You cannot for example just get rid of your US citizenship - you have to pay to get rid of it…

I wanted this to be false but I see that there is currently a minimum renunciation fee of $2,350. I assume there are likely other consulate fees that may bring it closer to $2,500 at the very least. What a scam.

Edit: typo

the one where Fry and Bender join the army for gum and get sent to fight balls

The Elders tell of a young ball much like you. She bounced three meters in the air. Then she bounced 1.8 meters in the air. Then she bounced four meters in the air. Do I make myself clear?

…Or to post on shower thoughts

I’m lucky! Mine (2015 pro) has been awesome, except for when it was going through a Demon AVR. Its fine when direct to the TV or through the Onkyo. It has flaked out before though, and I never updated to the “experience” version that introduced ads on the home screen.

I think that’s the same OLED I have. B7 or C7. It’s starting to band on red, but I got at least… 7 (?) years out of it, and the bands are only mildly annoying. Similarly, I have never connected it to the internet, and don’t use any of the apps.

It’s not very bright, but I’ll take that over washed out or blotchy blacks. I’ll shop for a used OLED like this when I’m ready.

And for the click-averse:

The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.

-Credited to Arthur Schopenhauer

I haven’t yet. Actually, the corrupt bureaucracy has withheld residency status so far without bribes. That said, here was the path I thought I was on when I moved.

The idea is to have been in the country for most of the year (no less than 14 days out of country), at which time you can apply for residency. Once you have residency, you must maintain it for 5yrs.

Citizenship for Permanent Residence Holders

1. You have been a holder of Permanent Residence for a minimum of 5 years.
2. You have been resident continuously in Belize, this means that upon being granted Permanent Residency you have not resided outside Belize for periods that exceed thirty consecutive days or accumulate to a total of three months in any twelve month period.

I didn’t want to muddy the waters with the reality of what happened once I moved, as the OP was about motivating factors. Power corrupts. And ultranationalism is infectious to other countries.

Edit: If I could do it over, I would form an offshore company or similar and get a work permit. Two attorneys have recommended this, even though on paper it costs more; there’s less headache running to renew visitor status every 28 days (they claim 30-120 days, but no immigration office will renew you for more than that unless you bribe or are over 70 years old). It’s been humbling (scary) going through this process legally and being afraid on several occasions that an angry official will wave their hand and deport me. I can only imagine being deported because of my skin color or where I shop would be even more scary.

Epic

I’m living it

When my country first elected a rapist con man president, I started looking. I was born and raised in (and never left) New England, and so I also wanted a place that’s warm year round. It took me four years to tentatively settle on Belize, in late 2019. I made my first visit in Jan 2021, as the pandemic messed up my 2020 plans. By October, I had sold EVERYTHING and moved with two cats.

Reasons (or things I didn’t even know I wanted):

-No DST messing up my sleep schedule.
-No more days with 17+hrs of darkness.
-CARIBBEAN!!!
-Every Belizean I met (exception: gov’t employees and police) is friendly and warm. In N.E., people avoid making eye contact and answer greetings in a way to stop further conversation, but in Belize, the people genuinely want to know how you’re doing and remember everything you tell them.
-No car required
-Culture with proud participation from the public; holidays with vibrant parades, and entire village ecstatically engaged in all aspects.
-Tarantulas walking in the street (my partner and I love them!)
-Path to citizenship without $0.25M investment
-Citizenship there comes with a CARICOM passport, meaning can live and work in most Caribbean nations.
-Food! Fish caught 30 minutes before it hits my plate.

Things that pushed me away from the USA:

-Truck nuts
-Nazi and/or Confederate flags on trucks everywhere
-Cost of housing doubled from 2017 to 2021
-Consumerism -Embarrassed to be a US citizen

The Elders tell of a young ball much like you. She bounced three meters in the air. Then she bounced 1.8 meters in the air. Then she bounced four meters in the air. Do I make myself clear?

Cheaters

Exactly!

You probably shouldn’t feel comfortable discussing private details on discord. You may not know, but your chats can be scraped pretty trivially.

I think they arrested one guy? And that one guy was most likely being an asshole and pushed his luck past the brink.

Think again, señor:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shortly after they began guarding a Los Angeles federal building Friday, U.S. Marines detained a man who had walked onto the property and did not immediately hear their commands to stop.

The brief detention marked the first time federal troops have detained a civilian since they were deployed to the nation’s second-largest city by President Donald Trump in response to protests over the admin[…]

The man, Marcos Leao, was later released without charges and said the Marines were just doing their jobs.

Such an asshole…

🐾

Neither one is right. Effect is typically a noun. Affect is a verb.

*affect

Lol. 😂 I hear you. I feed at 10am and 10pm (with a 90 minute variance to keep them from getting to good at timekeeping). After almost a decade, I figured out a way to sleep in! Course, they still whine at night starting at 8pm sometimes, but my vet says my cats are unusually fit and a good weight, so I know I’m not starving them like they want me to believe. Their chirps and whines have gotten more and more elaborate and detailed on the last three years.

That fourth thing is hunger. It only comes when the cat is fed on a schedule, as opposed to free-fed with multiple piles of food out all day. Feed in a schedule and you’ll suddenly see (healthy, right-weight) interested felines licking empty bowls.