
We know that it’s fair to exact punishment for the commission of an offence, but what offence have we committed? Without a clear statement from the US government as to what crime a US citizen living abroad has committed, we can only assume that one has not. If choosing to live or being born outside US as US citizens is NOT a crime for which we must be punished, then are we not in fact being harmed for no justifiable reason? In another word, persecuted by our government? The US would then be determined to have a policy of persecution against its own citizens, would it not?
The fact that the United States government continues without justification to subject its citizens to the kind of harm that makes it necessary to renounce US citizenship to survive is reprehensible. Until the US government fixes this broken mess, the renunciations will continue to the point where there will no longer be any US citizens to speak of outside of America.
In my opinion, the survival of the American presence abroad will come down to whether America values its diaspora, because the US’s unique citizenship based taxation enforced by FATCA will see the end of American global migration on any significant scale. The US and Eritrea are the only two countries in the world that tax on citizenship, not residency. As an increasing number of Americans abroad learn of citizenship based taxation and the harm it inflicts on Americans, we will begin to see Americans divesting themselves of their US citizenship en masse, if it hasn’t started already. For the few people who wish to retain their US citizenship, they face the ever-increasing costs, often in the thousands, in just filing and reporting fees alone. When the cost of maintaining something far exceeds its value, that ‘something’ ultimately loses value. The blame for the de-valuing of US citizenship falls squarely on the US government, not its victims, the American expat who is forced to renounce US citizenship as a last resort for his/her family’s survival.
Is this what America wants for itself, its human presence in the world shrunk to essentially nothing? How does it benefit America to lose even one of its citizens this way, and why are elected officials allowing the continued persecution of millions of American citizens?
It’s beyond my comprehension that a country that prides itself on freedom and equality would allow this to continue. STOP IT NOW, adopt Residence Based Taxation and allow Americans the freedom that all other free countries provide their citizens.
Yours truly,
*
@USCitizenabroad
I’ve read the Jasonoff book and think it should be required reading in US high schools as well as in Canadian high schools. I know that when I was in US high school I had no knowledge of the extent of opposition to the declaration of independence by many American colonists (notably in New York City) nor the acts of what today would be described as terrorism by the “Sons of Liberty” and other Sam Adams followers against those who didn’t want to split from the British Crown.
The huge gulf in awareness and understanding between Americans and Canadians on both the Empire Loyalist and War of 1812 issues is proof positive that history is written by the “winners,” at least locally, and that what history is taught in the schools isn’t always the truth, all the truth, or nothing but the truth.
On a tangential matter, it wasn’t until I was an adult with post-graduate degrees that I starting reading ALL of Mark Twain (beyond Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer), notably his diatribes against US policy, BS propaganda and war crimes especially in the Phillipines during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Never got exposed to any of that in high school (nor to Thoreau’s excellent essay on the duty of civil disobedience, which I discovered during my anti-Vietnam-war days in the US in grad school). I think Twain and Thoreau are the best writers America ever produced, and they both have been heavily-censored in the public school system down there.
Obama’s statement unfortunately sounds much like those of another person in history:
“We must, therefore, coolly and objectively adopt the standpoint that it can certainly not be the intention of Heaven to give one people fifty times as much land and soil in this world as another.”
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
I’m sure you all know which “evil person”, I’m referring to.
I hate to say this, but I dislike anyone going after “my money” and that includes government. If that makes me a “capitalist”…then SO BE IT.
Victoria, valid fear. I fully expect the wrath of whatever god claims them to rain down. I am indifferent anymore. I have reached the point past fear where one just shrugs b/c that is the only thing one can do. I have no power over the USG’s reactions.
Schubert1975, I had some really radical, truth-tellers for high school and university American history course, so I knew a lot more than is probably average about the actual history of the American Revolution. I also had a great high school civics teacher (he was one of the original OSS agents and told the best stories about that time period) but he was big on the truth as well.
Still, my daughter’s social classes in her elementary indoctrination into Canadian-ness has still proved to be an education. History is indeed cultural and very, very local.
I never liked Thoreau. He was a bit of a poser for all his radical ideas but Twain is definitely not studied enough. Even Huck Finn is subversive until he chickens out with that lame ending.
Tim – So are you supporting Linda Mcquaig for MP in Toronto Centre. She seems to be your type of candidate.
You don’t tend to be an ironist, so you must have a screw loose.
Me have a type of candidate? If I vote, it’s for a lesser and for an evil. And those either lose or prove to be more evil than believable.
A vote is nothing but a gasp at a straw pol.
@Victoria
From a tweet:
I think that you and Mark Twain may have something in common.
“Twain was quite the revolutionary when it came with dealing with tyranny, wonder what he’d think of the government of the US today?”
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@YogaGirl, Very wise words. Yes, we have no control over other people. They will do what they do and so will we. 🙂
USCitizenAbroad: That is a wonderful quotation from Twain and yep, I think he summed it up perfectly.
Article by Robin Levinson in today’s (August 11) “Insight” section of the Toronto Star “Welcoming a new breed of immigrant.” I have print copy but could not access on the Star’s website (perhaps tomorrow).
She discusses her feelings immigrating from US to Canada and what “national identity” means (“more than just where you’re born”). “Being an ex-American is like being an ex-girlfriend. I love America and always will. But in its own way, it broke my heart and I don’t think I can ever take it back.” “I had believed in America like children believe in the Easter Bunny. But that America wasn’t real”
Levinson left at time of the Bush administration and was “…sick to death of all the damned stupidity.”
She did not mention in the long article that her obligations to US (IRS) do not at all end with immigration to Canada.
The article ends with Levinson’s open-ended question: “What story will I tell my Canadian-American children [who will be US persons just like their mom]?”
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Related quote from a CNN article yesterday:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/04/news/citizenship-us-tax/
Thanks, Eric, for the link.
Re people divorcing the U.S. government but keeping their identity as Americans? Is this something that will contribute to the devaluation of American citizenship? I think so. Citizenship as status versus identity – these used to be a package. So many implications if that ceases to be the case.
I believe that many Poles still identified themselves culturally as Polish even back when their country was essentially dissolved on the map during parts of the 19th or 20th century; they never lost their identity. My father-in-law was born in Zamosk, which at the time, was considered part of Austria -Hungarian Empire but was culturally still Polish though not officially recognized by the State.
I still won’t be at all surprised if the US eventually capitulated and no longer made renouncing irrevocable. They’ll probably one day encourage former citizens to reclaim their citizenship so they can once again contribute to their economy.
While I believe they’ll continue to use the stick for the short and medium term, I’d guess that within fifteen to twenty years that the US will have reformed it’s tax system a simplified tax code as well as residence -based taxation. They will need to switch to the carrot in order to survive and hopefully once again thrive.
@Victoria, I don’t know about devaluing American citizenship by still claiming to feel “American” I have a friend in Ohio whose family three generations removed from Hungary still proclaim to one and all every five minutes that they are “Hungarian” even though most of them have never seen Hungary. The same for the Irish in my family. My grandmother self identified as Irish her whole life though by citizenship she was only American. I don’t think this situation is uncommon. I am not sure whether it devalues the citizenship or not. Some Irish in Ireland do feel the masses of Irish abroad and their descendants do devalue Irish citizenship calling them “WannaPaddies” Interesting observation.
Apples and oranges / heritage and citizenship?
@AtticusinCanada
When this is over for me, it won’t be fondness I’ll feel for a country that made me a pariah for leaving its borders. I’ll become one of the biggest advocates for not becoming American the world’s ever seen. Oh wait, I already am.
@Calgary
That song “Love and Marriage” keeps rolling through my head:
Love and marriage
love and marriage
goes together like a horse and carriage
this I tell you brother
you can’t have one without the other