Liberty and justice for all United States persons abroad

The Isaac Brock Society

Posted on by Posted in Issues regarding US persons abroad 12 Comments

reposted from cafemoi blog
by John Hanson

This is one of the finest posts I have ever read. And while it does not address all expats (i.e., Accidentals may not identify with this), it is perhaps, the only way we will ever change the minds of Homelanders and the U.S. government. As John so eloquently states:

People are the front line of foreign relations. If you can sway the people, you sway the government. You cannot sway the people by swaying the government first.

I am also reminded of Don Maisch’s wonderful paper outlining the potential loss of foreign students due to FATCA.

I watched Smerconish last night on CNN. And before you label me a Libtard or a liberal lackey, and yes, I despise Fox News and the alt right, I am quite disgusted with mainstream media’s filtering the real Obama stories. I rarely watch any news on television anymore, and when I do, it’s usually Canadian CBC, CTV, or BNN. I like my news to be about the news. Stations like Fox and CNN should have the word News stricken from their titles.

Anyway, I like Smerconish. He tends to speak his mind, and his mind is very much in line with my own leanings: centrist, questioning all, and searching for the best. I know you righties cannot comprehend these concepts, so please stop reading before your brains explode. Except I am done with left-right bullshit in this post.

At one point he interviewed Mark Wrighton, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. He was a spokesman for 48 university heads who oppose the seven-nation ban. When Smerconish made the following statement, my hackles raised.

Who would we rather Iranians get their news and information about the United States from, their Supreme Leader or the twelve thousand who come here to study and go home to spread the word about the United States?

It is a valid point. It is a point I can relate to; because it is a point I have been making for years. People are the front line of foreign relations. If you can sway the people, you sway the government. You cannot sway the people by swaying the government first. This ban cuts off the cultural exchanges, it is a virtual wall that ensures prejudice on both sides will fester and metastasize. Such a ban not only shuts off all grass roots reconciling but also spurs anti-American sentiment and terrorist recruitment. That this and other bans are bad is a no-brainer to a thinker and someone who wants a peaceful world.

I have been making this point not about students or immigrants but about emigrants. The United States has some 40 million foreign nationals (people with foreign citizenships), but it also has some 9 million citizens living abroad. I am one of these people, or I was. We live in foreign countries, live foreign lives, speak foreign languages, immerse ourselves in their cultures, collaborate with them in all facets of life, and if we stay long enough, we become one of them. We are the front line of spreading the ways of America to the rest of the world. We are plenipotentiaries with boots on the ground.

We should be treasured assets of freedom, democracy, and world peace, yet we are treated as criminals and called traitors by the Treasury Department, former President Obama, the dipshit lefties (sorry, but the idiot and his ilk infuriate me) like Chuck Schumer, and we are ignored by all mainstream media, like Smerconish who can rail about 12,000 foreigners but ignore 9 million Americans.

Under this latest lashing against refugees, we the 9 million are calling ourselves refugees. Some 20,000 of us handed in our citizenships under Obama and the floodgates are still open. The GOP has an anti-FATCA and pro-RBT platform, we think, but nobody has acted yet. There are also lawsuits, but unlike foreigners, we Americans cannot yet prove irreparable harm. Apparently higher standards are at play when the American government defends its money.

Our money.

Our fight is about fair taxation. We who live abroad pay taxes abroad. We pay taxes for services we receive. We pay income taxes, value-added taxes, and a host of miscellaneous taxes, depending on where we live. Through taxes we pay for every service we receive; except when we pay US taxes, we pay for zero services, because we do not receive any services from the US. We expats receive exactly zero services for our compliance. None. Zilch. Voting is a right that nobody should have to pay for (though I am not opposed to requiring residence), armed forces protection (lefties often claim I need to help pay for aircraft carriers, an for some reason they ban me from their closed forums when I tell them they are full of shit) is a nation-protection service, not an individual one. You help protect Canada, and I pay for that through my Canadian taxes. You may not be happy with the reciprocal services, but take that up with Justin. My roads, schools, retirement, protection, social services, military, health, and whatever else our government tries to do for us is provided by my Canadian system of government. And no, if the US Army comes to rescue us, that’s a separate, very expensive charge not covered by our taxes.

Taxation of its citizens living abroad by the USA, this citizenship-based taxation now enforced by #FATCA, is taxation without representation. America, have you fallen asleep at the wheel? Please wake up and think about this. You revolted from Great Britain because it treated you as tributary slaves, and now you do worse to your own? This is why we’re upset; this is why we’re handing in our citizenships; this is why Obama’s legacy on foreign relations and world peace is a sham.

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So what?

160,000 coerced into spending billions to comply with FATCA.

$2 trillion in American exports at risk because now doing any business with
Americans is toxic

Americans abroad

  • denied bank accounts and mortgages
  • cannot save for retirement
  • cannot save for child education
  • cannot invest in mutual funds abroad
  • cannot invest in anything at home
  • cannot own foreign private pension which severely limit employment opportunities
  • cannot buy an expensive private home
  • have to supply Treasury with all their (local to them) financial account details, including accounts of non-American family members, businesses, and NGOs they may have signing authority with.
  • are subject to outrageous penalties ($10k minimum) for non-compliance
  • have to pay exorbitant fees to comply with the incomprehensibly complex filing requirements (one million businesses have excessive compliance costs and makes competitiveness problematic)
  • [businesses] have to file social security taxes even though employees can never receive said benefits

    • Basically these 9 million, should they attempt to comply, cannot live as Americans at home and cannot live as foreigners abroad. As the US pushes harder to get the estimated 8 million to comply, this 20,000 is expected to grow exponentially.

    And like most Americans, many of us are vocal. We use our free speech to tell our neighbours how nefarious the US government is. We advise them against becoming Americans, especially if they ever want to return home. Once you adopt the label, it becomes a ball and chain you cant easily unshackle. The US by treating us as criminals is hurting it’s own image.

    hanson us person
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    So where are you Mr. Smerconish? Where are you Bill O’Reilly, Anderson Cooper, Chuck Todd, Wolf Blitzer, that mouthy woman on MSNBC, anybody at ABC, CBS, or NBC; where is mainstream media when it comes to helping this nefarious problem affecting 9 million Americans? Where are the university chancellors? Where is the GOP? Where is President Trump?

    20,001 … 20,002 … 20,003 …

12 thoughts on “Where are you Mainstream Media?”

  1. First, the 7 nation ban is tempory. Those individuals who were detained at the various entry points were released after proper vetting. Vetting of any meaning has been absent from US immigration comtrol of late.

    2nd, the 7 nations were actuasly selected by the previous President.

    3rd, the gunman who killed nearly 50 at the Pulse night club was born in the US of a man who should never have been allowed into the US and would not have if a vetting process worthy of the name was used when he was allowed in.

    4th, the family who bombed the Boston Marathon would not have been let in if vetting existed when the came over.

    5th, the wife and acomplice of the San Bernadino massacre would have been blocked if she was properly vetted.

    6th, 3000 people died in the coordinated attacks on 911 that were carried put by a vetting sstem so on the ball that renewed visas were sent out to the then dead terrorists after their names were made public.

    It is prudent, logical, correct and legal to stop immigration and travel from countries that are known trouble spots. Again, the ban is temporary until the US estsblishes a vetting system worthy of being called such.

    I live in Japan on a Permanent Resident visa. I had/have to submit to far more than all those mentioned above had to and I am not from a country known to one and all to harbor people who are willing to blow themselves up to kill as many Japs as possible.

    How many more innocent lives need to be lost before the US or any other country is again allowed to control who does and does not enter.

    P.S.
    Appologies for spelling errors.

  4. The mainstream media is alive and well enjoying stellar ratings as they cover (i. e. play an indispensable role in) the Donald Trump Show. This new administration is the best new reality TV show to come along in years and the mainstream media is not about waste the opportunity by getting distracted covering a motley bunch of expats that nobody cares about.

    The MM desperately needs to sell advertising in order to survive. Nobody wants to watch anything about expats because they are all just traitors and tax evaders undeserving of any sympathy from either the man-on-the-street or serious politicians. What advertiser would want to be associated with them?

    What the public wants is to watch the new soap opera and the media is busy giving them exactly what they want. You can rest assured that the new ego-in-chief is loving every minute of it. Don’t be concerned if he acts as though he’s upset or mad about something; its all part of the script.

  7. I say this with all due respect, sincerely I do but… WHAT A NAIVE AND STUPID QUESTION!

    The M/M are as filthy and corrupt as any politician. If anything I’d say the press takes great pains to be in position to wag the dog in every circumstance. The so-called fourth estate has been colluding with scoundrels, demons and fools since the 1960’s and has never stopped and will never stop until they’re out of business- having lost all their subscribers, save a few die hard idiots.

  8. “Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”
    Dr. Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University.

    If anyone labours under the mistaken believe that the US is not socialist, consider the US budget for 2016. 36% spent on Social Security, Unemployment and Labor. Another 28% for Medicare and health adds up to 64% of the Federal budget (no mention of state expenditures) spent on social programs.

    “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money. ”
    Margaret Thatcher

    FATCA is a symptom of the US running out of other people’s money to pay for 64% of its budget. We are the new “other people” needed to fund their social programs.

    As far as thinking that the human race is smart enough to find a balance between Capitalism and Socialism, what planet are you from? Wake up and smell the coffee, for cryin out loud. Many of the highly “educated” in the US are the ones whose only response to our attempts to inform them of our plight is “You pay, you pay!”.

    Lest you believe that the “educated” of other countries are any better, take a look at their nation’s finances. Those boneheads have banrupted damned near every nation on the planet. Tweren’t Capitslism that did that.

  9. Another reason the US MUST stop the flow of illegals is the risk to the public health of that nation. Diseases that were erradicated in the US decades ago are once again present. Diseases that had never been in the US are now there. Both of these are due to the open border policies of the last administration. The Government of the US has failed in it’s primary duty to protect its citizens. And now that a new administration is attempting to remedy these lapses, so many are opposed.

    I find it highly ironic that victims of the US’s money grab support the current system which allows for billions of illegally earned and paid wages to be sent out of the US untaxed to Mexico and other countries.

  10. “Another reason the US MUST stop the flow of illegals is the risk to the public health of that nation.”

    The people who brought smallpox should never have been allowed in.

    It’s hard to remember that now because the only recent cases of smallpox have been due to suspicious mishandling of virus samples, but it used to be a disaster.

    Shortly after I entered Japan, a co-worker was worried that I might be carrying AIDS. He refused to admit that Japan’s cases of AIDS were brought in by Japanese returning from foreign countries.

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