General Discussion

I was talking about civilians only. Longterm business reps, teachers, scientists, retirees, normal people married to foreign citizens who won’t or can’t live in the USA for personal or professional reasons, other family connections or obligations, there are probably a hundred different reasons why Americans move to other countries. For a country of our size, with a population of our diverse and influential background, I don’t find 2.75% of the population living abroad to be enormous. That nine million of us should be ignored and financially disadvantaged by our own government for over half a century—THAT is something I find enormous. As a population, we would rank somewhere in the top third if we were a state, right around 13th, somewhere near Virginia and Arizona. But they have senators, House representatives and electoral votes. We have nothing like that, only absentee ballots (sometimes!), “contributions” and taxes. We are low-hanging fruit, perpetually ripe for the plucking, and getting very fed up with that status. Two years ago, Sherrod Brown called me asking for a contribution. I asked him if he knew how many Americans Abroad there were. He guessed 250,000 to 300,000 !!!! About one thirtieth of the true number. If he is that poorly informed, he is better off saying, “ I have no earthly clue, please enlighten me” instead of plucking a stupid guess out of the air. Was he that out of touch with the rest of his constituency? No wonder he lost against an ignorant buffoon.