Author Archives: Petros

Nice little story told by the grandfather of Jack Bauer (thanks Ginny!):

In my post, Our Sociopathic Society III: A cure or a coping mechanism?, I argued as follows:

Thus, complaining to a sociopath, throwing oneself at their mercy hoping for compassion, rationality or justice is a very bad idea. You cannot reform a sociopath with wise and reasonable arguments.

I then linked to a Sopranos video in which Pauli and Christopher murder a waiter who appealed to their sense of justice, comparing that to the amnesty program of the IRS, OVDP. I concluded that the best way to deal with a sociopath is to steer clear. This is particularly true if these same sociopaths control the law enforcement and justice departments of your country.

But in steering clear of the sociopaths, there are multiple strategies. What works for me may not work for someone else. I grant that. So I am going to list below, with some comments, strategies which may help and which I personally endorse:

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“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.” This is a fine election slogan.  But is it not time to get rid of Harper’s law which results in the extraordinary rendition to the USA of certain Canadians’ banking account information? Are they not Canadians deserving the protection of law, just like any other Canadian? That is the meaning of the slogan.

But wait! The Younger Trudeau has also said dual citizens fall under USA authority:

Despite its good intentions, the unfortunate consequence of FATCA is that Americans who hold dual citizenship still fall under its authority, and it requires access to their financial information through their banks. As a result of FATCA, there has been a surge in US citizenship renunciations over the past few years, and this trend continues to grow.

It remains to be seen if the Younger Trudeau is just one of Obama’s Eunuchs. It is true too that le Dauphin now crowned Prime Minister promised to improve relations with Obama and the USA, and I do not see how he will please Obama by abolishing FATCA and treating all Canadians as Canadians as according to the rule of law that he cited in his debate with Harper. (Here he acknowledges that positive law may not be in keeping with the rule of law, unlike his illustrious father).

I see a lack of coherence. What will he really do about FATCA? It is a toss up. But this much is clear: it does not seem that he has really understood all the ramifications of his election slogan, “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”. This suggests a certain deficiency either in his moral or in his intellectual capacity–or perhaps as young man, he has not yet had time to think the issue through.

Here is a trailer of a French language film that came out in November last year.

Also, Bubblebustin cited a National Post commentary:

Our new Prime Minister is so much Stephen Harper’s antithesis — young, open, charming — that it’s easy to ignore the fact that he is the personification of old world power, or the closest thing we’ve ever had to it in this country.

Yet even the fact that his ascension marks the beginning of our first familial dynasty in federal politics is treated like a charming footnote, instead of what it is. It’s no coincidence that Trudeau’s nickname before assuming office was the Dauphin. Margaret Trudeau is now marked with the rare public distinction of being both a mother and a wife to a prime minister, like some kind of democratic dowager queen.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/jen-gerson-were-the-conservatives-right-to-hate-the-ottawa-establishment

In the comment stream, some used various pejorative terms to describe my last post: infantile, tin-foil hat etc. Others said that it was perfectly ok for the government to impose the long form census since safeguards are in place to protect the information and StatsCan has a good track record in that regard. Besides the government really needs this information in order to do a good job, and some argued, to realize how bad FATCA is.

I am hoping for a little more actual dialogue on the nature of the privacy invasion. You see, I am unsatisfied in this post 9-11, post Edward Snowden revelations, era, that the government make assurances that private information be kept private for the anonymous usages of StatsCan. My issue is whether the government fails to uphold one the deepest principles of English common law since the Magna Carta–that every person is king of their own castle (i.e., the Castle Doctrine). There are just some lines that government should not step over–and the only allowable reason for stepping over those lines is if the government suspects that a crime has been committed. But never ever may a government force people to divulge information that belongs to their private and personal life: e.g., how many hours you spend playing with your children.  It is completely inappropriate for government to ask these kinds of questions.

And if the government will throw you in jail for refusing to answer these kinds of questions, how much more will they be willing to violate your Charter rights by sending your banking information to the IRS? I am not impressed with our young handsome PM’s first act. I called him King, but the fact is that in the English-speaking world, the Younger Trudeau is insisting on the power that kings have been barred from exercising for centuries by the Castle Doctrine. Thus, it is a violation of natural law, and so naturally there are many people who become extremely irate over the violation of their personal jurisdiction–as elder Trudeau said, the government has no business in our bedrooms–but the government doesn’t belong in our kitchens, our living rooms nor in our children’s rooms either.

The government insists that it needs accurate information. But truly, if the government is justified in forcing people to fill out 40-page questionnaires revealing certain details of their private lives, would it not be better to collect the information just by installing cameras into their bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and children’s bedrooms? In this way, direct surveillance would permit for a better picture of Canadian households and provide the necessary and most accurate information for StatsCan. Be assured however that your private information will be only for the eyes of bureaucrats who need the information.

Justin Trudeau, King of Canada, has issued his first edict: the reinstatement of the long census form. Minister in charge of Canadian census Navdeep Singh Bains, will jail people who refuse to divulge personal information required by the long census form:

[The Liberal government] didn’t provide details on how it plans to make sure that people actually fill it out, although Navdeep Bains, the minister of innovation, science and economic development, said “the law is the law” and the Statistics Act hasn’t changed, which suggests penalties would include jail time. Bains said restoring the long form will mean a return to solid, high-quality data.

It seems lost on Bains that saying that “the law is the law” does not make any particular action of the government morally right. Putting old ladies in jail because they refuse to fill out a form is disproportionate to the alleged crime. That it is an invasion of privacy and a violation of universal human rights makes it all the more despicable. But the new Trudeau government seems to be carrying on the tradition of the elder Trudeau’s attitude towards law, as we discussed earlier (see, Burning down barns is not wrong because it is illegal; it is illegal because it is wrong).

In the past, the government found one woman guilty of refusing to fill out the long census form. She was 79-years old.  I have seen how government persecution of senior citizens can lead to fear and sometimes premature death, as in the case of friend of the Isaac Brock Society Mark Pinetree, who lived out his final years in fear of the IRS. He was a psychiatrist who had moved back to Brazil after becoming a US citizenship, not realizing that the IRS would persecute him even though he no longer lived in the USA.

In any case, if we were hoping that the government of Trudeau the Younger would respect the privacy rights of citizens of Canada, we now have tangible evidence that the new King doesn’t really believe in privacy. This bodes ill for those hoping for the repeal of the FATCA IGA.

Sociopaths resist treatment

Someone asked me on yesterday’s post what I saw as the cure for our sociopathic society. It would require curing the the sociopaths and that reminds me of a joke:  How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

It appears that sociopaths resist treatment. One website says,

TO THE BEST of our knowledge, there is no cure for psychopathy. No pill can instill empathy, no vaccine can prevent murder in cold blood, and no amount of talk therapy can change an uncaring mind. For all intents and purposes, psychopaths are lost to the normal social world.

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I find very little news exciting. Yesterday I shared on Facebook at Citizenship Taxation a Washington Times article reporting that the GOP controlled house was starting impeachment proceedings on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen–this was to say that I hold no idiosyncratic view that the IRS is a criminal organization. Of course I am completely blasé when criminals have turf wars and I am not about to get my hopes up that anything will change: when the war is over, no matter who wins, sociopaths will still be in charge.

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We live in a sociopathic society. Of course one could argue that governments and other human institutions have displayed signs of sociopathy throughout history. You get no argument from me. Nevertheless, I would argue that we must always be diligent in pointing out and decrying sociopathic behaviour.

One characteristic of a sociopath is the inability to empathize. “The most incredible trait of a sociopath, is their complete lack of conscience, lack of empathy, remorse, guilt or shame.”

So-called American citizens abroad have complained to their political leaders, who sometimes pretend to empathize, but most often will turn around and sponsor or vote for laws that make the situation worse for expats. This is evidence of sociopathic government, unwilling to bend despite causing real harm to people.

The State Department faces rising numbers of people renouncing their US citizenship, many of whom have complained in the media that they are forced to give up their US citizenship to protect themselves and their family from the US government’s encroachment into their financial privacy. So what does the State Department do in response to their suffering? It increased the fee to renounce from zero to $450 and then to $2350–and not only so, they are now forcing people who have already lost their US citizenship via relinquishment to pay $2350 to purchase a Certificate of Loss of Nationality–which will permit them, sine qua non, to travel to the USA on their home country’s passport and to prove to their domestic banks that they are not tainted with the stench of US nationality. So the US government chooses to make the lives of expats even more difficult despite their complaints. This is proof that these political leaders are sociopaths.

This sociopathic fee of $2350 is particularly distressing if one has produced children with “property of the USA” stamped on their rear ends. This genetic disease that we call USA citizenship will cost $2350 per person to eradicate, and the more little Americans that one has had the more likely that this will become a serious financial burden–imagine a US expat couple with three children (not that uncommon). In order to buy their manumission, they would have to pay $11,750 US at the current rate, but there is no reason to think that “reporting for duty” John Kerry (the sociopath who runs the United States State Department) will keep the fee at only $2350. So by the time their children are old enough to renounce, the price of freedom will be even higher–but still worth it; that is if you can afford it.

U.S. Has World’s Highest Fee To Renounce Citizenship: Robert Woods