No mention of USPs abroad, just some observations by Wolf on the government’s general attitude about journalism. She also mentions her involvement in the court case filed against the NDAA.
No mention of USPs abroad, just some observations by Wolf on the government’s general attitude about journalism. She also mentions her involvement in the court case filed against the NDAA.
Scary. I’m glad that I left and have no desire to go back!! Someone could offer me a job that pays 10x what I make, and I wouldn’t go back there.
The very smart people at the IRS who went to the best schools and who have nice families and are very conservative people who go to bed early at night, apparently have nothing better to do than to follow the goings on at the Isaac Brock Society in order to build a file case against Petros: Our former IRS friend told us so (here, as well as elsewhere).
I recommend the film, The Lives of Others; the United States is becoming a surveillance state like East Germany was before reunification. The leading cause of death in that society was not execution; no, it was suicide. So this is why it is impossible to know if the US has killed any of its expats–the most catastrophic aspect of the suffocating police state is that it takes people’s will to live away from them.
Interesting how she makes an analogy between the U.S. government and the old Soviet Union. I say that because one of the sins of the old Soviet Union was the use of “genocide” against the Ukrainians. Is her analogy inapproriate because there is no genocide “yet” being committed?
Isn’t all part of a common tyrannical theme?
@Recalcitrant, I am constantly being confronted by those who think that I and others at Isaac Brock have exaggerated, have used hyperbole, or have otherwise exceeded the norms of polite speech in order to make a point. But your comment is exactly and precisely on the money. How are we supposed to know if the United States has gone to far if we are forbidden from making comparisons of tyrannical regimes in the recent history? That is the boiled frog speaking, not the person who is vigilant and careful not to allow hard-won freedoms decay in the name of security. I am no threat to the United States. But I am, according to one former government employee, on the watch list.
For a taste of surveillance in East Germany, I would also recommend “The Lives of Others”. Several weeks ago there was a German television programme about the history of the Berlin Wall and the East German fortified border. The narrator mentioned that there was one internal spy in East Germany for every 150 citizens, while Poland, Czech and the Soviet Union got by with only one internal spy for every 800 to 1,200 citizens. East Germany’s economy was under extreme pressure caused by the ongoing departure of its citizens, primarily to West Germany, and needed internal surveillance as well as effective borders to keep its citizens home working.
If I may digress, from the late 1970s until a few years ago I worked regularly in W. Germany on projects and came to know many former East Germans, Czechs and others who had escaped from the East Bloc, including displaced Germans from East Prussia and Silesia. They seemed to accept that they could not return and generally felt very fortunate to be away and to have survived.
In 1977 I was sent to Munich to work on a project which would also take us to West Berlin. A German-American, Mrs von R., was sent over from a Midwest office to be one of the project managers. When it came time to take the train to W. Berlin, she declined and said that if the East German border guards saw where she was born, which was listed in her American passport, that they would nab her. She also said that the East Germans would love to get their hands on someone like her, which I did not understand at the time. We went on to W. Berlin, on a well-guarded East German coal-burning steam engine train, completed our work and left from there.
Several years ago I saw an obituary on Mrs von R. and learned that she was a baroness (Freiin). Based on her father’s name, I believe he may have been a high-ranking cabinet member in the Weimar Republic government, which may explain her comment but this is unconfirmed. Moral of the story: where you were born can make a difference when crossing borders (and maintaining local bank accounts). Mrs von R. was a sharp lady to recognize and avoid this risk.
@Innocente, It is sad to see the United States go down this same road. But now many US citizens abroad, myself, and others, are saying it is not wise for us to try to return.
Some think that I’m just being paranoid. But I’ve been warned that the IRS is watching this site by someone who should know one way or the other what the standard operating procedures of the IRS actually are, because he used to work for them and not that long ago. This is not paranoia but prudence. I don’t want to be the first person nabbed because I defied Douglas Shulmann’s and Barack Hussein Obama’s tax jihad against expats.
I believe also that the Canadian government’s ability to protect me ends at the US/Canada border. Even though I am no longer a US citizen, if I step across the border, I could face difficulties and prosecution.
Peter, you should find a guy who looks like you, give him $100, and your passport, and tell him to cross through the border and buy something. If he faces no problems.. then all is well.
Before seeing this video, I would have said “Fine, nothing to worry about because I don’t see anybody on this site advising anyone to break the law. On the contrary, people give links to the forms, proper software to use, etc..” But after seeing this video, well.. I’m starting to think that they are probably watching us because we think Citizenship-based taxation is wrong. They take something that isn’t a crime, and turn it into one.
@ geeez
That looks like a plan for Petros, EXCEPT one border crossing test with a “stand in” wouldn’t do the trick because each crossing goes easily or not according to who the guard is that day and whether or not he/she got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. You just never know what will happen. I do know that I will not cross the border ever again (haven’t been there in 15 years anyway). Aside from not being able to visit what remains of my husband’s family, my only regret is that I will never see the Grand Canyon.
“Before seeing this video, I would have said “Fine, nothing to worry
about because I don’t see anybody on this site advising anyone to break
the law.”
I think you just did, geeez — impersonating the original Peter Dunn. 😉
I think that many who read Isaac Brock must learn when civil disobedience is actually the most prudent course:
1
Civil disobedience in the face of desperate government: John Rubino video2
Civil Disobedience, FBAR and Forms 8854 and 8938In this latter post, I wrote:
Peter, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ve been here since the beginning, commenting every day. I have a linked domain in my name!! By the way, the domain will expire in the next few months. The forum method is really good, but it just didn’t catch on here. But you really should install the plug-in so we can change our avatars.
Like I have ALWAYS said from the very beginning:
Something you can NEVER tolerate here is someone of those tax-protester or sovereign-people types that advocate breaking the law. After all, if we “tax protested” where we actually live, we’d probably be in jail or have liens against us!
I really don’t think arguing the necessity of citizenship-based taxation (Constitutionality is a worthless argument nowadays) – is going to get ANYONE in trouble. We are all just a group of peaceful people discussing the issues. One reason I really like this site so much is because we are scattered all about: I’m in South America, Jefferson is in Switzerland, you are in Canada. I watched the Swiss yodleing videos! I liked them a lot. Confederate […] will cringe when I say that it is a diverse bunch here, but it really is. No Confederate, I’m not a liberal.. I’m apolitical – I stay out of that stuff, even here where I live.
Chris Hedges is nothing short of a great American hero for sidelining the NDAA which Obama signed into law. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples and now drops bombs on innocent people for national security.
More about the NDAA:
http://www.infowars.com/ndaa-banned-indefinite-detention-of-americans-unconstitutional/
Perhaps someone would want to make some comments on the ACLUs NDAA page:
http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa
This might also be a good oppourtunity to mention the presumptions of guilt and the discrimination that USPs abroad are subject to due to US taxation policies and IRS tactics.
@Petros: This is the first time that I read that comment from Mopsick. You are an inspiration. Mopsick is clearly deranged and anybody who would hire him as a lawyer deserves everything the IRS does to them. Mopsick wrote:
“Saying things like, the IRS is committing an act of war It is a little
like making a joke about a bomb seconds before passing through an
airport screening device.”
These pompous and self-important civil service employees are the scourge of the US.
Here is a fantastic interview of Sibel Edwards the whistleblower and she talks about what the government did to her. She calls the US the worlds biggest terrorist state and she backs it up:
The U.S. of Terrorism
And then there is this article about an FBI massacre and cover up:
Ruby Ridge and the Age of State Terrorism
Comparing the US to any of histories worst terrorist states is not hyperbole. It is the naked truth that so many people like Mopsick refuse to see.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
@ConfederateH as to Mopsick quote: “Saying things like, the IRS is committing an act of war It is a little like making a joke about a bomb seconds before passing through an airport screening device.”
His quote doesn’t even make sense, it is somehow backwards. The person making a joke would not be saying that he had a bomb or was making war on whatever government is behind the airport screening; they would be saying that they are afraid that that government wants to massacre them.
@Jeff, Confederate: The comment from M. is terribly unintellectual, just like the border guards who say that backing away from them is a “assault” and responding in a cheeky manner to border guards is “obstruction of justice”. The casus belli comments and the natural law comments to which M. objects, are intellectual considerations. The United States, by collecting from the tax base of another country, is indeed committing a crime against those other countries. These are acts that can lead to war–or at least the desire to go to war if unable to mount a proper defense–which war Canada could never do so it is really just simply an academic statement. As for natural law, the writers of the Declaration of Independence appealed to natural law when they wrote that human being have unalienable rights given to them by their Creator. By saying that the IRS looks for those who use the term, “natural law”, he shows that he doesn’t even believe in freedom at all–since freedom is not a natural concept but pliable man-made construct which bureaucrats working for the government are free to bend and stretch.
For me to have close scrutiny from the IRS and potentially being charge with a crime, shows that the IRS is gone mad, and the United States is indeed a banana republic. That’s is the main reason that I though M.’s participation on this forum was interesting.
What I meants was that it is the IRS that has the figurative “bomb” in its own luggage and is trying to deploy it in our home countries.
@Petros you speak of banana republic. Well, corruption is all over the world. Example: I have heard both rumors and I believe also read newspaper articles to the effect that the Geneva institution that manages state rental properties seems to have kept rents very low for certain who might have buddies in the administration. But I don’t think our problems here come anywhere close to the revolving door between Washington and the big interests. We have a multiparty system here and although there is deadlock on some issues, it is harder for things completely to go to hell, if people actually vote and participate in whatever political party they choose at a particular moment.
There are other ready and relatively recent parallels to the situation of USPs abroad, other than mid 30’s Germany, or the events leading up to the Revolution of 1776. The Civil War was not just about slavery vs. emancipation. If I remember correctly, it was also about the tarrif policies imposed by the industrial north that were weakening the southern state’s competitiveness in trading its commodities with the rest of the world. You see, the industrialized north had different needs than the largely agrarian south. I’m certainly not going to side with the south about slavery, but part of the causus belli that provoked the south to secede from the union had to do with the antebellum unwillingness of the north to make policy concessions to the south that would put them on a level playing field, and allow them to produce what they were best able to produce, and export it competitively. Cotton probably had a lot to do with why the British (who were gearing up their textile processing industries) sided with the south.
@Petros,
This statement makes it sound as if you think that the people were nothing more than slaves to their state:
“The United States, by collecting from the tax base of another country,
is indeed committing a crime against those other countries.”
And by pocketing the difference between my Swiss income taxes and what my US income taxes would have been had I lived in the states, the US isn’t really hurting Switzerland at all except to the degree that it decreases my purchasing power there. But I really object to the view that somehow we are merely cash cows who’s tax revenue stream belongs to one state or another, and by accepting the way they try to frame this you are giving them a degree of consent.
Income taxes everywhere are the theft of the fruits of our labor, and I don’t care how or why or which government managed to pass laws that legalized this theft. All the OECD are teaming up to steal more from their citizens while legitimizing this theft. To me it is like 2 countries fighting over which one gets to draft a young man to go fight in some war for empire. Neither has the right to enslave people and send them to war.
@ConfederateH I beg to differ with what you wrote “…pocketing the difference between my Swiss income taxes and what my US income taxes would have been had I lived in the states, the US isn’t really hurting Switzerland at all except to the degree that it decreases my purchasing power there”
It does hurt Switzerland. As a Swiss citizen domiciled in Switzerland, I pay taxes in Switzerland, and I should be free to spend and/or invest whatever is left over in Switzerland, or even in neighboring countries of my choice. Whether I would want or not want to purchase products from the US or go visit the Grand Canyon is my choice (but I would personally definitely fly Swiss/Lufthansa had I the funds left over to do so). Swiss tax policy is voted by cantonal assemblies and parliament, and overseen by the people through referendum and initiative. We try in Switzerland to tailor our policy to the needs of the people and the economy in general, as we see fit. This is our sovereign right. Extraterritorial tax policies mess with not only our individual freedom but also our sovereign right as the Swiss People.
Petros – Have we reached a point where we could have a useful discussion about the widespread and ongoing bootlicking administered to the presumed authority of Mopsick by persons who felt honored to perceive pearls coruscating in the effusions that trickled out in the swinish dribble? Revisit the irrationality that crowns the USxCanada InfoShop annotation of the fabled Mopsick screed.
@usx I ask unanimous consent to place a link to your site at stopunconstitutionaldoubletaxation.wordpress.com. Without Objection, IT IS SO ORDERED.
Yah, freedom! Link away. The stuff is there for the world to use. Thanks for the recognition of the order. That is a phase of the dialectic that also emits the inflammatory yawps.
@usxcanada
I’m going to nickname you the ‘Riddler’. Thanks for your brain tickling, you are a giggle, even though I can’t decipher about a quarter of what you write. Better I try harder!
@ConfederateH, It is an act of war against the New York mafia for Tony Soprano to do business in their area–and Johnny Sack moving to New Jersey was bit too close for comfort for Tony. Government is force.
Still, I’ve chosen Canada, my Tony Soprano against the US mob boss. I just want my Tony to protect me in exchange for the protection money that I pay him. I hope my Canadian Tony does a better job protecting me than Tony did for Beansy in this clip (viewer discretion is advised: language and violence):
@Jefferson D. re contacting the ACLU, and also to any readers who are immigrants to the US whose pre-existing home country accounts are under threat by the US via FBAR and FATCA:
The ACLU has a whole section devoted to issues related to immigration http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/about-aclus-immigrants-rights-project
It would be good if some of those who are grappling with the US attempts to confiscate and penalize pre-existing country-of-origin assets and joint accounts contacted the ACLU to put this on their radar of issues. The US overreach and arrogance extends to legal post-tax non-US source assets in other countries that existed for years before the would-be immigrant was ever accepted as a US citizen or greencard holder. The US is demonstrating criminal neglect in failing to notify immigration applicants and new immigrants, of the FBAR and FATCA strangleholds in force on their pre-existing, non-US assets. This is an egregious wrong, and now that the US/IRS cannot even pretend to be unaware of the problem, is clearly a ‘willful’ confiscation of non-US assets. It is very clear that the US intends to benefit via retroactive US taxation and penalties imposed on non-US assets that clearly and demonstrably had no history of connection with the US.
Most of our discussions have taken place from the point of view of those living longterm and/or born outside the US, but the ACLU may be able to help some who are living this from within the US.