Man Without a Country

Man Without a Country

When I was a kid, in U.S. History, we watched a film based on a short story of the same title by Edward Hale. A young soldier, who was tried for treason, renounced the United States and is banished forever to a ship, never to be allowed into any country.

The film resolves this dilemma, with the young soldier growing old, loving his former country, the United States, and condemning his own lack of loyalty. The message is love your country, be loyal, have integrity, do the right thing; etc.

It is a patriotic overdrawn argument for love of country, honor and integrity. But it gripped me then, and it does now.

And then there is Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo you see, is the Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Eduardo sued Zuckerberg, arguing that he had contributed to the founding of Facebook. He was the slimy treasurer of Facebook in the movie, who betrays his friend for money. And he wins millions.

Now, he has gone ever one better. After winning millions from Zuckerberg, Saverin recently RENOUNCED HIS U.S. CITIZENSHIP, (caps intended) to live overseas, because of the "high" taxes of his home country.

Now this guy, slime, is a multi-millionaire. He was born into privilege, and fell into millions before he was to graduate from Harvard of all places. In short, he had it made before he fell into the lawsuit "victory" over Zuckerberg.

Saverin is typical of those 50 or under in the United States today. Many have turned ugly conservative, angry about everything, and the least patriotic generation (s) ever.

These is an age group that has never been exposed to the draft, or any public service whatsoever. They were born into the conservative lies of cutting taxes to help the economy. They watch Fox News incessantly. They have the lowest loyalty to their employers, to their community than ever before.

Some of this of understandable. Business has outsourced their jobs, unions have declined in power leaving them vulnerable to layoff and pension scams. They have the lowest protection of any other segment of the population from disease, having lost health insurance at record levels.

So we understand partially their lack of enthusiasm for patriotism. We understand at least partially, their greed, their nihilism and narcissism.

But then there is Saverin, who renounced his citizenship, turns his back on his country for a buck. And he already is more wealthy than most of us.

I see the marine who gave everything at Guatacanal, the Air Force Pilot who gave it all over Germany, and those 3,000 who were victims of 9/11. And then there is Saverin.

There is a disease afflicting America right now. It manifests itself in eternal opposition to taxes, to public anything, in fanatic desire to cut "entitlements" (which were paid for by recipients paying taxes during their working years), by a "pay as you go" mentality, that reduces generational responsibility to zero.

And we have a millionaire who leaves his country, that afforded him the privilege and opportunity that made him rich. And we worship his greed, we worship his "entrepreneurship", we make movies about him.

We have become the "Man Without A Country".