(11) Cynical derision of Homelanders is healthy.
At Isaac Brock Society, we have always been not a little irreverent when it comes to discussing the USA’s international tax invasion. Eventually when we meet real Homelanders online or in person, we realize that they suffer from a type of sociopathy that we do well to criticize, deride, and even to spoof.
The coming election in the USA is a choice between a narcissist and a sociopath, a swindler and an influence peddler, a compulsive liar and a pathological liar. The Homelanders are bitterly dividing themselves between these two candidates. In my lifetime, I’ve never seen two such ill-suited people as candidates for the POTUS, and it seems like destiny would force Homelanders to choose between one of these two. Most Homelanders are short-sighted to the point of believing that, if they vote for another party, it means throwing their vote away.
The Republican Party platform is admittedly saying that it will eliminate FATCA and CBT. This is our issue–so if you are inclined to vote on our issues, it seems that there is a clear choice. But I caution against putting faith in either the Republicans or the Democrats. What we have learned in this battle thus far is that we must come up with our own personal solutions because our governments in our home countries have been derelict in protecting our freedoms, and the political leaders in the USA are only concerned about winning over the sentiments of Homelanders. Both candidates are demagogues whose only real concern is to appeal to Homelanders. Neither gives a rat’s ass about us. And so it is clear that there is no real political solution, and our only hope in coming together is to fight this in the courts.
I appreciate Patricia Moon’s post yesterday about Donald Trump. It was interesting how a satirical post could be so easily believed (I believed it). The ensuing discussion was passionate–and that quickened me and got me to thinking about some of my favoritest posts that I’ve written for Isaac Brock–irreverent, biting, cynical, satirical; in some cases we have successfully compared the USA to the worst examples of government tyranny in history, and this usually causes an uproar, and some people admittedly have left us. But uncensored derision is part of the DNA of this website, and I do not see that changing.
Previous Derisive Posts (Warning: some of these could come true in our lifetime):
Both our forefathers were slaves: When is a comparison correct and when isn’t it?
Santa Clause arrested on Christmas Eve
The FATCA star: a design suggestion
What would happen if Indonesia reclaimed its most famous former citizenship?
The accidental Kenyan: What would happen if the African nation copied U.S. tax policy? by Don Whiteley
The “Property of the USA” tattoo
Shulman and Flaherty Summit Ends: IRS and CRA to merge
Previous Petros Principles
(1) What the IRS can’t know unless you tell them can’t hurt you.
(2) Fear makes the IRS more dangerous than it really is.
(3) Haste is the devil.
(4) Those most hurt by the IRS’s persecution of expats have engaged the services of cross-border compliance condors.
(5) Those least hurt have done nothing.
(6) Home is where you live.
(7) An unjust law is no law.
(8) Don’t feed the beast.
(9) Do the minimum in trying to achieve the least bad outcome.
(10) coming soon
Nice post.
I wonder. The platform language doesn’t say they “will” repeal FATCA and switch to RBT. It says “We call for .. [FATCA’s] repeal and for a change to residency-based taxation for U.S. citizens overseas.”
Easy to call for something, and FATCA repeal is only one of 29 items “called for” in the platform. It definitely pushes the “cynicism” button for me.
The Democrats’ language is no more satisfactory: ” …we will make sure that law-abiding Americans living abroad are not unfairly penalized by finding the right solutions for them to the requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).”
Something tells me the Democrats’ idea of “unfairly penalized” would be very different from mine. They do at least say they’ll do something though.
In the end, I suspect those who like Trump / fear Clinton will vote accordingly, and those who like Clinton / fear Trump will do likewise.
Hear hear.
“At Isaac Brock Society, we have always been not a little irreverent when it comes to discussing the USA’s international tax invasion.”
To the above post and Tricia Moon’s post yesterday, I also say hear hear. Our somewhat dark humor and cynicism is a natural response to dealing with the USA international tax invasion along with the pathetic USA presidential candidates. I don’t really believe that either one of theses candidates can be trusted to deal with FATCA or anything else.
The fact that many would believe yesterday’s story about Trump tells us that many have prejudged him. It says more about the reader than the person who posted the article. Perhaps the indignation comes more from being fooled than the actual content.
Good observation, iota. We are playing the long game here, and who’s to know which party will do more for us in the long run? The Democrats admit FATCA’s a problem, and who’s to say that they won’t determine that the solution to the problem isn’t a return to Residency Based Taxation?
That said, the Republicans would deal with FATCA and RBT swiftly, should they deal with it at all.
I agree:
The homelanders deserve every single venomous thought towards them.
They accept the persecution of Americans Abroad as if they were slave owners and they had rightful ownership of our money. They have no compunctions about treating us like slaves.
They deserve every single bit of our contempt.
HOUSE COMMITTEE CONSIDERS AMERICANS ABROAD TAX PROBLEMS:
https://www.americansabroad.org/news/house-committee-considers-americans-abroad-tax-problems/?platform=hootsuite
Personally, I am not interested in something that keeps any one of my family having one foot in the USA. I want either RBT as the rest of the world or, with CBT (US taxation citizenship), I want a way to be completely rid of the US / expatriation for ALL members of my family including the *entrapped* one never registered as a US birth abroad. I and the members of my family should have say that no one in our family should be considered a *Homelander Abroad* with such half-baked remedies that keep us in USA books as Same Country Exception or the like. That would likely a Department of State solution, not one from the IRS / tax reform.
Yes, in my advanced age, I am indeed cynical and have learned to trust few – including the Liberal government and its leader of my own country, Canada.
That’s Ryan’s tax plan.
Then there’s Trump’s plan:
“TAX REFORM THAT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”
https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/trump-tax-reform.pdf
And then there’s the platform.
It’s a mystery to me how they all fit together – if they do.
Oops, should have made it clearer: Ryan’s plan is the House Committee plan.
In one corner, we have The Idiot:
“Washington (CNN)Donald Trump said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t make a military move into Ukraine — even though Putin already has done just that, seizing the country’s Crimean peninsula.
“He’s not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want,” Trump said in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.”
“Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?” Stephanoploulos responded, in a reference to Crimea, which Putin took from Ukraine in early 2014.”
In the other corner of the ring, we have The Liar:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZHO1vo762c
One way or another, American voters will get the president they deserve in November.
@Tricia. Thanks for posting the fine piece of satire yesterday. I think the Republicans and Democrats have both selected two profoundly flawed candidates for the November election.
Hillary and Bill Clinton have schooled the world in how to peddle influence and make hundreds of millions for themselves. If she becomes president, the USA will be sold to the highest bidder and she and Bill will become multi-billionaires.
@ BC Doc
Trump has this one right. (Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.) Russia did not invade Crimea as the mainstream media continues to imply. The Crimean population, fearful of the consequences of living under the Kiev coup, voted in a legal and verified referendum by a margin of 96 to 4 to rejoin Russia. Ukraine is close to being a failed state now thanks to US meddling and I doubt Putin wants the headache of managing that mess. He continues to focus on preserving Russian sovereignty which is something I wish our Canadian government would do too.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/crimeans-keep-saying-no-to-ukraine/5438563
Yes, I completely agree that Americans have been given “two profoundly flawed candidates” to vote for this fall. It’s the celebrity egotist versus the criminal liar and Americans won’t say no to both.
Petros is right about the homelanders.
But should we in Canada be so smug–we have our own Quisling as prime minister
Petros has delivered a tankful of cynicism about the US election but John Whitehead delivered a supertankerful of it with his article titled “Stop Drinking the Kool-Aid, America: Political Fiction in an Age of Televised Lies”:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45201.htm
When a writer on this site said we have a choice between a pathological Lier and a compulsive lier I couldn’t decide which one was which. They both are both in my estimation.
We home landers would like to see the Marxist Income Tax repealed and a National sales tax enacted to get the money to operate government.
This is never going to happen as long as we have lobbyists who are the conduit for bribes, pretending to be campaign contributions. The House Ways and Means Committee has honed the bribery system down to a science. The Lobbyist stands with a large check in their hand where the member can see the numbers and whilst the member’s eyes are widened and their breathing orgasmic, the lobbyist asks for the special tax break his client has bought and paid for and lest it escape the campaign fund he needs to pay the 50 family members his campaign employs year around, he’ll promise anything. I am truly surprised the Isaac Brockers have not found it to their advantage to hire one of these pimps themselves, but alas we are but amatuers at pimping and at the other end of the dance the pimps get paid for.
Petros–related to your 5th amendment comments, news out today on this:
IRS Loses Court Battle Over Access to Offshore Tax Records
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-01/irs-loses-court-battle-over-access-to-offshore-tax-records
@ renaud
Seriously? They’re after records from 2001? It’s good to see that there has been at least a temporary victory over the IRS in this case. It would have been nice to be given a few more details but unlike the IRS I wouldn’t want to pry into this man’s affairs.
Touché! My mother and my sister who live in the Midwest, whom I visited last month, are extremely upset about the choices this year. The Donald or Hillary have completely turned turned them off. (The U.S. is where all my extended family and all my husband’s extended family live, so I can’t help but be concerned).
Some of you might be interested in the latest posts of Karl Denninger, who is the process of discontinuing a blog for 8 years. He is disgusted by the choices America has, including the Libertarian candidate. Every party ignores the math that the economy is plummeting and that there is not enough $ to keep Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare going another 4 years.
Karl is further disgusted by the blatant reality that the Rule of Law is dead in America. The Rule of Law is supposed to work the same for everyone; no one should be above the law. Although lawyers can mitigate sentences for wealthier clients, even the wealthy are expected to serve a sentence (like Martha Stewart). But no longer. Sure, the “little guys” like you and me still get punished, but the Elite bankers, hedge fund managers, etc. no longer do.
Karl Denninger says the “Rule of Law” officially died in America when the FBI let Hillary off despite admitting that she broke laws by having a classified documents on her personal server. Why is Hillary above the law? (Notice that last week Hillary alienated Bernie Sanders supporters by hiring Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who Wikileaks exposed as sabotaging Sanders’ campaign! Outrageous!)
Karl lives in Florida, a state where it is illegal to shoot someone who is obviously unarmed. He talks about the problem where the black autistic care-giver in south Florida’s gets shot by a cop who will probably be protected, although ordinary Floridians who did the same thing would serve time in jail.
You can go to Karl’s link for his latest posts, and/or a video interview he gives here:
https://market-ticker.org
Some background on the Stevenson Fifthe Amendment case here.
http://www.law360.com/articles/750406/2nd-circ-suggests-gov-t-overstepped-in-importer-s-tax-case
Steven Greenfield, I should have said.
Another Canadian facing a challenge like all of us here, except with banksters of a different circle…..https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/08/01/this-man-cant-afford-his-own-attorney-because-hes-paying-the-tab-for-the-lawyers-hired-to-sue-him.html
Footnote 6 (p.13) in the court’s opinion given in the Steven Greenfield Fifth Amendments case says:
http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/e1d33938-266d-4b8b-b11d-bc391da5191e/2/doc/15-543_opn.pdf#xml=http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/e1d33938-266d-4b8b-b11d-bc391da5191e/2/hilite/
If Americans really cared what happens to their country; they should be panicking and voting Libertarian or Green right now. The Republicans voted in a psychopathic narcissist to lead their party and the Democrats elected a lying sociopath. And people are saying “Choose the lesser evil.” Do they consider the tidal wave they would cause if every single intelligent voter voted for a major third party – either Libertarian or Green? But then again I have no faith in the intelligence of the American populace who have been spoon-fed cultish Amereligion since they were born. The country of greed and idiocy and this 2016 Presidential election proves it to a tee.
That’s all I’m going to say about this election and let me make a prediction: Either way the chips fall; better dig a nuclear proof bunker. The fallout isn’t going to be pretty.