Well... if it isn't the consequences of my own actions...

 In his paper on the Trop Principle, Brettschneider argues that the rights of citizenship must be preserved for criminals, even for those who are currently imprisoned. Essentially, Brettschneider believes that an individual cannot be expatriated just because he or she has broken the law. He addresses several objections to this view, including objections based on individuals’ rights to renounce their own citizenship voluntarily.


Brettschneider concedes that each individual has the right to revoke citizenship in one country in order to gain citizenship in another. This renunciation of citizenship does not violate the Trop principle. Those who claim that states can expatriate citizens who commit criminal acts liken this choice to exchange one citizenship for another to the choice to revoke one’s citizenship by committing a crime. Brettschneider believes that the two choices are not analogous. Importantly, in the first scenario, the state is not acting to take citizenship away from the individual–it is the individual who is voluntarily relinquishing citizenship. In the second scenario, committing a crime cannot be considered voluntarily relinquishing one’s citizenship in Brettschneider’s view. Therefore, since “no such renunciation is made” (Brettschneider 148), the criminal must retain the rights of citizenship.


I think there is room, using ideas proposed by Rawls in the unpublished manuscript we read, to push back on Brettschneider’s claim. One of Rawls’s defenses for taxes is that rational actors can lay plans for their own lives with the consideration of taxes in mind. In other words, each individual knows as they are making their choices that a portion of their income or wealth will be collected by the state, and each individual is a rational actor who is expected to make the choice that best serves his interests given this information. If as a society we agree that criminals should be expatriated and that is public knowledge, then rational actors can make informed decisions about what is in their best interest. 


The same problem that exists for Rawls’s argument exists for this argument as well: what if the rules of the game change during a person’s lifetime? For example, what if I am born into a society where the tax rate I can expect to face is 10%? I will probably decide it is in my best interest to make a substantial amount of income. If, after I’ve made my plans as a rational actor, the tax rate is jacked up to 50%, hasn’t that interfered with my ability to make a rational choice based on knowledge of the systems in place in society? Similarly, what if I am born into a society where the consensus is that criminals cannot be expatriated? Then, by the time I commit a crime, the consensus has changed and decided that criminals can be expatriated? This would also have violated my ability to make a well-informed rational choice. 


In some ways, my argument may sound like a contract theory. However, I am not arguing that “we must abide by society’s rules in return for its benefits” (148). I don’t believe the state must expatriate criminals. I do believe that in a society where the consequences of actions are publicized and fixed (i.e. they don’t change over time), each individual should expect to face the consequences of the actions they take. If it were widely known that making a million dollars meant the state would take half of that income to redistribute it, then individuals would have to accept that consequence of making a million dollars. If it were widely known that criminals are expatriated by the state, then individuals would have to accept that they would be expatriated should they commit a crime. If this were the case, then I think Brettschneider would be wrong in saying that commiting a crime doesn’t constitute making a voluntary choice to renounce one’s citizenship.


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