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News like this ... makes me want to move to the most remote tropical island in the world and set up a benevolent technocracy. Who's with me?

About 20,000 people, that's who. Check out the Free State Project in which 20K people plan to move to one of the lesser-populated US states en masse, register to vote, and begin changing that state into a bastion for freedom.

I think I need to start my own country (think of the exodus from Battletech). No RIAA, no DMCA, no waste of our lives to get better profits on oil.
Get one!

Since the "Neo-Conservatives" (read: Bushite big military-indusrial complex goons) have co-opted true conservativism, it does get confusing. Nowadays, the old conservative view you are talking about is called "paleo-conservative."

You may find useful this article that offers nicely simplified definitions of the various political belief systems:

And even better, if you are curious about where you stand, try this Ideology Selector that gives you feedback about how well your views "fit" with each of the wide range of political beliefs discussed:

It is a very well done test. I've taken it and recommended it to many of my friends, and it has been very accurate with its picks.

The test asks you "Yes/No/Not Sure" questions like:
Do you support NAFTA? Should immigration into the US be greatly reduced? Do you support state lotteries as a means of raising revenue? ETC...
And then asks: "What priority do you place on your selection?" (High/Medium/Low) to balance the test even better.

I was surprised to see that I had a strong paleo-conservative leaning, even though it ranked me most likely to be paleo-libertarian. (Which I believe is very accurate. I am signed up for the Free State Project if that gives you a hint about my views.)

Give it a try. It can be a real eye-opener... (Especially to find out what your friends and family think!)

Indeed, the feds don't care about state marijuana laws and people and groups have been busted despite thinking they were safe. The Oakland Cannibas Club is one such victim. However, it's not entirely useless to pass these laws: most small-time breakers of such laws are busted by local cops. In fact, though I know many, many people who've paid fines and even gone to jail for pot possesion/ distribution- I don't know a single one who was busted by feds.

Check out the Free State Project if you feel that states/cities should be able to exclusively govern their own wherever the "crime" doesn't cross jurisdictions. Definately check the project out if you think your government should do little more than protecting citizens from assault.

So join the Free State Project.

Where do I sign up? :)

No need for the free state project when you can start from scratch with your own floating city.

(Of course, engineering on this scale will become magnitudes easier when bottom-up manufacturing replaces the ages old top-down bulktech.)

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Heck yeah! Join the Free State Project and vote for New Hampshire! Free State Project

Vote Libertarian, who seem to be some of the only people that truly care about our freedoms given to us by the founders of our country.

Move.

Things like this get me thinking more and more about the Free State Project

Join the Free State Project! It might be too late for even a full state to oppose the federal government, but I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit by and watch my freedoms disappear. This is the last hope for freedom in America. http://www.freestateproject.org (new window)

I have a erotic picture of myself when I was 15. I took this picture with a webcam for a girl I liked, it involves only me. That picture is technically child porn (though I'm unclear if it was illegal for me to view it then, and it is illegal for me to possess it now. That blows my mind.

My parents have a picture of me naked that clearly shows my genitals. Technically that could be child porn. I'm embarrased by the picture yes, but it should not be child porn.

even if you are totally against the possession (as opposed to creation) of child porn, shouldn't those pictured have a right to I don't know, sanction their own pictures?

Statutory rape bugs me for similar reasons. I'm sorry, but if they were abused, then prosecute them. But why is it illegal to have sex with a willing partner? Coercion is handled by sexual abuse and rape laws, so why criminalize a victimless crime?

It's then hypocrisy to say that two minors having sex aren't commiting a crime? Is one of the hidden powers of being an adult, along with voting and such, the ability to turn normal sex (between minors) to rape? Basically I'm against victimless crimes. If something wrong happened, like coercion or abuse, then it's a crime already. Maybe I'll join that Free State Project>. I'm sick and tired of being told things that don't harm anybody should be criminal.

Gryftir

I struggle with the pro-drug perception (I should say anti-drug-regulation views) of the Libertarian Party. But it's hard to argue with a platform that wants MORE freedom - and no other party is promising this. Unfortunately, I still feel obligated to cast my votes for the most freedom-oriented Republicans (or Democrats), until the Libertarian Party has a chance of winning, but how can you knock the party that advocates more FREEDOM?

I liked their Quiz to see where your beliefs lie.

Unfortunately, this post will probably be added to my FBI file. :(

I still think all the geeks should collect in one state and make their own laws.

Sounds like you'd be interested in the Free State Project. They've thought about what you propose in some depth.

Perhaps this would interest you.

I read your journal entry here

Are you aware of the Free State Project?

Won't happen unless people force it to happen. Also look at the Free State Project as a practical way to make it happen (on a smaller scale). There's also my suggestion that free-thinking people who believe in human rights out-copulate those who don't :D.

For those of you that don't know, this is something that author Marshall T. Savage proposed in his "Millenium Project", a book in which he set out a plan for how human beings can colonize the universe. Though I think he's far-fetched, the plan to build world-wide floating cities on top of hydrolical power-generating hexagons is feasible.

Check out information on the Millenial Project here or here.

This also brings me to the interesting Free State project, mentioned on Libertarian Candidate Rachel Mill's Homepage which links to The Free State Project. Interestingly, Rachel Mills decided to raise money for her run for office by selling pushup calendars of the female Libertarian candidates. Yep, Libertarians stand up for your rights and (some of them) do it while looking good too. A much better way to raise money than what the corrupt Democrats and Republicans do, which is by accepting tacit bribes from special interest groups.

So if you need to re-sign up, we're back on the old server and the scripts are working just fine. http://www.freestateproject.org/join.htm

From http://www.freestateproject.org/strategies.htm

A lot of the argument here is from the example of the Parti Quebecois up in Canada, basically arguing that since 100,000 PQ members were able to obtain a majority in the provincial parliament for an area of 6.2 million denizens, that 20,000 people would be able to accomplish the same in any U.S. state under 1.2 million. While this *might* be feasible in a state like Wyoming or Alaska, the fact that they even listed states like Delaware or Rhode Island as a possibility is humorous at best. When considering the overall distribution of voters per square mile, one can see that DE and RI are relatively densely resided upon, and more voters are thus inclined to be informed. The other thing that the PQ had going for them when they started was racial tension. My experience has been that many native-French speakers from Quebec feel that it is their city and has little else to do with the rest of the country; in fact, that much of Canada hinges on the business generated by the propserous city. I doubt the FSP is going to find much success in stirring racial tensions in, say, North Dakota.

I also find it humorous when the self-referential author of this page states that "the role of civil government should be 'the protection of citizens' rights to life, liberty, and property'", yet has no qualms speaking freely in the next paragraph about pandering to "special interests" or "constituencies" (primarily, Native Americans). Does it not seem odd to anyone that, in conjunction with vehement arguments against proportional representation, that the real goals of the FSP are just as blatantly underhanded as the major two parties that are so argued against?

Oh wait. Sorry, this must all just be a joke. Our nameless, faceless author has a disclaimer stating that he/she isn't even necessarily representing the views and opinions of the actual movement or its leaders. Oh, the irony of it all. I say, ship em out to Seward's Folly, let em freeze for awhile as they live out their "ideals", and let them come back to society when they see how silly this is in practice.

/me awaits the -2 flamebait, -3 troll

So, even if we have 20,000 liberals move here, that still won't change our conservative state!

Since when does liberty-oriented necessarily mean liberally-oriented? Opting out of federal programs doesn't sound liberal to me.

But don't take my word for it. From the article: "What do we mean by liberty? We believe that being free and independent is a great way to live, and that government's only role should be to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud."

IBM will use the chip internally in a project of its own, sources indicated, and the chip will also be sold to customers in the embedded and communications markets, two PowerPC strongholds.

Chekib Akrout, vice president of IBM microprocessor development, said big databases and the Internet challenged PCs: "This is the time to introduce a 64-bit machine capable of being used on a desktop," he said in a telephone interview.

• taxation (since we tend to make above-average salaries, and are highly mobile)
• immigration (since immigrants are a major part of our industry)

I am a little surprised by all the off-topic verbage by and about foreign readers, as most of these same issues affect people in most countries. Given the historically high and increasing share of trade in our economies, and how much the US exports software and depends on IP protection for those exports, what furreners think does matter. Also, when a country sets sensible policies, it can attract skilled workers from less sensible countries; thus does the US lure workers from much of the world, and Ireland lures companies from the US. I am an American expat living in (privacy-obsessed) Germany, and I cannot wait to return to working in Russia, under a 13% flat tax!!

I'll come home to the US when the Free State Project hits 20K.

I doubt it will work.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Before I bacame a Unix admin, I worked with mainframes. A lot of the various jobs that I had as an operator, a scheduler and DASD manager, have all been automated out of existence. I kept my job on the strength of learning how to admin the various automation packages. Everyone said that would never work either. All the same, I saw the operations staff reduced from 20 people per shift to 4 in the space of about 18 months.

This feels like deja vu. I had a feeling this would happen sooner or later.

Liberty in Our Lifetime

Some other folks had the same idea and decided to call it the Free State Project.
Their numbers are growing, you can check out more about it here.

Are windows migrations increasing, or unix migrations decreasing? Or both, or what? This is an interesting stat, but fairly meaningless without more information...

I think you have to consider that Linux was replacing Unix primarily at the low end. Nobody is replacing their Sun E15k with an x86 box with Linux. Objectively, Unix wasn't all that frequently used on the low end anyway, and was already largely getting replaced with Windows in that space. The opportunities for replacing Unix with Linux are probably becoming exhausted. It's probably also true that now that IT orginizations are getting comfortable with Linux, migrations from Windows are excelerating.

Liberty in our Lifetime

Microsoft. Wal-Mart's just sending a message Microsoft. The ol' boys in Bentonville like to wield Wal-Mart's buying power to negotiate great exclusive pricing deals with vendors. You can be sure that, Microsoft, being a monopoly does not feel a strong need to negotiate. MSFT's monopoly is more solid than WMTs.

I keep seeing this sentiment posted, and for the life of me I don't know why. Wal-Mart doesn't buy anything directly from Microsoft. It's the manufacturers who have agreements with Microsoft. Wal-Mart and Microsoft have absolutely nothing to negotiate. There is no direct relationship between Microsoft and Wal-Mart, whatsoever.

Liberty in our Lifetime

If you just payed a TON of money to goto medical school, would you then want all your education flaunted all over a network of information? Probably not, it's the fact that you know something others don't is what makes you money. This applies to specific fields, and research as well.

That may be true, too, but I think the real concern is on the part of abortionists. There have been a number of cases of them getting stalked and killed. There was some controversy over a web site that listed their pictures and addresses, but I don't really remember the outcome.

Liberty in our Lifetime

When you come to computers controlling a chemical/nuclear plant or a weapons system worst case senario is now "lots of people might wind up dead if it breaks".

I work at a nuke plant. Trust me, the only OS's critical systems run on there are Solaris and AIX.

Liberty in Our Lifetime

i think that they could have saved a buck or two by using open office. although, if it's not their money that they're spending, i doubt they care.

Unfortunately congresscritters, like a lot of the citizenry, now think that "free country" now means "free lunch" rather than "freedom of action".

Freedom in our lifetime