Ever heard of Dean Reed? Crazy American who decided to stay in the GDR. Wonder how he took it when it crushed… maybe moved to Pyongyang. Feel like joining him down there, Mike?
If you were here 20 years ago you’d see the hypocritical statesmen on-line. Of course, you can see them in first rows again. Take a seat and feel free to enjoy…
@Gabriela: Thanks for the link. I think you can rest assured that any superficial similarity between Comrade Reed and I is just that — superficial. At least, I don’t see myself settling in Bratislava as a means of living the great Commie dream, and I’ve never played a guitar in my life.
Still, you seem to be right on the point of letting something out, something, perhaps, that you really need to say. Let it flow, súdružka…
Oh no, he’s not like us! He doesn’t have a state! Traitor! It’s ridiculous that people could possibly be that offended about this Mike.
… So, Dean Reed was not raising the issue of statelessness. The only connection is ‘notoriety’ if there is a connection. (I’ve looked into getting old episodes of CBS’s 60 Minutes program, but it’s very difficult. You would think they have the old episodes archived somewhere but they don’t.)
So how is it that you decided to learn Slovak? I’ve been thinking Greek would be interesting to learn. But I studied Latin in college, why!? (It was worth it at the time, but not useful to me now.) When I visited an EU center in Strasbourg they said they were hiring people who can translate any of the 23 languages within the EU. Just for kicks I wanted to apply thinking that they translated documents for the Vatican. They don’t.
I prefer Doug Casey’s recommendation: “I suggest you really internationalize yourself. I think what you ought to have is your citizenship in one country, your bank account in another country, your investments in a third, and live in a fourth.”
Another option is to have multiple passports.
Internationalization gives you a lot of freedom. It does not send out the anarchist message, though.
@Joe: Heh, I studied Latin also and never regretted it. I decided to learn Slovak immediately after I decided to come live here. I wasn’t much interested in being among the typical expat and backpacker crowd who just float through places hanging with their own and never touching the place through its language.
@Rado: On a personal benefit level, I agree with you completely, and if someone came to me suggesting they might want to pursue a course like mine I would encourage them to explore taking the PT route first, in preference. My Why Slovakia? post discusses, a bit, why I abandoned the PT dream.
I don’t think that what Doug Casey recommends is really PT. You don’t have to travel every 6 or so months to avoid taxes. Just spread your assets around the world and be flexible. Stay whereever you like and game the system.
If you just renounce your citizenship, it sends out a message, but you still have to obey the laws of the country where you are located and it will limit your mobility greatly.
The personal disadvantages are too big. The state screws you as a citizen and it screws you even more if you are a non-citizen.
Btw, could you write something about your international mobility as a stateless person?
Rado: The suggestion you quote from Casey is a part of PT praxis, without question. Also, I see that he has many articles up at escapeartist.com, a site that at least used to promote the idea (and which influenced me as far back as 10 years ago).
The personal disadvantages issue to being stateless is certainly something I have grappled with in coming to this point, and likely something that I will battle a great deal more in the future. As issues arise, I’ll write about them here. For now, I’m not attempting any travel beyond the Bratislava area, at least until I get my stateless person’s Travel Document.
I despise the United States of America like no other.
Without boring detail, I am a convicted felon (drug poss.; no sales – arrested once in my life).
Since my conviction 16 years ago I have been perpetually unemployed and discriminated against in every possible manner one can think of.
It is human scum such as FBI Special Agent Ivan Crespo, The Norwalk Connecticut Police Department, etc, etc. that ensure I remain relegated to forever suffer a “punishment not commensurate to the crime”.
Unfortunately Mike, I have grown very tired of the “fight” and made a firm decision to leave this life by my own hand.
I only wish I could have acomplished what you have.
@Haas: Don’t let the bastards get you down. Thought about starting your own business?
Norwalk, eh? I nearly bought a condo there once. Glad I didn’t; I really had no love for the town.
There’s a book that I keep on my LibraryThing list in the sidebar here called “Shattered Lives”, which details a number of personal stories of tragedy from America’s War on (Some) Drugs. Back in 1999, with the help of the author, I and a friend put together an exhibition at New Haven’s public library that put faces and personal stories to people like you, caught up in the nanny state’s net and having their lives ruined by the drug warriors. It was quite a thing to survey the photographs of 100 families blown apart by these needless arrests and prosecutions, and something altogether more horrible to realize that number could be multiplied by any you’d care to think of, and there’d still be more. The even deeper tragedy, of course, is that few really care.
Hi Mike! So could u get ur citizenship.
I am a stateless too. I never had a citizenship and I suffered alot coz of this. Finaly I could come to EU and hope here I will get citizenship after 5 years. Trying to get a legal residence at least.
Good Luck
Shagy
there is a company in guatemala that sells legal african passports that allow u to be a national for a prescribed period of time or other countries that allow immediate permenante residence along with travel docs of course all for a fee usually for $5,000 …panama is one that offers immediate docs for purchases of property …in any case the point is there is a whole economy and world out there which deals in individuals who want to legally hide there identities or simply want to creat a new one…us citizens are so brainwashed into thinking that no alternatives exist
Why would you want Slovak citizenship, or any other citizenship?
Every country is the same.
What I mean is that people at any country are mostly unaware of most shit done by their governments, the only difference is in the scale – dependent on the size of the country.
Politics is a dirty business and can be done only by dirty people, other would simply fail.
