I can think of a few others, such as the way in which any issue affecting children will disable the ability of people to think straight, such as on issues about safety, etc.

I don’t think we’ve been harsh on Jane; what has concerned me is that a Tea Partier is shrugging her shoulders on what is, by any standards, a dreadfully crafted piece of legislation that will hurt Americans living abroad, damage business, and shrink the horizons of trade.

Personally, I think the issue of the IRS harassing expats is roughly like worrying about a broken arm when you can’t find the patient’s pulse. It’s bad but we have more-immediate problems right now.

Personally, I think we ought to be paying heavy attention to the test cases the government assumes no one will care about.

That’s where the precedents are made that arguably make the assualts on the freedoms you do care about legal.

Sure, this test case doesn’t effect you or anyone you know. It’s not supposed to. Otherwise you might object in timely manner.

It’s best, if you’re of such a mind, to build the wallls of the cage while the chimpanzees are distracted by he banannas that cost you a few bucks.

I think it was beginning to look like we were piling up on Jane, which would have been unfair, seeing as she didn’t attack anyone personally.

Well, she did (June 30 at 1736, 1942, and 2312) claim to speak for several other posters in this thread, me included. The Former Mrs. Me didn’t get that either. I don’t need someone else to say stupid things on my behalf. I’m perfectly capable of that on my own.

Personally, I think the issue of the IRS harassing expats is roughly like worrying about a broken arm when you can’t find the patient’s pulse. It’s bad but we have more-immediate problems right now.

I think the commentator “John Galt” came closest to the answer when he said he didn’t know if it’s merely good programming of the proletariat or failure to understand the problem.

I respectfully would like to note I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. Successful programming of the proletariat leads to the inability to understand the problem.

I think you, Alisa, along with others have done a good job demonstrating that Jane’s programming leads to her failure to understand the problem. She understands the problem as if people living overseas will be inconvenienced by having to fill out extra paperwork to prove they are not tax evaders. When in fact the IRS’s declaration of global jurisdiction over financial institutions that do business with Americans living abroad does nothing of the sort.

The problem, and I’m not I’m not directing this at anyone personally, Perry, I believe I’m making a valid point, is that what Bill Buckley used to call the “liberal mania” has gone global. His point being that when you touched on a liberal’s mania, the liberal loses the ability to think. My point about “John Galt’s” comment is that if you program the proletariat well, you get exactly that desired result.

Let me use an example entirely unrelated to this post or related comments. I follow California politics closely for a few reasons, although I don’t and would never live there. Last November Prop 23 was on the ballot. It would have suspended the implementation of what’s been called CA’s Kyoto initiative. I won’t describe the law in detail, but amongst all the “green” nightmares it imposes are stringent new emissions regulations on all commercial diesels.

A little background. industry groups were already howling well before the current recession that they largely couldn’t afford to meet all the new regulations the CA Air Resources Board was going to implement as a result of this initiative. Freight haulers, farm tractors, construction veihicles, stationary generators or pumps, all would be effected. Units older than a certain year would have to be junked, vehicles within a certain window could be retrofitted to meet current standards for a while before being junked, newer vehicles would meet the current standard, but eventually all units would have to meet stringent new 2014 standards.

All this was made worse by the current recession. So, CA voters had an opportunity to vote yes on a proposition to suspend these requirements until the economy improves. I read with interest news articles about how things looked for this proposition’s passage.

One LA Times article sticks in my mind. They were doing man-on-the-street interviews. One guy they interviewed said he was going to vote no. He didn’t like the proposition because it was backed by “Big Oil.”

The guy’s job? Truck driver.

I was thinking, “hey buddy, if you’re a TEA Party member you can stop worrying about being overtaxed if you get your way. You’ll be paying zero in taxes when you’re out of a job.”

But again, touch on his mania, in this case by mentioning the words “Big Oil,” and he loses the ability to think. He can’t make the basic connection between the rising cost of fuel (the initiative requires special blends for the CA market) and the ruinous cost that will drive out of business companies that employ people like him, and his own livelihood.

I have a close friend who’s a fairly reliable conservative in most ways, but mention the “religious right” to him and you’ve touched on his mania. If the media sufficiently tars a candidate as one of the “religious right” it just paralyzes him; he’d sit out an election and let a democrat win. He’s positive they have a secret plan to run his life.

Hello! How could that possibly be worse than the quite open plan the left has to run his life? There is no aspect of my life or his that is free from over-regulation by a bunch of leftist busybodies that have decided they can tell me how to live. The worst thing the “religious right” ever did to me when I was living in the Bible Belt was ban alcohol sales on Sunday. So if I was hosting a get-together during football season I had to by all the beer I was going to need to get through the weekend by midnight Saturday.

We are a heavily propagandized society. Not all the programming sinks in. The more that does, the more likely you are to be a liberal immune from reality. But even people who think they’re conservative are effected, and they don’t realize it. Touch on their mania, the programming that did sink in, and they can’t understand the problem because they can’t let reality interfere with their cherished beliefs.

The item on which I really wanted to comment was your description of Churchill in 1939. Man, I have that feeling every day.

I do feel, and I’m sure it shows, the same sense of exasperation that Churchill must have felt as he walked the streets of London in 1939. As he’d pass by restaurants and cafes he’d see through the windows people laughing and chatting, thinking to himself “the poor sods; they have no idea what’s coming.”

Second, if they generously do accept the renunciation, the IRS claims the right to levy a one-time tax on your assets.

In other words, the USG claims the right to sieze part of your assets. I honestly see that happening here in the US, without the excuse of calling it an “exit fee.” Farfetched? Recall that FDR by executive order 6102 forbade the “hoarding” of gold in any monetary form. “hoarding” was defined as the private ownership of monetary gold beyond a very small amount or collectable coins. The government of course compensated people, partnerships, and corporations for their gold. At 60% of its value.

The excuse for what was rightfully viewed as pure governmental theft was that “hoarders” were preventing the US from pulling out of the depression by sitting on their assets.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the tune the Democrats are still singing. They accuse all sorts of “reactionary” forces of sabotaging Obama’s economic recovery plan. A plan for exactly the kind of economy that worked so well in Greece.

As other posters have said, this will never make headlines in the USA. No one there is affected, and no one there has any reason to care about expats.

Another item that hasn’t made headlines is a form proposed by the Department of State designed to significantly increase the difficulty of acquiring a passport.

I’m sure there’s a class of people here in the US who won’t give “flying f*&#” about that, either. Not as long as the crocodile is eating others.

If the DoS questions the documents you provide to establish your identity and citizenship, they propose a new biographical questionnairre for you to fill it.

Under certain circumstances it requires among other things, and I’m not kidding, the dates of your mother’s pre and postnatal medical appointments as well as the name and phone number of the doctor.

Under all circumstances it requires, among other things, your entire employment history down to including the name and telephone number of your immediate supervisor.

Don’t accuse the DoS of not having a sense of humor. In the “paperwork reduction act” statement they estimate the burden of searching for, compiling the information, and filling out the form to be 45 minutes.

Which is of course insane. It’s more like 45 years in nearly all cases because they are asking for documentation that doesn’t exist in many cases and that no one has ever been required to keep. The only way this could be done is if parents are filling out the form for a minor child. Someone born within the past few years, obviously with no work history.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but my work history goes back 30 years. I have no clue about the names and phone numbers of most of my supervisors. And there’s no way to find out because many of my employers are no longer in business.

Then the final joke; you get to sign it under penalty of perjury.

Not quite the final joke. I forgot to add that all the information you provide will be shared as a matter of routine course with other government agencies. That’s in the hilariously titled “privacy act statement.”

I view all of this, the IRS and DoS overreaches, as a form of asset control. Fewer people will be able to travel abroad, and if you can you won’t be able to bank abroad. Except for a few thousand dollars in travelers checks, all your assets remain here. Within easy reach in case the government decides it needs it.

Read up on executive order 6102 and tell me that’s just crazy talk. Or just look around and see how many other countries have decided to sieze pension funds because the governments really need the money now.

I wonder how the nominal TEA partiers who think that movement is “more than anything else” about balancing the budget will feel when the entity that’s done so well managing social security siezes the money in their 401K, IRA, or pension fund to do just that. In return for a government promise. And if they don’t like it, they discover that due to all the things they never gave a “flying f*%#” about before there’s not a thing they can do about it.

When filing tax returns, there is a large deduction, which in the past has meant that people with average incomes do not actually wind up paying any tax. However, with the continuing devauluation of the dollar against other currencies, this deduction will soon be to small to cover a normal, middle-class income.

In my case, the result will almost certainly be the renunciation of citizenship. I will regret that – it will be emotionally difficult – but I see no reason why I should pay tax to a country where I do not live or work, and to which I have no intention of returning. More practically, I am already taxed where I live, and can hardly afford to pay a second set of taxes.

However, the US goes much farther. First, they claim the right to deny a renunciation, if the IRS considers the primary reason to be tax-related. Second, if they generously do accept the renunciation, the IRS claims the right to levy a one-time tax on your assets.

As other posters have said, this will never make headlines in the USA. No one there is affected, and no one there has any reason to care about expats.

Jane writes: “As for expats, if they want to enjoy the rights and priveledges that the US offers then they will have to prove they are paying their taxes while choosing to live overseas.”

Dear Jane, just which benefits are those? I don’t live there, I don’t work there, I use no services. I do have an emotional attachment, having been born and raised in the USA. I usually don’t even travel on my US passport, because American interventionism has pissed off the most of the rest of the world. Really, what wonderful benefits am I missing out on here, that would justify my paying taxes? I really don’t see it…

Sorry for not using my normal screen-name, but for all I know the IRS would match it up with my real name when the time comes…