Today is the one-year birthday of the Isaac Brock Society.
On December 12, 2011, this website began as a group project by six Canadian participants at the Expat Forum, which was getting very sick of their uppity attitudes and the incessant discussion of renunciation of United States citizenship. Later, the Expat Forum showed utter disdain for that conversation by completely removing whole threads which had thousands of comments. Thus, our move to create this new forum where we may discuss these serious issues without censorship or censure-ship, displayed foresight and prudence.
As I write this post, the Isaac Brock Society has 1301 posts, and 33,865 comments; we have had approximately 1.4 million pageviews (a.k.a. “hits”): according to Google Analytics, 758,000 hits for isaacbrocksociety.ca, in addition to wordpress.com, 660,000 hits for isaacbrocksociety.com (we switched over in June). Google Analytics calculates that 52,542 unique visitors have graced our isaacbrocksociety.ca pages since the switchover in June.
This has been a group effort. Many thanks to the writers and commenters who have kept us up to date with the latest happenings, finding resources in multiple languages, including English, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Portugese, French, Spanish, and the special gobbledygook which is another name of IRS-speak or Kafkaesque, the language of the bureaucracy of the evil empire.
Last but not least, several Brockers have made contributions to keep this site going. I will be making a financial report soon, and I just want to thank everyone who has contributed.
Happy Birthday to us,
Happy Birthday to us,
Happy Birthday dear us,
and I don’t mean U.S.
Love it, Deckard.
Does it seem a year?
Happy Birthday Isaac Brock!!! Thank you, Petros, for letting us hang out on this site you have so generously provided!
Brock around the (annual) clock!
Wow! What a year! I really don’t know what to say because I feel so much looking back over the year. The Brock community has meant so much to me in this darkness and been such a help to me during this year in so many ways. Thanks so much, everyone, from me and my family.
*Happy Birthday Isaac Brock!! We have been through one Hell of a War!!
Thanks for all the support and kindness!! I couldn’t have made it without you and all the Great Brocksters!!
Thanks be to Petros and the other five founding members. HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY!!! And what an interesting date to be celebrating it — 12/12/12. I’ll never master IRS-speak but I always know where to come to get a translation. Rock on, Brockers!
Don’t know about anyone else, but it seems like a very long year to me. Not in a negative way, just so much worked through, peoples’ unique sets of situations with unclear answers and directions, etc. Drawn together by pure kismet, we’ve developed into quite a distinctive and exceptional group, one which I feel privileged to be a part of. Thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts, reactions, research, fears, frustrations, and most of all, your support.
Happy Birthday! This site has probably been the only thing that has kept me & my husband sane since we got the bombshell discovery earlier this year that I was still considered a US citizen & that a bizarre thing called worldwide taxation existed. We have been using this place as our main source of information. It has been a great source of support. In my case I am a Canadian born abroad and this threat from a foreign country makes me feel completely violated. Thanks so much to Petros and everyone else who work so tirelessly to get information on here.
Happy Birthday to the, Issac Brock Society. I am very thankful for this site and for the friends that I have made here. If not for this site the whole situation with the U.S. would have been a complete waste of time. I have learned a lot during my time here and have appreciated the contributions that have been made by so many.
I want to thank Petros for taking the initiative and starting this site. I also want to thank Calgary 411 for informing me about the Issac Brock site
I think that IBS has helped to open pandora’s box and expose many of the legal inconsistencies, un-equal treatment, and restriction of options for US persons, their spouses, families, and current and potential business partners.
Nonetheless, I am not sure what cummulative effect we have had against the elephant in our china shop.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. – Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
Shakespeare Hamlet 3/1
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
And just remember, THE FIGHT MUST GO ON!
This video says it best 🙂
*I too want to wish this site and it’s members a very happy first anniversary! I agree, it’s been a long hard road for all of us but that our community has been a Godsend both in terms of moral support and information. Long may it continue but with hopefully things becoming better resolved.
… and I want to thank recalcitrant expat and so many others for all of their literate contributions to the education of people here, as well as at the many news sites you’ve visited. To name all would be to leave someone out. There are so many ways that people have contributed to the effort — and recalcitrantexpat has been one strong voice. As a bonus, I’ve gained a new Alberta friend and many others I now consider more my friends than some of my friends — what an amazing process it has been!
Many happy returns and thanks to everyone who has contributed to IBS (and also to MapleSandbox) over the past year!
And best wishes to all for the holiday season, whatever your religious or non-religious persuasions.
And may the IRS, the US Treasury Secretary, and all FATCA- and FBAR-lovers in the US Congress receive nothing but big, filthy lumps of coal in their stockings from Santa on Christmas morning!
More than 50,000 unique persons visiting this website or its .com incarnation in the past 12 months! Holy Expatriation, Batman! If even only half of those are past or current expatriates or folks seriously contemplating joining the free-at-last club, that’s huge!
I’ve noticed for some time that Google searchs on renounce, relinquish and US invariably list two or three Brock threads at the very top, ahead of the DOS page for form 4079 and other forms! Hoo-hah! How do you like them apples, USG trolls? Not to mention un-named moderators and admins at a certain other website Petros alluded to above … There are very different conceptions floating around of what “expat” means, aren’t there?
@all….
Has it only been a year since I was contacted by Renounce and Petros asking if I would be interested in contributing? Wow… Time sure does pass quickly when you are having fun.
Seriously, it is a long slog this effort. It is important to remain a realist about what is possible as we fight against the bad policy of what the FATCAnatics think is a noble War Against Offshore Tax Evasion (WAOTE). The sobering truth is that the opposition to the War on Drugs has yet to see a policy reversal after 50 years.
If this little site “that could” helps other see more clearly their options and lowers the risk of unnecessary fear driven collateral damage of Congress and the IRS’ offshore jihad, then “Mission Accomplished”. If through the efforts of those like Mark Twain, Shadow Raider, ACA, and Roger Conklin’s 30 year tireless advocacy a more realistic residency based taxation system can emerge, than that’s a Moon shot to celebrate. You never know what is possible unless you try.
From all of you that I have learned from, and even those who we have had disagreements, thank you for an educational year. We sure do live in interesting times, and the end game has yet to be played out in this GATCAwellian adventure.
I remember finding this site by accident while searching for material early this year and bumping into Petros again, whom I had had some exchanges with on Phil’s blog over the summer of 2011. We certainly have come a long way since then. Now we have a place (2 places if you count the Maple) to discuss our issues and share information.
Thanks to Petros for running the site and everyone who has contributed. A lot of hard work has gone into a lot of posts and the posts benefit everyone.
I also want to extend my congratulations on your first anniversary.
I’ve only recently discovered the site and am grateful to all the contributors and individuals willing to share their practical experience and insights. I’m so glad to be able to connect with like minded people.
I hope 2013 will allow me to join your ever expanding club of ex USPs.