Last year I travelled to NYC to attend a finance conference and stop home to see the family. From there I had to travel to LA – I was profiled at JFK because I entered the country on Emirates Airline ! ( Dubai / JFK on the 380 – a great airline and craft BTW) When I tried to check in curbside and they saw I came in on Emirates from Dubai – I was informed I had to check-in at the counter.. They then directed me another line and told me it was ‘random’ – I looked like the only American on the line !! For sure – the only Caucasian !!

How this chap from Nigeria was able to board a flight to the USA without a valid passport, without a visa and a one way ticket WITHOUT luggage remains a mystery.. The mistake was made in Amsterdam and we should be looking at the airline NOT the IC community..

I enjoy your newsletter and recommend it to other expats in SE Asia

keep up the good work!

We can complain, whine, and moan about the failings of the federal government in America to the end of time. Until people repent of their covetousness, envy, greed, and all manner of government provision including government education, government health care, social security, and the like, I think tyranny is what we’re going to deservedly get.

PS. Folks, Simon mentioned at the end of his article, “I’m curious to see where you stand, let me know if you agree.” I do agree with him, which is why I took him at his word and added my two cents worth and my perspective. I applaud Simon for running this comment section with an even-tempered hand. I applaud his willingness to post a diversity of comments and opinions. If we can’t act as ladies and gentlemen and practice charitable self-government in our comments, we end up not that much different from the tyrants most of us profess to abhor.

For whatever reason, the posters here seem to realize our government is out of control and that our liberties are diminished because of it.

Thank you for proving my point.

Simon- I don’t want to degenerate this into an adolescent shoot-out, but seriously, can you just unsubscribe this moron?

The nature of America’s behavior is religious. Slavery is inherent in the design of the world. We are either slaves to God or slaves to sin. It is only in slavery to God that political liberty and economic freedom are found. God saves us from our sins. He cleans us up and enables us to govern ourselves and put to death our sinful passions. When people govern their individual persons according to the Law of God, there is little need for an autocratic police state.

When people rebel against God and choose slavery to sin, God gives them over to their passions and appetites. The world becomes a mighty uncomfortable place when the sinful passions of men are not restrained. Sinful men think that liberty, freedom, and progress are to be found apart from God. No sooner do they reject the worship of the one true God, then they erect false gods and serve them.

Today we see the consequences. Men who will not be governed by God will be governed by their sinful passions. As men become given over to sin, they become incapable of governing themselves and turn increasingly towards tyrants that are quite ready and willing to govern with a heavy hand. The result is always the end of liberty and economic freedom and a headlong fall into the abyss of statism.

Don’t be surprised that people trust government. It is the logical manifestation of their idolatry.

The flip side of the coin–the reason for all of this “freedom”, is because the EC government doesn’t have money to police everything, which can be good or bad.

The current president seems to be interested in spending it on health care and education, and border control. He has told the wealthy land owners to put their land and it’s resources to use for the benefit of the country (meaning they are supposed to plant crops and share water resources, for example), or they could lose it. I understand the thinking–why should someone who owns family land (which was originally stolen from the native Ecuadorians), keep land if they do not use it for the benefit of themselves and for others? For that, he has been called a socialist and a Chavez wannabe.

However, I would rather live under these conditions as opposed to big brother government, a banking and drug cartel, an FDA that blesses poisoned food and water, and being a big fat target for every jihadist in the world who hates the US government policies. . .also, no Wall St. thugs here. In fact, the president has brazenly told the IMF and drug cartels to take a flying leap with their “illegitimate” interest charges and drug patents (which keep outrageous prices on medicines that cost a penny to make), as well as the US govt, when he told them to remove a military base in Manta, Ecuador, and said he would renew the lease when he could put an Ecuadorian military base in the US. . . I somehow felt strangely vindicated by all of that when I read it!

I feel like this is a new frontier–it’s definitely a new world. You can really feel the difference when it comes to actually feeling free. . . Of course, that being said, with freedom comes responsibility for your own health, wealth, and protection. No one to sue if you trip and fall and break your leg on a city sidewalk that is uneven. When Ecuadorians don’t like their president or a law, they peacefully protest. Several times, when they have in the past, presidents have been physcially removed from office–isn’t that the way a democratic government is supposed to work? This is a very peaceful country for the most part. Overall, I like the current president and the way he is running the government. That is something I definitely have not been able to say for years in the US. . . Food for thought for anyone contemplating Ecuador. Ciao!

My plan is to start researching alternate modes of transportation such as bus, train and freighter travel.

I am so angry about this new development that I could spit!

I want to find a place like Galt’s Gulch (Maybe Caseys in Argentina, but as a family of asthma sufferers we do enjoy the no-smoking policies here in the US of late) but:

1) I want to take my guns with me
2) I need to find husbands for my Christian (not Catholic) daughters.
3) I need to ramp up my online income and get a little concerned that so much of the technology I buy can only be shipped to US addresses

Regards

Now I wonder if these rather arrogant men were being observed on camera or did anyone really think they might pose a threat.

If you happen to be going on a flight and you see middle eastern men that seem to be getting through security and boarded onto the plane a little too easily with the white-glove treatment, run like f*cking hell!

Not liking the after-effects of 9/11 security and airport pat-downs that sometimes appeared to be borderline sexual assault of females, I took a serious look at flight schools and getting a pilot’s license. I learned a lot of things when I did, things that are at the same time liberating and unsettling, which I will not go into here.

No, it’s not an easy way to go…and it can become expensive just to even get the license depending on the type of plane you wish to learn to fly.

But here’s the thing: I remember reading about a guy who was a passenger on a chartered plane within the last six to eight months. This guy had taken flying lessons to learn to fly a Cessna or some other small aircraft, and at the very least had a pilot’s license. He and his family were onboard a plane with a pilot who, during the flight, DIED mid-air! After some major machinations at two different towers, this man was able to land his own plane thanks to his basic knowledge of flying and to a flight instructor at one of the towers who was intimately familiar with the controls of the big plane that he was on who talked him through it.

Here’s my take on things: we need to learn to be as self-sufficient as possible because the government was never really there to protect us, as they have been quick to let us all know by both their words and their deeds. Anyone with any hope the government “is here to help” can take a look at New Orleans to see what the government has in store. And although I have no problems with looking after myself and learning what it takes to do that, it often seems that if I exercise my right to learn to do so that the government will have a problem with me!

I am also anxious to hear the results of the second citizenship details you mentioned in your recent newsletter on the subject, Simon. The plan as you mentioned it sounds brilliant!

I’m retired military myself & moved here to Buenos Aires a little over three years ago. I have the very same reasons for moving as well as the very same feelings about the ignorant American population as you do. Enjoy your new (much more relaxed) life.
joe

I agree with your position. It is too bad that political correctness has overcome reason. I am waiting for my wife to get an encryption program on our laptop, then I will get bill pay, and buy airline tickets to Panama or Costa Rica. We already own a building lot in Costa Rica. I can’t wait to get out of the country. We had some work done in our house today, and the worker had a unique viewpoint. He said that everyone should just fly naked.

Howard Thompson

Anyhoo, one day I’m in the shower when I hear my front door slam shut. I immediately yell the name of my roommate, who I assumed had gone to work but forgot something at home, hence her doubling back to retrieve whatever she needed. She did not respond and the door slammed shut once again.

I paused, killed the water and hesitated a few moments before I stepped outside that bathroom. Every man reading this can imagine what was going through my mind as I quickly devised a fighting strategy that could work while I simultaneously protected my johnson.

I slowly entered the living room, beelining for the front door. Odd…there was no sign of forced entry. I carefully checked the rest of the small apartment. Satisfied that I was alone, I called my roommates’ place of employment — which was a good thirty minutes away — and she came to the phone.

She freaked when I described what happened. However, I assured her the police — with a station, literally, not more than three blocks away — would take care of everything. I’m still waiting on those badge wearing, donut inhaling, sap suckers to show up. I deduced the bldg management — who I would now describe as tweekers, though I had no clue about crystal meth, then — would wait for tenants to leave or go to work and fleece apartments.

That thought, coupled with the fact that cops stationed three blocks away didn’t bother to show up after I called them for help, is the reason me and Mr. 357 Magnum — we call ‘em Hog Legs back home in Chicago — are now best friends.

Be Safe Friends

Incidentally, did you see the eyewitness account by a Michigan lawyer and his wife of the “diaper bomber” boarding procedure facilitated by a natily dressed gentlemen?

Ben

You need to set the crackpipe down and step away from the table, now.

This simple sentence is at the root of what’s wrong with people today, they expect others to provide for them, and for the life of me I don’t understand why.

Kim expects *someone* to provide her with a means of earning something.

Why does she think this way?

Why doesn’t she think, “Hmmm, I’m a human being, I have kids to provide for, all of us have to eat, so I guess I better figure out a way to get some food on a regular basis.”

But that thought never entered her head, and she’s not unusual, millions of other herd members are just like her, and some are even worse and they are called politicians.

Guess who totally destroyed Rhodesia!! The USA and that totally DISGUSTING man Kissenger!!

I agree with your conclusions But the conditioning of the population is by definition intentional.
Even without significant conditioning ( outside of a general illiteracy and poverty), its estimated that only 3% of the population was actively involved in the American Revolution ( i.e. the revolutionaries).
The rest of them had sympathies for ( 1/3) , against ( Royalists-1/3),
and I don’t give a damn who wins ( 1/3). There was also the frontier to
bleed off resentment and initiative.

However, now, as Bernanke has directly said in Congressional testimony
“managed information” ( the controlled official media) is effective. In addition it is obvious that the amount of taxes people pay is another controlling device requiring people to consistently work, coupled with no free capital ( its all controlled) such as a frontier provides. Peoples’ noses are kept to the grindstone coupled with the demands of family ( wife and children) requiring further efforts of time and money.

So while you are correct, unless you are single, or independently wealthy
it becomes both difficult psychologically and financially to wrench yourself away from family obligations ( ex. your wife does not want to move away from her family geographically or wishes to move back to her family’s location- check with your friends who have wives). Financially, that is why you receive so many enquiries as to what type of business you can create if you wish to live outside the United States. The money in an immediate sense and also the practicality of that money to convince your wife to share in this adventure, this move. Tunnel vision is easily fostered and maintained in the general population.

Signed The dog catcher on duty lol ;-(

P.S. This dog don’t hunt no mo