I had a couple of my posts taken down by Keith Redmond at the American Expatriates Facebook Group.
The first made use of Lebron James comment, ‘I’m the best player in the world’.
I wrote, “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the best basketball player of them all?” Keith Redmond, the co-administrator of the Facebook group asked me what relevance it had to the group and I said it is analogous to American exceptionalism, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the most exceptional of them all?” It is really about the National Narcissistic Personality Disorder from which Americans suffer as a nation. It leads to the USA unilaterally imposing FATCA on the rest of the world as so beautifully captured in this video, which is still the best explanation of FATCA ever:
The second censored post reported on the State Department’s denunciation of Dominican Republic citing the United Nations human rights provisions. I said the USA was hypocritical because it violates the human rights of its own expats.
Then as Deedee Gierow, the Democrats Abroad co-administrator of the American Expatriates Facebook group, posted that she was sick and tired of all the bashing of the USA and that she, Keith and others were working very hard to lobby Washington (Facebook link). This solicited a discussion in which Redmond and Gierow heroically defended the purpose of the group and that they would henceforth delete any America-bashing content.
The American Expatriates group’s mission is to inform, educate, and provide the most up to date information regarding United States government policies affecting the lives of Americans living overseas. It is extremely important to mitigate the misconceptions about Americans living outside the United States vis-à-vis the public at large
It remains unclear to me how it is possible to have a group which discusses Citizenship Based Taxation and FATCA from an expat’s perspective without being anti-American. This is the conundrum–either the content is irrelevant (e.g., cookie recipes) or it is anti-American–e.g., discussions of the lives that are being ruined by FATCA and CBT. How do you stand by and allow innocent people to be destroyed by a foreign government and say positive things about that government?
There was some back and forth between myself and some of the other active members of the group, in which I learned that I am argumentative and offensive. Really? That really surprised me.
My third censored post was a comment: if we can’t really complain about how the USA is treating us, then we are supposed to be like a battered spouse, who quietly accepts abuse, and so I posted a link to the following page and suggested the situation was comparable to spousal abuse: Intimate Partner Violence Dynamics.
It seemed like Expat Forum deja vu, when I concluded that a censored forum is an oxymoron. So later when I suggested that some people would indeed leave the group because it wasn’t a safe place anymore, Redmond told me to leave. So I suppose my days are numbered.
I guess that is all I can write for now. My knee is bothering me and it is hard to stand up at my desk. In any case, it is good that some people are trying to lobby the US government, but I have no faith that that will change anything. So perhaps my cynicism and pessimism is not welcome in best of all worlds–but certainly not on certain “forums”. Cheers to you all.
I’d put the stories of Marilyn, Linda, and Ruth ahead of Barbara, though they’re all compelling.
https://vimeo.com/124157997
@Petros: Isn’t Karma a bitch. You, Tricia and others banned me from IBS because you thought I was too far down the rabbit hole. Now you have progressed a little ways but are still hanging out by the entrance (statism). You didn’t like me talking about being US persons being slaves, about Canada being part of the empire, about anything having to do with how racism is a tool that directly relates to our expat predicament.
So Petros, once you got a taste of your own medicine you came running back here whining.
@Tricia: This where the rubber hits the road. Why don’t you explain why you expose yourself to charges of hypocrisy by restricting my comments on IBS when so many contributors here keep ranting about evils of censorship?
@All: Funny, I rarely read on this site anything about the fascist TPP that Canada is signing on to with the US. Don’t y’all realize that FATCA is just a little bump on the road to the NWO?
@MJH “If you don’t get a CLN from the State Department, then you can’t prove that you’re relinquished your citizenship to anyone.”
Thats false….
Lets take the example of Boris Johnson, who became a MP again in May.
Boris goes down to his solicitor and swears out an affadavit that he intentionally and voluntarily relinquished.
Solicitor signs and seals that document. An attachment is a copy of his signed acceptance of office as an MP.
Presto…proof that he is not a USC.
Lets use Joe Maple who becomes a Canadian Citizen.
When Joe applies for Canadian Citizenship he rightly states he is a USC but in the NOTES section of the application he writes that he is relinquishing under 8 US Code blah blah.
When Joe takes the oath to HM QE2 he gets a Judge or someone to witness a statement that he is relinquishing.
Presto….proof of relinquishment especially the certified copy of the original citizenship application.
@George and mjh.
Except there is no guarantee that the entity you submit it to will accept either affidavit or CLN, especially if you move to a non English speaking country, like say Japan.
@ConfH You told someone to f-off; but we did not ban you. We put your comments in moderation. But you may recall, I stepped down from being the comments editor.
As for myself I avoided the most odious comparisons and rude language at AE. I asked if I were nasty (you were rude) to a couple people and they said no.
@George
Okay. If it is false, then why do people need it? Why even issue it? What is even the point of it?
@Japan T
How you get other people to recognize the CLN, well, that I don’t have an answer for. It may help to ask the pertinent questions in order to determine what they’re willing to accept, so you’ll have an idea of what to do.
@George
It’s the same as with a passport. I know what my citizenship is, and my passport is proof of it. So without the passport, I cannot prove citizenship, and I’m not going to able to get on an airplane without one. Know what I mean?
For foreign language legal documents, in our country you submit the original (or certified copy, whichever is required) with a certified translation. You’d have to check in your jurisdiction to find out how to get a certified translation (or whatever they might call the equivalent there), specific procedure likely varies from country to country, but it’s a pretty common occurrence.
@ Pacifica777
Yes but that does not mean they will accept it, especially when faced with huge fines.
@ ConfederationH
TPP and NAU, replete with all their red flag warnings, have come up on Brock at times and then there are Bills C-24, C-31 and C-51. There are so many roadblocks to our liberty being laid down these days that it’s hard to stay focused on one like CBT/FBAR/FATCA. We can’t do it all so we have to hope that others are alerted and willing to devote their energy to those other evils.
I say give your bank a copy of the statute that states that all US citizens are required to enter on a US passport and the record of your entries to the US. Perhaps a convincing argument can be made that you aren’t a citizen rather than the US doesn’t enforce its own laws.
I actually didn’t know about the AE facebook group until these “homelanders abroad” posts appeared but now I know of yet another place where Americans who habitually reside in other countries hang out. Brockers seem to treat America more like “that other country”. (Well I do anyway because it is “that other country” and I have no affinity to it whatsoever.) I have been aware of Keith Redmond because of his tweets, writings and radio interviews and I think that he, in his way, and Petros, in his way, are both doing helpful things to fight FATCA/FBAR/CBT. Their attitudes and approaches are different but as the saying goes (even though it makes me cringe), “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
If someone with another attitude wants to try another approach then that’s okay too because I see no harm in that … unless it’s a slimy, deceptive agent of the government trying to infiltrate and subvert our very just and now very urgent cause. (It’s always prudent to be on the lookout for these types, as difficult as they may be to detect.)
When proposals arise they should be carefully analyzed and constructively criticized. I’m thinking of “safe harbor” which IMHO falls way short of the mark because I tend to lean towards “it’s bad so bring it all down” not “patch what you can”.
As you may know, EmBee, I am not at all opposed to those efforts to try to get DC to lay off expats, and Keith Redmond is a well-spoken advocate. Many AE folks, on the other hand, have nothing but scorn for me as you can see from their posts that I cited in my next post after this one.
Well, while I do wish Keith luck in his efforts, I’m not convinced that he will achieve his objectives within the system.
“You told someone to f-off; but we did not ban you. We put your comments in moderation. But you may recall, I stepped down from being the comments editor. ”
And you handed over the responsibility to who? What would happen to this blog if you started letting people use the f* word on it. Why you might even offend some homelanders
Unfortunately Keith more than likely will not achieve his objectives. History has borne out that, many times before. Many a sword has been raised after endless rounds of civil discourse.
@ Petros
I know and I understand how you feel about that. You are standing up well to the slings and arrows and that is exactly what I would expect from someone who had the gumption to give us this incredible, helpful and sometimes turbulent Brock forum.
@ConfH
I have never restricted your comments. I was not on the committee when all that happened. And to the best of my knowledge I have not done so the few times you posted afterwards.
George says:
“Lets take the example of Boris Johnson, who became a MP again in May.
Boris goes down to his solicitor and swears out an affadavit that he intentionally and voluntarily relinquished.
Solicitor signs and seals that document. An attachment is a copy of his signed acceptance of office as an MP.
Presto…proof that he is not a USC.”
Except for this:
Boris renews his US passport.
Presto…proof that he is a USC and a fraud.
Lucky for him, the US needs frauds.
Japan T says:
“Except there is no guarantee that the entity you submit it to will accept either affidavit or CLN, especially if you move to a non English speaking country, like say Japan.”
Japan REQUIRES CLN or equivalents from other countries, even if they’re not written in Japanese. Ask Arudou-shi.
ConfederationH,
I was one of the *administrators* who may or may not have put comments from you into Pending here. There is discussion and consensus before one administrator actually places a comment into Pending.
I just checked your comments — you had 260 that were Approved and still appear and 6 in Pending at the end of your previous commenting where it is evident they went into Pending because they were personal attacks on others that had nothing to do with the *Administrative Notice* on the right-hand side of the home page:
ConfederationH,
While the *f-word and phrases get tiresome*, if you will look in the recent comments you will see that has not been the criteria for comments going into Pending.
Personally, I think that the admins for Isaac Brock Society should not also be ADCS directors.
That’s a fair observation, WK. I’ll step down from being an administrator at IsaacBrockSociety.ca if that is the will of those here.
@Calgary, It is not an issue of will. Four self appointed people are deciding on behalf of 40 million Canadians what constitutes an attack on Canadian sovereignty that is worth defending (an issue in itself worthy of a discussion about ‘will’).
Perhaps those same individuals should not also be moderating the comments for a website concerned about the treatment by the United States government of US persons who live in Canada and abroad.