Canada, Our Oldest Good neighbor

There is a great story in Jacques Poitras' Imaginary Line:  Life on an Unfinished Border about how folks living on the U.S. northern border feel about Canada:

"Lloyd Woods, the former head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in nearby Madawaska, Maine, used to ask [U.S.] students in his school visits, "How many here have travelled to a foreign country in the last six months?" Two or three students would raise their hands. "How many of you have travelled to Canada in the last six months?" Every hand in the class would go up."

So it is with great astonishment that I learned that the Trump administration is provoking a  fight with the Canadians.  Given the long history of cross-border contact, swapping of populations, intermarriage, and mutual dependence, my response to this is "WTF?"  Canadians aren't just neighbors, they are family.  I am not alone in having relatives in both countries. For a closer look at the human beings involved in all this, I recommend  Migrants and Migration in Modern North America edited by Dick Hoerder and Nola Faires.  For Trump maybe it would be best to hand him this 1946 brochure which explains just how important Canada and Canadian are to the United States.



With the Trump administration I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.  What he wants to do is so nonsensical and silly that even children know better.  Stephen Colbert  treats this latest act with the ridicule and contempt that it deserves.  And once we are finished laughing, let's invite the Canadians to pick up their hockey sticks and have at the U.S. president. We need all the help we can get to knock some sense into him.

The GOP Has a Problem with Immigration

There is a theory of international migration (one among many) called Dual Labor Market Theory.  This theory says that there are two very different labor sectors in the economies of developed nations.  One sector is characterized by stable employment, skilled labor and high wages.  The other sector is all about non-skilled or semi-skilled labor, people who work under much worse conditions with lower wages and a higher chance of being un- or under-employed.  Migrants, say the neo-classical economists historical-structural theorists, tend to be recruited for and work in that second, unstable sector.

The above is, I'm sure, a gross over-simplification of the theory but the key point for me is the idea that in that second sector employers in developed countries want migrant labor to fill those jobs.  And that means that business and native-born workers in the very same country will have very different views of immigration.  Business wants to bring them in (or keep them in even if they are undocumented), and workers and unions want to keep them out (or kick them out) so that wages don't fall and employment doesn't become even more precarious than it already is.

The result of this conflict of interest is a kind of schizophrenia about immigration in the heart of a developed nation-state.  The loud and strident calls of the native-born for restrictions on immigration are countered by powerful voices in favor of more immigration.  Talk about mixed messages.

In David Frum's article The Great Republican Revolt he makes the case that the business versus labor conflict over immigration in the United States is being played out in one of the two major political parties just before the next US national elections.  The Republican, the Grand old Party (GOP), is suffering, he says, because it cannot reconcile the very different interests of their party members when it comes to immigration.

On one side, says Frum, are the "Middle Americans" who are not happy with the state of the nation.  These are Americans of European origin who don't have a college degree, who suffered greatly during the Great Recession, and who don't seem to be recovering from it as fast as their college-educated compatriots.  Frum describes them as "middle-class" which I think is overly generous of him.  There are fewer and fewer stable high-wage jobs available to Americans who have only a high school diploma (or less), and many do end up working unstable, low-paying jobs where the chances for social mobility are small. It should surprise no one that there is nostalgia in the US for a time when someone could do very well without having to go to community college or university.

Frum is absolutely correct when he notes that this phenomenon is hardly unique to the US.  In France older members of my family loudly lament the passing of an era where a young person could aspire to a perfectly decent working life with nothing more than the bac (and in some cases just a brevet).

The argument is that this sense of precariousness ("losing ground") leads straight to support for right-wing parties with anti-immigrant platforms.  That seems intuitively true but there is also solid evidence to back it up.  A 2015 Pew poll found that Republicans strongly agree (53%) that immigrants have a negative impact on US society.  A whopping 71% believe that immigrants have a negative impact on the economy.

So a clear majority of the Republican base thinks that immigration is a bad thing for America.  They want fewer immigrants and they support better border control and the deportation of the undocumented.

But does the majority rule here?  Not really.  Frum points out that the Republican party also includes: "Owners of capital assets, employers of low-skill laborers, and highly compensated professionals..." who like immigration, or who aren't particularly bothered by it because they work in that stable high-paying sector of the American economy.  They generally support immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented migrants, though there are differences of opinion about whether immigration should increase or remain stable at current levels.

Whatever the polls say, Republican politicians have to listen to the pro-immigration contingent because it includes party members who make substantial political contributions AND because some of those politicians run for office in regions that have large numbers of naturalized citizens or second-generation migrants. And to muddy the waters further, some of those right-wing politicians are themselves the product of very recent immigration to the US.  In 2013, Frum notes, "A bipartisan 'Gang of Eight,' including Florida’s ambitious young Marco Rubio, agreed on a plan that would create a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants and substantially increase legal-immigration limits for both high- and low-skilled workers."  In the end it didn't go anywhere, but they did try.

So the question is: How will the Republican party come to a consensus on immigration?  How can it reconcile the interests of its working class (former aspiring middle-class) native-born base with the interests of the business community and the professional classes?  One side has the votes, the other side has the money.

And, yes, it's starting to look very much like a class war.

And a hat tip to Curtis Poe for the link to Frum's article on Facebook

Overseas Americans Week 2014 - The Video

A few weeks ago I went off to Paris to a cute little bar called Joe Allen's for a public debrief of what happened during Overseas Americans Week in Washington, D.C. a couple months ago.

I was one of the speakers (the first speaker, in fact) and I had a lot of fun (you may have noticed that I like to talk.)  I wasn't alone - each member of the delegation had a chance to say something and it's a pretty good synopsis.  Some darn good questions from the audience, too.

AARO decided to post the video on the public part of their new website so that it could be seen and shared worldwide with members and non-members alike.  It's very well done and that is mostly due to their videographer, Mathieu, who is something of a wizard with flickering images.

So, for your viewing pleasure, here it is:  Overseas Americans Week Recap.

(and it's definitely safe for work - just call it "research" :-)

Healthcare: The U.S. versus the Rest of the World

A great video.  This is a U.S. Senate hearing about healthcare in the United States and Canada. The two senators asking questions are:  Bernie Sanders of Vermont (Independent) and Richard Burr from North Carolina (Republican).  The ladies being questioned are:  Dr. Danielle Martin of Toronto, Canada and Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, U.S.

The background to this debate is important.  The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010 and I was amazed that it ever saw the light of day.  For years there has been sharp debate about reforming the American healthcare system.  That debate turned downright hostile and ugly right up until President Obama signed it into law.  Ever since, there have been efforts to repeal it and it didn't help matters that the rollout went very badly.  There is something in the ACA legislation for everyone to hate.  What I heard when I was in Seattle last summer is that the Left in the U.S. says it doesn't go far enough and is basically designed to make private insurance companies rich and the Right says it's just another big intrusive government program that will bankrupt the country sooner or later.

As for the American diaspora there was real concern last year that the mandate to have healthcare would apply to them which is silly because many already have access to healthcare programs or very reasonably priced healthcare in the countries they live in.  The idea of paying twice made some of us rather testy but the good news is here.   Or is it good news?  The rule is that US citizens abroad can avoid the ACA healthcare mandate provided that they stay out of the US for at least 330 day in a year.   So, if you are an American abroad, long stays in the U.S. are out. Another incentive not to come "home" for a visit?

What struck me the most about the debate was the insistence on the part of the Republican senator on the awfullness of non-U.S. healthcare.  Now I'm a pretty conservative lady but I spent over 20 years of my life under the U.S. healthcare system and then 20 or so under Japanese and French healthcare.  Hands down, the healthcare was better, more accessible and affordable outside the United States.  And it's not just my subjective experience that says so, it's any number of organizations that don't have any reason, frankly, to say good or bad things about U.S. healthcare like the World Health Organization. (For those who say that the WHO does have a reason because "everybody hates us" - Oh, get over yourselves.)

The fact (and it is one) that U.S. healthcare is not the "best in the world" does not mean that the Affordable Care Act is the only answer.  What one Seattle Democrat said to me was:  "Well, it was the best we could do."  Wow, what an endorsement.

So I'm going to reserve judgment and see what happens.  But when I see American lawmakers dissing other systems and trying to shore up an untenable position, well, I have something to say about that.  The argument should not be about who has the "best" (though as a cancer patient I'm happy to be living in what most argue is the best healthcare system in the world), it's about coming up with the best system for the United States - one that gives good care to every homeland citizen at a price that is reasonable and sustainable.  I may swing conservative in many ways but I am adamantly against any human being suffering and dying because they can't afford care.  That's just not right.



And just for fun, a Flophouse reader pointed out this study by the AARP, Association of American Retired Persons (not a radical Socialist organization as far as I know)  called 5 Myths about Canadian Healthcare.  It certainly answers one of the most common assumptions of some Americans which is Canadians are just flocking to the US to escape their dreadful system.  AARP says, no, over 99% of Canadians don't head south for healthcare....

The Roots of a Dysfunctional Democracy

I get questions from time to time about the state of the American political system.  Looking at it from outside the U.S., it really appears dysfunctional - an analysis often shared by many Americans in the homeland who are frustrared, angry and downright disgusted by the behaviour of the U.S. politicians.  That lawmakers in the U.S. were willing to take the country to the brink of economic catastrophe is bad news - one would think that patriotism alone (something Americans are known for) would have set some limits on just how close to the edge lawmakers were willing to dance to make a political point. Apparently not.  And that's frightening because if they are willing to destroy themselves,  then what's to stop them from playing dice with the rest of the world?   Which in a sense they already did because a failure of the U.S. economy would have serious consequences for other countries and their people.  

What it looks like is here's this really paranoid guy (or gal) waving a gun and no one is sure whether he's just going to shoot himself  or take out a few innocent bystanders before he does himself in.

(And I realize, having used the above analogy that some of my readers will say, "She's clearly a Democrat!  Not only is she disrespecting her country but she believes in gun control!"  Well, actually, no, I'm not.  Furthermore,  I'm perfectly comfortable around firearms provided that the person carrying one in my presence is sane and that his daddy (or mommy) taught him what he needed to know about gun safety and made it stick.)

I find that the longer I live abroad the less patience I have for homeland partisan politics.  When Americans abroad meet each other, the Conservative/Progressive divide is not, in my experience, something we discuss much.  Not only are these labels not particularly relevant outside of the national context but our numbers are so small and the the joy of meeting a compatriot is so great that picking a fight and taking a side over some homeland issue is the last thing on our minds.  Really, what would be point of that?  Of all the Americans abroad I know, unless they have shared in passing membership in Dems or Repubs abroad, I really couldn't tell you their political orientations in the homeland context.

I see three things that Americans abroad could bring to the homeland political landscape:  distance which allows us to be concerned without becoming irrationally partisan, some idea of the opinions and concerns of the world outside the U.S. and a tendency to look first at what unites Americans and not at what divides us. Trust me, an American will never feel more American then when he or she is swimming in social, political and cultural waters outside the U.S. (My French friends abroad say the same thing about France.)

Distance, however, should not lead to a complete lack of empathy.  I may not follow the US newspapers or delve too deeply into homeland debates that, frankly, don't seem particularly thoughful or productive, but there is a thin strand of something that stops me from not caring at all.  I don't go looking for understanding what's happening in my home country but I'm willing to listen if someone clues me in to a serious reflective discussion.

Just Me passed this podcast along via email and I listened to it this morning.  It's an interview with Jon Haidt who wrote a book called The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided over Religion and Politics.  I had never heard of this book before and have not read it. It was apparently a bestseller in the U.S. a few years ago and that fact that I am only now noticing it should tell you a lot about how little I know about the U.S. these days.   But I enjoyed the interview so much that I watched his Ted talk as well.  He has a very interesting take on just why the American political system is so messed up and why Americans in the homeland can no longer talk to each other without descending into ad hominem attacks.

Here's the Ted talk for your enjoyment this morning over your coffee. The talk is not entirely US-centric and he includes data from other countries as well. His point about cooperation decaying without punishment may be one pausible explanation for the complete lack of homeland interest in overseas Americans' tax issues. His proposal that people should "step out" from their personal moral matrix is something that I think many Americans abroad have done (not always willingly) which means we just might have something important to offer the homeland in national discussions.  You want diversity of opinion, America?  Try talking things over with some long-term U.S. expats from Canada, Germany, Nigeria, or Russia.  Their take on things might surprise you.

Honestly  I don't know if Haidt is right (though he is a very engaging speaker) but I think what he has to say is worth considering.  Feel free to throw in your .02 in the comments section.

A Liberal Critique of the US, UK and French School Systems

Further reading of The Demands of Liberal Education late into the night revealed a chapter in the book that was just as interesting as the discussion about autonomy:  a look at three school systems from a liberal perspective.

Before we start, we should clarify what Levinson means by "liberalism." (No, it is not a synonym for Democrat or democrat.)  Liberal political theory, she says, has three important elements:

1.  A belief in and an acceptance of pluralistic societies where there simply isn't one conception of the good.  Modern liberal societies have a wide range of ideas and values and ways to live and there is no way that all these people will ever arrive at one set of shared values.   Diversity is a fact and we all just have to deal - the idea of assimilation is dead in the water.

2.  Nonetheless, there has to be some sort of public process by which the state and principles of justice are established.  The process must have these characteristics:  it must be public/transparent, all citizens must be able to participate equally and freely and everybody has to agree. Even though society is diverse and can't agree on the good, they do have to come to an agreement about the process.

3.  The outcome of all this is the creation of institutions:  constitutions, democracy, personal liberties, and government responsibilities.

Already I can see all kinds of problems with this but we'll set those aside for another day.  Let this suffice for now as the set of liberal principles Levinson is using to make her argument for liberal education.  Starting from the fact of diversity people should be educated in state schools for tolerance, respect and autonomy so they can participate equally and freely as "active citizens" in the process and the creation or maintenance of democratic institutions.   That would be my summary of her argument.  If you are more familiar with her work than I am, please feel free to correct or revise.

In chapter 4 Levinson takes three school systems, the US, the UK and France, and critiques each one from a liberal perspective.  She sees a continuum here with the UK on one side, France way over on the other side and the US somewhere in the middle.  Since I have experience with two of these systems, I will add my thoughts to her analysis.

The United Kingdom:  In the creation of autonomy Levinson talks about the importance of "cultural coherence" - how we learn to be human and how culture is the base from which we go out into the world and have the capacity to judge for ourselves.  The UK system allows families to separate themselves and have their children educated in ways that are consistent with religious, ethnic and cultural commitments.  The US allows for this too but the difference is that in the UK, the state funds the establishment of such schools.  Is this a violation of church/state neutrality?  Not necessarily since, in theory, just about any group can do this.  So a family can choose a school that most closely fits whatever their values are at home and the state will support that choice.  There is a national curriculum that all schools must teach and this could be seen as the unifying element here in the creations of citizens.

From a liberal perspective, what is wrong with this?  The fact that the diversity of society is not necessarily reflected in the school.  Yes, tolerance and the value of diversity  is taught as a value but parents can opt out of having their children be exposed to it.  How meaningful is this when the child is surrounded by other children from the same socio-economic, religious or ethnic background?  Some of this happens anyway in all three countries in the sense that the larger community may be fairly homogenous and the local public school usually reflects that but is state support for a "millet" system really the best way to prepare children for a pluralistic society?  One can learn that society is diverse in sort of an abstract way in such a system but nobody has to actually live it and here Levinson is very clear that this is not just about educating children from very traditional illiberal backgrounds in the art of tolerance but also for the children of modern secular families.  A child who is raised to think that religion is the opiate of the masses, she says, has just as much need to expand his or her horizons by meeting other children from religious backgrounds so they can see that their parent's position is relative and that reasonable people can disagree about values and the role of religion in society.

The United States:  The American system does not (though there are attempts to do this) fund private schools be they religious or secular.  As an aside here, in Innocents Abroad by Zimmerman, he contends that that the "school choice" movements in the US to subsidize private education through state support was something brought back to the US from the American teachers who went abroad.  They saw worlds where the separation of church and state was a common value and yet that did not prevent the states in question from directly or indirectly funding private schools.  Having seen that, they changed their minds (clearly a good result of an education in autonomy) and came home to tell their compatriots in the homeland, "Country X funds private schools, so why can't we do that here?"

It's hard to say a lot about the US educational system overall because it's not really one system.  Education is local, not national.  There is no national curriculum, just a few standardized tests.  Local school boards have a lot of power to shape the schools and parent involvement is high.   Levinson sees the American system as being very inclusive.  The public space that is the school is very accomodating of difference - the public and the private are allowed to overlap.  If the child's parents have a religious reason for the child not to attend sports class, it's very likely that the school will adjust to meet their requirements.  Parents can ask for (and often get) some sort of arrangement that respects their linguistic, cultural or religious differences.

This is the system I grew up under in the 1970's.  Though multiculturalism was not yet a concept that guided the curriculum, there was, I think, a conjunction of two different worlds that both had tolerance as a very strong value.  I grew up on the West coast of the U.S. which meant that even the most conservative people I knew had a kind of "live and let live" and "mind your own business" mentality.  There was a lot of religious diversity in my school and I was clearly not in the majority. Cultural diversity came with the arrival of refugees from Southeast Asia.  Suddenly there were children in our classroom who didn't speak English and came from what was for us, very exotic places.  And lastly, just one decade prior to this was the cultural explosion/implosion called The Sixties and my hometown at that time was something of a magnet for American internal exiles - people who tried to effect change, it didn't happen to the extent they wanted it to and so they created their own institutions and communities where they could live as they liked.  There were communes, co-ops, gay and lesbian households, alternative colleges and the like. Whatever I learned in school or church, I was also exposed to many adults who simply opted out and I grew up knowing that was an option.  You can leave and I really have to wonder to what extent all that influenced my decision to migrate.  I do know that my first impulse when there is some discussion about what to do about people who are different, is to propose, "How about we just leave them alone?"

What does Levinson see as the limitations of uber-tolerance and accommodating private differences in a public school?  Well, for one, parents can opt out and they do.  If they don't like the diversity of the local public school, there are many alternatives.  Granted, parents have to pay for that and that's a problem for families with limited incomes.  There is a danger that only the children of the middle classes and up get to tailor their children's education to their values which may be very illiberal indeed.  As a result of this diversity will suffer because if the majority of Catholic kids go to the Catholic schools then the kids in the public won't be exposed to children raised in that faith.  Another issue is that it's not easy accommodating everyone.  Can a public school really be everything to everyone in a country of immigration?  And how well does it achieve a balance between respecting individual cultures and creating an American identity and the cultural coherence required by children in order to become autonomous free-thinking Americans?  If being an American is open-ended and all-inclusive then doesn't that weaken that identity?  There have to be boundaries somewhere (otherwise the term "American" is meaningless) but it's not entirely clear where they should be set and who gets to decide that.  To be brutally honest, from other cultural perspectives, it looks like complete cultural chaos - not something that other countries want to emulate.

France:  And that brings us to the French system.   Where the Americans are trying for equal inclusion, the French try for equal exclusion.  Those private differences, be they religious or ethnic or sexual orientation or cultural, get parked outside the school gates.  There is a national curriculum that all schools follow and there are standardized tests that everyone takes.  The system has a very strong commitment to equality though it has been demonstrated by Bourdieu that the reality is not quite that.  My children were raised in this system and you can read what the younger Frenchling wrote about it here.  One of the merits I see in the system is that since they are not trying to be everything to every individual group, they have more time to focus on academics and civic education.  Barring other influences a French child will, more than likely, leave the French school system with a good solid education, a very strong French identity and a clear vision of what it means to be a citizen of the Republic.  This is "cultural coherence" on steroids.

But there are other influences that compete with the school in this community project.  In a bi-cultural family like ours, what the Frenchlings got at home did not necessarily correspond to what they were being taught.  This is not to say that I as an immigrant mother tried to undermine the school but I did speak English to my ladies and, every so often when they shared something a teacher said, I invited them to think of it a bit differently.  There is another way to look at it, I said.

One experience we did have as a family with the French system that I think is worth mentioning here is the time we spent in Japan.  The girls attended the Lycée franco-japonais de tokyo and what I saw was the French system in a completely different context.  The instruction was in French and followed the French national curriculum but they still had to make changes.  Some of them were implemented because the population was very different - mostly French expatriates.  There were English classes, for example, taught by native speakers at the college level and not just grammar classes but creative writing as well.  Basic Japanese was also part of the curriculum.  Some of the differences that were imposed by the Japanese were things that would have simply never happened in France.  Girls and boys, for example, were separated for sports.  I was told that there was even some question of having the children wear uniforms but that didn't happen.  The relationship between the school and the surrounding Japanese community was also a source of some tension.  Sometimes the children before and after school did not behave in ways that the Japanese felt were important.  I heard that they complained that the French children were too loud and boisterous and didn't show the proper respect to elderly people on the street.

Even though this was a French school, the Frenchlings still experienced culture shock when they were re-inserted into the French system in France.  It simply was not the same experience.

What does Levinson think of the French system?  Well, she clearly finds it "illiberal" in that it does not value or promote diversity.  Erasing differences leads to homogenity - one identity for all with very little room for personal expression.  She's arguing that it's a "cookie-cutter" system  and the kids get coerced into a sort of bland sameness.  She points out that under such a system there will be a great deal of tension between the public space and the private one with some children being forced to live double lives with one set of values and standards at home and another in public.  The children who don't experience this, of course, are the ones who are native French and who are likely to be getting a consistent message from their parents that reinforces what they learn at school. Those kids will get "cultural coherence."  It's the children of immigration that have to learn to cope with conflicting messages between the school and the family and might feel devalued in the public space because they must hide what they are.

I understand her criticism and I think there is a lot of truth in it.  I would counter her argument on several grounds:

1.  It is perfectly possible for children and adults to have a double cultural life in the same way that they learn to deal with two languages.  Under an OPOL (one parent, one language) system children learn when it is appropriate to use one language or the other.  Culture can be exactly the same way.

2.  At school or in any other public space, there can be one way of acting and another way at home.  Where the two conflict is in itself a lesson in diversity.  Regardless of the lack of pluralistic expression at school, the fact that bi-cultural children experience diversity by moving from one reality to another makes both relative.  They know in their bones that all systems are contingent.  Period.  And they learn to negotiate between the two (or more) cultures.  As adults they can draw from both experiences and make up their own minds as to what they wish to retain from one or the other.

3.  To those who say that this is bad for the community as a whole and terribly for children and turns them into insecure unhappy adults who burn cars when there really is a very deep conflict between what the outside world thinks and what the religious or ethnic group holds, I see what they are saying but I also agree with Scott Fitzgerald who said,

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."  A very useful skill for going global.

4.  School is not the whole world and in today's world it's lost a great deal of its former authority as the semi-exclusive source of information about the world.  Whether the school system likes it or not (and they don't) it has become just one source among many.  If a child or young adult doesn't really agree with something a teacher says, he can go on the Internet and learn what other people have to say.

 Furthermore, French society is more and more diverse (a good thing for some, not so good for others).  The child spends a great deal of time at school but he also spends time playing with other children in the neighborhood, watching television, surfing the Net, going to church or the mosque, going to camp and so on.  So, I'm not all that concerned that French schools try to mold children in a particular way because there are other forces operating here.

5.  The French system contains an "opt out" - one that is subsidized by the state (a bit like the UK). If parents don't like the public school's value proposition there are private schools:  religious or international, to name two.  I've even seen Montessori schools in Paris.  To be accredited these schools still have to follow the national curriculum but they are free to provide another kind of education.  Right now there are 9,000 Catholic schools in France with 134,000 teachers and over 2 million students.

6.  The very fine education that French students receive in the public school is THE ticket for those kids to go out and explore the world beyond France.  The skills the French system so ably teaches are ones that are highly prized by other countries who are more than happy to welcome educated French migrants to their shores temporarily or permanently.   The system does not teach diversity as a value but it gives children the means to seek it out as young adults or adults.  What I'm saying is that the French system itself, however closed it may appear, contains the seeds of exodus.

The last is something that does not please some of the French and I can see why.  They are making an investment in their children's future that may be lost in the short run if the adult decides to leave.

But I would argue that it makes the choice of staying in France and being a part of French society a meaningful choice.  The French are not "captive citizens" - many of them have the tools, skills, and curiosity to leave if that is what they wish.  My great fear right now for the United States is that between the inconsistent academic standards and the price of a good education which requires loans, that Americans have been educated in tolerance and diversity but at the expense of getting the right skillsets to seek out diversity later in life - diversity outside of American culture however wonderfully hyphenated it may be (not to mention the serious disadvantage of leaving school owing obscene amounts of money which ties them to the home country).  That may make Americans much less globally mobile than the French.  And for me, that would have strong implications for American democracy.

Americans Abroad: A Desire to be Counted?

In closing I would like to reiterate the need for the U.S. Census Bureau to count all Americans, including private citizens living and working abroad.  Not only will such a policy provide an accurate census, but it will allow Congress and private sector leaders to realize how to best support U.S. companies and our citizenry abroad. 

The Honorable Benjamin Gilman, House of Representatives, New York

On July 26, 2001 at 1:30 PM the House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Census (Committee on Government Reform) met in Washington to examine the question:  Americans Abroad, How can  we count them?

The question itself shows that there was already a consensus around it.

In the rooms of the Rayburn House Office Building in the nation's capital that day were a wide variety of actors - government and non-government alike.  There were U.S. lawmakers and speakers from the State department and the U.S. Census Bureau. There were also representatives from the major American political parties (Democrats and Republicans Abroad) as well as  the American Business Council of the Gulf Countries and the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham)  as well as American Citizens Abroad, the Association of Americans Resident Overseas and the Federation of American Women's Club's Overseas.  Nearly all spoke in favor of including Americans abroad in the U.S. census but for different reasons.

Domestic Politics:  U.S. citizens living abroad have the right to vote in U.S. elections and they do so through their last U.S. state of residence. So, for example, my last U.S. residence was in Seattle, Washington and I vote in that state in local elections and through that state in federal elections (Congress and President).  This will be the case regardless of how many years I remain outside the United States.  However, that virtual presence in the U.S. only counts for voting purposes and does not count for apportionment (the number of Congressional seats alloted every ten years to each state by population).

If Americans abroad were counted in the U.S. census for apportionment purpose, who would benefit the most?  Those state that have the largest numbers of American citizens living abroad who claim that state as their last state of residence.  Some obvious winners would be California, New York, and Utah.  These states would gain population and therefore might win seats away from other U.S. states that have populations that are less globally mobile.  This site has an chart that shows the changes in Congressional apportionment between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.  In 2010 12 seats changed hands. Native population growth, immigration, and internal migration from one state to another account for these changes.  Adding Americans abroad to the count would mean adding another variable and there would clearly be winners and losers.

Diaspora Politics:    U.S. citizens abroad are a very diverse group but the most visible are those who belong to certain kinds of organizations:  business, for example, or groups that represent American citizens abroad in the homeland.  Here were a few of their arguments and interests :

Raise the profile of Americans abroad in the homeland:  As long as Americans abroad are not "legible" to the American government and the homeland, it is very easy to ignore them or (much worse) paint a picture of them that is rather unflattering and then pass laws that intentionally or unintentionally hurt them.  A count would provide real information as to their numbers and just what they are up to over there.  Participation in the national census would hopefully dispel some of the suspicion and reveal a population of patriotic Americans still bound to the homeland by ties of love and loyalty, and doing good for America by doing well wherever they may be.  "The conduct of the census will respond to the patriotic desire  of the American community around the world to be counted, to be measured, to be seen in its proper proportions as a dynamic part of our society.  It will reveal the importance to our economy and to our society of our overseas citizens."

Provide benefits and services to the American "domestic abroad":  Once the numbers are known, then steps could be taken to prevent the erosion of services to this population and offer the possibility of adding others like access to Medicare.  It would also make it easier for consulates to protect and aid American populations abroad.  Once a count is made staffing could be adjusted accordingly.  Exclusion yet again from the census one speaker said, would "demean our citizenship and our contribution to America, and also, deny us our rightful allocation of Federal revenue."

Improve the global competitiveness of the U.S.:  U.S. businesses abroad are an American presence abroad.  Americans "on the ground" are necessary to promote American products and to generate jobs back in the homeland.  Knowing where this presence is would make it easier for the American homeland to support their efforts and thus help reduce the trade deficit and generate jobs back in the United States

In addition, I would add that having this population counted, recognized, and legitimized would make it much easier for organizations like American Citizens Abroad, AARO and FAWCO to represent their members.  Today, ACA and others say they are the "voice of American abroad" (roughly estimated today at 6 - 7 million).  This would be much more plausible if some quantitative data existed to bolster their claims.  If it could be shown that American abroad were not just a few Americans temporarily outside the U.S., but a real community of millions of people who vote, pay taxes and support American interests, then lobbying efforts (for or against various homeland initiatives) would take on an entirely new dimension.

This proposal in 2001 to count Americans abroad was a happy conjunction of many different interests both domestic and diaspora alike.  Why did the planets align in 2001 and give impetus to this initiative?   Hard to say but one reasonable assumption would be that the American population abroad grew and reached some sort of critical mass at the turn of the century.  In a globalized era with more and more international migration, Americans (like many other nationalities) took the opportunities opened up by globalization and went abroad to live and work as private citizens.  With millions of visitors each year  coming to the US temporarily to travel, to study or to work, there were more chances for an American to meet and marry a foreigner and then choose to leave the US with his or her spouse.  Looser jus sanguinas citizenship laws made automatic (or "accidental") Americans of the children of U.S. citizens born abroad. The global reach of the US military (bases and engagements in various places) meant that some of the troops had a taste of life outside the U.S. and decided not to return to the U.S.   All these things swelled the ranks of American abroad.  It is unfortunate that this emigration has not been the study of more research.  Having better data about it would would give us a lot of insight into American immigration/emigration.

Here is what we do know:  Once installed abroad some Americans did not like to be treated as "semi-citizens" with fewer rights, fewer benefits, almost no representation, and zero political power in the homeland.  To add insult to injury the image of Americans abroad was (and is) terrible.  Some of the homeland rhetoric around this population still paints them as unpatriotic Benedict Arnold's who abandoned the US in order to evade taxes or to engage in frivolous, selfish, and un-American activities.

This desire of a growing American population abroad to matter (to count for something in the US)  dovetailed with the desire of some U.S. states to tilt the homeland political representation apportionment game in their favor.  And that is why I think calls for Americans abroad to be included in the U.S. census were seriously considered in the summer of 2001 in a hearing dedicated to that purpose.

That is my analysis based on the research I've done.  Please do argue with my conclusions. I know that some of the people who worked on this issue back then read the Flophouse.  I invite them to give their perspective on it, either in the comments section or via email.

Starting from the premise that Americans abroad should be counted, the next question was how to do it.  As we saw in the first post in this series, attempts by the U.S. government to count this population throughout the 19th and 20th centuries all ended in failure.  In the next post we'll look at the responses of the U.S. government (State Department and Census Bureau) to this proposition.  As we shall see there are some serious challenges to defining this universe.

Citizenship-based Taxation: Repression, Resistance, and Democratization

“Hence, taxation appears to be one arena in which the stakes are tangible, salient, and large enough that individuals know what their self-interest is and often express attitudes consistent with these objective stakes.”

Andrea Louise Campbell

“What Americans Think of Taxes”

The New Fiscal Sociology

I just finished a fascinating book of essays on taxation called The New Fiscal Sociology:  Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective edited by Isaac Martin et al.  

Fiscal sociology is a cross-disciplinary approach to what makes taxation tick. Economics is important but interestingly enough so are psychology, sociology, and history.   Taxation, the book’s editors point out, “raise a number of fascinating questions about political processes.”  Some examples:

People may strongly disagree with how their taxes are used and yet most pay anyway.  Why is that?  Force may work for a time but it is costly and inefficient.  Sometimes it is the economy of a particular place that drives what options that state has in terms of taxation.  How do these systems come about and what happens when conditions change?  Are tax systems “path dependent”?  Why in a globalized era have tax systems not converged and become more uniform across the globe?  And finally, what is the relationship between taxation and democracy above and beyond the simple (but often unrealized) premise of  “no taxation without representation”?

It is the last question that I find the most interesting.  

The American system of taxation based on citizenship (and not residency) has its roots in the Civil War though it did not take its present form until the 1970’s.  It is nearly unique in the world and, up until very recently, was not enforced.  This changed at the end of the first decade of the 21st century with a number of measures designed to make Americans and Green Card holders abroad “legible” to the US government.  FATCA is the most recent (and most controversial) of these measures.

Reading Charles Tilly’s essay “Extraction and Democracy” gave me another way to look at tax systems in general and citizenship-based taxation in particular.  It raised many questions for me about what could happen if the United States government does succeed in making CBT “work”. What follows here is a modest attempt to apply Tilly’s argument to the citizenship-based taxation controversy.

Tilly begins his essay by pointing out the obvious:  all states need resources to survive.  What is less obvious is how taxable resources vary according to the local economy and the limited means by which states can extract that revenue.  They can:

• produce them in their own enterprises;
• seize them and exchange them for state-sustaining resources (e.g. oil for weapons);
• extract them from subject population that already hold and/or produce such resources."

Tilly points out that the first two have nothing to do with “citizen consent”.  There is little or no bargaining by the state because the state usually does not need its citizen/subjects approval to do these things.

But extracting resources directly from its citizens or subjects must involve negotiation and this is just as true of autocracies as it is of democracies.  The ideal is to achieve a kind of “quasi-voluntary” compliance where most people pay up without hissing like Colbert’s goose (or getting out the guns).

Tilly then describes a cycle of “Intervention-resistance-repression-bargaining” that ensues when states look to their population for financing (option c).

In the case of citizenship-based taxation (an extra-territorial expansion of the tax base) the “intervention” was the decision to tax Americans abroad in the 1970’s.  What followed was not so much “resistance” as a kind of implicit contract between the U.S. government and its citizens abroad to ignore the whole business. Compliance was (and still is) nearly non-existent.  Clearly, the system was almost impossible to enforce on a world-wide scale and thanks to exclusions and tax credits, it was unlikely that the U.S. would have derived much revenue in any case.   

The “repression” started in the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, most likely in response to growing budget deficits, a deadly recession, and a need to finance two on-going wars.  

This repression has led to resistance and today there is a growing movement to fight back (the American Diaspora Tax War.)  In this dialogue of the deaf are we finally coming to a tipping-point where something must change?  Maybe and that brings us to the end of Tilly’s  cycle where the the last stage is “bargaining.”  Resistance is noted, negotiations begin, and deals are made.  

The core of Tilly’s argument is that this bargaining process can lead to greater democratization in the long run.  Governments respond to strong push back from the people they are trying to extract resources from and, in the end, bargaining ensues since it is more cost-effective than the harsh (and very expensive) policy of “the floggings will continue until morale improves.”

Assuming that the U.S. government will eventually have to bargain with its diaspora, that the majority of Americans abroad will not renounce, and that efforts to change to a residence-based taxation system will fail, I thought about Tilly’s democratization argument in the context of citizenship-based taxation and came up with a few possibilities for what this might mean for both the American diaspora and the U.S. government.  Just a few ideas for discussion and I’d be very interested in your thoughts on this.  What might we see if the American government succeeds in imposing CBT?

Recognition:  In a sense citizenship-based taxation is a perverse sort of diaspora recognition on the part of the United States. It is very disheartening to be valued for the contents of one’s wallet and little else.   Still, if Americans abroad become “quasi-voluntary” compliant taxpayers it is much harder for homelanders to deny the legitimacy of their “domestic abroad.”  It is not the most positive form of recognition (and other nation-states do a much better job) but it could be construed as a starting point.

More Political Participation from Abroad:  The resistance to citizenship-based taxation takes many forms, one of which is increased political participation on the part of Americans abroad.  This might mean joining one of the organizations representing our interests like AARO, ACA or FAWCO.  It might also mean more active voters from abroad.  In some states with large numbers of overseas voters this could potentially have an impact on the result of local elections.  Efforts to raise our visibility as voters may also change the landscape in our favor. Visiting my Congressional reps in Seattle I introduced myself as “one of X’s constituents from France”.  Others are doing this as well.  

Might this recognition of our status as taxpayers give us more moral authority when it comes to intervening in US politics?  

I know that paying U.S. taxes in addition to the French ones has changed my behaviour.  

I no longer feel any unease about voting for (or against) school levies, local judges, state-level senators and representatives, and local funding requests for infrastructure in the home country.  I am not directly taxed at the state, country or city level for the last since I do not live in Seattle, King County or the State of Washington, but having sent a check to the U.S. Treasury, do I not fund these things?

Services and Benefits:  If we manage to get the U.S. government to the bargaining table, and they are not willing to mitigate the tax system, then we would be entirely within our rights to demand services commensurate with (but not identical to) what homeland Americans receive.    These services could be delivered through the local US Embassies and consulates and could include: Medicare for those Americans abroad in countries without a national health plan, free English and civics classes for our children; more U.S. government support of institutions serving Americans abroad like cultural and research centers, librairies, international schools, and  overseas veteran’s associations.  

A Greater Role for "Local Government" - U.S. Embassies and Consulates:  Clearly services cannot be delivered to Americans abroad by the United States government in the United States.  Some existing services already are delivered locally:  U.S. consulates offer help with Social Security and some - like Paris and London - have a small local branch of the IRS.  

An expansion of these services, the creation of new ones, and sufficient authority to adapt to local conditions would have several beneficial effects.  Americans abroad would have an incentive to go to the U.S. consulate for reasons other than the renewal of a passport every ten years - they might even find it worthwhile to register with the embassy;  tax compliance would probably increase if filing help was readily available in English and the local language; and finally a local service provider (be it the IRS or Social Security or another department) that is close to home (the host country) would probably find it easier to earn the trust of the American population in that country.

These things could be a sign of democratization favoring Americans abroad but is that necessarily good for American democracy in the U.S.?  If even a few of these things came to pass then homeland Americans would have to wrestle with the following:

•  Recognizing that there are 6-7 million Americans citizens who have chosen NOT to live in the U.S. but who are nonetheless full status citizens;
• Acknowledging that formal US citizenship does not necessarily correlate with a discrete territory and an American identity.  (There are Americans abroad who have never lived in the U.S., have no intention of living there, do not speak English and know next to nothing about United States other than what they have gleaned from local media).
• Living with “foreign” intervention by these citizens in U.S. domestic politics at the city, county, state, and federal level. 
• Accepting that Americans abroad will not necessarily be subject to the laws they help to create but their views will be included nonetheless.  This diverse population has been shaped and changed by the countries in which they live and their point of view may be very different from that of the average homeland American, Left or Right.
• Meeting the demands for services and benefits from this population locally (i.e. in the countries where they live).  

To be very clear nothing I said above should be considered an endorsement of citizenship-based taxation which is gutting the American community abroad.  But in the resistance to it do we see the seeds of a politically active overseas American community?  Is there opportunity in adversity?  Will we be able to bargain for a better deal?  How far will the homeland government go to reach the exalted state of “quasi-voluntary compliance.”

Perhaps the most important question would be: Is the American Homeland ready to embrace its diaspora and accept all the repercussions of extending the nation to include its Domestic Abroad?

The True Cost of Healthcare in the U.S.

Ask a simple question and sometimes the universe smiles at you and hands you a really good answer.

In a previous post I talked about a trip my younger Frenchling and I made to the Emergency room here in Versailles.  I compared it to a trip to Emergency I made in Seattle when I was on vacation.  The latter was 10 times the price of the former and so I said:

"I have a very hard time understanding how two private hospitals in two developed countries could have such radically different pricing models."

Shadow Raider shot back with a great link that answers my indirect question. The site is called The True Cost of Healthcare and the blog author is David Belk, an American doctor.  He looked into it and what he found just blew my mind.  The system is completely distorted - the bills bear no relation to reality and that's on purpose.

I really recommend the site.  His full report is here but you can also go to the main page and watch his short videos on such things as the true cost of prescription medication, malpractice insurance, hospital stays, office visits and diagnostic tests.  Here's one to whet your appetite.  Watch it and weep for Americans who have to live with this system. 

Exile the American Way

Definition of exile:
Noun-The state of being barred from one’s native country, typically for political or punitive reasons.  A person who lives away from their native country, either from choice or compulsion
Verb- Expel and bar (someone) from their native country, typically for political or punitive reasons
Origin - Middle English: the noun partly from Old French exil 'banishment' and partly from Old French exile 'banished person'; the verb from Old French exiler; all based on Latin exilium 'banishment', from exul 'banished person'
Oxford On-line English Dictionary

In the debate over citizenship-based taxation there are two benefits or services that are often cited by homeland Americans as justification for imposing taxes on the American diaspora:  Protection and the right to return.  They argue that a U.S. citizen wherever he or she lives benefits from the protection of the American government and has the right to return to the U.S. to live and work anytime he or she wishes.  Surely, they say, a contribution to the national treasury is due from those who stand to benefit from these things even if they aren't using them right this very minute.

That's a very powerful argument but it's worth a closer look to see if it corresponds to reality. Is it really true that Americans circulating outside the U.S. are under the full protection of the U.S. government?  Do Americans who go abroad always have the right to return to the U.S. provided they have not renounced or relinquished their citizenship?

Most Americans would say "yes" and that these are two of the most important benefits of American citizenship:  the protection of a powerful state with a Leviathan military force (over 1 million people serving) and a presence (bases and embassies) all over the world; and the right to come home, something enshrined in international law that says a person always has the right to return to a state of which he or she is a citizen.

However between the theory (and how Americans in the homeland think it works) and the reality on the ground that Americans abroad live every day, the picture is much more complex.

Protection is a very vague term.  What does it really mean?  It can mean "consular protection."  There is an international convention that the U.S. and most other countries have signed called the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.   Like citizens of other countries living in the U.S., Americans have the right to contact the local U.S. Embassy if they get into trouble outside the U.S.  If the American is in jail, embassy personnel can come visit and make sure that person is being treated properly.

That's about it.  An American passport does not give an American a "Get out of jail free card."  If an American is accused of a crime in another country (even unjustly) there isn't a lot the U.S. can do about it and for the most part they don't.  The case has to go through local law enforcement and local courts.  The U.S. Embassy can help with English-speaking lawyers and moral support but in most cases their power is pretty limited.  That is not anyone's fault, it's just the way it works.  Yes, in some extreme circumstances like the hikers who were jailed in Iran, the U.S. can pressure the country through diplomatic channels.  Please note that it still took quite a while for those hikers to be released - they languished in jail for many months before they were finally freed.

The situation is even more bleak for a dual citizen.  If that American citizen is in another state of nationality then the U.S. doesn't really have the right to intervene - the situation is strictly between that citizen and that state.   But remember that citizenship status is not up to the individual, it is something decided by each state.  It is entirely conceivable that a U.S. citizen traveling to another country may be pronounced a citizen of that country against his will and treated as such.  That person can protest all he likes but again there is not much the U.S. can do about it.

Another form of protection is evacuation services in the event there is a natural disaster or a political problem in a country outside the U.S.  This is something the U.S. will indeed do but many Americans are very surprised to learn that it's not free.  It's a service the evacuees must pay for - it's not included in the U.S. citizenship "package."  Here is how the U.S. State Department views this service:

Departure assistance is expensive. U.S. law 22 U.S.C. 2671(b) (2) (A) requires that any departure assistance be provided “on a reimbursable basis to the maximum extent practicable.” This means that evacuation costs are ultimately your responsibility; you will be asked to sign a form promising to repay the U.S. government. We charge you the equivalent of a full coach fare on commercial air at the time that commercial options cease to be a viable option. You will be taken to a nearby safe location, where the traveler will need to make his or her own onward travel arrangements. If you are destitute, and private resources are not available to cover the cost of onward travel, you may be eligible for emergency financial assistance. 

What about other services that might fall under "protection" or perhaps we could call it "general assistance"?  I spoke to a friend of mine from Morocco and he said that his embassy has a wide variety of services for Moroccans in France which included help living in France (navigating the French social security and legal systems, for example).  I could not verify this information but I was struck by what I did find on their embassy website:

Dans le cadre de la Politique de Proximité voulue par Sa Majesté le Roi, et de l'attention particulière portée par le Maroc à ses ressortissants établis à l'étranger, les Consulats marocains veillent à répondre aux besoins et aspirations des 3 millions de MRE de par le monde.
(In the framework of the Proximity Policy desired by His Majesty the King, and of the particular attention Morocco has for its citizens abroad, the Moroccan Consulates are there to respond to the needs and the aspirations of the 3 million MRE in the world.)

I don't know how that works in practice (though my friend seemed very pleased by what he has experienced as a Moroccan citizen here) but this goes above and beyond consular protection or other basic services.  It is a statement that Morocco is keenly interested in the well-being of its citizen living in other countries and will invest time and energy into making sure their current needs, wishes and aspirations are being met in the host country.  

No such commitment is forthcoming (to my knowledge and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) from the American government or the American embassies to Americans living outside the U.S.  There are what are called "Citizen Services" and they are pretty basic: passports, emergency services, travel information, reporting the birth of an American citizen abroad, some limited help with taxes and so on.  Most of these are not free - there are fees for these services and they are not cheap.  The Paris Embassy website also has PDF's that can be downloaded answering some basic question about life in France.  

To be fair, is that really the whole story?  Is that really all they will do for you if you need something non-standard?  Not necessarily.  I had an email exchange with a former State Department employee about this and he told me that assistance and protection to Americans abroad really depends on the country that U.S. citizen lives in and who he or she talks to when consulting the local embassy.  The defined services may be basic but embassy personnel can and do go beyond their strict duty to help Americans abroad.  I can also attest to the fact that embassy personnel in Paris and Tokyo are really nice people and I've never had a bad experience in either place.  But it all depends on who you talk to and where you are, said my informant.  There is no explicit commitment anywhere that says that U.S. government is concerned about its citizens abroad and is watching over us and our interests and aspirations in our host countries.

On the contrary many American abroad right now have the sense that the U.S. government is actively working against the interests of her citizens abroad.  There are the unintended consequences of FATCA which is turning us into banking pariahs all over the world.  There is the enforcement of citizenship-based taxation, the application of old reporting rules and the IRS amnesty programs where even those who have lived and worked outside the U.S. for years and were unknowingly non-compliant and who want to make it right are treated in the same manner as those who willfully slipped their money out of the U.S. and parked it in Switzerland to evade taxation.  

And for the cerise sur le gâteau (cherry on the cake) there is the Obama administration's relentless insistence on its right to execute Americans abroad without due process if they decide that an American is a threat to the US.   To be really clear about this, it means that the American president gets to decide whether I or any other American abroad can be killed at will.  The counter-argument, of course, is that this only applies to terrorists who are an imminent threat to the U.S.  I'm 99% sure that this is true but there is 1% of me that says, "Well, how does the decision-making process work here?" and "What if they make a mistake?"  Fundamentally the life of an American abroad hinges on the American government getting it right.  Mistakes will be made.  These people aren't God - they are fallible human beings who are going to screw up. And that's really frightening.

All this is leading to something that feels a lot like exile to many of us - a sense that we are being hunted down, forced to make terrible choices (between family and citizenship, for example) and that our own country sees us as nothing more than a source of tax revenue (best case) or suspected criminals and terrorists to be fined, jailed or annihilated (worst case).

That is what American "protection" looks like to those of us who live outside the United States.  It is vitally important for homeland Americans to understand this perspective because when they say that we should pay for the protection of the United States of America, they are asking us to pay for something we can't see and don't feel.

As for the right of return, that has become more qualified in a post-911 era.  In Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) it says,  "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. "  When is that not true for American citizens?  When that American citizen is put on one of those infamous No-Fly lists.  Al-Jazeera has an article about this with a rather provocative title:   Exile the Obama Way.  (Hat tip to Jordan who passed along the link.)  The article has this shocker:  "over the past decade there have been countless documented cases of individuals who have suddenly found themselves permanently stranded abroad after being banned from the United States despite holding legal residency and/or citizenship in the country."

They go on to say that last year alone the number of people on the No-Fly list has doubled to around 10,000 of whom 500 have been clearly identified as U.S. citizens.  The main target is mostly people from Moslem countries or those whose parent or grand-parents came from these countries.  That alone is really disturbing.  It is not however confined to that population and anyone could conceivably end up on one of these lists.  Al Jazeera cites the case of Steve Washburn, U.S. military veteran born and raised in New Mexico who was stranded in Dublin.   Some others who were banned from returning  home to the U.S. and are being represented by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union):   Ayman Latif, a U.S. citizen, former Marine and disabled veteran who was stuck in Egypt;  and Raymond Earl Knaeble, a U.S. citizen  and veteran of the U.S. Army who was stuck in Colombia.  What an outstanding way to say, "Thank you for your service" to the nation.  

The ACLU lawsuit is still winding its way through the U.S. courts (update here).  In some cases the U.S. government said "Oops!" and let them come home.  In others, people are still stranded.  

How did these people get put on these lists?  No one really knows because how it works is a secret. "The names of those on these lists are not disclosed and neither is the reasoning or evidence as to why any particular individual may be flagged." A U.S. citizen abroad will only find out that he or she is on such a list when he shows up at the airport and is told that he can't fly and has been barred from entry into the U.S.  Bad enough if these happens to a citizen on U.S. soil, just imagine trying to fight this  from abroad.   

In addition to the No-Fly lists there have been other avenues the U.S. government has explored to negate that right to return -  tying the issuance of a U.S. passport (required for re-entry into the U.S.) to payment of taxes, for example.  This site says that an American citizen can also be denied a passport anytime anywhere for the following reasons: "owing more than $2,500 in back child support, for being under investigation, for having been found to be a drug trafficker, or considered a threat to national security."  

So the U.S. government can and does make decisions about whether or not a citizen abroad has the right to return to the U.S.   Granted they don't deny it often or to large numbers of people but the possibility is there.  It happens.  That means that for all those citizens abroad who are holding on to their U.S. passports just in case they would like to go home one day, the reality is that maybe they can and maybe they can't.  And I just have to ask:  If a citizen is effectively exiled (prevented from returning to the U.S.)  does he still have to file a 1040 and report his foreign bank accounts?

So the argument that Americans abroad should pay taxes in order to maintain their right to return to the U.S. gets weak when faced with these facts.  An American citizen abroad could faithfully file and pay her taxes for years and still not get to come home.  It's no guarantee.  It is worth repeating:  the U.S. citizenship "package" does not include an unconditional right to return to the U.S. to live and work.   It is contingent on "good behaviour" (whatever the hell that means and there is a very broad spectrum of activities that will get you in trouble) and, sadly enough, pure dumb blind luck.

That's my answer to those who use the "benefits" argument and say that American citizens should pay taxes above and beyond what they already pay in their countries of residence outside the U.S.  

It is why we who are considering renouncing smile sadly at the homelanders when we hear the words "protection" and "right of return."