Nostate.com blogger renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person
If you haven’t been following this, it’s a fascinating story about an American anarchist, and his journey to renounce his citizenship and become a “stateless person”.
That’s great. Useless, but absolutely wonderful.
Mike is taking some bold steps. Will he really be free? No. Will he collapse the state? No. But he is paving the way for more people to follow his steps and become stateless people, circulating throughout society, reminding everyone that citizenship is not a given.
Not to mention, I think it’s damn courageous. If I could renounce my citizenship (my country does not recognize it), I would do it in a heartbeat.
If you’re an American living abroad, and claim to be an Anarchist, there is no reason why you should maintain your citizenship with the evil empire, unless you are a hypocrite. Best of all, the process at the American embassy is free. It’s cheaper than renewing your passport.
I intend on doing so when I am more capable of mobility, or at least trying (depending on future circumstances, but I don’t see much that could get in the way aside from some natural disaster).
Learning a trade or two & having some money to fall back on would obviously help, but I’ll obviously need to learn one or two languages, depending on what country/territory/island/geographical point I decide to end up residing in, which is something tricky in of itself to decide.
Yeah, I intend to do it, but I need to plan a move to a country where I can renounce, then make another move to another country. For someone with my current situation, this could be a 5 or 10 year program.
Mike has an advantage because he is a Slovak translator, so the language and trade problem are solved.
The only Slovak word I know is “snoric”. It means “sniff”. These are the kind of words one knows when they work with a Slovakian network admin who writes his own intrustion detection scripts.
And totaly useless for living in Slovakia.
I will have to renounce in Bulgaria or Friesland.
After the collapse, I shall establish my fiefdom in the Georgia Piedmont. Thousands will flock to my enlightened and benevolent rule.
Is that where the guidestones are? [;)]
There are some advantages though. I remember US citizens have to pay income taxes for income obtained in other countries, except where explicitly stated otherwise.
I believe it’s also beneficial for those that don’t want to pay public social security in their own country (like here). If I’m correct, non-citizens aren’t required to contribute to obligatory social security, so one could essentially go for a 100% private alternative (which is cheaper and better).
It’s been a while since I did any payroll programming, but I recall that resident aliens, those with green cards, do indeed pay Social Security. It is non-resident aliens, those who are here on a visa, who don’t have to pay it.