Libertas

Yesterday I went to Borders at Ward Center in Honolulu to get out of the apartment, drink some coffee, and experience some air conditioning.

Instead of reading and studying the books I had planned, I found Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neal Strauss. Skimming through the book confirmed my belief that it’s time to seriously start planning to obtain foreign residency and even a second passport.

I identified with his concerns and experiences such as his learning as a boy about Nazi Germany, his wonderment on why so many Jews remained in Germany in the 1930s, and his self-promise that he would not make the same mistake, that he would get out before it was too late.

He had a chapter on “How to Alienate Your Family.” I had done the exact thing he did. I offered to put names of family members on my visa application to New Zealand, just to make it easier for them to leave if things got bad. I expected some skepticism, but they didn’t even bother to humor me by letting me put their names down!

Besides the rejection, it irritates me is that I have to hope that they are right and hope that I really am paranoid in order to be the good person that I am.

I have to suppress the thoughts of black uniformed police knocking down their door, arresting them, taking them to FEMA camps, all while they cry, “David was right! We should have listened!”

As this is happening, on a tropical beach on the other side of the world I am sipping a Mojito with grim satisfaction…

But I suppress those thoughts.

I tried to go back to my studies, but I had also picked up How Would a Patriot Act: Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by Glen Greenwald. That didn’t help. It just confirmed my paranoia.

I went back to Emergency and skimmed some more. It bothered him, as it does me, that the US government is increasingly making it difficult for people to leave the country with their money. In the process of trying to find ways to protect his wealth he learned of The Sovereign Society. At a Sovereign Society meeting in Mexico, the few people willing to speak to him told him about life as a PT (perpetual traveler or permanent tourist). There was something about five flags to look for: less then two years residency for a passport, no visa restrictions, no income tax, and I forgot the rest, he also added tropical beaches.

After coming home last night, I googled Sovereign Society, but I don’t have any wealth to protect, so I just signed up for their newsletter and googled Uruguay.