Peter Thiel Should Lose His American Citizenship

Peter Thiel is a billionaire who, like Elon Musk, made his money with PayPal. Originally from Germany, Thiel became a US citizen as a child.

Thiel is a gay, women's-rights-hating, Ayn-Rand-loving libertarian who secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker because they had outed him a few years before.

Thiel is also a creepy vampire-wannabe, mortally afraid of aging and dying. He wants to inject the blood of the young to preserve his own craven existence. It brings to mind visions of Erszebet Bathory, the infamous blood countess who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth.

Thiel is one of the few in Silicon Valley who supported Donald Trump's candidacy. He served on Trump's transition team.

It has now come to light that Thiel has New Zealand citizenship. He got it in 2011, apparently by buying someone off. He didn't meet the residency requirement of spending 1,350 days in the previous five years, because he spends most of his time in California.

Why does Thiel want to be a citizen of New Zealand? He says it's a "utopia," which seems odd. The politics of New Zealand are much more liberal than the United States -- New Zealand ticked off the United States in the 1980s with its nuclear-free zone policy. Maybe it's because they filmed the Lord of the Rings movies there.

I have a friend from New Zealand, and I went there to attend his wedding. It's a nice place, reminiscent of England or Wales, with rolling green hills dotted with sheep. But it's just another first-world country. And it's not a utopia -- too many earthquakes.

The real reason Thiel got New Zealand citizenship appears to be that he plans to flee there when the US economy melts down -- which is now much more likely given Trump's disastrous policies -- or the world is hit by a pandemic -- more likely because of Trump's anti-science, anti-vaccine policies -- or some other doomsday scenario -- like that idiot Donald Trump getting elected president and starting a nuclear war with China or North Korea.

A lot of rich Silicon Valley types have this mindset, according to one of Thiel's VC pals:

Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more. Once you’ve done the Masonic handshake, they’ll be, like, ‘Oh, you know, I have a broker who sells old ICBM silos, and they’re nuclear-hardened, and they kind of look like they would be interesting to live in.’

In his inauguration speech Donald Trump said, “the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America.” Clearly Peter Thiel does not have total allegiance to the United States.

There are people who have dual citizenship because they were born to American parents in another country: for example, Ted Cruz was born in Canada. This was an embarrassment to Cruz because so many Republicans had insisted that Obama wasn't an American because he had a Kenyan father, but Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father. Both claims were bogus: both Cruz and Obama's mothers were American, so Cruz and Obama are Americans. In any case, you can't question the loyalty of people born into circumstances beyond their control.

So, even though Peter Thiel was born in Germany, I wouldn't have questioned his loyalty to the United States. Up until I found out he bought New Zealand citizenship.

When foreigners become naturalized American citizens they take an oath to this country:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

By choosing to buy New Zealand citizenship and sell out America as an adult in his forties, Thiel is in violation of this oath. He plans to flee the United States to New Zealand in his private jet when the going gets tough.

Thiel should be stripped of his American citizenship, retroactive to 2011, when he became a New Zealand citizen. That would also mean that, as a foreigner, the money he spent to get Donald Trump elected was all illegal. And Thiel should go to jail.

But nothing will happen to Thiel. Because he's rich. And in Trump's America, the rich get whatever they want.