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Obviously you want the benefits of being a citizen, so nothing I said suggests you should renounce citizenship. > If not, get off my back and stop trying to ma

Obviously you want the benefits of being a citizen, so nothing I said suggests you should renounce citizenship. > If not, get off my back and stop trying to make my life worse. I wasn't aware I had such power. Who knew my random comments on the internet could cause financial law and policy to change? In all seriousness you and I have the same ability to enact change here, which is to vote and advocate for a position. The point at which you don't, that is if you gave up your citizenship and right to vote, it would no longer effect you. That's a concrete example of a benefit you get from citizenship, which comes with rights and responsibilities. The fact you don't want to give it up is evidence that you see it as beneficial. The last thing I'll say is I specifically left opening in my statement so someone could argue that the burden is harder than it needs to be on expats, because my point isn't that they should pay all the costs they currently do, but that some cost for the benefits they get is in my opinion acceptable. Maybe a slightly less knee-jerk reaction to my comment may have made that apparent.

safety1st 4y ago
You're obviously entitled to hold any opinion you want, but you're not guaranteed civil discourse when you advocate for denying people their basic rights and needs. The reality in the world right now is that the warrantless, blanket financial surveillance you're advocating is causing ordinary Americans who live overseas to be denied bank accounts and other financial services. I know several people who have been placed in this position, including a charity worker in Thailand and a primary school teacher in rural France. The issue is that as an externality of your policies there are already people who can't cash their paychecks or pay their rent. If you want to advocate for these policies you have to address the harm that they're doing to people, you don't get to just "leave them an opening." You've advocated for harm. You've made yourself the bad guy here. Do you explicitly support these harms as a cost of governance? Are these individuals sacrifices for the greater good of prosecuting financial criminals? Or are you simply oblivious to this problem? So far you've dodged the issue, lectured us on how the democratic process works, and implied that if anyone doesn't like it they can renounce their citizenship, which is phenomenally condescending, believe me I understand these things very well so spare me those lectures.

safety1st 4y ago

You're obviously entitled to hold any opinion you want, but you're not guaranteed civil discourse when you advocate for denying people their basic rights and needs. The reality in the world right now is that the warrantless, blanket financial surveillance you're advocating is causing ordinary Americans who live overseas to be denied bank accounts and other financial services. I know several people who have been placed in this position, including a charity worker in Thailand and a primary school teacher in rural France. The issue is that as an externality of your policies there are already people who can't cash their paychecks or pay their rent. If you want to advocate for these policies you have to address the harm that they're doing to people, you don't get to just "leave them an opening." You've advocated for harm. You've made yourself the bad guy here. Do you explicitly support these harms as a cost of governance? Are these individuals sacrifices for the greater good of prosecuting financial criminals? Or are you simply oblivious to this problem? So far you've dodged the issue, lectured us on how the democratic process works, and implied that if anyone doesn't like it they can renounce their citizenship, which is phenomenally condescending, believe me I understand these things very well so spare me those lectures.