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Bratislava resident renounces American citizenship, becomes stateless person

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA, 10 December 2008 – Citing US war, human rights abuses, rapacious state capitalism and hypocrisy, Bratislava resident Michael Gogulski announced today that he has renounced his United States citizenship and become a stateless person as a means of “political divorce”.

Gogulski, 36, renounced his citizenship on 8 December 2008 at the American embassy in Bratislava, surrendering his US passport and culminating a two-week process and months of personal preparations. He currently awaits a Certificate of Loss of Nationality of the United States confirming his loss of American citizenship. As Gogulski has no other citizenship, he is now a stateless person.

“I was disgusted to be associated through citizenship with the most dangerous gang of criminals in the world, the United States government. Renouncing my citizenship is a means of achieving a political divorce with that vile institution,” Gogulski said. “American politicians extol their state in terms of liberty, human rights, free markets and the rule of law. Examination of the country’s history and present actions reveals nothing but lies and hypocrisy. The genocide of Native Americans, slavery, nuclear slaughter at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, support for brutal dictators, the torture of innocents at places like Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the massive robberies for the benefit of big business in the name of ‘rescuing’ the economy, the world’s biggest prison population, the growth of a domestic police state and the brutal wars of oppression underway in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia paint a rather different picture. America, via its government agents, is truly exceptional – exceptionally evil,” he stated.

Gogulski says that when he receives the Certificate of Loss of Nationality he will apply to the Slovak Interior Ministry for a Travel Document – similar to a passport – under the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons, which Slovakia signed in 2000. He says that he has no plans to leave Bratislava until then, and that he recognizes that his life without citizenship will be more difficult, especially with respect to travel. But, “if the Schengen Zone is to be my cage,” Gogulski states, “I think it’s large enough for me. There’s enough to explore within Europe to last a lifetime.”

On his personal blog, Gogulski indicates that he works as a freelance translator and editor. He also writes about anarchism and supports the revolutionary theory called agorism, which posits that free-market service providers will compete with and eventually supplant states, giving rise to a voluntary society. “Governments pride themselves on notions of ‘equality’ and ‘rule of law’, but fail to apply the same standards to themselves that their subjects must endure,” he says, explaining his political philosophy. “The foundation of state power, taxation, is robbery. That the robbers have fancy uniforms, impressive titles and the sanction of law does not in the slightest way change the basic formula for extortion: pay us, or we will kill you.”

Michael Gogulski’s blog can be found at www.nostate.com.

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by Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution
by Kevin R.C. Gutzman

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism
by Robert P. Murphy

Economics in One Lesson
by Henry Hazlitt

I have two words for you, if you have any serious interest in your future: monetary reform.

Hooray!

One of the chief detriments of the so-called “information revolution” is the nature of information delivery: we get “factoids” — dismembered fragments of data delivered in such great numbers at so great a speed that developing the context and critical thinking necessary for real comprehension is, in most peoples’ cases, obviated. This easily places media like television and the internet almost by default at the service of prevailing establishment power. All that needs be done is to keep bombarding the populace with byte-sized disconnected chunks of emotionally resonant information which, given this dislocation from any corresponding or conflicting data and from any grounded theory of historic process, debases the very essential question of “how are we to live” to the point that such a question is little more than hollow entertainment. Fewer and fewer of us, struggling to keep body and soul together, have the time, energy, or inclination to develop the patience and epistemological grounding requisite to taking a well-reasoned, humane and ethical orientation to the constantly streaming flood of factoids which create in our minds “the world.”

It is essential that any well-intentioned vision of alternative futures not replace or sap a persistent effort to perceive, oppose and deconstruct the immoral, inhumane establishment structure of power and ideology. Until we are agreed on a clear and well-detailed picture of what we hope to change, to “envision alternate futures” is all too often just time and energy stolen from the liberation and transformation we pay lip service to and, through that distraction, perpetuation of the cruelties and injustices we all hope to remedy.

Here two opposing viewpoints:

Viewpoint 1:

Actually I can… we live on finite planet with finite resources. We
now have over 6.6 billion people here. The more people on the earth,
the smaller the resource pie becomes, especially when non- renewable
resources are starting to decline.

What an interesting time to be alive.

Viewpoint 2:

So you say we live on a finite planet with finite resources? Billions
of watts of power fall on our planet from an outside source every day.

If anything, it’s the zero-sum, finite-resource type of thinking tht’s
going to get us into trouble. Don’t fight over the pie, bake new
ones…

Given the dichotomy between viewpoint 1 and 2, I say the root problem is, as I’ve said before, fear.

Fear that if you don’t, someone else will; and the person that does will not be kind towards you.