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During their investigation of the purchase of a large estate in New Zealand by Peter Thiel, Matt Nippert and Anne Gibson, reporters for The New Zealand Herald, noticed that certain processes required by the Overseas Investment Act had not been followed. The explanation: Peter Thiel is a NZ citizen and hence wasn't required to follow the procedures for an overseas investment.
If Thiel is so sure that Trump will deliver, why does he need a bolt hole and more importantly, citizenship in another country?
One question being asked was why Mr. Thiel became a New Zealander in 2011. Close behind that was how it happened.
If you like New Zealand enough to want to become a citizen, the country's Internal Affairs Department noted on Wednesday, one requirement is "to have been physically in New Zealand for a minimum of 1,350 days in the five years preceding the citizenship application." Another requirement is that you "continue to reside" there after becoming a citizen.
Mr. Thiel, 49, does not appear to have done either.
[...] If Mr. Thiel was not a resident in New Zealand for the necessary amount of time, an exception must have been made. The government has not responded to questions about whether that happened and, if so, what the reason was.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @04:17AM
To someone of Thiel's libertarianish philosophy, "citizenship" is not some magical part of one's identity; it's just another arbitrary bureaucratic checkbox.
I like the scenery in New Zealand; If "citizenship" was all that was keeping me from buying a plot of land there, well then I'd purchase the citizenship, too—can it be bundled for a discount?
The intent is to buy property; the citizenship is just bureaucratic idiocy.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @04:42AM
The intent is to buy property; the citizenship is just bureaucratic idiocy.
But, property is theft, so buying citizenship to steal property is the theft of a birthright. I bet some Maori are going to be not happy. Utu.
And besides, the United States does not recognize dual-citizenship. (except in the case of the "special" nation. They usually do not terminate citizenship, but the fact remains that if Thiel is a Kiwi, he is no longer an American. If he is still pretending to be, under false pretenses, that makes him an agent of a foreign power, a spy. And he runs Palantir, a company that contracts on National Security of the United States? Maybe, just maybe, he is deep down, a Rooskie citizen? The Paypal Manchurian Candidate Advisor to Trump?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Friday January 27 2017, @04:55AM
False. The USA doesn't recognize dual-citizenship, but it also does not ban it. Source: several members of my family have two passports and the USA knows about it. It can complicate getting a security clearance, but doesn't disqualify the dual-citizen from getting clearance.
There are acts that could jeopardize a dual-citizen's status as a US citizen, but it's in no way automatic. These days it is generally difficult to give up US citizenship.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @05:21AM
Not False! Just "alternative immigration law." And of course, having to actually pay taxes is usually enough to get these types to renounce. Loyalty, it's not just for nations anymore!
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Sunday February 05 2017, @03:03PM
Citizenship is granted by the respective countries, according to their own laws. Each country can also revoke citizenship according to its own laws, and a person may also renounce. There is simply no need to recognize dual-citizenship in the first place.
Traditionally, to become a US citizen, you must renounce any other citizenship. This is no longer the case, but is the likely source of that claim. Not all other countries have the same requirement.
It's also common for children of a citizen to automatically become citizens - famous examples include Barack Obama (Kenyan, because of his father, until he was 23) [factcheck.org] and Ted Cruz (US, because of both of his parents) [cnn.com]
To revoke someone's citizenship is not a simple task [findlaw.com]. Unless he renounced, Thiel is most certainly still a US citizen.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday January 27 2017, @12:58PM
But, property is theft
That would be communism. We are discussing libertarianism.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:47AM
Libertarianism was originally a left wing philosophy. Can't get much further left then having the government stay out of the peoples business. The failure mode is having the Stalinists show up. Right wing libertarianism has a similar failure mode, look at how many are cheering the idea of not liking your neighbours, so forcing them to pay to build a fence, I mean a wall as they worship the Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 28 2017, @10:41AM
Libertarianism was originally a left wing philosophy. Can't get much further left then having the government stay out of the peoples business. The failure mode is having the Stalinists show up. Right wing libertarianism has a similar failure mode, look at how many are cheering the idea of not liking your neighbours, so forcing them to pay to build a fence, I mean a wall as they worship the Trump.
It's hard enough to debate politics on this forum without the blatantly wrong ad hominems. Just because Thiel chooses to support Trump doesn't mean every "right wing libertarian" does. And every political system has "Stalinists show up" as a key failure mode. In libertarian-based societies, at least people would have considerably more power to resist the Stalinists.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday January 29 2017, @01:32AM
How so?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 29 2017, @08:58AM
In libertarian-based societies, at least people would have considerably more power to resist the Stalinists.
How so?
By killing them with advanced firepower. Having a ready pool for creating armed resistance will at least slow down the Stalinists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 30 2017, @06:24PM
By killing them with advanced firepower.
See that right there? That is your right-wing authoritarian "libertarian" mode at work. It tends to the use of lethal force, loves them some firearms, and loves inserting objects into other men (why is it always men?) against their will (homosexual rape: that is what war is!). And they yearn for it, with their bug-out bags and EDCs, and doomday preps, as it warms their ammosexual hearts. (Pretty small hearts, actually, not much love in 'em!) But this is where the libertarians are the most stupid. The fear force majeur, when what they really have to beware is seduction. The Donald has grabbed them right by their dicks, and they like it!! And now Donald the Tiny Handed can wield the plenipotentiary power of the UN Presidency to force everyone to, um, be a free individual. Yeah, right!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 31 2017, @10:32AM
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:14AM
That may be true in poor backwards countries where socialism/communism usually has success, though poor people often can't afford much in the way of firearms. In western countries the problem is the fascists, and it seems the gun owners usually support them. Can you imagine the armed American right taking up arms against Trump?
Most of the successful revolutions in the last half century have been fairly peaceful, while the ones with arms have been like Syria.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:58AM
In western countries the problem is the fascists, and it seems the gun owners usually support them.
Authoritarians are all over the political spectrum. I don't agree with your characterization.
Can you imagine the armed American right taking up arms against Trump?
Yes.
Most of the successful revolutions in the last half century have been fairly peaceful, while the ones with arms have been like Syria.
Most of the fairly peaceful ones have been with arms too. They've just been one-sided enough in favor of the revolutionaries that the former leader or faction decided not to contest it via military force. What's the point of fighting, if you can't even count on your military, for example? I think a better indication of the level of bloodshed in a revolution is how divided the revolutionaries are. If a revolution will quickly degenerate into a multi-faction struggle, then that's the sort of environment that violent factions, like Stalinists or the original leadership can survive in and perhaps even thrive.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday February 01 2017, @11:39AM
Can't get much further left then having the government stay out of the peoples business.
That's nonsense. Leftism wants government to actively intervene to make society a better, fairer place. Decidedly not minarchistic.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 02 2017, @04:02AM
That may be true of what Americans call leftist (not quite as far right in most of the world) but just as there are various types of rightists, there are various types of leftists. Originally it was pretty simple. Left equaled for the people or workers and right equaled for the aristocracy or rich.
There's other political axises as well, libertarian vs authoritarian, which are independent of right vs left. To many people get mixed up, it seems all right/left wingers are authoritarian, depending on your view point, mostly because they're the loudest, so they blame it on right/left. Just to confuse things more, there's also the conservative vs progressive axis. You can have a conservative leftist who dreams of going back to when unions were powerful or a progressive rightist who doesn't mind advancing human rights. Here in Canada, our right wing party for the longest time until they killed themselves with NAFTA and the GST were the Progressive Conservatives, probably closer to the Clinton/Obama Democrats then not.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday February 03 2017, @10:30AM
None of that strikes me as wrong, but it's still silly to in any way equate modern leftism with minarchism. Left libertarianism is a pretty tiny niche.
In the USA today, the left aren't minarchist, and neither are the mainstream right, even if they like to pretend they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @05:38AM
To someone of Thiel's libertarianish philosophy,
Livertarianish? WTF is that? Libertarianism, with a Ubermensch strand of authoritarianism thrown in? The exact opposite of the individual freedom that libertarians mouth all the time? (Oh, and by "mouth", I do not mean what Peter Theil thinks we mean.) Cognitive dissonance, or complete idiocy, hard to tell which one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @05:46AM
It means he enjoys a good Chianti with his fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fava beans!
Here, for those uncultured fools who would mark me "Offtopic" [youtube.com]