Yup, here he is, he's the Brit on the left holding the sword, about to strike little Andy Jackson:
Posted on 08/10/2006 7:25:32 AM PDT by Pokey78
Right. That’s it. Entre nous c’est terminé. After 42 happy years I am getting a divorce from America. From the very emerging of my childhood consciousness I have been aware that in the eyes of billions of people around the world I have won first prize in the lottery of life. I possess it, the thing competed for by everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the most desperate Mexican wetback, and I have it by simple dint of my nativity, on the Puerto Rican Health Scheme, in New York General Hospital, NY, NY.
I am entitled to an American passport. I must confess that this knowledge used vaguely to tinge my sense of identity. My brothers and sisters are British, and so are my parents, and I would like you to know that I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty, speak in an English accent, and for years I have travelled exclusively on a British passport. But my first passport was green, and when we landed at Dover or Heathrow I felt secretly cool to be the one to present his document to be stamped.
Mine were the credentials furnished by the most powerful nation on earth, and signed by former secretary of state Dean Rusk; and when the going has got tough in England it has sometimes crossed my mind that I could yet activate the Schwarzenegger option and flee to the land of opportunity, perhaps beginning as a short-order chef in Miami before winding up as Colorado senator and, inevitably, president.
Always glowing at the back of my mind has been the light from that unused escape hatch. Let’s face it, folks, we manage to endure so many of our earthly captivities by fantasising that we have somewhere a half-open door to another job, another career, another life, or indeed, if we are religious, a life of the world to come. The mere thought of that door is a consolation, even if, as things turn out, we never actually go through it.
Well, as of this week I slam that door shut, and in some indignation. It is not just that I no longer want an American passport. In fact, what I want is the right not to have an American passport, and it is that right, astoundingly, that the Americans are reluctant to give me.
Last Sunday lunchtime we were boarding a flight to Mexico, via Houston, Texas, and we presented six valid British passports. As soon as the Continental Airlines security guy saw my passport, he shook his head. ‘Were you born in New York?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever carried an American passport?’
Yes, I said, but it had long since expired. ‘I am afraid we have a problem,’ he said. ‘The US Immigration say you have to travel on an American passport if you want to enter the United States.’ B-but I’m British, I said, and my children chorused their agreement. Had the guy stuck around a moment longer, I would have told him how jolly British I was — but luckily for him he’d gone off in search of reinforcements.
When the ranking officer arrived, the story was the same. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to go to the US Embassy tomorrow morning and get a new American passport.’ But I don’t want an American passport, I said, inspiration striking me. I tell you what: I renounce my American citizenship. I disclaim it. I discard it.
‘That’s not good enough, sir,’ he said. ‘I need some official document saying that you are no longer American,’ and that, of course, is the point of this piece.
I make this formal, public, and, I hope, legally valid renunciation, because as a result of this moronic rule I had to ask my wife (who bore this latest cock-up with amazing good humour) to take the children on her own to Houston, and I then had to spend a stonking sum on another ticket. Because the Americans insisted I was American, and that it was only as an American that I could travel to America, America was the one country that I had to avoid.
So I circumnavigated America. I flew via Madrid, managing to beat the rest of my family to Mexico by 45 minutes; and yet I still seethe. It’s not just the stupidity of the rule that gets me. It’s the arrogance. What other country insists that because you can be one of its nationals, then you must be one of its nationals? Imagine if we told all British-born Americans that they could not arrive in this country except by use of a British passport. I haven’t seen anything so insanely possessive since the negotiations on the Common Fisheries Policy, when the Irish used to claim that the cod stocks of the Atlantic were still Irish in their fishy souls, even though they had long since emigrated to Portuguese waters.
As far as I can interpret the psychology of the rule, which has only been applied since 9/11, it is part of America’s new them-and-us mentality, the Manichaean division of the world into Americans and non-Americans, obliterating any category in between. Listen, buddy, the Americans seem to be saying. You got a right to be American? Then you do us the courtesy of travelling on the world’s number one passport when you come here. What you got to be ashamed of, boy?
Well, I love America. But I don’t like being pushed around and kicked off flights to what, after all, they claim is my home country. Condi, Mr Ambassador, whoever is in charge — I hereby renounce my birthright. Strike me off the list.
Consider me, as you put it, an ‘alien’. Even as I write these words I am conscious of the huge potential benefits my children will now never have. Of course, it is true that it is not all jam, carrying an American passport. You tend to be first overboard when your ship is hijacked by Arabs; but then these days the Brits walk the plank pretty soon, too; and think of the advantages, that priceless sense of civis Americanus sum; that the sanctity of your life is guaranteed by the hyperpower.
Compare America’s tigerish love of her children with the pitiless indifference we show to British passport-holders from Zimbabwe. The Americans would never allow me to be tried by an international court. The Americans would never let me be extradited to face trial in the UK, even if — particularly if — I was involved in IRA atrocities, while we supinely offer up our subjects without demanding any evidence whatsoever.
These blessings must now remain untested by me and my descendants, and I tender my resignation from the United States, with sadness, but in the knowledge that she is probably big enough to rub along without me. Goodbye and God bless, America.
The only apparently moronic thing here is Boris. And the only thing he "loved" about America was the potential escape hatch and bennies that came with a citizenship. The rules are hardly moronic in a time of heightened need to know that people entering the U.S. are who they say they are. If someone is on record as an American citizen named Bob Smith shows up trying to enter the U.S. on a foreign passport with a foreign accent, they deserve closer scrutiny.
good riddance...and DON'T COME BACK.
Yup, here he is, he's the Brit on the left holding the sword, about to strike little Andy Jackson:
Who the heck is Boris Johnson? (Yeah, I know, a hack)
Waahhh...the opus of an a$$wipe.
Maybe more liberals would do this.
AH, too good to even think about. I can wish, though ... .
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Door meet ass.
Good riddance. "Don't let the screen door hit ya, where the GOOD LORD split ya"
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964 in New York City, USA), better known as Boris Johnson, is a British Conservative politician, journalist and historian. Known for his distinctivly eccentric public persona, he is Member of Parliament for Henley and is also Shadow Minister for Higher Education in David Cameron's shadow cabinet. He is occasionally referred to as 'Bo-Jo' in the UK tabloid press)
Upon graduating from Oxford he lasted a week as a management consultant ("Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix, and stay conscious"), before becoming a trainee reporter for The Times. Within a year he was sacked for falsifying a quotation from his godfather, Colin Lucas, later vice-chancellor of Oxford University.
Johnson cultivates an image as an eccentric, self deprecating, straw-haired fop, disorganised and scatty (he once explained the lateness of his work by claiming that, "Dark forces dragged me away from the keyboard, swirling forces of irresistible intensity and power"). He has also succesfully got locked out of his own house in front of reporters (having just told them he would do what he could to save the marriage).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson
Ah, you can't fool me! That's Bloody Ban Tarleton. Crybaby Boris would be fleeing with Andy in hot pursuit.
So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu.Boris Johnson MP - in his articles in the Spectator - has been one of the more vociferous supporters of the Iraq War and of Britain's involvement in it. He is also one of the keenest proponents of individual liberty on either side of the Atlantic. And his body of work is chock full of admiration and love of America. His many, many articles for the Daily Telegraph are all searchable through the Internet.
He is not as staunch a Conservative as I would like - he's no Churchill, but he is a great friend to America. So what if he regularises his position as a Briton? He's never lived in - nor voted in - America. Nor has he ever asked America for handouts. He's not betraying America - he is sorting out a bizarre problem caused by jus sanguineris.
You can't do it via phone, mail or newspaper article. You have to go to a consulate or an embassy to do it. Here's a list of the ones in the UK.
U.S. Embassy
55/56 Upper Brook Street
LONDON, W1A 2LQ
U.S. Consulate General, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Danesfort House
223 Stranmillis Road
Belfast BT9 5GR
U.S. Consulate General Edinburgh, Scotland
3 Regent Terrace
Edinburgh EH7 5BW
And if you're in a real hurry and want to do it before your vacation is over here is a list of ones in Mexico:
Embassy of the United States of America
Paseo de la Reforma 305
Colonia Cuauhtemoc
06500 Mexico, D.F.
Av. Lopez Mateos 924 Nte.
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
Progreso 175,
Col. Americana Guadalajara,
Jalisco C.P. 44100
Ave. Constitución 411 Pte. Monterrey,
Nuevo León. México 64000
Consulado Americano
Monterrey #141 entre las calles
Rosales y Galeana
Col. Esqueda, C.P. 83000
Hermosillo, Sonora, México
Calle Primera #2002, Col. Jardin,
Matamoros, Tamps, 87330.
Calle San José s/n
Fracc. Los Alamos
C.P. 84065 Nogales, Sonora
Ave. Tapachula # 96
Colonia Hipodromo
22420 Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico
Paradise Plaza
Paseo de los Cocoteros
Local #14, Int. #17
Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit 63732
As if anyone cares. Some people can get their junk published anywhere and some of us can't. I'm jealous.
My condolences to the British.
Don't let the gate slap you in the butt as you go.
Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out and don't forget to pack your Dixie Chicks CDs. Could you also please take some people with you like Michael Moore and about 200 Hollywood lefties who promised to leave but didn't.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.