I received two articles recently from my good friend, the eminent free market economist Dr. Lawrence Hunter, that have once again brought to the fore an issue I know weighs on the minds of many Caribbean Life Club members, including me.

Simply put: At what point does it become acceptable – indeed, even preferable -- to leave one’s native land and take up full-time residence in another country?

I know we all have at one time or another embraced the poignant words of Sir Walter Scott from “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” – and it’s pretty powerful stuff: 

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land?
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand?

But, still and all, one has to wonder, what happens when that native land no longer stands strong for the basic values that once made it a “shining city on a hill.” How long should one turn his or her footsteps homeward to a land that no longer provides a familiar welcome for their wandering heart?

All of this was driven home anew by the two articles Dr. Hunter sent my way. They reminded me that in the day and age of digital communications, satellite technology, and high-speed transportation, national boundaries are nowhere near as definitive as they once were. And, lockstep allegiance to what once was may be an untenable obstacle to what could be.

The first article, entitled “IRS Crackdown on Foreign Assets Leading Many to Renounce US Citizenship,” was from the McClatchy News Service.

“Last year,” it reported, “1,780 Americans relinquished their citizenship to avoid disclosing foreign account information to the Internal Revenue Service. This is a sharp increase over 2010, when 1,485 renounced citizenship. In 2009, the number was 731 and in 2008 226.”

Now, I know the first reaction of some may be, “Well, shame on them for not wanting to pay their taxes.” But, actually, it goes far deeper than that. It goes to the very heart of individual liberty, the right not to be hounded to the ends of the earth by iron-fisted IRS agents who merely have to make a charge in order to invade your privacy.

The IRS is the only tax collection agency on the face of the earth that can exercise such unbridled usurpation. The government of Honduras, for example (or any other Central American country for that matter) can’t demand to full access to its citizens’ US bank accounts. Nor should they be allowed to.

Nor does any other Central American country choose to tax the earnings of its citizens in the US. But, the US taxes every cent you make in any other country. Even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with US commerce.

So, the tax revolt goes far deeper than just a few folks wanting to shirk US tax liabilities. Perhaps, as the McClatchy article reported, one Peter Dunn got it right when he appeared before a US consulate official in Canada to renounce his US citizenship rather than buckle under to IRS demands to reveal he and his Canadian wife’s joint bank accounts. Said Mr. Dunn, “My wife’s account is none of their business.”

Nor, perhaps, are the accounts of numerous other Americans who choose to do business offshore rather than submit to onerous US rules, regulations, and endless red tape.

The other article Dr. Hunter sent was entitled, “For De-Friending the US, Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin is an American Hero.” It was from Forbes Magazine, for which Dr. Hunter is a columnist, though he did not write the Saverin piece.

In case you didn’t know, Mr. Saverin is one of the founders of Facebook. So, I believe you’ll agree that the “De-Friending” reference is pretty amusing. But, the article itself is deadly serious. Here’s the thrust of it in a nutshell:

“Saverin’s essential maneuver will at first glance hopefully get Americans thinking about our wrongheaded system of taxation. As it now stands, Americans, through taxes levied on income and capital gains, are explicitly forced to ‘prove’ their income to the IRS.

“Think about that for a moment. A nation founded on skepticism about politicians and government now has as one of its most powerful institutions a revenue agency meant to badger its citizens about how much they owe a government utterly contemptuous of constitutional limits.”

Yes, do think about it. And also think about the fact that under the new health care law, the IRS is hiring more than 16,000 new agents to monitor your taxes. And think about the fact that under a bill just passed by the US Senate, if an IRS agent even suspects that you might owe as little as $50,000 in back taxes, the government will swoop down and confiscate your passport.

All of this comes on top of the oppressive burdens imposed by a federal government that now tells your kids what words then can and cannot say in school (“Christmas” and “Easter” being two of the banned obscenities) … a government that dictates what you can and cannot put out on the table at a church bake sale … a government that now regulates how much fat your favorite restaurant can put in your burger – and soon hopes to regulate how much salt you can sprinkle on it once it arrives at your table.
So, yes, it is time to openly discuss at what point does it become acceptable – indeed, even preferable -- to leave one’s native land and take up full-time residence in another country. And, perhaps, the answer is: when your freedom is at stake.

Maybe, just maybe, in this day and age, the appropriate response to Scott’s poignant admonition against abandoning one’s native land lies in the words of another great British poet, my favorite, Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Come, my friends
Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order, smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose hold
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.