You have nice family

Indeed, it’s generally true. And the nice thing of being more difficult to pay a visit to is, my less favorite family members always find an excuse not to come so I don’t even have to find an excuse not to receive them 🙂

Bavaria too is lovely, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be there in 1934. Beautiful nature isn’t enough.

I haven’t been back. I never want to set foot in that godforsaken country ever again. And even if I wanted to, I have no intention of surrendering my electronic devices, disclosing my online activities or being frisked by the GestapoDHS.

My family comes here to visit - which they’re glad to do anyway because the place in live in is much nicer and much more peaceful than their depressing corner or American suburbia.

You’ve said that twice now. I was under the impression that if your US tax liability is $X but you already paid >$X in foreign taxes, you file a form saying so and your US tax liability drops to $0. Is my understanding incorrect?

That may be the case today. But when I left a quarter century ago, it wasn’t like that. I don’t remember the specifics, but I would have ended up paying some thousands of dollars every year.

That’s an excellent argument for not living within US jurisdiction, but how is it an argument for not keeping US citizenship as an ex-pat?

A country that’s gone rogue can’t strongarm another to deport their enemy citizens living there back home if they’re not citizens no more.

I fully expect the Trump regime - or whichever new Trumpesque dictator replaces the orange buffoon when he kicks the bucket - to come after expats it deems treacherous or enemies of the state or something. I’d rather the US can’t legally demand my repatriation.

The fewer ties you have to the US, the better. It was true before, and it’s especially true now.

The other reason is, a lot of foreigners - like, a LOT - don’t particularly like Americans, even the friendliest ones. It’s easier not to be an American than having to prove you’re one of the nice ones all the time.

problematic to open foreign bank accounts as a US citizen…?

I never had any problem. But remember, it was a long time ago. Things were still pretty chill in the early 2000’s. You could literally walk into a bank and open an account in 10 minutes with any ID that looked legit 🙂 There was no KYC or anything like that, and banks mostly cared about whether you had money to deposit. I mean not quite 80’s like, but nothing like the stringent dystopia of today.

Also, I had citizenship from a EU country, so that helped.

Renounciation costs (or at least used to cost) a few thousand dollars. That’s money you quickly recoup by not paying any US taxes.

Besides, I don’t see why I should pay Uncle Sam anything of what I earn abroard, living abroad and working in a foreign company, not using any American services or infrastructure. The only rational Uncle Sam has to offer for extracting taxes from US citizens residing abroad is essentially “Pay up or else…” That’s a racket, pure and simple: even if it wasn’t financially sound, I don’t pay racketeers.

What other pros/cons are there?

Not being an American is a big pro. Your conscience is less dirty.

And as of Apr 14, 2025, the safety of not living in a dictatorship where the rule of law doesn’t apply anymore is also a big plus.

And while not directly linked to citizenship proper, living abroad offers many advantages: working healthcare, a decent education for your children, publc services that work… Yes, you pay a lot of taxes in Europe, but you know what you get out of it. The quality of life in Europe is much higher than in the US. And - I know it sounds weird but it’s true - you don’t need the constant background paranoia you need to live in the US. You don’t realize the paranoia is there until you leave and then it lifts from you. It’s a real thing.

But of course you can experience all that while still being an American. Not being American is mostly a matter of refusing to be associated with - and finance - an amoral society.

It was easy for me: I had dual citizenship. I simply renounced the wrong one - which cost me a pretty penny: it’s a real racket run by the US, this. But it paid for itself many times over in that I never had to pay US taxes for income I generated outside the US, which is also another US racket.

When I left, I went to Canada. Then the UK - which was in Europe back then. Then I lived in a bunch of countries in Europe. Then Australia. Then back to Europe. That’s where I am now.

I left the US and renounced my citizenship 24 years ago, after Dubya shat out the USA Patriot Act and I knew the US would turn into a full-blown Nazi state some day.

Best thing I ever did.

She is a career humanitarian and environmentalist

You just repeated exactly what I said.

Greta Thunberg - how to milk one viral moment you had as a kid and make a career out of it.

It’s strange how all dictatorships have the same control freak obsessions with the same things around the world, across eras:

• Obsession with squelching science and education
• Obsession with denying basic reality and facts
• Obsession with religions and cults of various kinds
• Obsession with the population’s natality
• Obsession with people’s sex habits and the contents of their pants

Trump’s regime, being a run-of-the-mill fascist dictatorship, is no different and ticks all the boxes.

Ah right gotcha. So like if someone is on an instance where nobody follows a foreign community and browses All, they won’t see a new post from that community.

Makes sense.

Thanks!

Really useful. Thanks!

I’m a bit confused by what that tool says though:

By default, communities on Lemmy/Mbin are not federated due to the inherent limitations of ActivityPub.

When you create a new community, it will only be available to your instance. To make it accessible to other instances, at least one user from each remote instance must follow it.

This tool automates this process by following your community from all remote instances until it gains at least one real-user follower.

And yet when I go to any instance’s webpage and look for any community - even a brand new one - I find it. So is the tool referring to something else?

I do know that if no lemmy.ml users are currently joined in those groups then they won’t update

Oh wow that’s super weird. I didn’t know that.

Your joining seems to have triggered the update.

Good to know, this. Thanks!