Jeff Kneable was living in India where he committed self immolation on 28 January 2011. A man of principles, he called America "the world's leading merchant of death and destruction." This Thread is a tribute to this great man who gave up US citizenship protesting the US atrocities against humanity.


Declaration of Renunciation and Severance of U.S. Citizenship
by Jeff Knaebel, Sovereign Individual of the Earth

This Declaration, made at New Delhi, India on 19 June 2009, WITNESSETH:

To the people of this Earth, my fellow human beings, my brothers and sisters, in memory of Black Elk and Chief Joseph, and with special respect to the Grandmothers and Elders of all indigenous communities,

I, Jeff Knaebel, hereby make this Declaration of Severance and Dissolution of all bonds between myself and the Government of the United States of America. I renounce my birth certificate - I renounce my citizenship - and reject all claims of whatsoever nature made by the United States against me. I am not government property, and I am not a criminal. I am a peace-loving human being who is finished with being a slave to the Corporate Warfare State. I am not a citizen of any Government. I renounce all of them.

I hereby destroy my United States passport by which the United States government claims control of my movement upon this earth, and thus lays claim upon my right to exist. I will place the shredded remains of my passport upon the monument of Mahatma Gandhi. I have chosen this monument because it is a symbol that all mankind can recognize: of nonviolent resistance to immoral, corrupt, and violent Governments.

By this deliberate act of rebellion and sedition, I hope to free myself and alert mankind to the dangers it has created by obeying Governments of the world. My refusal to remain a tax-compliant accomplice to State murder will be considered treason against the United States. The choice is this, or treason against human life itself. My life is not about supporting the cold blooded murder of women and children.

No permission is required to renounce that which I never sought in the first place, for which I never entered a contract, and which is imposed upon me against my will. Having declared myself not a citizen, I am therefore not a citizen. Citizenship is either voluntary, or it is forcible slavery.

The United States government is incomprehensibly malevolent and destructive. It takes our money, our identities, and our lives. It gives us back corruption, war, heinous crime, and lies. This government has no moral right to exist. It ought to be abolished without further human bloodshed.

The Nation State is a criminal organization which must be opposed in its very concept. It is impossible to reform a system that is built upon a foundation of lies and violence -- one whose health and continuance depends upon endless war. The system must be altogether abolished. It is irredeemably evil.

The State represents a terminal disease of human consciousness that is anti-life, anti-ethics, and suicidal for the human species. It is a sick addictive co-dependency between its citizens and parasitic lying murdering psychopathic politicians.

Blind obedience to incompetent, deceitful, violent and morally depraved authority is a clear case of mental disease. Eckhart Tolle, Gopi Krishna and other morally advanced beings have diagnosed the United States government as pathologically criminally insane.

All political authority is arbitrary: arbitrary as to the form it takes; arbitrary as to the boundaries it establishes; arbitrary as to the limits of its jurisdiction; and arbitrary as to the taxation it collects. If one refuses to bow, to obey, to pay one's taxes, to use Government travel documents, one will ultimately be placed in jail, or die resisting arrest.

Even in its most equitable form, it is impossible for government to disassociate itself from evil. The State has been conceived in violence and is maintained by lies and violence. Its every act can only be criminal. Unless the right to ignore the State is recognized, its citizens become tainted accomplices in its deeds.

From the most democratic to the most totalitarian form of government there is ultimately no difference among the powers they exercise. The essence of the State is the threat and use of deadly force against those who choose not to comply with its edicts.

No Government rightfully owns the territory its monopolizes. It has stolen possession of whatever land it lays claims to. Everything it has, the State has stolen or plundered. It prevents peaceful people from establishing their own voluntary cooperative economic and social relationships. The purpose of assigning nationality is to control a mass of captive taxpayers in order to maintain the large military establishment required to keep a citizenry in a state of fearful submission to the Power Structure of money.

Why should a system of structurally compulsively violent political authority be preferred to a cooperative system in which human beings live according to the Natural Law of equal liberty? A coercive government has no legitimate authority over me. None. Its only authority comes through the barrel of a gun.

Is the arbitrary "legal" construct of the Corporate State more precious than life? Is this guns-and-steel lifeless structure more precious than living, breathing beings? This killing machine fabricated of cunning deceitful words of legally piggily on corporate parchment... Are we living beings or abstract symbols to be manipulated by the Money Power? What is the "National Interest," other than the transfer of wealth and influence to the power elite? What about humanity's interest?

I write against the oblivion of humanity. I act in quest of goodness, beauty and truth, that we may yet live.

I am not Government property. I bid farewell to the United States Government and to the citizenship it has imposed upon me against my will. I love life too much to be forced to participate in its murder.

The United States government is a stain upon humanity. It is a grotesque distortion of human relations and the human conscience. It is ugly beyond the power of words to describe. Only its end product speaks clearly for what it is and what it does. "Shock and Awe" death raining from the sky. Children's blood flowing in the streets. Body parts strewn across wedding festival grounds. A human genome corrupted by depleted uranium and agent orange. Hiroshima. Los Alamos Lab. The science of death versus the art of life. Torture. Rape. Ecocide. Endless heinous crime. The most terrible Merchant of Death in human history. Human species suicidal.

If you, people of the world, wish to support Government, then so be it. But leave me alone. As a peaceful individual I reject your authority imposed by violence. I reject all Government claims of legitimacy. You and your Government do not have the right to do the things that you do. Foremost among these tax-and-public debt financed activities are the waging of war; the conscription of soldiers; and the expenditure of citizens bread labor upon armaments which by now can destroy our earth many times over. I call for an end to these activities. I will not support such activities with my life, my money, or my energy.

The laws of our natural world, the laws of the Great Spirit, the five precepts of the Buddha, are morally and practically superior to political laws. You must not kill and I must not kill. We must not support killing. We must love our neighbors as we love ourselves. As the Hopi have said, "From this one commandment, to respect and revere life, come all the other commandments: to tell the truth, to share with others, to life together in mutual support, to take care of our children and old people, the sick and strangers, friends and enemies, to abstain from intoxicants and adultery, not to cheat, steal, or covet."

It is up to the individual to discern his duty to his fellowmen and to act accordingly. No other can know my moral conscience, let alone "represent" it in decisions of war and peace. How can another "represent" me in voting to murder children? The first duty of love is to do no harm. Therefore my duty of love is to renounce the State, to withdraw from it, to quit it, to abandon it, to refuse to pay its taxes, to refuse participation in its charade of corporate money controlled elections, and to live my own life in search of truth and righteousness.

What do you do when you awaken to the awfulness of the lies of the State and the State of the lie? How does one negotiate with pathological liars? How does one come to peace with his tax payment hiring of cold blooded murder for oil and money?

Against whom, then, shall I commit treason? The brotherhood of man? My rational mind and common sense? My moral conscience? Or the United States government? I prefer treason against the arbitrarily imposed rule of an organized crime syndicate to treason against humanity. To suffer in tax compliant silence the heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the United States would be to negate whatever is within me that can be called human.

The shredding of my government permission-to-exist documents is offered as a prayer that the government of the United States -- perceived to be a criminal organization of incomprehensible scope -- may be without bloodshed dissolved and abolished from this earth forever.

I no longer have a Government name; I have no country, no travel papers, no passport, and no Government identification. Under the law of every Government, I am an illegal human being. Against this arbitrary "illegality" I claim my right to exist as a free and sovereign individual.

What man -- or group of men -- can declare another to be "illegal?" Such men, who cannot give life, would yet take it, as lying murderers in God's own temple. For Power, there is no tomorrow. There are no grandchildren. Of the good earth, there is none. There is only Power. Persons who aspire to this are degraded, deranged, diseased. We are insane to submit to rule by the depraved.

What shall be done with me?

If deported to the United States, the Government will subject me to draconian penalties. Having destroyed my passport, having renounced my citizenship, having made this Declaration, I have become a seditious rebel to the United States Government. The United States will have no choice but to harass, persecute, and ultimately jail me for speaking truth to power.

On the one hand, the natural wish to live, to grow, to move about, to be free, to act as a man. On the other hand, in order to live in this manner with the ordinary amenities of livelihood, I am forced by taxation to finance the murder of children who have a sacred right to life -- innocent small children who cannot conceive of the wish to harm me.

There comes a time when the abuses are so great, the mindless destruction so wanton, the suffering so stupidly unnecessary, that one must resist the Power of rulership with his life. I love Life too much to participate in its murder.

I bid you farewell, those who would remain in voluntary bondage. Go about your life peacefully, respecting yourself, all others, and the earth upon which we live. Remember that means is to end as seed is to tree. A violent means can never produce a good end. The truth shall set us free. My efforts shall not have been in vain. Right always overcomes might, even though I may not live to see the day.

Whatever happens to me, may you remember my message: Awaken from your slumber. Realize that Government depends upon your consent. You control yourself. You can withdraw your consent.

We must recover Respect -- for life, and for each other. Civilizations that get off the Path of Respect do not last, because when a people get off the path, they also remove themselves from the circle of life.

My prayer is to love and to serve. From my heart I seek to act in a good way, in a sacred way, for the benefit of many, in support of life, that the seventh generation of children may yet live and be happy.

The "why" of what I do is put completely to rest by the statement, "I love." The final answer to any question about my actions is "I love." What is the value of human life -- this is the real question.

Executed at New Delhi this 19th day of June 2009

Jeff Knaebel

"The Nation State is a criminal organization which must be opposed in its very concept."

What a man he must have been!! I read this declaration whenever get time. what are your view dear fellows!

Just another man who had more money than sense. There is no doubt that the US has done much for its citizens and for proof, he needs only to take a look at the poverty n other India, the country he was living in. He may call the US a criminal welfare state, but the truth is that the leaders of the United States, through their actions, whether good or bad, have secured a good life for their people. If I could, I would do the same for my own people in Pakistan.

My friend america has created too much enemies. Her foreign policy only states "live by eliminating others and not by cooperating with others" The current principle of the world is to live in peace with every country even enemies by protecting own interests and american government is following the opposite one. America is better as an enemy and worse as a friend. And it cannot stand long with its current foreign policy.

Please tell me which enemies America has except backward countries led by dictators like Cuba, Pakistan, Iran, Venezuela and N.Korea? Iran and Venezuela are surviving on their oil, but still poor. Russia and the US are hardly enemies anymore, though they still don't agree on many issues and China has a annual trade of almost $500 billion with the US. The world laughs at nations like Pakistan and N.Korea...

China`s trade with US is more than this you mentioned but if America stops trade, it will provide little harm to china because chna already has big markets allover the world but it will provide much harm to US as they have become somewhat dependent on chinese products. Every country cares for its own interests. And Russia is really a big enemy to US and vetoing every US effort along with china to have a strong hold in world.

The US is not dependent on China for any thing important; the biggest imports are oil seeds and fruits and power generating equipment. The US can do without importing anything at all from China although prices will obviously go up. On the other hand, Chinese economy is totally export oriented and would suffer much more if exports to the US were stopped. In fact, with the ongoing crises in the EU, the Chinese growth rate has already taken a hit as exports fell. Anyways, both countries depend on each other and when the biggest issue between two nations is that of currency manipulation, they can hardly be called enemies.


You are confusing differing national interests and a general dislike with enmity. Vetoing American resolutions such as the one on Syria doesn't mean they are their enemies. They will never be friends, but their relationship has come a long way from the 1960s.

US cannot stand on itself as its more than 50% of energy resources are imported and she has to depend on imports unless she finds any alternate energy resource. And China has made the world dependent on its products with low prices.


Chicago summit and US conference to check the missile technology in the world was mocked by russia by just launching the world`s best missile to counter US missile defence system just after 4 days of that conference. These are another two examples apart from syrian issue. And Russia assumes america as its major opponent in curbing russia`s energy resources in central asia.

Your figures are wrong, in the field of energy, the US imports less than 30%. Also, China does not supply oil/coal/gas to the US so the point is irrelevant. The US imports a lot of goods from China, but nothing that is essential to its survival. Chinese growth on the other hand is almost entirely export-driven.

No matter how you try to put it, China is not an enemy of the US. In fact, the recently conducted Pew survey found that 39% of the Chinese said the Chinese relationship with the US was of cooperation (a drop from 68%) and only 18% said it was hostile. On a side note, ONLY 31% had a favorable view of Pakistan and only 23% had a favorable view of India (according to Dawn, the Chinese have never had a very favorable view of Pakistanis).

Can you please provide the link, because I'm not aware of the Chicago summit you are talking about. Anyways, as I said earlier, Russia and the US are rivals and always will be, but they are no longer enemies. I'd say there is a much, much greater trust deficit between India and Pakistan then between Russia and the US.

US energy imports in december 2011 were 60% of total consumption and uptill now, they are no less than 56%. source http://www.eia.gov/

You might be familiar with NATO summit, also called chicago summit. You can google it, it will provide much information.