Hacker News Reader

>What premium is that over say being the holder of passport...

You tell me; there's a whole article written here about how hard it is to give up the US passport. Here we have a woman who doesn't live in the country and doesn't want to pay taxes to the country, yet is torn up about not being "American". I don't get it.

View on HN

Patriotism can be as deeply ingrained in people as religious beliefs. From an outsiders perspective the US seems like one of those countries where people defend it blindly like they would a religion.

I think it's important to note that, for the most part, both patriotism and religion need to be deeply ingrained in a person at a very young age for them to defend either so blindly.

US families take care of the religious aspect; US public school take care of the patriotism. If you weren't of the age where you simply don't question what you're told yet, I believe (perhaps hope?) both of these would die out in a few generations.

One of the supervisors for my Master's thesis was American but has lived in Canada since the '70s. He hasn't bothered to get Canadian citizenship. He's now retired living in BC. I'm wondering if he'll do it now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com