Why More U.S. Expatriates Are Turning In Their Passports

I did some checking in line and it is a little worse than it sounds. I read that in 2008 that by some estimates 3 million citizens become expatriates a year. Now that is a lot of US passports out there and who knows how many of them are about to be turned in if things keep up.

I would leave the whole planet if I had a way off and renounce citizenship to the human race.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


The number three is represented through sigils on each of the flags/standards of the city states that you have mentioned.

The flag of DC has three stars.



The standard of the British Commonwealth has three lions.



This image of the three lions has classically been used to represent the British monarchy.

The flag of the City of London is the EXACT same as the standard for the Knights Templar.



And the flag of the Vatican has three crowns.



This has always struck me as being a bit too coincidental.

Your post cleared it up for me.


[edit on 4/24/2010 by Josephus23]

Hello all,

I have left America to be with and marry a women I love in England.

I have been here for about three years now and my two year wait is over to get indefinate leave to remain here.

Initially we had thought we would bring her to America but as she is disabled and has diabetes we found out that no insurance company would touch her so we would never be able to have afforded her health care, So it was a move to England for me.

I had never left America and was a bit nervous of going to a whole nother world,
As it turns out all my fears where for nought.

I am working and paying taxes over here and I find the people to be ALOT better personally then most Americans, They are much more REAL to me.
I do find them kind of sad though as alot of them seem to worship America and think its the best place in the world to be. But then I have met some that lived in America and hightailed it back here ASAP. My only wish over here would be that the people of this country could open thier eyes to what is around them and see this great beautiful country that is so full of history.

I pay for NHS (National Health Service) through my wages along with taxes and it is just about 1/3 cheaper then the taxes and health insurance I was getting taken out of my wages in America (and the insurance I had was only good if I was well).

I have always heard through my life how bad national health care was from Amercians that never had any experience with it at all, My mother being the loudest and toughest against it without really even seeing it in action, I go to the doctors alot here for my wife and have been several times for myself and all of information I have been brought up with about NHS was all totally WRONG. We NEVER have a problem seeing doctors or getting things done. The real problem I find from an American standpoint is what you see in the news about it (the bad things) Now can anyone from America tell me honestly that you have never heard in the news about bad doctors in America? I thought not... I find the doctors and nurses to be 100 times nicer and more genuine about the concern of your health then those in America.

Also all of the offices and hospitals I have been to seem to be much cleaner, When my wife came to America I had to go to the doctors and she came with me, I dont know if it was just me or all Americans but she pointed out that the doctors office was disgusting and I said whats wrong , she said well to start with , is that blood on the floor....Sure was and I never even noticed it then when I got to looking around with new eyes it was a dirty place

To many times we all allow the media to make up our minds on what we believe but since I have seen America from another angle I will never believe media again.

After one more year here I will have an option to apply for citizenship and relinquish my American citizenship, I do not know what I am going to do at this point but it is not the fact I will be losing my country if I do because I believe I will be gaining one better. My pause is because I have a son in America still and do not want to make it hard for me to see him..

reply to post by Josephus23

...
Okay...
So this decision was made prior to the 14th Amendment.
...

Glad you noticed.

Too bad you failed to notice that the 14th Amendment MODIFIED the Constitution and made Barron v Baltimore redundant. It is no longer relevant to Constitutional law except in the historical record of the motivation for the 14th Amendment.

I once poured a bucket of blue paint on a pair of brown work boots. Guess what? They aren't brown anymore, they're blue. It makes no sense to continue to call them brown when they are now blue. It doesn't matter that the manufacturer made them brown on purpose, the shoes are now blue.

Likewise, the States, ratified the 14th Amendment, which had the effect of making them subject to the same code of behavior to their citizens as the Federal Government.

No argument of any kind based on the condition of the Constitution before the 14th Amendment can change that. The Constitution isn't the same as it was when the SCOTUS ruled in Barron. Barron was correct at the time, but it is now irrelevant.

The Constitution has been amended. Please look up the words 'amends', 'amended', 'amendment' in your favorite (legitimate) dictionary.

We were not designed to be one country with a Capital.
DC was not established until 1871.

Which Constitution are you reading exactly?

Please look up Article 1 Section 8 Clause 17 of the United States Constitution.

The City of Washington was incorporated on July 16, 1790. Compare that to the significant dates pertaining to the ratification of the Constitution

1. September 17, 1787, the Constitution was completed
   
2. June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became 9th State to ratify, thus signalling adoption.
   
3. March 4, 1789, the government began operating.
   

Notice that the City of Washington was founded less than three years after the text of the Constitution was completed. Do you think the original authors of the Constitution might have had something to say about it if it was something they didn't intend to happen?

Before 1871, The City of Washington and the Territory of Colombia were two different political entities. Like the City of Miami and Dade County. In 1871, Congress merged the City of Washington with the Territory of Colombia to form the District of Colombia, presumably because the city had grown to encompass the entire Territory and the extra level of Government was wasteful. By the way, the Constitution (remember Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17?) gives Congress the authority to do that.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that the original authors of the Constitution didn't intend for there to be a central capital city? Really?

I'll let you digest that for a minute.


edit: grammar


[edit on 24/4/2010 by rnaa]

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

The truth is, most people don't know what they are talking about, because they don't read. They don't read the documents that matter. The Treaties, The Incorporation Papers, and the Court Decisions.

I notice you have conspicuously left the Constitution out of your list. A 'Freudian' slip perhaps?.

It is obvious that Josephus23 has never read the Constitution. Perhaps you haven't either?

Us Americans aren't overtaxed compared to countries like Australia. Yep, I lived there too. In the US you get people not paying income tax if they meet certain criteria - try that in Australia.

It doesn't work if you're not on welfare. I heard first-hand about the 'fairness' of the Aus tax system when one of my friends told me how her low income earning son had to actually pay income tax on an income of less than 10,000 US. Nope he didn't get the tax back. Meanwhile people on welfare whose income was much better paid no tax on it.

It's still the case I hear.

Folks on average incomes pay more tax in Australia than they do in the US. We get far more tax credits than they do. If you're not on welfare in Aus and earn a low income you still have to pay tax.

If you're on welfare in Australia you get a hell of a lot of benefits - subsidised phone, rent, free medical drugs, transportation card etc etc. Sounds great but that's one of the reasons the infrastructure in Australia is just crap in things like intercity train transportation.

For a rich country Australia should have high speed internet, high speed trains between the cities like Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane. But they still haven't done anything like that.

Housing is way more expensive in Australia and though they don't have our foreclosure crisis they have the opposite problem - a market being driven up and up with rents not to mention mortgages getting further and further away from many Australians. Their govt set them up by making a new international student industry and deregulating just about everything without caring where it would lead.

It's led to situations where for example international students' parents are buying houses/apartments for their kids, helping create a shortage and triggering rocketing prices, among other factors that are pushing housing beyond many Australians' reach. Now they're getting pissed again about asylum seekers.

Sometimes I hear people condemn Australians as racists but you've got to factor in that big welfare system - ordinary Australians are asking their govt why they have to keep carrying more and more arrivals who can't pay for their own housing and living. I'm in touch with Australians I worked with and I still keep up with the Australian media.

In the US new arrivals just can't get what you get in Australia. Australians are pissed that all these people smugglers are bringing more and more boatloads of people who not only come from countries where the cultures are often at odds with an Anglo-European one, but who will get on welfare and remit money to the homeland. Sending remittances from work are one thing but sending remittances from Australian citizens' taxes is being seen as another thing altogether.

Plus with the water problem that their politicians seem in denial about, I think Australia's future is pretty unpromising. Their environment can't sustain the 35 million people that busines want clogging up the cities - the newcomers don't want to go to the rural areas. Australia looks great if you're not an Australian citizen.

But I don't want to go back there with the high taxes, welfare burdens and over dependent recipients, housing crisis and lack of entreprenurial asylum seekers and other newcomers who know they can live comfortably off Australian citizens. The US attracts more people who will do for themselves.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Are you absolutely sure this is true? Most of the western countries have double taxation relief.so if LIVING abroad they should not be taxed twice.

Oh yeah and don't believe the hype about 5 percent or whatever horse# figure they come up for unemployment in Australia or whatever horse# figure they come up for any other county including the US.

Government bodies that release these 'figures' always calculate them by missing out certain factual evidence. I recall a Harper's or New Yorker article not that long ago that went into detail about how they fudge the US unemployment figures by not counting certain data.

In Australia there are a fair number of unemployed people engaged in 'education and training' which in their case is a way of saying they're doing stuff but they're not actually in the real workforce. This is separate from real education and training which takes place. My Australian friends (and some news sources) put the real figures around 7 percent, possibly more. What they see and hear is different from what a bureaucrat with fudged figures says in a govt press release.

[edit on 24-4-2010 by dontbelievehype]

reply to post by Oneolddude

You will ALWAYS be an American.

Someday they may come for you and tell you,you have to go home.

You will tell them this is my home.

They will tell you,no,you are an American,this is not your home,America is.

They will always think of you as an American living in THEIR country!

Actually, what I am is a dual citizen. However, you're right, at least as far as my heart is concerned. I will always be an American, and I will always love the U.S. As I said, we didn't flee from anything to come here.

We perceived patterns that we felt were portents of severe times, and we left to live in a place where one of my parents was born. It's not an easy life, but we didn't sign up for rocking in a chair. This place is part of my heritage, and we're both glad to be here. We won't ever be kicked out. It's entirely possibly (however unlikely) that the government here will change to make life even more difficult, but, as said, we've chosen to make our stand here.

I get to see firsthand others that make the same decision. Hasn't happened for a while, however we used to get Cubans in POS craft that I would only call a "boat" if I blurred my eyes quite a bit. Three generations, sometimes, 20 people crammed into a crappy, leaking, mostly-malfunctioning craft barely 18 feet long. A craft they probably paid their combined life savings to buy, stocked with as much water and fuel as they can carry, and often not more than crackers in a plastic barrel.

They're trying to get to Costa Rica, passing by here, on the open ocean for more than 650 miles, navigating by the stars, hoping for a chance to survive the trip, work there, in hopes of an opportunity to work their way northward.......... so they can work, in hopes of reuniting with family in the U.S.

Hell, I know it's not a good thing for U.S. borders, but I defy anyone with a heart to look upon people with no asset other than hope, putting all their eggs in a POS basket, for a chance at a better life, and not give them the basic human necessities: food, water, fuel, and maybe a cheap compass.

There, but for the grace of [insert diety] goes me and mine. I think the folks leaving the U.S. are just ahead of the curve. I know many people like Blaine and Nenothtu who feel they would never leave the U.S., and as with both these ATS members, I respect them greatly and their decisions.

Sometimes people have to chart their own course, and in the light of at least a perception of increasingly draconian tax laws, I think we'll see more of this.

cheers!

Originally posted by rnaa
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

The truth is, most people don't know what they are talking about, because they don't read. They don't read the documents that matter. The Treaties, The Incorporation Papers, and the Court Decisions.

I notice you have conspicuously left the Constitution out of your list. A 'Freudian' slip perhaps?.

It is obvious that Josephus23 has never read the Constitution. Perhaps you haven't either?

I was actually going to respond to this, but after thinking a bit, I will simply continue to post and ignore you.

I will most likely continue the thread of thoughts that I have been presenting.
I was nearly finished on a post regarding Marbury versus Madison, but I honestly do not feel like responding to your childish behavior any longer.

Your continued personal attacks only show your weakness and your obvious fear.

If one were to read the comments, then a very calm and congratulatory Josephus would be apparent; however, a very belligerent and insulting rnaa would be apparent.

Congrats. You are officially on ignore.

reply to post by Josephus23

If one were to read the comments, then a very calm and congratulatory Josephus would be apparent; however, a very belligerent and insulting rnaa would be apparent.

Since I am on ignore, you won't read this, but anyway.

You continually addressed my like I was a 10 year old, and made statements about the Constitution that are so obviously false that it had to be said.

You complimented me on my debating skills several times. Why have you now decided that they are childish?

I mearly asked that you read the Constitution before you try to discuss it. Instead you spouted more misinformation.

So I'm on ignore. I don't ignore people, so I will continue to respond if I deem it worthwhile. Please publish your Marbury analysis. Others may wish to respond even if you don't see mine.

It doesn't matter where you live, the BS is omnipresent when it comes to people. Some things are about compatibility (culture and whatnot), and personally, a lot about this country just doesn't click with me. I'll end up leaving eventually myself, but not because of taxes, seriously, I make like 10,000 a year, so my taxes are almost nothing.

My issues are: stupidity, laziness, scapegoating, war, piss-poor educational system, privatization, agribusiness...on and on...but taxes, maybe only because they are poorly spent and poorly enforced.

Originally posted by rnaa
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

The truth is, most people don't know what they are talking about, because they don't read. They don't read the documents that matter. The Treaties, The Incorporation Papers, and the Court Decisions.

I notice you have conspicuously left the Constitution out of your list. A 'Freudian' slip perhaps?.

It is obvious that Josephus23 has never read the Constitution. Perhaps you haven't either?

The Constitution is an out dated document that felll into desuetude (an outdated doctrine that causes statutes and similar legislation to become un-enforceable by a habit of non-enforcement or lapse of time.) back in 1861.

Further the Constitution was written at the behest and demand of our English, and Roman Masters and Creditors to secure their ongoing investment in America and mandated along with the Census in the Treaty of Paris which is the document that legally incorporated the United States as a legally recognizable entity to the International Community and Rome.

The United States has been operating as a De Facto Wartime Government since 1861 and the United States is carved up into Military Government Zones still to this day.

The Law that is being used is Roman Contract/Ship’s Law, and Corporate Codes ever since.

That you prefer not to recognize that in typical ways does not prevent that from being reality.

Thanks for posting!


[edit on 10/5/10 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

reply to post by 4ortunate1
That chart is interesting, but it still doesn't address the actual taxes, as most countries tax alot thru inflating the currency. The only honest accounting of taxation is the total government spending. They do not earn any, it is all taxed. Or taken by force. At least one country in South America was forced by their people to stop printing, and use only the American dollar for their currency. They still issue coins. Right now, they are experiencing massive deflation benefits! They do not have the gasoline hikes we have here, or electricity. It is higher in some countries, but not many. We are at over, well over, 75% now.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

The Constitution is an out dated document that felll into desuetude (an outdated doctrine that causes statutes and similar legislation to become un-enforceable by a habit of non-enforcement or lapse of time.) back in 1861.

First, no it isn't.

snipped from article on 'desuetude' in Wikipedia
Desuetude does not apply to violations of the United States constitution. In Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 678 (1970), the United States Supreme Court asserted that: "It is obviously correct that no one acquires a vested or protected right in violation of the Constitution by long use, even when that span of time covers our entire national existence and indeed predates it."

Second, no it isn't.

extract from Peter Suber: The Paradox of Self-Amendment: Part 19
...If desuetude could apply to American constitutional rules, which has been debated,[Note 5] then parts of the AC could be repealed through desuetude. That, of course, would not constitute self-amendment, for desuetude is not authorized by the AC itself. It would constitute amendment of the AC by an "unofficial" method of amendment outside the AC, just as it would be if amended by judicial review or treaty.

One provision of the federal AC has never been used in the history of the clause: the provision for states to petition Congress to call a national convention.[Note 6] By "not used" I mean that while many states have petitioned Congress to call a convention, they have never triggered action by Congress under Article V to call such a convention. Could this provision fall into such neglect that it may no longer be used?

That is doubtful, even though the history of its neglect may constitute a practical (not legal) impediment to its use. The uncertainty of its operation combined with the gravity of its potential consequences is today probably the single greatest obstacle to its use; and much of the uncertainty about the clause is undoubtedly due to its non-use.

Genuine self-amendment of the AC through desuetude could occur only if the AC already allowed repeal by desuetude (say, by a prior act of self-amendment) and if that provision lapsed through desuetude...

Third, no it isn't.

You are referring to the sentiment expressed thusly:

extract from a forum posting here: MyOpenForum.com: The Unlawful Government
On March 28, 1861 the United States Congress adjourned sine die (without assigning a day for a further meeting or hearing, for an indefinite period to adjourn an assembly sine die). In other words Congress went home at the start of the Civil War with no intention on returning. To call the Congress back into session De jure (concerning law and principal) would have required the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate to set the date at a later time.

This never ever happened. Let me repeat there has been no legally sat Congress or Senate per the United States Constitution since March 28, 1861.

The Congress was called back into session de facto (concerning fact and in practice) by President Abraham Lincoln who had not the Constitutional Authority or Power to do so.

However this sentiment is factually incorrect and you should be embarrassed to maintain it.

reply to above from the same forum in the previous link (I have added some bolding for emphasis of the relevant part:
Who ever wrote this is proclaiming all most total bullsh--.

Art I Section 4 Paragraph 2
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

It doesn't matter it they adjourned or not. The Constitution says that they MUST assemble once a year on the first Monday in December. This was modified later by the 20th Amendment to be Jan 3rd. And as provided by that amendment they moved it to the the next day should it fall on a Sunday.

So if they fail to assign the next session they must assemble again on the first Monday of December and not before, except:

And the President CAN call Congress into session.

Art II. Section 3
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Nothing happened in 1861 or any other year to cause the Government of the United States to magically disappear.

[edit on 11/5/2010 by rnaa]

reply to post by Sakrateri

If you become british, you don't quit being a US citizen. There is no renunciation clause in the british naturalisation oath, and the US doesn't accept them anyway. The only way you can lose your citizenship is by serving in the armed forces of a state at war with the US, accept a high position in the government of a foreign state without US permission, or to formally renounce it before a US consular official or diplomat abroad. People will assuredly answer me to say that yes you lose it. The reason that people don't, the real reason, is that the US government doesn't want it's milk cows to leave. Even if you don't pay income tax in the US, when you die your estate is subject to estate tax, and if you give large sums to your children as an american you pay gift tax, but if you are a foreigner, you don't. THEY WANT THE GREEN.

reply to post by fixer1967



In most cases expatriate simply means that the said person lives outside their homeland. It's a noun. To expatriate, the verb, can mean either to move abroad, or to renounce one's citizenship. When I lived in Australia, I was an expatriate. When I moved back to California, I wasn't anymore. When I then moved to Germany, I was again. When I moved back, I wasn't.
Three million people didn't renounce their citizenship last year.