Found this Q&A on expatriation quite interesting and truthful....
Q: If I expatriate and live somewhere else, won’t I just be trading U.S. government aggravations for some other version? After all, no situation is perfect.
A: Expatriation is about improving your life, not attaining perfection. If you’d be more free, more happy, and more wealthy by expatriating, then that’s a massive improvement. That’s certainly been the case for me. I no longer file tax returns. I have privacy and control over my assets and how I use them. I can bank and invest wherever I want and be welcomed with a smile instead of being rejected as a “toxic citizen.” I can think clearly and rationally about investing, while paying no attention to “weighing tax implications.” I have more money available to donate to causes I support. If I think a currency will tank, I can convert to other currencies or gold – and not be taxed for preserving my purchasing power. Lastly, I sleep better knowing that I’m no longer fuel for the U.S. political juggernaut.
Q: Isn’t anybody who expatriates just being greedy for no longer sharing their money with the government? What about the idea of paying “my fair share?”
A: The act of sharing is a voluntary one. That’s what makes it sharing. If you’re compelled by threat of imprisonment to give somebody something, then it’s not sharing. Nor is it fair. Paying your fair share is what you do when you go out to dinner with friends. But when strangers whose salaries you’re forced to pay decide how much of your money to take, in order to spend it on things you often detest, then fairness is not part of the equation.
Q: Isn’t it un-American not to be positive and optimistic about the country’s future?
A: Is it positive or optimistic to believe in bombing for peace and borrowing your way out of debt? I welcome the accusation that I’m being cynical, pessimistic, negative… any adjective that attempts to avert people’s gaze from reality. In other nations, if you’re fed up, you can just leave. That acts as a powerful check on the reach of politicians into people’s lives and wallets. But Americans are stuck getting taken to the cleaners day after day, no matter where they go or what they do. Care for some examples? Start by Googling “363 TONS of cash.” How the government “misplaced” 726,000 pounds of $100 bills should be a point of vexation to a rational mind. Now let’s put on an astronaut suit and go stratospheric. Google “2.3 trillion missing.” This revelation, made one day before 9/11, has been swept into the dustbin of mainstream media history. When thousands of billions of dollars of your money “go missing,” what is there left to talk about?
Q: Don’t we just need more laws and regulations to make things better?
A: Americans are the most regulated people on the planet. Consider that the Federal Register – for 2008 alone! – had 80,700 pages of laws and regulations. Read up on this legal kraken here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Register I’ll be shocked if the 2010 Federal Register doesn’t break 100,000 pages. And don’t forget about the hundreds of thousands of pages of laws and regulations at the state and local levels. The sheer annual output of all the federal and state “lawmakers” makes the 70,000-page IRS code seem measured by comparison. Will adding a few hundred thousand more pages make people’s lives in America more productive, happy, and free? Perhaps the six-figure-salaried SEC regulators who surfed porn while ignoring Madoff whistleblowers beating down their door could elucidate.
Q: But if only X politician were elected, or Y political party could get more control, wouldn’t the whole system change? Shouldn’t I be out there writing congressmen, signing petitions, and protesting in the streets?
A: The system is rotten to the core. No individual, no matter how noble and righteous, can save it. Once it collapses under its own weight, hopefully something much better will emerge from the wreckage. Protesting against it is about as effective as protesting against the plague. You can spend your time and energy agitating and making noise, but the fastest way to change the system is to cut off access to its power source: You.
Q: What if I have kids?
A: Knowing what I know now, I wish my parents had expatriated long ago. I would have thanked them for opening up the world to me. And I would have gotten a much better education. For an example of how much further ahead your kids would be if they were schooled elsewhere, see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trends_in_ ... dy#Results Of course kids raised outside the U.S. are much more likely to be bilingual or trilingual as well. The benefits to your children of an international perspective can’t be overestimated in the 21st century. There’s nothing more important a parent can do than teach a child to think and be responsible for himself. The culture of compliance in the U.S. is a deadening force to a young mind. Here is an opportunity to show your child that when something’s not right, you need to take action – not talk. Expatriation teaches them that there is, actually, a limit
to what an individual should put up with from any government.
