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I think Americans who live in other countries and are always criticizing the United States are hypocrites. If they dislike the United States so much, why don't they take the logical step of renouncing their citizenship?
Frankly, I suspect you just don't like people criticizing the US, period. A very strange attitude for someone who lives in a country that supposedly values free speech. I think it is amazing how much most super=patriots really hate democracy, when it comes right down to it.
I just wanted to add that even if you are living abroad it's not necessarily possible to renounce your citizenship. It's hard enough just getting permanent residency in a new country let alone a passport, so I just don't see the logic in why you shouldn't be allowed to criticize your birthplace either way.
I think Americans who live in other countries and are always criticizing the United States are hypocrites. If they dislike the United States so much, why don't they take the logical step of renouncing their citizenship?
It's bigger than what you're suggesting.
You don't need to go overseas to criticize your country when it is acting wrong.
Robert Kennedy was against segregation but that was the law of the land.
Was he wrong to do so?
Everyone has the right to criticize,they don't need to renounce their citizenship.
They may be more american and more patriotic than you and i.
I'm more than happy to be in Chile and I feel my quality of life has gone up since being here. It's also really nice to not have to deal with Democrats.
I'm American and free to live wherever I want. I pay taxes to the United States and have no reason to renounce my citizenship. Just because I choose to be abroad means nothing, it's my right to live as I please. I love the United States, but I'm going to go where life takes me and where I'm happy. I'm not going to stay in the US just because some random person on a messageboard is whining and telling me to renounce my citizenship.
I'm more than happy to be in Chile and I feel my quality of life has gone up since being here. It's also really nice to not have to deal with Democrats.
I'm American and free to live wherever I want. I pay taxes to the United States and have no reason to renounce my citizenship. Just because I choose to be abroad means nothing, it's my right to live as I please. I love the United States, but I'm going to go where life takes me and where I'm happy. I'm not going to stay in the US just because some random person on a messageboard is whining and telling me to renounce my citizenship.
I see no hypocrisy in people who choose to expatriate criticizing America...we still have freedom of speech as far as I know though the liberals are trying to silence speech everywhere they can.
Foreigners criticizing America but without real knowledge is tougher for me to hear...but I'm not a liberal so I support free speech.
More Americans than ever before ARE renouncing their citizenship....the steady stream of US citizens expatriating is turning into a flood......to the extent that many US consolates now have a waiting list for appointments to renounce citizenship.....mostly it's because the US is one, if not the only, country to tax its citizens on income earned while they're living abroad......http://renunciationguide.com/Citizen...omparison.html
How can you renounce where you are from?
Does that mean you have to apply to live there? I would never get rid of my British citizenship!
What's the difference if you leave a state, within the U.S., to move elsewhere in the country, and then "renounce your citizenship" to that "foreign" state? I left MN 20 years ago, and I feel like an expat living here in a foreign country called Nevada, and I'll be criticizing MN 'til the day I die, and if I rip up my MN citizenship, and not be allowed to go back there, no tears shed!
I'm dumfounded as those that think the U.S. is such a stable country to live in, a country, essentially, being flat broke, with oodles of enemies around the world!
One day, that might do it, move to a foreign country where there's more stability, and never look back!
As an American living abroad, I can see both sides of the coin...
The US is one of the only countries that taxes its citizens no matter where they are in the world every year. So, even though I'm in China, using no US social services or infrastructure, I will have to fork over money in the next month to the IRS again. For long-term expats, this can be an issue; say you're an American, but you move to China, or Australia, or wherever. You marry a local, you have children there, you start a business and start making good money for yourself and your family. You have to pay local taxes, and then at the end of the year the US gov't wants a cut, too. If you haven't lived in the US in a decade, own a house and a business in that country, your spouse and children are natives of that place, you enjoy it there, you have permanent residency there and a clear path to citizenship and you think that you'd rather spend the rest of your life there, then why not renounce your citizenship?
Most of the nations that the bulk of Americans move to have a decent relationship with the US, so if you become a Japanese or Australian citizen and passport holder, it's not like you're going to have to go through a billion hoops and get interrogated at the gate to find out why you renounced your US citizenship. Now, if you moved to Pakistan or the Sudan, renounced your citizenship, and tried to re-enter the US having changed your name to Mohammed bin Mohammed, that would probably be another matter...
And that leads me into the people who do it for primarily political reasons. I've met people who either have, would like to, or are in the process of renouncing their citizenship for political or ideological reasons that run the gamut from contrarian, youthfully-stupid idealism and self-loathing, to lucid, mature and rational sociopolitical and/or economic digression. This can by typified by the more-than-likely young and less-traveled ideologue who likely either hasn't been to the nation they dream of, or was there in circumstances that were isolated from what they could expect to live in should they actually choose to move there (a college program, summer vacation when they were younger, a full tour that focused around specific and esoteric interests of theirs). A lot of these focus around perceptions that another place has a superior "culture" to the US, allows more freedoms, has more gender equality, is less aggressive, etc - views that may or may not be correct. A good example would be weeaboos who think that everything is 100% better in Japan, but either don't realize or choose not to acknowledge its issues of sexism and government-sanctioned racism/ethnocentrism and shaky prospects for the future, or people who think that England is a splendidly-cultured land of gentlemen and women who look like Christian Bale and Kate Winslet where everyone drinks tea and watches Dr. Who, without realizing that it's got wide swaths of working class natives and immigrants who think Dr. Who is for f-----s and care more about finding work and how Man U's doing, and that there's a certain point after which sarcasm is no longer endearing or charming. If these people ever actually get a chance to live in another country or spend a fair amount of time there, they'll likely have their obsession brought back down to reality and realize that nowhere is a utopia.
The other, more thoughtful group are people who likely have spent time abroad and realized that there are other countries that suit their sensibilities more than the US did; whether that's a fiscal conservative/libertarian who would prefer to live in a smaller country with fewer taxes, an open-door business policy, and fewer social services, or it's a liberal who wants to live in a country where there are more restrictions on the free enterprise and more social services, these are people who generally have their gripes with America but have well-formed versus knee-jerk arguments as to why another place works better for them, and in my experience, these people usually have actually spent enough time abroad, living in other cultures, and have a more realistic and rational approach than the former group; the person who moved to Japan because they have a deep respect for the culture and find the traditional family structure, the reserved and honorific, conservative social mores, or the person who moved to England because they enjoy the speed and flow of life whether it's in London or a smaller city like Warwick, the way that the natives live their lives and how immigrants integrate into society, the expectations of a social benefit network, etc. They found things in those countries that they couldn't find back in their birth country, and they made the decision that it was time for them to go ahead and pull the trigger and become a permanent citizen of the place that they feel more at home in.
As far as the criticisms? I'm fine with hearing them as long as they are indeed lucid, rational, and the person making them has a good, or at least fair point. If it's just based off of stereotypes or hearsay then I could care less to hear them.
Last edited by 415_s2k; 03-12-2014 at 04:46 AM..
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, when it comes right down to it.
