That was the point. The bad old State Department was making him do that so he thought he'd write off the cost of the paperwork, and probably that unrestricted ticket to Mexico or wherever, by writing a column about it. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm sorry I wasted 5 minutes of my life over this. I expected an OPUS, for Pete's sake, not a complaint about bureaucracy.
There was a troll rant posted last week that complained about how hard it was to renounce ones citizenship. In fact I've heard similar comments from liberals lately.
I think the game is to convince us that we're held hostage behind the iron curtain of America. In reality the biggest impediment to renouncing one's citizenship is getting another country to accept you. The simple fact is that the state department isn't going to allow millions of liberals renounce their citizenship only to have them remain in this country.
I've done some reading on it so I can show whiny liberals how to go about "escaping concentration camp Amerikkka". So far there have been no takers.