Those of you have been to the Boston area will know that is is a museum to the American Revolution. In Lexington, Massachusetts there is a Museum called Munroe Tavern. After the tour, one can listen to a video documenting the start of the American Revolution. The video begins with the question:
“Who were the Patriots?”
Were the Patriots the oppressed colonists or were they those who were loyal to British Crown? There is a saying that:
“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”
I am sure that both sides (of what essentially was the first American Civil War) felt that they were Patriots. I am not sure what it means to be a Patriot. That said, I don’t believe that blind obedience to the laws of a nation makes one a Patriot. Blind obedience would make one a “law abiding citizen”. It would not make one a Patriot. Although Patriotism may include obedience to the laws of a country, obedience would not make one a patriot. Ron Paul in his campaign for President once said that the Patriot Act was not patriotic.
True patriotism may compel the renunciation of U.S. citizenship.
There are many similarities between the way that the British Crown treated the American colonists and the way the U.S. government of today treats it citizens abroad.
Here are some recent comments that bear on this topic. Do they sound a bit like the Colonists in 1775?
Steve is a Homelander. Therefore, he will never be able to understand what ex-pats are going through unless he was to leave the Homeland and put down roots elsewhere.
Today’s ex-pats have much in common with the American colonists who declared independence from the British Homeland in 1776. The colonists faced then, like ex-pats face today, TAXATION WITH NOTHING IN RETURN from the HOMELAND–a direct result of having NO REPRESENTATION in the Homeland’s legislature. I believe it was called TYRANNY back then.
The American colonists “whined” about it then just like today’s ex-pats are “whining” about it now. The result will be the same–whining didn’t work back then, just like it won’t work now.
However, what did work then and what will work now, is formal RENUNCIATION / RELINQUISHMENT OF THE HOMELAND’S CITIZENSHIP. It is the only solution if an ex-pat wants to survive and live at least a semi-normal life.
So Steve, if you happen to be reading this, sorry for sounding so anti-American, no ex-pat wants to sound that way. But enough is enough! No man or woman worth their salt can tolerate living under such conditions. America’s founders didn’t tolerate it, why should anyone else?
We dare not forget today that we are at the forefront of the Second American Revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans Abroad –born in this century, tempered by the Homeland FBAR, FATCA and OVDI attacks, disciplined by a hard and difficult road to tax compliance, proud of our commitment to the ideals of what America was once–and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which Americans Abroad have always been committed, and to which we are committed today in the Homeland and around the world.
Let the Homeland know, even though it wishes us ill, that, as law abiding citizens, in full compliance with the law, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure our human rights as citizens of this world.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
A bill of particulars documenting the ruler’s “repeated injuries and usurpations” of the Emigrants’ rights and liberties.[
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Ruler of United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Emigrants. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses of emigrants repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Assets.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing self-Judiciary Powers.
He has made IRS Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies of Tax Collectors without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Revenue Service independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed collectors among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Thefts which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting our assets beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of US Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of confiscation, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to testify against their Countrymen, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethrens assets, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Bank Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
This section essentially finished the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our United States brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
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