Our Fascist Prison State

Talking with Phil in Germany last night--Phil whom I have been urging, nagging even, to get his German citizenship, and, incidentally, to renounce his American citizenship--I learned something utterly appalling, and new apparently, about being the captive subject ("citizen") of the United States of America (without Due Process, Habeas Corpus or the Rule of Law):  The U.S. State Department (by fiat, and by no right or authority ever made explicit) now charges any American who wishes to renounce his citizenship a "documentation processing" fee of $2,350.  Of course, I shouted over the long wire from Honolulu to Franconia, "Renounce it, and don't pay them!"  But Phil says, or implies (I don't think he's really sure about the technical legality of it) that the German state will not grant him citizenship unless he pays the unprecedented, illegal, extortionate and unconstitutional fee for the renunciation of his U.S. citizenship; not, at least, without his hiring a lawyer and spending many thousand Euros arguing a hopeless Constitutional Cause against an Evil Corporate Entity that knows neither Constitution nor Law.  Did I say damn the United States of America?  I mean God fucking damn them to bloody Hell.