Should I get Dual Citizenship?

Fernando: I have followed your blog for a couple of years and look forward to every new post.  Your move to Ireland got me thinking about dual citizenship. 

Should I try to obtain dual citizenship in Ireland?   I am a natural born US citizen of Irish ancestry who qualifies for Irish citizenship.  I am married and 50 years old with three nearly grown up children. I have made changes over the last few years in response to the global economic crisis, and understand that our system could change drastically.  I also have faith in our (US) American culture and government.  I think the US is the last best hope for the future and don’t plan to abandon my home country. I am eligible to be an Irish citizen.  My wife and children are not eligible for Irish citizenship.  Are there advantages for me to apply for dual US and Ireland citizenship?  Would I be able to shelter my family in Ireland as a dual citizen if things went very bad in the US? Thanks.

John in Florida

The answer to your question is YES. YES. YES.
Forget everything you’ve ever read about survival, preparedness and the end of the word. Dual citizenship is by far the most important thing you can do to prepare for disasters of large magnitude. Think Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany and countries shutting their border to avoid conflict. Think Bosniaks stuck in sieged Sarajevo, and the UN not allowing you to leave unless you proved citizenship somewhere else. You want something more relative to current events? Think post world war or post civil war in Spain like my grandparents and my father went through, leaving Spain to a country that on one hand welcomed immigrants, but on the other treated you like a second hand citizen. Think losing your job in USA, not finding one for months, even years. If the economic situation in USA gets much worse you’d have a right to go to any European country, and some I assure you would be much better than a run down State in USA. While the welfare system has been abused time and again by people that just don’t want to work, it is true that if you honestly cant find a job a little help is welcomed. In Europe you would have that help getting settled, and free health care.
Let me put it this way: When I was leaving Argentina I left with a couple suitcases as all my worldly belongings, and even that I could have dropped and leave with my jacket and what was in my pockets. You know the only things I couldn’t have gone without?
1)The plane ticket of course, to get the hell out of there.
2)The savings to  get started elsewhere.
3)The Argentine passport that allowed me to leave Argentina, and most of all, the EU passport, the citizenship that would allow me to reside in any European country.
In retrospective I if I lost everything else, I could have gone to a friend’s house for a few days, get some money borrowed or loaned. The only thing I couldn’t have improvised or get in some other way was the European Citizenship.
Do get it now. As my wise grandfather said, having gone through relocating without having one himself.  “Just have it, even if you never end up leaving I just want you to have it”.
If you do it now its just a matter of some paperwork, spending a few bucks, some time and little else, it may take a few months but you eventually get it, and if you ever truly need it like I did, you’ll be so grateful of having that option.
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FerFAL

Survive2Day & FerFAL Interview

This is the second interview I did with Ed from Survive2Day. Another nice conversation covering a range of topics. Hope you guys like it,


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FerFAL

64 year-old Can of Food still Edible

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16852830
The link includes a video of the actual testing by experts and the owner of the can of lard , 87 year old Hans Feldmeier, who was handed the can of lard by US troops in Germany.
Hans took the can to field experts who opened it and after determining that it was still edible, spread it over a few crackers and ate it!
If you go by the textbook, cans of food last a couple years and little more. If you go by actual experience, there’s cans that have been found underwater dating from the civil war that were still edible.
In theory, if the food was canned and sealed inside when sterilized, there should be no bacteria in there to turn it bad.
While some acid vegetables may be the exception, the truth is that properly canned food lasts way beyond its expiration or “best by” date.
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FerFAL

Security and New to Preparedness

Dear Ferfal,

I read your book and I’m a big fan of your blog.  Who would have thought! I used to be entirely against guns, as I liked to think of myself as a progressive, civilized, professional and peaceful gal.  The reality and society that surrounds us, though, is anything but civilized and peace-loving. The thing is that no one takes the trouble to teach you the way the world works.  We grow up in some sort of fantasy land where we’re made believe that if we do good, we’ll receive good. That is simply not the case in the real world. As I see the effects of the economic recession unfolding before my eyes; global political unrest (are we heading for another war?), the rise of crime and violence, the sinking middle class, etc., etc. it only makes sense to be prepared. I can’t seem to get my mind off of the savage murder and rape of Dr. Petit’s family in Connecticut. I wish in vain he had read your book.  I find myself thinking, did the family have an alarm in their home?  Did they have a steel door?  A gun or any weapon that could have been used to protect their daughters?  That family could be any family in US suburbia where people feel “safe” in their upscale neighborhoods and would never consider getting “paranoid” over security.  What an illusion! I can only hope that other families learn from this horrible crime and become better prepared. As of the two scum bags convicted of their murder, I hope they live in misery until executed.  Not that it would bring back the precious lives of those murdered and that’s the true tragedy of it all.

I only wish more women read your book, so they could take charge of their safety and be more self-reliant. I feel so much more aware now after reading your book and your blog and can’t thank you enough.

Sincerely,

Carol 

Hi Carol,
I really enjoy most aspects of survival and preparedness, from defensive training to researching disasters or whats the latest gadget out there and how useful it is, but you know what really makes my day? Emails like yours.
Knowing that I helped someone in one way or another to see things from a different angle, not paranoid or scared but with a better understanding of how the world around us is both wonderful  but also at times dangerous, and that the best way to live enjoyable lives is to be ready for both, that’s what gives me energy to continue working. That’s why I started writing and “spreading the message” so to speak in the first place.
A lot of people that are into survival and preparedness are well educated professionals, men and women that have traveled the world and have seen how wonderful but also how cruel it can be at times. We can be the nicest guys (or gals) and still pack a gun and know how to use it, one doesn’t exclude the other by any means. I do believe also that if you do good it does come back at you, just like if you do evil instead. In my opinion its not about karma but almost like a  physics principle in which the reaction is similar to the action but in opposite direction, meaning towards you. Always trying to be as good as possible I’ve had more good returning my way than evil. Still I also comprehend that just like there’s people of notable kindness, there’s people of a type of brutality and cruelty not many can fully grasp.
There’s countless other stories like the Petit family but they don’t get much attention in the media or people quickly forget about them. Even if from a purely technical aspect we can analyze the mistakes made in terms of security that lead to such tragic ends, not one of them is to blame for what happened to them.
Eventually you may see the press starting to blame the victims, something too common in Argentina. “He  fought back” “He resisted to a robbery”, almost tying to sound similar to resisting a lawful arrest. We must see these moves for what they are, and usually they are techniques used by the establishment to somehow justify what’s unjustifiable. You may start seeing it already. Its mostly gang violence, it happens close to ghettos, close to the border. That murder took place in a run down part of the city. None of them should be excuses.
The one thing we can do is try to learn from these tragic events, these brutal murders so as to not become victims ourselves. Without becoming paranoid there’s always things we can do to become self reliant safety wise.
1)Installing an alarm or having one installed (and putting it to use).
2)Replacing existing locks with better, more resistant ones.
3)Getting a dog capable of pulling guard dog duties. You don’t need the biggest, meanest animal, but make informed decisions when getting a new pet. A video on this is coming up soon.
4)Getting in fighting shape. Take defensive fighting classes. Try several out until you find a martial arts club you feel comfortable with. What’s the best in my opinion? Thai boxing and jujitsu combined with defensive fighting training which includes firearms and knives. If there’s not enough time/money for all that know that doing some will always be better than doing nothing at all.
5)Be more aware of your surroundings, especially during critical times such as entering or leaving your house or vehicle, and incorporate security habits to your daily life. This can be as simple as taking a closer look before opening the garage door, not opening the door to strangers no matter how insistent they are and always remembering to lock your doors.
Again, thank you so much for your email and I’m glad I’ve been of help,
Take care,
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FerFAL

3rd world cities in USA ?

Thanks to the reader that sent me this link:
http://www.thedaily.com/page/2…..antes-1-5/

Detroit keeps getting worse. While the response time isn’t that bad in some cases and awful in others, at least they are still answering calls. In many parts of Buenos Aires cops simply won´t show up, period, and it happened to me in the rather nice area where I used to live.
As the world keeps “moving” these situations will become more common in USA and other countries where it was unthinkable before.
This is one of the reasons why we prepare folks, why we cover security so extensively in this blog as an important part of modern survival.
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FerFAL