gaudy as shit background

As Jon Stewart said yesterday, it’s what would look like inside Marie-Antoinette’s vagina.

I have no idea if the comparison is factually apt, but I find it strangely appropriate.

He certainly provides a lot of the brainpower the orange utan doesn’t have.

It’s not like it’s new either.

I mean the whole Nazi holocaust scheme was basically made legal by denying the jews were fully human. Laws that apply to humans don’t apply to subhumans, right?

Similarly, Dubya claimed the Gitmo concentration camp wasn’t a violation of the Geneva Convention because the detainees were “enemy combattants” and not prisoners of war.

It’s fascism 101, and the US has been practicing it for decades now.

Eventually US fascism will loose

It’s true, but…

The 3rd Reich lasted 12 years and had been 10 years in the making when Hitler took power.

The US had been a crypto-fascist state since 2001, since Dubya started the nazification of America with the USA Patriot Act and Gitmo. That’s 24 years ago - 24 years that I’ve stayed clear away from that dangerous place. So it took 2.4 time longer to turn actively fascist than Germany.

Now it’s a fully fledged fascist state. If history is any indication, it might take 30 years to be defeated. Even if it took only 15, I’m old enough that I might not be around to enjoy a return trip to a democratic USA.

You have nice family

Indeed, it’s generally true. And the nice thing of being more difficult to pay a visit to is, my less favorite family members always find an excuse not to come so I don’t even have to find an excuse not to receive them 🙂

Bavaria too is lovely, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be there in 1934. Beautiful nature isn’t enough.

I haven’t been back. I never want to set foot in that godforsaken country ever again. And even if I wanted to, I have no intention of surrendering my electronic devices, disclosing my online activities or being frisked by the GestapoDHS.

My family comes here to visit - which they’re glad to do anyway because the place in live in is much nicer and much more peaceful than their depressing corner or American suburbia.

You’ve said that twice now. I was under the impression that if your US tax liability is $X but you already paid >$X in foreign taxes, you file a form saying so and your US tax liability drops to $0. Is my understanding incorrect?

That may be the case today. But when I left a quarter century ago, it wasn’t like that. I don’t remember the specifics, but I would have ended up paying some thousands of dollars every year.

That’s an excellent argument for not living within US jurisdiction, but how is it an argument for not keeping US citizenship as an ex-pat?

A country that’s gone rogue can’t strongarm another to deport their enemy citizens living there back home if they’re not citizens no more.

I fully expect the Trump regime - or whichever new Trumpesque dictator replaces the orange buffoon when he kicks the bucket - to come after expats it deems treacherous or enemies of the state or something. I’d rather the US can’t legally demand my repatriation.

The fewer ties you have to the US, the better. It was true before, and it’s especially true now.

The other reason is, a lot of foreigners - like, a LOT - don’t particularly like Americans, even the friendliest ones. It’s easier not to be an American than having to prove you’re one of the nice ones all the time.

problematic to open foreign bank accounts as a US citizen…?

I never had any problem. But remember, it was a long time ago. Things were still pretty chill in the early 2000’s. You could literally walk into a bank and open an account in 10 minutes with any ID that looked legit 🙂 There was no KYC or anything like that, and banks mostly cared about whether you had money to deposit. I mean not quite 80’s like, but nothing like the stringent dystopia of today.

Also, I had citizenship from a EU country, so that helped.

Renounciation costs (or at least used to cost) a few thousand dollars. That’s money you quickly recoup by not paying any US taxes.

Besides, I don’t see why I should pay Uncle Sam anything of what I earn abroard, living abroad and working in a foreign company, not using any American services or infrastructure. The only rational Uncle Sam has to offer for extracting taxes from US citizens residing abroad is essentially “Pay up or else…” That’s a racket, pure and simple: even if it wasn’t financially sound, I don’t pay racketeers.

What other pros/cons are there?

Not being an American is a big pro. Your conscience is less dirty.

And as of Apr 14, 2025, the safety of not living in a dictatorship where the rule of law doesn’t apply anymore is also a big plus.

And while not directly linked to citizenship proper, living abroad offers many advantages: working healthcare, a decent education for your children, publc services that work… Yes, you pay a lot of taxes in Europe, but you know what you get out of it. The quality of life in Europe is much higher than in the US. And - I know it sounds weird but it’s true - you don’t need the constant background paranoia you need to live in the US. You don’t realize the paranoia is there until you leave and then it lifts from you. It’s a real thing.

But of course you can experience all that while still being an American. Not being American is mostly a matter of refusing to be associated with - and finance - an amoral society.

You can but your life becomes one giant hell.

If you don’t have dual citizenship like I had, your best bet is to move somewhere you like, stay there for a while as a resident, then apply for citizenship there. Then depending on your destination country, that either makes you dual-citizen and you have to renounced your US citizenship explicitely, or you have dual-citizenship for that country but not for the US or vice-versa, or your US citizenship instantly becomes invalid. In all cases, if you want to stop being American, Uncle Sam will make you cough up a bunch of money. Because the US is a country of racketeers.

It was easy for me: I had dual citizenship. I simply renounced the wrong one - which cost me a pretty penny: it’s a real racket run by the US, this. But it paid for itself many times over in that I never had to pay US taxes for income I generated outside the US, which is also another US racket.

When I left, I went to Canada. Then the UK - which was in Europe back then. Then I lived in a bunch of countries in Europe. Then Australia. Then back to Europe. That’s where I am now.

I left the US and renounced my citizenship 24 years ago, after Dubya shat out the USA Patriot Act and I knew the US would turn into a full-blown Nazi state some day.

Best thing I ever did.

He did say he would lower prices on day one, and prices on day one of his presidency were definitely lower. So he delivered, you just have to think backward in time.

It’s strange how all dictatorships have the same control freak obsessions with the same things around the world, across eras:

• Obsession with squelching science and education
• Obsession with denying basic reality and facts
• Obsession with religions and cults of various kinds
• Obsession with the population’s natality
• Obsession with people’s sex habits and the contents of their pants

Trump’s regime, being a run-of-the-mill fascist dictatorship, is no different and ticks all the boxes.

He is a liar, for sure. But I think at this point, it’s become pathological, and mixed with a good dose of early senile dementia.

The things he says are so outrageous and obviously untrue and even the dumbest magat can tell he’s spewing BS, but Trump doesn’t even realize it anymore.

He’s essentially a crooked man who’s grown into an angry old man, but instead of shaking his fist at the TV in a retirement home, he’s sitting in the Oval Office.

IANAL but my attorney once told me he witnessed a guy defending himself in court for involuntary manslaughter saying “I didn’t see the red light because I was drunk.”

Disgusting…

I’m sorry for the mistake, I tend not to make a difference between US and immigrant toddlers with stage-4 cancer when they’re deported without due process.

As in, they’re first and foremost human children whom the Trump regime inflicts pain and misery upon for no discernable reason.

How many of those illegal immigrants are toddlers with stage-4 cancer this time?