Reading about statelessness on Wikipedia, I discovered Mike Gogulski! What makes him stand apart from all the other stateless people is his motivational action. He isn't one of those involuntary stateless persons who fall through some gap in laws down the rabbit hole; no, his was a conscientious choice. He gave up his American citizenship to make a statement, as a protest, sort of like Gary Davis. Even though they say the US government doesn't engage in numbers, apparently there are many Americans who renounce their citizenship, about 300-5000 every year. However, they generally renounce it for tax reasons, that is to avoid taxes ;) and they generally have another citizenship to fall on. Citizenship is a safety net as you know. You need it to survive in this divided political construct world. Or ok, if not to survive, you need it to function properly. If you want to be able to do anything human like travel, go to a hospital, go to school, work etc. “Gogulski has stated that he hopes to start a mass movement of Americans giving up citizenship and making themselves stateless en masse.” Wooow! This is the thing that stroke me when I read it at 1 am as I was about to go to bed. This is what kept me up all night. This is the first other action proposal towards open borders, no borders, ending global apartheid that I have come across apart from mine. People just say “Oh, yes I believe there should be no difference between people because of where they are born,” they say they are for open borders, no borders etc. But without an action plan, ideas do not take root. We need to do something. Like striking at the root... Actually, what Gogulski did is my next step of action. I have considered giving up my citizenship back in 2010. Found out Turkey does not allow renouncing your citizenship without getting another citizenship. Back at the time, I had only Turkish citizenship. So I couldn't do it even if I really decided to act on it. Because it's not an easy thing. There are so many consequences and setbacks to your personal life. If you announce such a thing, almost everybody around you will tell you not to do it. Anyway... Then I got my Italian citizenship. But now I am on this mission to go to every country in the world to burn my passports in the end to protest this injustice at birth. After that, I am considering first giving up my Turkish citizenship, then the Italian. If they allow me of course. But I panicked all of a sudden! So I have a competitor now :) What if Gogulski gets millions, or okay let's be more reasonable, thousands of Americans to renounce their citizenship to protest this political construct? What if borders are taken down before I get to complete my mission and burn my passports?! Aaaah! I want to do this, I want to complete this mission. Wait for me!... PS: No no, don't worry. I'll be just fine if borders come down by themselves without any of my doing. I mean I'd be sort of left without a purpose and fall into a chasm as this mission is a big drive in my life. But as I said, no worries, I have other things to fall on. I have my daughter, still in the nest, to enjoy; I have my books to write. So feel free to sort out this broken political system of countries, nation-states, borders, visas, citizenship and the broken economic system by yourself. I will be cheering behind you! I wouldn't be leaving America as I don't live there and have no wish to live there in the first place, but I'd have left this world for another planet if I could. I would like to renounce this document, this invisible social contract that makes me a part of "We the Sheeple."
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