You Can’t Secede


by
Jeff Berwick

The Dollar Vigilante

Previously
by Jeff Berwick:
Government
Plans Retirement Heist, Calls It Charity



Once again
we come to you as the humble messenger and past predictor of today’s
major issues!

On January
20th of this year we penned an article entitled, “Forced
Expatriation Coming to the USSA
“.  In it we stated,
“We can clearly see that the United Soviet States of America
is putting in place the necessary tools to be able to strip whoever
it likes of the so-called ‘privilege’ of being a US citizen.” 
And, yet again, it looks as though it is coming to pass.

With the massive
influx of personal petitions to secede from the USSA, many right
wing thought leaders have lashed out and are now petitioning for
a process wherein anyone who signs a petition to secede is stripped
of their US citizenship and deported.

The founder
of RedState, the leading conservative blog for “right of center”
immoral online activists, Erick Erickson filed the petition and
stated “We here at RedState are American citizens (slaves).
We have no plans to secede from the union,” he wrote. “If
you do, good luck with that, but this is not the place for you.”

He
states that to call for secession is an act of treason and should
any elected official propose such a measure, he or she should be
tried for treason and summarily removed from office.

He goes on
to state, “Mr. President, please sign an executive order such
that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state
to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and
be peacefully deported.”

Thomas Jefferson
would spew his coffee across his dining room table if he heard that
from a so-called “patriot.”  Jefferson stated in
his first inaugural address in 1801, “If there be any among
us who wish to dissolve this union, let them stand undisturbed of
the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason
is left free to combat it.”

Even fascist,
genocidal murderer, Abraham Lincoln stated in 1848, “Any people
anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to
rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one
that suits them better. This is a most valuable, – most sacred right – a
right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor
is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an
existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such
people that can, may revolutionize and make their own of so much
of the teritory as they inhabit.”

Of
course, a little less than ¼ score and 7 years later he rained
down terror on the South for trying to secede… not to “free
the slaves” as Steven Spielberg would like you to believe. 
Anyone questioning that just needs to listen to Abraham Lincoln
himself who stated:

“I
will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing
about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and
black races – that I am not nor ever have been in favor of
making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold
office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition
to this that there is a physical difference between the white and
black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living
together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch
as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must
be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other
man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the
white race.”

That aside,
Redstate founder, Erick Erickston, likely worships at the feet of
Jefferson and likely goes to bow at the Lincoln Memorial, with Lincoln’s
two hands firmly planted on two fasces… yet he is saying
exactly the opposite of what they said.

YOU
CAN’T QUIT, YOU’RE FIRED!

“You can’t
quit…because you’re fired!” That seems to be the message
behind the petition to strip citizenship of anyone who has signed
the various recent petitions for secession.

It’s almost
funny. The petition to strip citizenship is obviously an angry reaction…but
the petition would in a sense give the objects of that anger exactly
what they want: separation from a country/government they no longer
want to be a part of.

Of course it
gets a wee bit more complicated. Those who want to secede wish for
their entire state of residence to separate from the US. These people
don’t want to become stateless exiles; they want to take several
thousand square miles of familiar space and all the infrastructure
and people therein with them.

That would
be ideal. Getting to live exactly where you want in the US without
the burden of US citizenship… If that means not having a third
or half of one’s income stolen to pay the interest on the debt
that funds foreign wars and the police…then any moral, sane person
should jump at the chance!

That’s
not what it would mean, however. That’s certainly not what the
petitioners calling for stripping citizenship are after. What they
want for the secession supporters is exile…or worse…like military
imprisonment or execution.

Sadly
people simply aren’t allowed to become stateless on purpose.
The US will only allow you to give up citizenship if you’ve got
something else lined up. If you don’t, then then you can’t
give up your US citizenship. So unless the US will be sponsoring
new citizenships for those it wants to kick out, they will become
stateless in a state-filled world and be all but excluded from travel,
business and employment.

Of course,
if it suits the US government’s purposes, they will be looking
to be able to strip anyone of US citizenship when it strikes their
fancy. Just look at the hissy fit thrown by Democratic Senators
Charles Schumer and Bob Casey when billionaire Facebook co-founder
Eduardo Savarin wanted to sever his ties with the US and its tax
collectors. That’s why the senators came up with their “Ex-PATRIOT
Act” (Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives
for Offshore Tenancy Act). This act would bar those who were deemed
to have renounced US citizenship for tax-avoidance purpose from
ever setting foot back on US soil.

As Yale Law
School professor Bruce Ackerman put it: “[T]hey either remain
Americans or they repudiate their homeland forever.”

While Senator
Schumer is ready to forever exile anyone who forsakes US citizenship
to avoid lifelong tax robbery, the diabolical Senator Joe Lieberman,
along with Representatives Charlie Dent and Jason Altmire, has put
forward the Enemy Expatriation Act. If the bill passes, it will
add “terrorism” or “providing material support”
to terrorist organizations based on the decision of the secretary
of state to the list of reasons the US government can remove citizenship.

The Enemy Expatriation
Act was just the latest insult added to the injury of the 2012 National
Defense Authorization Act that President O’Bomber signed a few months
prior on the first day of the year. One of the provisions of that
act was the indefinite military detention of American citizens without
stated cause and without trial.

Now, like all
good politicians, Obama has said that he does not like that provision
and will not enforce it:

“I want
to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite
military detention without trial of American citizens…

“Section
1022 seeks to require military custody for a narrow category of
non-citizen detainees…This section is ill-conceived and will do
nothing to improve the security of the United States…I reject
any approach that would mandate military custody where law enforcement
provides the best method of incapacitating a terrorist threat.”

But he still
signed the bill…

“While
section 1022 is unnecessary and has the potential to create uncertainty,
I have signed the bill because I believe this section can be interpreted
and applied in a manner that avoids undo harm to our current operations.”

By this point
it should be obvious that there’s no length to which the USSA
won’t go. It’s too bad that when they strip you of citizenship
they won’t exile you to someplace nice, like Paraguay or Chile.
If that were the case then we’d advise you to sign the first petition
you see!  However, chances are more likely that you’ll
be going to Guantanamo instead.

If you want
to end up in Paraguay or one of the other countries freer and less
extortionist than the USSA, you’ll have to take matters into
your own hands and be proactive (see
TDV Passports for more
).  Or
check out our expatriate refuge in Chile, Galt’s Gulch
(with
new logo) if you want to plant your first flag abroad now to protect
yourself.

Given the way
the wind is blowing it surely won’t be too long before even applying
for foreign citizenship will be deemed illegal.  Time is running
out.  We hope you have begun to square your affairs away before
our next “we toldya so” article. 


November 24, 2012

Jeff
Berwick [send him mail]
is an anarcho-capitalist freedom fighter and Chief Editor of the
libertarian, Austrian economics grounded newsletter, The
Dollar Vigilante
. The Dollar Vigilante focuses on strategies,
investments and expatriation opportunities to survive prosper
during and after the US dollar collapse.

Copyright
© 2012 The
Dollar Vigilante

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