asciilifeform: kakobrekla: stop chirping & buy usa taxcoin (tm), terroriste.

asciilifeform: 'Prosecutors routinely continue and relist civil-forfeiture cases and they unilaterally determine whether any documentation provided by the property owner is sufficient.'

asciilifeform: en a court reporter to transcribe these "public hearings."'

asciilifeform: 'In Courtroom 478, property owners are instructed to sign in and indicate with a checkmark on the sign-in sheet the kind of property they are there to save. The sign-in sheet lists the following categories of property: "house," "car," "money," or "gun." ... Assistant district attorneys with the Public Nuisance Task Force fully control the proceedings inside "Courtroom" 478. There is no judge, no jury, and not ev ☟︎

asciilifeform: chetty: it's a classic. from it comes the admonition, often repeated to 'discontented' folks there, 'shut up, sit, don't chirp'

asciilifeform: 'a sparrow flew in the winter, froze and fell down. a cow strolled by. shat out some dung, splat! - and covered sparrow. he warmed up and began to chirp. a cat strolled by, heard chirping, removed sparrow, and ate him. From this tale, three morals: not he is your enemy who plants you down in shit; not he is your friend who removes you from shit; when sitting in shit - shut up, don't chirp.' - soviet folktale.

asciilifeform: (original - 'Do not think. If you think — do not speak. If you think and speak — do not write. If you think, speak and write — do not sign. If you think, speak, write and sign — don't be surprised.')

asciilifeform: so, formula is: 'don't own. if you own, don't admit it. if you admit it, don't write about it. if you own and admit and write, don't sign your name. if you own, admit, write, and sign name, don't be surprised.' (apologies to rev. t. reese.) ☟︎☟︎

asciilifeform: which may well come to an abrupt end when a monkey finally receives an order to zero their balance.

asciilifeform: and those escapees who draw their daily bread from a bank account under 'international community' jurisdiction (that being all save possibly chicom & russian) are merely taking a very expensive prolonged vacation.

asciilifeform: very few of the 'escapees' seem to fully apprehend the megalomaniacal evil they're running from.

asciilifeform: escaping from usg today to just about anywhere is more like - escaping to poland in '39.

asciilifeform: folks could escape from germany in, e.g, 1939 to - usa, which put an ocean and two navies between enemy and their arse

asciilifeform: 'escape' means there's a missile battery (or, at the threadbare minimum, 24/7 death squad) standing between usg and you. ☟︎

asciilifeform: correct. legal is whatever the present-day whim of usg is.

asciilifeform: people have asked me why haven't escaped, and i answer 'i haven't $xx mil.' to which, eyes bug out, and i have to explain 'a real escape means retrieval is not simply legally, but militarily uneconomical.' ☟︎

asciilifeform: what could be more interesting than effective dekulakization and deterrence of republikflucht.

asciilifeform: he sues to have the cancellation voided, and then creates precedent, which will be cemented by legislature

asciilifeform: (how? only a matter of time when some idiot pays the cancellation fee and then changes his mind - like, famously, lee harvey oswald)

asciilifeform: (what's that? check back in 20 yrs.)

asciilifeform: the point can be any number of things. e.g, getting out of the range of kingdom of aztlan's field artillery.

asciilifeform: if the place you fled to is in the habit of letting in u.s. polizei and looks away when they stuff people into a flying gasenwagen for return to gulag - what difference does it make that you paid the ransom? they can always demand a greater ransom, retroactively. ☟︎

asciilifeform: plus it isn't clear that paying the 'legit' fees gets you anything in the long run. who's gonna force usg to honour the cancellations when they decide not to? the devil ?

asciilifeform: ben_vulpes intends to escape alone ?

asciilifeform: easier now than ever.

asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: afaik, there's a confiscatory asset tax

asciilifeform: but 'where to escape' - always, they ask.

asciilifeform: no one asks 'what's a good place to buy beer', everyone seems to understand that 'it depends'

asciilifeform: it's interesting how people ask questions that have this bizarre presumption of sameness baked in

asciilifeform: gernika: it is almost like asking publicly 'what's a good place to bury treasure' (see also earlier discussion of this)

asciilifeform: gernika: bad question. see earlier discussion of 'usable' machines. no such thing as 'good place' any more than 'usable interface.'

asciilifeform: quite likely a great many escapees were paying more than this just in extraterritorial tax

asciilifeform: 2-3k usd is chump change for folks who can otherwise afford to escape, though

asciilifeform: ben_vulpes: see also yesterday's discussion of 'hedging' against collapse using buried treasure.