Jeff Knaebel tore up his US passport out of hatred for the state and became a stateless person wandering through the villages in India. In case you’re thinking he must be some kind of hippy, Knaebel is a former CEO of a company and an engineer trained at Cornell University.

“The one actual, real and direct action that I could take was to break the paper chains that were holding me as a slave to the Empire. I tore up my U.S. passport at the Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, New Delhi. Rather than arrest me, the Indian police told me that I was free to roam anywhere in India, and to call them for help if I ran into any trouble.

The great Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, “Man is moral choice.” This is what I have been calling the Law of Moral Causation. By unilateral renunciation of my citizenship, I chose to assert my responsibility by denying that the U.S. government could act in my name and on my behalf.

Here is the quotation of a freedom fighter in Mexico which seems equally relevant to the India of today:

“Why is it necessary to kill and to die so that you should listen to Ramona, seated here beside me, tell you that Indian women want to live, want to study, want hospitals, want medicines, want schools, want food, want respect, want justice, want dignity? ~ Insurgente Marcos to President of Mexico Salinas after the cease fire in Chiapas, San Cristobal de las Casas, February 1994 (Our Word Is Our Weapon, Seven Stories Press).

I plan to continue to present to the State and to humanity the question of whether we are ready to permit a peace-loving man to exist and to move about freely, without tracking tags and permission-to-exist documents. Or have we been so thoroughly conditioned that everyone except third world villagers and tribal people is destined to live in the big surveillance sheep pens constructed by states all over the world.

Hat-tip to Lew Rockwell for running the article on his site.

My Comment

Bravo for the gesture.  But as an Indian by birth I must say I wouldn’t advise any expat Indian to try this. The Indian police will treat you very differently from a vellakara (this is Tamil for ‘white man’ ).  A friend of mine, a graduate of one of the Indian Institutes of Technology, spent the year after his graduation roaming India, minus “English language privilege” – i.e. he pretended he didn’t speak it. He said he saw a side of India he hadn’t experienced until then.

Besides, the cynic in me wants to know –  did Knaebel dispose of his assets before this gesture….or after? And if so, how? I’m sorry if my questions seem derisive. They’re meant respectfully.

I feel the same way about some…some... elements in the “patriot” movement.

Did civil liberties and the police state work them up so much when George Bush was in power? Is it civil liberties or the thought of an African-American president that incenses some people?

I’d say in a few cases it’s the latter….