Yeah, well, if I ever get arrested in what I believe is a violation of my constitutional rights, every single thermonuclear weapon I smuggled into the U.S. will not be prevented from going off. Fuck 'em. If the people can't be bothered to defend my rights as their own, they are as guilty as the state.
What's this? I made a terrorist threat, you say? Really? Where?
It is a true fact that if I have not smuggled any thermonuclear weapons into the U.S., every single one of them will go off if I am arrested. And, I have every damn legal right in the world to detonate zero thermonuclear weapons on U.S. soil. So does everyone else.
Of course, if I have smuggled thermonuclear weapons into the U.S., you've got a bit of a problem, don't ya? Do you trust that they won't go off if I'm left alone, or do you hope you disarm every single one if you arrest me, for whatever reason?
How good's your intel, you "Iraq has WMD" punks?
So, what's left? You gonna throw me in Gitmo because I shot off my mouth? Fuck, if that isn't a damn good reason to actually smuggle in nukes as a strategic defense / retaliation mechanism, I dunno what is.
All because fucktard Kagan shoots off her mouth saying I don't have a right to a fair trial if the adjective "terrorist" is used to describe me. I think that's a right worth defending, and damn it, if she were dead that would be one less supreme court judge trying to take it away.
This, my friends is how revolutions happen: so many rights and freedoms are removed from the citizenry, and the law so corrupted, that the only recourse is violence. Is it too late to turn back from that eventuality?
No.They don't say otherwise. They issued an "interpretation bulletin", meaning you won't be bothered until they decide otherwise. You still collect rainwater at the pleasure of the state only.
Well, in other news, it is illegal to collect your own rainwater in Washington state. You MUST pay for city water. Dunno about digging a well. It all has to do with "disrupting" the watershed."
The problem stems from welfare being a federal program administered by the states. To continue to provide welfare funds to a state, the state must identify a certain percentage of absent fathers. This is so that welfare can be recovered from child support obligations. So, state legislation is passed defining the notion of a "legal father".
The usual assumption is that this is either a biological father, a legally adopting father, or a man that has publicly acted as a father figure to the child. But, the truth is more sinister: to catch the requisite number of "fathers", the laws are very lax on the process of service requirements: often the mother just has to provide an address, and paperwork is sent there. The man is usually clueless as to the claim, and his (statutorily short) window of opportunity to dispute it until it is too late. He finds out only when his wages are garnished.
In other words, caring for someone, no matter how briefly, has its consequences. Nothing new there.
No, the specific instances are a woman gets pregnant, has a child, and seeks welfare. She names a man who has never met the child or supported the woman or ever had sex with her as the father, as required by many states to get welfare, so the state can go after the father for child support to reimburse the welfare provided. She provides an address for this man. A letter is sent there giving him a limited time to disprove paternity. Problem is, it's not his address. The usual service of process is not followed, and he is clueless as to the claim until the statute of limitations expires to contest it. He finds out when his wages start to be garnished by the state. Then, it is too late.
Google "paternity fraid".
In one instance, a man was ordered to pay child support for a child that didn't even exist.
Not really, because "child support" includes statutory support requirements based on "earning ability" AS WELL AS discretionary expenses for the child's "special" needs, often determined by a "best interests" standard applied by the court to include state-provided psychologists, psychiatrists, and any number of professionals you now have to pay. In other words, the "child support" ordered can be unbounded, and exceed any ability you have to pay, resulting in your incarceration for not paying it.
So, if you can put up a credible fight, you should, particularly if you are not the biological or adoptive parent of the child.
If you are, of course, you should support your progeny to a reasonable degree. Often the amount of support ordered is unreasonable, and reflects the greatest income ever earned, rather than modern economic realities.
And yet, no insurer offers contraceptive-failure insurance (presumably for those who have been surgically sterilized: 1/600-1/2000 failure rate for men, and 1/300 for women), nor is a contract to abort in the event of contraceptive failure legally enforceable.
Further, a man can be assessed child support for a child provably not his, and jailed if he does not pay. (Google "legal father" sometime, and the lack of proper service of process to allow disputing paternity within statutory limits). I suppose this is unconstitutional, but mounting a constitutional challenge is likely beyond the financial means of many caught in this trap.
Finally, there is the case of a minor in Florida, seduced by an adult woman, who subsequently became pregnant. Florida law forbids a minor being ordered to pay child support to an adult, but as soon as he turned 18, he was hit with a a $50,000 arrears tab, and ordered to pay or go to jail.
Abstinence, and the general avoiding of women of unknown character, is the only defense a man has if he does not want to father a child or be required to financially support one.
Like what, and why couldn't you do what I did at 14: "GET A JOB!", at least for the summer?
Lesse, when I was last living in Ontario (Whitby), I made the mistake of hiring a 15 or 16 year old kid to mow my lawn in the summer. Paid him $20 a week for about 30 minutes work, lazy ass that I was to mow my own lawn. I figured that was a damn fair wage at $40/hour.
But, noooo! The neighbors, who, up until that point were rather friendly, revealed their socialist selves and complained "How dare you enslave a boy to mow your lawn! He should be playing! Clearly you are cheating on your taxes to have that much money." In never occurred to them that if they stopped buying enough beer and cigarettes each week to get drunk out of their gourds on Fridays and Saturdays and set themselves up for lung cancer in 20 years (why not? what with free health care), they too could hire a kid to mow their lawns.
They tried that in Ontario, Canada, in the 1990's. Mike Harris pushed through legislation to cut welfare benefits to those who were not participating in workfare projects.
One million unemployed formed a mob outside the parliament (legislative) buildings, arguing that having to work for a living was slavery.
Surprisingly, 97% of those who's benefits would be cut "magically" found jobs suddenly.
Socialism creates some real weird la-la land illusions in some people's heads.
If not, I have to question your willingness to incur incarceration for your principles. Not that I think it would be wrong -- I'd applaud you. But, I'm not convinced you know what you'd be in for.
If you are incarcerated for more than a few days, you will probably lose your job, which will make mounting a legal defense more difficult unless you have plenty of cash (and it hasn't been seized or your assets otherwise frozen). I presume you will not accept a plea bargain, because it appears you would rather fight. Expect that to be expensive, and drawn out. Also expect bail to be set so high that you can't effectively participate with your legal team in your defense, particularly if you're a thorn in the government's side.
I reread your comment, and one of the Colonies' issues was the fact that they were taxed without legislative representation, so yes, a majority popular vote (and majority electoral college vote) could be enough.
But, here's where I see a problem: constitutional rights don't just apply to majorities. They apply to everyone, specifically including minorities. And minorities, by definition, can't alter electoral outcomes. (I'm thinking voter minorities, not racial, religious, or ethnic ones.)
So, if an electoral minority has their constitutional rights violated, one of two things has to be true: (1) they don't have those rights because they are not recognized by the judicial arm of the elected government apparatus, or (2) the only solution to restore them can not be electoral.
The peaceful option many are suggesting is tantamount to the electoral minority becoming an electoral majority (at which point the above constraints do not apply). But that requires convincing those who do not suffer injustice to support those who do.
This probably requires several things including (1) these injustices being blatant and "obvious", and (2) some measure of risk to those currently unaffected if they do nothing. And that "risk" is probably some element of civil unrest coming from those who's rights are ignored yielding to the notion that those who are not "part of the solution" are "part of the problem".
I would think one or several million protesting peacefully would send a strong message, but it would have to be backed by votes, as well as armed resistance if the resolve were to be "tested". IOW: when "they" try to gas the crowd, the response should not be dispersal, and perhaps even isolated force.
Well, yes. Try peaceful assembly and enfranchisement first. But, when your fellow voters elect those who violate your rights, you have to ask yourself who the enemy really is.
In the end, I think some combination of peaceful demonstration, civil disobedience, and militant action are required. Consider the roles of Martin Luther Kink (a pacificst of the likes of Ghandi), Rosa Parks (a civil disobedient), and Malcom X (a militant) in the civil rights movement.
But, as for the specific number I picked: I have an ass. I pulled a number out of it. Feel free to substitute your own ass and number. Person ally, I thing somewhere between ten and twenty million is more realistic.
Dunno about that. Hitler didn't manage to kill all the Jews, though I would think that in the time it took the Allies to liberate Germany, he should have been able to, given conventional logic.
It's tragic that he was as successful as he was and triumphant that he was not more so.
That said, it's precisely the restraint of indiscriminate military force that makes guerrilla warfare so effective.
I suggest to you that 51 million Americans, armed with clubs and the odd rifle, descending on each seat of state and federal government on a few hours notice, could overthrow it. Especially with another 50 million ready in the countryside.
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have proven that conventional military does not do well against guerrilla forces. They have technological might, but not agility.
Now that's scary (an courageous) for you to admit.
I do think that a peaceful showing of numbers is necessary first. Remember, exhaust all other avenues to seek redress first. Of course, depending on the degree of corruption, they might find themselves as sitting ducks for Gitmo.
I think it's more than "the cause". I think it's the moral justification that matters: developing as objective as possible a sense of law (to replace the existing corrupt one), and having sufficiently many subscribers to it to lend some credence of neutrality and respectability, knowing full well that it is technically illegal under existing law.
At the worst, you just have an armed and aggressive "gang" that wins not through taking the moral high ground, but through sheer force. At best, you have a manifesto that truly external observers can examine and conclude you are in the right.
Look at the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution. The declaration of independence makes clear why the colonies were rejecting British rule. The U.S. Constitution sets clear limits to the government. While there is a process for it's interpretation, and revolution usurps that process, contrary to other legal frameworks (with the possible exception of the Magna Carta), it establishes those restrictions on government that can be judged by anyone to see if they are violated, not just the established judiciary.
We can all examine government action and decide if we think it is unconstitutional. While only the established courts (ultimately the supreme court), have legal weight in the present regime, it doesn't take a legal scholar to know something is corrupt when a confirmed supreme court judge (Elena Kagan) is on public record as believing that indefinite incarceration without trial may be acceptable when that is clearly disallowed in the Constitution she swore to uphold!
The bottom line is that any legal framework expressed in imprecise language is subject to linguistic hacking to achieve any political purpose, and therefore, can not be overcome by lawful means within that framework: revolution is ultimately necessary if the state does not yield to the aggrieved and continues to have their numbers grow.
The Magna Carta was significant because it first recognized limits to the King's rule, and the U.S. Constitution is unique because it recognized that the state power is not only limited, but bounded as well: with "all other rights reserved to the States and the people". In effect, these documents provide the impetus to justify the very overthrow of the governments they establish when they have become corrupt (as all concentrations of power eventually do). This does not mean they are immune from the hackery of linguistic interpretation, but it does mean that ultimately the "user" has a "plug" they can pull and they display a big arrow as the where that plug is.
Are you going to take up arms and march on Washington?
Didn't think so.
But here's a dangerous question for you to ponder (dangerous in the sense that when I asked it in another forum, I was accused of making death threats and being a terrorist):
How many people, armed, and descending on seats of government with the intent to kill treasonous legislators, judges, and executives, after deciding that no other recourse for their grievances was possible would it take for you to rise up and join them?
10? 100? A thousand? A million? A force larger than the standing military forces combined? How many?
Realize that to do this, you (a) have abandoned all hope in justice being available in the present government, and (b) have embraced the notion of dying on your feet for your beliefs instead of living on your knees: the liberty you might secure probably won't be your own. That's a heck of an altruistic stance to take.
$90k? I remember when it was $70k. In fact I once used some very tortuous tax accounting (and enlisted the services of an EA and CPA for about $750 to verify my work), to make my self subject to U.S. tax while a non-resident tax-wise, so I could (a) claim moving expenses for employment paid when I WAS a U.S. tax resident (such expenses can be deducted either when incurred or when paid); and (b) ensure I had no U.S. tax liability on the income (I paid Canadian tax on it, and there was no deduction for moving expenses in Canada).
It involved using both the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, and the non-discrimination clause in it, as well as the U.S.-Germany tax treaty to pull off, and my return, properly audited, was about 3/4 of an inch thick.
The outcome was a $7500 refund on my U.S. income tax.
Basically, it involved making myself taxable on the income I earned outside the U.S. (like a U.S. citizen would be), which made the moving expenses to earn the income deductible either when incurred or when paid, and sheltering the income from tax using the FEIE (The FTC would not have been nearly as useful).
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Yeah, well, if I ever get arrested in what I believe is a violation of my constitutional rights, every single thermonuclear weapon I smuggled into the U.S. will not be prevented from going off. Fuck 'em. If the people can't be bothered to defend my rights as their own, they are as guilty as the state.
What's this? I made a terrorist threat, you say? Really? Where?
It is a true fact that if I have not smuggled any thermonuclear weapons into the U.S., every single one of them will go off if I am arrested. And, I have every damn legal right in the world to detonate zero thermonuclear weapons on U.S. soil. So does everyone else.
Of course, if I have smuggled thermonuclear weapons into the U.S., you've got a bit of a problem, don't ya? Do you trust that they won't go off if I'm left alone, or do you hope you disarm every single one if you arrest me, for whatever reason?
How good's your intel, you "Iraq has WMD" punks?
So, what's left? You gonna throw me in Gitmo because I shot off my mouth? Fuck, if that isn't a damn good reason to actually smuggle in nukes as a strategic defense / retaliation mechanism, I dunno what is.
All because fucktard Kagan shoots off her mouth saying I don't have a right to a fair trial if the adjective "terrorist" is used to describe me. I think that's a right worth defending, and damn it, if she were dead that would be one less supreme court judge trying to take it away.
This, my friends is how revolutions happen: so many rights and freedoms are removed from the citizenry, and the law so corrupted, that the only recourse is violence. Is it too late to turn back from that eventuality?
Kagan? Oh, you mean the Supreme Court judge who publicly said that people can be held indefinitely without trial?
I think that's such arrogant disregard for the U.S. constitution that she she should be impeached immediately.
No.They don't say otherwise. They issued an "interpretation bulletin", meaning you won't be bothered until they decide otherwise. You still collect rainwater at the pleasure of the state only.
Others have provided the cites that I was, admittedly, too lazy too.
It is true that one can get an exemption, but it is very much at the discretion of the state.
Well, in other news, it is illegal to collect your own rainwater in Washington state. You MUST pay for city water. Dunno about digging a well. It all has to do with "disrupting" the watershed."
The problem stems from welfare being a federal program administered by the states. To continue to provide welfare funds to a state, the state must identify a certain percentage of absent fathers. This is so that welfare can be recovered from child support obligations. So, state legislation is passed defining the notion of a "legal father".
The usual assumption is that this is either a biological father, a legally adopting father, or a man that has publicly acted as a father figure to the child. But, the truth is more sinister: to catch the requisite number of "fathers", the laws are very lax on the process of service requirements: often the mother just has to provide an address, and paperwork is sent there. The man is usually clueless as to the claim, and his (statutorily short) window of opportunity to dispute it until it is too late. He finds out only when his wages are garnished.
In other words, caring for someone, no matter how briefly, has its consequences. Nothing new there.
No, the specific instances are a woman gets pregnant, has a child, and seeks welfare. She names a man who has never met the child or supported the woman or ever had sex with her as the father, as required by many states to get welfare, so the state can go after the father for child support to reimburse the welfare provided. She provides an address for this man. A letter is sent there giving him a limited time to disprove paternity. Problem is, it's not his address. The usual service of process is not followed, and he is clueless as to the claim until the statute of limitations expires to contest it. He finds out when his wages start to be garnished by the state. Then, it is too late.
Google "paternity fraid".
In one instance, a man was ordered to pay child support for a child that didn't even exist.
Not really, because "child support" includes statutory support requirements based on "earning ability" AS WELL AS discretionary expenses for the child's "special" needs, often determined by a "best interests" standard applied by the court to include state-provided psychologists, psychiatrists, and any number of professionals you now have to pay. In other words, the "child support" ordered can be unbounded, and exceed any ability you have to pay, resulting in your incarceration for not paying it.
So, if you can put up a credible fight, you should, particularly if you are not the biological or adoptive parent of the child.
If you are, of course, you should support your progeny to a reasonable degree. Often the amount of support ordered is unreasonable, and reflects the greatest income ever earned, rather than modern economic realities.
And yet, no insurer offers contraceptive-failure insurance (presumably for those who have been surgically sterilized: 1/600-1/2000 failure rate for men, and 1/300 for women), nor is a contract to abort in the event of contraceptive failure legally enforceable.
Further, a man can be assessed child support for a child provably not his, and jailed if he does not pay. (Google "legal father" sometime, and the lack of proper service of process to allow disputing paternity within statutory limits). I suppose this is unconstitutional, but mounting a constitutional challenge is likely beyond the financial means of many caught in this trap.
Finally, there is the case of a minor in Florida, seduced by an adult woman, who subsequently became pregnant. Florida law forbids a minor being ordered to pay child support to an adult, but as soon as he turned 18, he was hit with a a $50,000 arrears tab, and ordered to pay or go to jail.
Abstinence, and the general avoiding of women of unknown character, is the only defense a man has if he does not want to father a child or be required to financially support one.
Like what, and why couldn't you do what I did at 14: "GET A JOB!", at least for the summer?
Lesse, when I was last living in Ontario (Whitby), I made the mistake of hiring a 15 or 16 year old kid to mow my lawn in the summer. Paid him $20 a week for about 30 minutes work, lazy ass that I was to mow my own lawn. I figured that was a damn fair wage at $40/hour.
But, noooo! The neighbors, who, up until that point were rather friendly, revealed their socialist selves and complained "How dare you enslave a boy to mow your lawn! He should be playing! Clearly you are cheating on your taxes to have that much money." In never occurred to them that if they stopped buying enough beer and cigarettes each week to get drunk out of their gourds on Fridays and Saturdays and set themselves up for lung cancer in 20 years (why not? what with free health care), they too could hire a kid to mow their lawns.
Here, and a primacy cite ?here.
For more information, seek "Common Sense Revolution".
The figure of "a million" unemployed was bandied about in the popular press, though more likely, it was a million unemployed and their supporters.
They tried that in Ontario, Canada, in the 1990's. Mike Harris pushed through legislation to cut welfare benefits to those who were not participating in workfare projects.
One million unemployed formed a mob outside the parliament (legislative) buildings, arguing that having to work for a living was slavery.
Surprisingly, 97% of those who's benefits would be cut "magically" found jobs suddenly.
Socialism creates some real weird la-la land illusions in some people's heads.
If not, I have to question your willingness to incur incarceration for your principles. Not that I think it would be wrong -- I'd applaud you. But, I'm not convinced you know what you'd be in for.
If you are incarcerated for more than a few days, you will probably lose your job, which will make mounting a legal defense more difficult unless you have plenty of cash (and it hasn't been seized or your assets otherwise frozen). I presume you will not accept a plea bargain, because it appears you would rather fight. Expect that to be expensive, and drawn out. Also expect bail to be set so high that you can't effectively participate with your legal team in your defense, particularly if you're a thorn in the government's side.
I reread your comment, and one of the Colonies' issues was the fact that they were taxed without legislative representation, so yes, a majority popular vote (and majority electoral college vote) could be enough.
But, here's where I see a problem: constitutional rights don't just apply to majorities. They apply to everyone, specifically including minorities. And minorities, by definition, can't alter electoral outcomes. (I'm thinking voter minorities, not racial, religious, or ethnic ones.)
So, if an electoral minority has their constitutional rights violated, one of two things has to be true: (1) they don't have those rights because they are not recognized by the judicial arm of the elected government apparatus, or (2) the only solution to restore them can not be electoral.
The peaceful option many are suggesting is tantamount to the electoral minority becoming an electoral majority (at which point the above constraints do not apply). But that requires convincing those who do not suffer injustice to support those who do.
This probably requires several things including (1) these injustices being blatant and "obvious", and (2) some measure of risk to those currently unaffected if they do nothing. And that "risk" is probably some element of civil unrest coming from those who's rights are ignored yielding to the notion that those who are not "part of the solution" are "part of the problem".
I would think one or several million protesting peacefully would send a strong message, but it would have to be backed by votes, as well as armed resistance if the resolve were to be "tested". IOW: when "they" try to gas the crowd, the response should not be dispersal, and perhaps even isolated force.
O.K. So we have an upper bound. Do we have a lower one?
DAMN typo. Martin Luther King of course.
Well, yes. Try peaceful assembly and enfranchisement first. But, when your fellow voters elect those who violate your rights, you have to ask yourself who the enemy really is.
In the end, I think some combination of peaceful demonstration, civil disobedience, and militant action are required. Consider the roles of Martin Luther Kink (a pacificst of the likes of Ghandi), Rosa Parks (a civil disobedient), and Malcom X (a militant) in the civil rights movement.
But, as for the specific number I picked: I have an ass. I pulled a number out of it. Feel free to substitute your own ass and number. Person ally, I thing somewhere between ten and twenty million is more realistic.
Dunno about that. Hitler didn't manage to kill all the Jews, though I would think that in the time it took the Allies to liberate Germany, he should have been able to, given conventional logic.
It's tragic that he was as successful as he was and triumphant that he was not more so.
That said, it's precisely the restraint of indiscriminate military force that makes guerrilla warfare so effective.
Depends on the rebellion. The U.S. did a pretty good job when it gave the finger to King George.
But you have to fight from a position of reason, and not anger and irrationality, and establish the constraints on otherwise anarchy you would accept.
I suggest to you that 51 million Americans, armed with clubs and the odd rifle, descending on each seat of state and federal government on a few hours notice, could overthrow it. Especially with another 50 million ready in the countryside.
Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have proven that conventional military does not do well against guerrilla forces. They have technological might, but not agility.
Now that's scary (an courageous) for you to admit.
I do think that a peaceful showing of numbers is necessary first. Remember, exhaust all other avenues to seek redress first. Of course, depending on the degree of corruption, they might find themselves as sitting ducks for Gitmo.
I think it's more than "the cause". I think it's the moral justification that matters: developing as objective as possible a sense of law (to replace the existing corrupt one), and having sufficiently many subscribers to it to lend some credence of neutrality and respectability, knowing full well that it is technically illegal under existing law.
At the worst, you just have an armed and aggressive "gang" that wins not through taking the moral high ground, but through sheer force. At best, you have a manifesto that truly external observers can examine and conclude you are in the right.
Look at the U.S. Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution. The declaration of independence makes clear why the colonies were rejecting British rule. The U.S. Constitution sets clear limits to the government. While there is a process for it's interpretation, and revolution usurps that process, contrary to other legal frameworks (with the possible exception of the Magna Carta), it establishes those restrictions on government that can be judged by anyone to see if they are violated, not just the established judiciary.
We can all examine government action and decide if we think it is unconstitutional. While only the established courts (ultimately the supreme court), have legal weight in the present regime, it doesn't take a legal scholar to know something is corrupt when a confirmed supreme court judge (Elena Kagan) is on public record as believing that indefinite incarceration without trial may be acceptable when that is clearly disallowed in the Constitution she swore to uphold!
The bottom line is that any legal framework expressed in imprecise language is subject to linguistic hacking to achieve any political purpose, and therefore, can not be overcome by lawful means within that framework: revolution is ultimately necessary if the state does not yield to the aggrieved and continues to have their numbers grow.
The Magna Carta was significant because it first recognized limits to the King's rule, and the U.S. Constitution is unique because it recognized that the state power is not only limited, but bounded as well: with "all other rights reserved to the States and the people". In effect, these documents provide the impetus to justify the very overthrow of the governments they establish when they have become corrupt (as all concentrations of power eventually do). This does not mean they are immune from the hackery of linguistic interpretation, but it does mean that ultimately the "user" has a "plug" they can pull and they display a big arrow as the where that plug is.
Are you going to take up arms and march on Washington?
Didn't think so.
But here's a dangerous question for you to ponder (dangerous in the sense that when I asked it in another forum, I was accused of making death threats and being a terrorist):
How many people, armed, and descending on seats of government with the intent to kill treasonous legislators, judges, and executives, after deciding that no other recourse for their grievances was possible would it take for you to rise up and join them?
10? 100? A thousand? A million? A force larger than the standing military forces combined? How many?
Realize that to do this, you (a) have abandoned all hope in justice being available in the present government, and (b) have embraced the notion of dying on your feet for your beliefs instead of living on your knees: the liberty you might secure probably won't be your own. That's a heck of an altruistic stance to take.
$90k? I remember when it was $70k. In fact I once used some very tortuous tax accounting (and enlisted the services of an EA and CPA for about $750 to verify my work), to make my self subject to U.S. tax while a non-resident tax-wise, so I could (a) claim moving expenses for employment paid when I WAS a U.S. tax resident (such expenses can be deducted either when incurred or when paid); and (b) ensure I had no U.S. tax liability on the income (I paid Canadian tax on it, and there was no deduction for moving expenses in Canada).
It involved using both the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, and the non-discrimination clause in it, as well as the U.S.-Germany tax treaty to pull off, and my return, properly audited, was about 3/4 of an inch thick.
The outcome was a $7500 refund on my U.S. income tax.
Basically, it involved making myself taxable on the income I earned outside the U.S. (like a U.S. citizen would be), which made the moving expenses to earn the income deductible either when incurred or when paid, and sheltering the income from tax using the FEIE (The FTC would not have been nearly as useful).