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The Free State Project
Psychic Burrito writes "From their website: The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy." Perhaps they should also read Everything: Kansas. I think Don Marti was also the one who thought the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota.
I think Don Marti was also the one who thought the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota.
I thought that was intended as more of a refugee camp type of thing.
I hope it works, but it would take a lot of dedication on their part. I would consider moving to the selected state after the plan is already underway. We can have a Quebec in the US!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Is having the first post really that cool that you have to put up some crap like this...
Not responding, however here is the google cache.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
If they're really going to do this, please move to an island and do it. Better yet, do it in New York or Mass.
Perhaps at first it will seem as it worked out. But when they reached some goals they'll probably fall out with each other over little issues.
I am not trying to look into a crystal ball, I am just pondering about it, thinking about other coaltions of people.
Hmmm. They're going to opt-out and then try to negotiate better tax rates.
Maybe I'm jaded, but *my* reading of washington (and I read a lot, notice my sig) is that they will happily allow this highly unlikely state to opt out and re-allocate the funding to their own districts then do precisely nothing to lower the federal burden on the LP state.
Like, the people who already live in the chosen state? Or will they get the same treatment as the Native Americans, the last time such a grandiose scheme was attempted?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
But the question is, "Which State?" Basically they all suck. The Northeast is too crowded and cold. The Dakotas? Minnesota? No thanks, waaaaayyyyyy too cold for me. Perhaps the answer is in AZ or NM. Aren't there significant numbers of native Americans there, forced into squalid living conditions on Federal "reservations", that would be only too willing to negotiate a new deal for themselves? Instant constituency.
The South tried this once. Didn't work. The imperialists will come after you with guns and say "stop that."
That state already seems to take its Anti-federalism pretty seriously. Take a look at their stance on drug decriminalization, for example.
If a whole lot of geeks move there en masse, it should be enough to completely overwhelm the pesky religious right (Mormons, I believe) and turn the state into a libertarian utopia. Or dystopia.
that it makes an easy target when Prez Bush declares them as terrorists and orders their "removal" in order to protect our freedom.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Will they force other people to move out?
Any sort of radicalism leads to some sort of unfree
society in my opinion.
Isn't this what Jim Jones wanted??
After opting out of everything, I bet they'll still want protecting by the US Army, Navy and Air Force.
But most great ideas seem to be lacking in practical application. This one, however, does have some interesting strategies.
:P
My issues:
1) Family. I can't convince my parents, and my wife's parents to pick up and move. I don't want to seperate my children from their grandparents.
2) Professional Saturation. Lets just face it, Ted Knight was right when he said "The world needs ditch diggers too." There will be a ton of other smart guys out there. My profession (consulting) is all about being smart for other people.
If you can solve these issues(don't see how you can with #1)... I'm there.
SpamapS -- Undernet #Linuxhelp
I believe this idea has long been entertained in fiction, particularly by some science fiction authors.
Sure, let's have a different state for each point of view!
If we can create a state where the original ideals of the USA can hold strong, all the people to whom they are important can migrate there. At least, that is, until the population is 100% sympathizers, at this point the larger, more armed remainder of the USA can label them all traitors and take over.
Good Lord, I hope they're not contagious. People need to deal with the modernization of society. If they're unhappy with the power of corporations, there are appropriate forums to express their angst.
It seems like they want to become like Quebec..
Everything will be fine, but ONLY if they get their own NFL team.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
Was that Don Marti or Don Martin?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
You know, North Dakota is nice and all. But if I were going to take over a state it'd have to be California or Florida or some other state where the weather we'd be hiding from would be the best weather possible.
Do it doug.
Wasn't this tried already? Like, uhm, the Civil War? States rights supreme. Freedom from the Federalists. etc...
Jeeze, go out and rent 'Civil War' (it's only like 10 hours of documentary)...
For Pete's sake, don't go to north dakota. It's a flat, frigid Hell. (Trust me.) If anything, come to Montana. We're already probably the most spiteful toward big business (owing to our *ahem* interesting history with copper barons). Plus, we have mountains. Really nice ones.
My point is that such suggestions are often met with skepticism at best and downright ridicule at worst. Such idealism isn't usually afforded much in the way of credibility.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Some states in that bunch have a history of liberty-mindedness, making it able to make use of existing population, and some of em are small enough that 20,000 voters could have a profound effect on any state-wide votes.
Of course, 20,000 votes goes a long way in any state with close elections. Maybe they should all move to Florida, instead... more electoral votes, anyway.
I remember reading about a series of events during the middle part of the 19th century that leads me to believe the federal government might not let this happen.
Yet Another Web Site
The South tried this once already gang. Didn't work. The Imperialists will come after you with guns and say "stop that" just like they did back then.
not only that, you might as well paste your manifesto or something...if you have the spotlight, you may as well make use of it.
They said "Hey, states, you don't have to make the drink age 21, but if you don't, this federal highway funding is going to be pretty hard to get." And all the states quickly got in line.
Karma whoring is cool! But this really serves a purpose.
google cache of FAQ
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
how convenient. get all the liberty-oriented people in one place where they can easily be destroyed.
Obviously, the town they should target is Freedom, OK
And it is right near Protection, KS.
Which just goes to show, you can have either Freedom or Protection, but not both.
www.eFax.com are spammers
North Dakota is a bad idea for no particular reason. Come to South Dakota instead.
"We will repeal state taxes
Wow, but wait...
"Make a donation"
I see....
While in principle I agree with the objection to unconstitutional laws I have a real problem with privatizing everything. I see street-sweeping, electricity, etc. as one of the reasons for government. As Enron, and Colifornia have shown private companies cannot be trusted with basic infrastructure. And, as At&T, the RIAA, and AOLTW have shown eliminating all regulation is the best way to encourage monopolies.
I hate bad government, I also hate bad corporations.
Irvu.
It's a shame he has to bring Libertarians into this mess... gives the rest of a bad name if you ask me.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world. ...they'll be broke, owing to the fact that they'll be spending so much time on business-hours activism that they won't have any time to actually work and maintain a useful economy, but at least they'll be shining.
I grew up in Montana...
I heard this stuff every week...be real curious if it worked...I HIGHLY doubt it would, of course....but it'll be fun...get rid of those pesky Californians who keep moving into the state.
----------
ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
"... the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota ..."
It seems like a plot by Senator Daschle, otherwise he had no chance to get reelected in 2004.
...the worlds largest Holstein Cow. Only in North Dakota.
help fill in hidden movie endings @ End of the Credits
Precisely where do you intend to go where 20,000 people will have any say whatsoever on a statewide level?
20,000 people might be enough to influence local politics, but good luck getting statewide crack-smoking legislation changed.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
so what state do we get to live in? NC? and can we live in domes? how about a whole city inside a dome? if so, i'm game!
Wyoming is demographically ideal for this kind of thing.
I don't know if the current inhabitants would mind too much, either. They seem to generally be hostile to the federal government. OTOH, without much of a manufacturing or service base, I think the econonmy probably is dominated by extractive industries such as mining and ranching. Thus, the choice between economic livlihood and a beautiful environment usually weighs in heavier on the former, since the local perspective is that there's "plenty enough" of the latter.
I had heard of something akin to this on a county level occuring in Oregon a few years ago, where enough Hare Krishna (?) adherents moved in to affect the makeup of the county government.
But from what little I remember of the Civil War / War Between the States, the federal government of the United States won't take kindly to secession.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I hate to be one of those people but "Why is this on the front page of Slashdot?"
This and other "political" movements that want liberty is usually about one issue that they feel the government has too much power or has taken rights away from them and given them to some other group. Sometimes the trigger point is gun control. Sometimes it is affirmative action. Usually "liberty" in this case is the freedom to do whatever you want without being responsible for how your actions affect your family, your neighbors or your community or society as a whole.
Isn't Vermont already a little bit like that?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
...ship'em all out to the Antarctica and rename it the "Land of the Frees".
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
No...you would need a diverse population, otherwise this scenario will develop:
Help Wanted
Computer professional with 15+ years of experience in the following: C, C++, Java, TCP/IP, Windows, AIX, Solaris, VAX, Assembler, VB, HP-UX, AS/400, Cryptography, AI, and be willing to serve coffee to the boss.
Minimum Educational Requirements: 3 PhD's in Computer Science.
Must be willing to live in antartica 6 or more months per year.
Maximum salary: $6.50/hour
Of course the option to this is to convince people to get off their lazy butts and vote in an election...
If it's so hard to get the liberty-minded people organized well enough to vote in any significant size in an election (which it clearly is given how much politicians get away with), what are the odds that they are really all going to get morivated enough to move to a different state?
When the US has control over a territory, we never want to let it go. Why would we even let these guys do this?
Take a look at this for some examples of territories we (the US) have made claim to. We've faught wars to protect these territories. You think that we would just give up some of it to a bunch of idealists who think they can make the perfect society?
Yeah, right.
North Dakota, Land of the free, home of the freezing balls.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
The deciding factor in whether or not something like this will be successful, is how the courts (and supreme court) interpret the freedom of a state to create and practice law widely different than the 49 other states.
Remember that in the constitution, it is stated that no citizen shall be denied equal protection of rights, and importantly, that federal law is supreme when Congress speaks to a question of law (trumping state law). So citizens have an expectation that states will have a bascially consistent set of laws under which they can live. (the supreme court has taken cases which test the ability of states to "pioneer" new kinds of law, and this is contentious I believe)
Therefore, while it might be easy to get some measures passed (ones that no one would conceivably object to), other more controversial measures might be quite difficult.
Just look at the medical marijuana thing in CA. The state says that it's ok, but the federal government says it isn't. And what happens? People get arrested for using and distributing it. Federal law has supremacy over local/state law, regardless of how charitable or well-intentioned.
They could do something daring: they could risk everything and leave their native soil and the continent they grew up on, to flee from oppressive governments to a new country and continent to seek prosperity, liberty and religious freedom.
Oh wait, that's already been done, about 2-300 years ago. Never mind...
These people haven't even kicked the Y2k problem yet. Just look at the lower left corner of their homepage:
"This page was updated on December 13, 1901"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How long until their little utopia becomes the thing they fled?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
It's like succession... except legislation replaces rifles and geeks replace rednecks.
... really drive up the autism rates?
This plan would work if the 10th Ammendment actually meant something. Anything the new 'liberated' state tries to do will be summarily shut down and/or harrassed by the feds - from witholding highway funds to them simply coming in on federal level and enforcing whatever draconian BS they feel like.
The idea is great in theory, but I can't imagine how it could work in todays less ideal world.
www.enthea.org
...same as the old boss.
Politicians, politicians we don't need no politicians.
Go read Animal Farm!
"I think Don Marti was also the one who thought the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota."
When we get there we will rename it to GNU/North Dakota.
I can't wait to see it happen.
n/t = No Text NT = New Technology, but it still sucks
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Quebec.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
"The Free State Project (http://www.freestateproject.com/) calls for 20,000 libertarians and fellow-travelers to move to a single state of the U.S. to create a free society there through the electoral process."
So, I guess the libertarians are fed up with not winning elections. I wonder where the hell they are going to find 20,000 voting libertarians?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
First read the story of how the residents of the Florida Keys did this in 1982, and created the Conch Republic!
That's a much nicer place to secede from the union.
:-)
From their FAQ:
...repeal of most gun control laws, repeal of most drug prohibition laws...
Yes! I want the freedom to shoot at anyone while on crack!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I'm pretty sure the Constitutional legalese on this was decided during the Civil War. You can't opt out...
How 20k votes outweigh 1.5M is one of the small details they don't explain.
Easy. If the state normally votes 55/45 on a given issue, migrating in say 11% of the population who vote the same way can swing the balance.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Quebec wants to separate from Canada, Alberta too, and in the USA, it's North Dakota and the Freedom State.
I'm actually surprised that Canada and the USA have lasted this long as countries...
I can no longer read Dilbert. It's too depressing, because it is too real. -- Hyperhaplo
Live free or Die! Our bandwidth is costing us what? Slashdot?! Quick, throw up some ads. We'll be rich!
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Wasn't this already attempted in Montana with great failure?
D00D, LIEK W3 W0ULD N0T BE S3C3D1NG FR0M T3H UN10N!!
Funny, I thought it was called Vermont. . .
Why does this piss some people off? Is it because they can't stand to lose CONTROL over other people's lives?
Good news for the people wanting out of their socialist paradise: You probably can do this already as a Citizen of your own state. They certainly won't tell you about this in public school, but you CAN enjoy the freedoms of the Founding Fathers, IF you learn and practice their principles. See http://come.to/foundation
From the link's left rail:
Wow! Slow updates. Actually, a more accurate date might be something like December 20, 1860.
:wq
It's like that joke about why California has earthquakes, and Quebec has separatists - California got first pick!
Anyway, 20,000 people - that's not even a decent-sized town nowadays. There's no leverage to "negotiate" with the federal or state governments.
Isn't sedition unprotected speech in the US of A?
Anybody who wouldn't rather be sent to Siberia rather than have to live with these insufferable loons?
Easy whoring while helping people, what a combo :)
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
"This Frontier is a force like gravity, wind, and sun. It is America sleeping."
What a crackhead. That "manifesto" is 95% vague, meaningless pseudo-poetic oratorical horseshit. The guy's not a bad writer (this is not his best effort, btw), but as a political thinker, he's... well, he's not a bad writer. The Declaration of Independence is well and persuasively written, but they're talking hard specifics there: "This and this have happened, this is why we object, and this is what we're going to do about it." Mr. Kansas here isn't talking specifics at all. He's just ululating about emotions.
Ok, so, the idea is to move a whole shitload of people to one area and create a state where libertarianism rules supreme. This sounds vaguely like what the Mormons do, and they've got a good head start on us. You might get a significant constituency, or a city, but a state is certainly outside the grasp of this.
And why is he buying all that Kansas real-estate?
This idea was originally suggested by a group of American socialists back in about 1890, in the days when 20,000 people would actually let you form a territorial government, at a time when state governments had a hell of a lot more power than they do now. Didn't work out back then, either. Read any history of the Socialist Party or of Eugene Debs.
You know the world is going to hell when Libertarians start stealing ideas from 19th century socialists and passing them off as original.
Come to North Dakota!
:) But I'm afraid that we won't let you make your own "free society." If you want to do that, move to Montana.
I think Don Marti was also the one who thought the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota.
Hey, North Dakota's got such a low population right now, we'd be happy to have more people move here!
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society.
Let's see here, in our last election, Bush got 60% of the vote, so with a population of about 600,000 people, that means that roughly 400,000 of them are conservative. So, even if we have 20,000 liberals move here, that still won't change our conservative state!
Come to North Dakota!
I went to college there (UND in Grand Forks).
It's relatively desolate - there are no real cities.
It's pretty hot in the summer - 90s most of July and August.
It's really cold in the winter - -40 windchill in january is not unheard of at all. -60 and below are relatively rare events, though. Blizzards galore!
It's extremely franchised. There is little room for people who wish to build their own concept - people would rather go to the Olive Garden in Fargo than their home-grown, superior Lola's.
People are kinda nice, though. Kinda funny looking in a general sort of way.
Stop the brainwash
Assuming that you get 20,000 "liberty-minded" -- God, that sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of dogma -- people to all gel together and move to one state, then what have you got? A big, fat new constituency? Yawn. Twenty thousand people are going to repeal all the drug and gun laws? Uh, no. Other people already living in the state might have some input.
Besides, there's something oddly sinister about a small, aggresively motivated minority moving into a sparsely populated area in order to exert authoritative control -- isn't that what happened on a few airplanes a little over a year ago?
because success would merit attention, and there are a heck of a lot more politically-wacko fundamentalist Christians in America than politically wacko geeks....
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
It would be interesting to have greater variety between states, because more ideas could be tried, and you could (in theory) find a state which politically/economically you preferred. Customizeable surroundings, so to speak. On the flip side, if this were the case, the likelihood that some states would still have segregation, powerless women, creationism, mandatory prayer, is high. So it's not a clear call, I suppose.
I can't wait to live in North Dakota or some other barren state that even eskimos don't want to live. Sorry, but I'm heading off to Costa Rica instead. Fun and sun baby.
Wish you guys the best. Can't wait to see how the an economy maintained by geeks goes. I can just see 'em building their own roads, handling their own refuse collection, etc... Oh well, crazy people have to do something with all their spare time.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This seems, in some ways, similar to:
http://www.texasrepublic.org
Actually, I think this plan was secretly advanced by one Jack Valenti.
IIRC, Wyoming's population is less than that of Miami.
t'nera semordnilap
Vermont, that little liberal bastion of the North, may be a good choice.
Here are a few reasons:
1 Small Population (about half a million), so a group of dedicated citizens can have an effect.
2 Open minded politics already exist. For example, Vermont recognizes Civil Unions between homosexual couples and the state uses an inovative and effecitve plan buy perscription drugs at reduced cost (also known as Canada).
3 Enviromentally friendly state.
4 Large producer of high quality pot.
Of course, Vermont is currently doing quite well, some othere states could use this groups efforts quite a bit more.
Thinking is good, I think.
Also know as Puerto Rico. I would consider moving there rather than some desolate wasteland. Besides, learning to code in spanish may prove interesting.
ent main( ent argc, car argv[] )
{
impresionf( "Hola el Mundo!" );
regresa NUL;
}
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
"We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs. We will end the collaboration between state and federal law enforcement officials in enforcing unconstitutional laws. We will repeal laws regulating drugs and guns." Excellent plan!! Get rid of the taxes which pay for the social programs, allow free drugs (I'm assuming they don't mean medicinal), and eliminate the laws governing guns. Don't get me wrong, I don't care generally about taking guns away from people, the amount of THC in your favorite smoking products, how much you hate taxes, or if you don't like welfare. However, it doesn't list the scope of repealed laws. I can just imagine the unemployed geeks shooting other unemployed geejs with fully automatic weapons (because the current gun laws are much to strict of course) over their next dose of heroin. Sounds like a great place to live I'm all for it. Oh wait did I just describe Bangkok?
Ted Knight was right when he said "The world needs ditch diggers too." There will be a ton of other smart guys out there.
:)
And let's not forget what happens when you have too many geeks moving to one place and intermarrying
one hundred twenty
is just enough characters
to write a haiku
Not one, but a large group of states tried this already: in 1860. They had a lot more people interested than a mere 20,000 or so, an existing infrastructure, a cause supported at least in theory by the majority, a cultural identity, and the best Army officers.
They still lost.
This won't work simply because a vast majority of people who join a movement like this are much more comfortable posting on a website blog, K5, or Slashdot than they are at moving to another state simply because of a website; many are crackpots that can agree with no one. There are no "rebel states" where even a significant minority resent being part of the US; whatever state it may be, the residents will instead resent a huge influx of wild-eyed dissidents. The movement is in the name of "liberty", which sounds good, but is an intentionally vague concept that people have a hard time agreeing on, particularly armchair politicians.
My prediction: It won't get off the ground. It's a project like the American Civil War, and the people who propose this kind of thing are far, far less suited to go through with it than their southern counterparts of 142 years ago.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Shouldn't these guys just move to Pennsylvania and go Amish?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
We believe... ...that government's only role should be to help individuals defend themselves from force and fraud.
:)
I guess they'll have a tough time getting around their free state without roads. Maybe they could have toll roads, but it could be difficult to find something to barter with the toll road operator for passage...
But then, they probably all own Hummers fully equipped for the eminent takeover by UN
OOH, please pick Colorado...all those damn people from CA (liberals) are moving here...trying to take away our guns, our ability to smoke in bars, and millions of other tiny rights that add to the erosion.
Maybe we should just impose a tax on people from CA who move here.
Same reason socialism in France annoys me: It may not affect me directly, but it's moronic and destructive anyway.
Idiocy is always annoying, just by its very nature.
So-called "state citizenship", for example, is idiotic. It's a pseudo-legal fiction, and the only point of it is to invent a ridiculous excuse to strip some Americans of their rights as Americans. Fortunately, nobody but a few fringe lunatics buys it, so -- like French socialism -- it doesn't affect me directly, and never will, unless one of said fringe lunatics comes totally unglued and blows me up. Then again, lunatics are lunatics regardless of ideology. If they didn't have this excuse, they'd invent another. Lunacy itself is the problem, not its manifestation as "state citizenship", "the Nation of Islam", the "Aryan Race", or any other random pile of crackhead gibberish.
This won't work for the very simple reason that if 20,000 geeks move to one area, unless we're going to take turns flipping the burgers, cleaning the gum off the movie theatre floor, and removing the trash, tens of thousands of other people to do those things are going to be required.
It'll be just like the Silicon Valley, only colder.
paintball
I think Montana might offer special value packages to those who wish to create their own autonomies states. You get a compound, some rifles, a 'no trespassing' sign, a box of beards, some triple X moonshine, and your very own state name (only valid in Montana).
PS: Does this remind anyone else of "Newfreeland" from Mr. Show on HBO?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Isn't controlled substance legislation handled federally? (That is with exceptions for medicinal use...)
I can see it now: Legalize medicinal crack!
I've been wondering about the Feds and the marijuana in California. Where does the Federal Government get the mandate to do anything in Californiat regarding that?
For most drugs, the source of the drug trade comes from outside the country, or perhaps between states. Thus it falls under Federal jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution. However, if the marijuana is grown in California, sold in California, and never leaves California, then it should not be under Federal jurisdiction. If it is, then they're violating States' rights.
Remember when they passed the Federal law forbidding guns within a certain distance of schools? That was unconstitutional and the Supreme Court struck it down. Wish the Feds would learn to play by the rules as far as drugs are concerned. I think they should start having the medical marijuan tagged for origin and purpose in California. That would make it impossible for the Feds to claim jurisdiction or legal applicability.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
If they legalize gambling, prostitution, pot, and xbox mods...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
So let me get this straight:
20,000 people who prize individual freedom above all else will move into a state and then trample over the wishes of the previous populace to get their preferred form of government enacted.
Did I miss something?
From the FAQ... (my deletes are [...]
:-)
Q. What states are you considering, and on what criteria?
A. [...]The following states are under consideration: [...] North Dakota, South Dakota, [...] Montana, [...] Idaho, [...]
Other important criteria include: 1) coastal access [...]
www.christopherlewis.com
Have all the teams been tolerant of you guys coming up to them every few hours (especially towards the end) or have some of them pretty much told you to... ahem... bugger off?
- Push out big business. They put up the money for politicians. If you want a chance, they have to be out of the picture
- Outnumber the old people. The elderly put in the most votes, so you need to outnumber then by a lot.
- Seperate from the Union. To avoid federal mandates. History shows that this isn't gonna be easy. Good luck on building that military, too...
Perhaps you're just better off building a militia and taking over France, and changing the French government. May I suggest bastille day? That's the day they are most in the mood to surrender...Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
One interesting aspect of the world is the fact that everything is owned. There is no land that isn't owned by some country (not counting Antarctica, which is "unownable" by international treaty, as I understand it). So it's not like you can up and go start your own country. You'd have to find some land, and wrest control away from someone; and the people who are already there (or at least own it legally, e.g. uninhabited tiny islands out in the middle of the ocean) will generally not be real keen on that.
What happens if the entire population (or at least an overwhelming majority) of one of the U.S. states decides to secede? Well, it happened once before, and we had a nasty civil war about it. So what would it take for a state to secede *legally*? Would a constitutional amendment do it? Or just an act of Congress?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I remember when some crazy fools tried to pull this up in Oregon a while back. It went bad faster than salmon pate left out overnight.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
West Virginia. 20,000 people would have QUITE an impact there. Of course, you also have to deal with the terrain, lack of high tech infrastructure (my mom still had a rotary phone as recently as last year!), lack of high tech industry, etc.
... the Starbucks Generation ... in near-pristine forests ... er.... fuck it, go to California, willya?
OTOH, it's also some of the most beautiful country on the planet.
Waitaminit
/*
I would wager a guess that it would be cheaper and easier to establish a rapport with a smaller, third-world country who would allow these people to make all the social and economic changes they may want.
Or... they might not because they only want the benefits of living in the United States, meanwhile shirking any responsibilities that our society places on its citizens. Like it or not, the US government isn't a giant conspiracy organization. It's made up of people, that we know, and we elect. When we don't like how someone is doing, we elect someone else. The larger the group, the more inertia there is, but stability is also increased.
How long before a few of those 20,000 people starts bitching that someone is taking things from his garden and the group creates some rules, then a small police force, some judges, and then a punishment system?
It's been done. They called themselves Puritans.
However, the basic idea is quite viable for those who generally feel constrained by the rules of society. This idea would not work with people such as scumbags/crooks who live outside society's rules, but for libertarian geeks and cryonicists, this might work.
I myself have recommended on the cryonet mailing list that cryonicists do this at the county level, and all move to Loving County, Texas, which has a population of about 100 or so. THey could effectively control the county. How much good that would do, I don't know.
Now, for more power, e.g., a state to "take over", there is Oregon, of course, which appears to be the most libertarian, progressive state available. For example, they have legal structure in place already to allow euthanasia for teh terminally ill, which could be a tremendous boon for cryonicists (or for anyone who does not want to die a lingering painful death when terminally ill). Also, there are the marijuana initiatives which recur periodically in Oregon.
In fact, Oregon is set up for "Power to the People", as opposed to states like Texas, which are set up for Power to the Rich/Corps., etc.
H
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Experiments in utopian societies have had such a long history of roaring success.
Pffft.
Armed conflict is the only legal means of establishing a free state within the United States (or, perhaps, to be declared a protected Native tribe.)
And this high-minded idealism is idiotic to the extreme. It will be a "free" state you say... in opposition to the totalitarian regime of the US Federal government? And how will this society remain free? Communal governance? Direct Democracy? Good luck with that.
Yes, it is, but go to San Francisco for an example of how to blatantly ignore federal narcotics legislation. The local and state police don't even help the feds bust people. They tend to concentrate more on real crime.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Lets say the state of question is North Dakota. From whom would they need protection from? Saskatchewan - the war mongers that they are.
When I think that states that were already formed tried this once before? They were already in control of the state government and wanted to separate. Then something called the Civil War happened, lots of people got killed, and they lost.
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
They only need 5,000 to make a location choice.
Let's use the power of Slashdotting to their advantage. Everyone sign up, so we can vote, and let's see how far we can send these boneheads packing.
So if I write "AZ" instead of "Ariz." on a birthday card to my Mom, I've voluntarily signed away all my rights as a human being and the UN'll take my guns and sell me to the Chinese for dog food. On the other hand, if I'd had the foresight to write "Ariz." instead, then I'd be safe from the UN gun grab -- because no tyrant would ever dare violate the sanctity of a contract!
Crackhead, crackhead, crackhead...
I think 20,000 people distributed over the nation and constantly pecking at legislators over liberitarian issues may have a better effect then one small state with a few radical congresspeople who are just ignored by the rest.
However, what would be even better would be 20,000 "freedomheads" who always migrate, the year before the election, to the congressional district of the biggest anti-speach jerk to vote the bastard out.
He wrote a story called "Coventry" in 1940 where a section of the country was walled off, and all those who could not live responsibly in a free society were sent. They were given one opportunity to take with them everything they thought that they would need,and then sent into Coventry. All societal responsibilities by and for them were over at that point. Shade's of "Escape from New York". Where is Snake Pliskin when you need him?
"I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating. And in fourteen days, I had lost exactly two weeks. Joe E. Lewis
Most of the small towns in ND are being abandoned due to loss of population to the few larger towns and to coastal states. In many of the small towns are bargains to be had in newly abandoned churches, schools, city buildings, homes. Many of these towns have had their empty homes bought up by wealthy hunters who get them very cheap from the tax rolls and just come in for a couple weeks a year to hunt grouse and pheasant and such. The state is a good place to live realistically speaking with good roads, communication, services and is certainly no worse a place to live than Montana, Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming,Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona etc. It is a Big Sky kind of state and those who just drive thru it on the freeway or flyover it do not know what they are missing. The state government has many programs to encourage returnees and anybody else who is fed up with the overloaded coastal rat race to move back and re-invigorate the small towns again. The small towns want people back in them. The whole state has 9000 miles of fiber optic cable run thru virtally every town and even the most out of way corner of the state or farm can get DSL. Those who are tired of the packed in life in the coasts and other large cities should consider retiring or starting a business in these states.
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From the FAQ:
Q. I love the idea of the FSP, but I only want to live someplace warm -- I'd never make it in those cold states. Can't you make a warmer state an option?
Which could be read as:
I want liberty but my political beliefs end at having to buy a winter coat.
It is important to note that the freedom of speech as guranteed in the constitution has been interpretted by the supreme court to not protect seditious speech. Now, any call to subvert control of federal mandate is seditious by definition and as such the speech can be regulated by the fedral government. This seems to be a major stumbling block to any plan to form an independant government on what is currently US soil, I.E. Waco, Ruby Ridge, and other similar sepratist movements.
it's unfortunate too, because the major problems with the US could be solved by simply dissolving the US into several smaller cooperating countries similar to the EU, and then have a small coalition government to help negotiate trade and "international" matter between the countries. D.C. politicians cannot fairly represent my SF East Bay lifestyle and opinions. Fair and accurate governmental representation is key to having a satisfied populous.
*note* I'm not very good at spelling, please ignore spelling and gramatical errors and read the actual message.
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Uh people, has anyone been to ND in the dead of Winter??? No amount of Coke and Quake can get a semi-sane person through to Spring.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
1. Nobody's going to up and move until enough "other" people do.
2. The secession experiment has already been tried. It was the Civil War. It failed.
Hoth?
But seriously, it would be more practical to found a new city in a sparsely populated zero-state-income-tax state and leave it at that. Build your apartment blocks, fiber-to-the-home networks, windmill/solar/nuclear power plants, decent public infrastructure in general (ie, roads designed to last, rail lines to the nearest major city/airport), and see who else decides to show up and build out the territory surrounding the city. Most of that infrastructure can be privately run, natch. If the cost of living stays low enough you'll minimize your radar signature to the federal government (lower pay but lower expenses == less federal tax paid and the same quality of life).
Until Armadillo Aerospace figures out how to do cheap space launches so we can build lunar colonies and/or terraform Mars, this will have to do.
If the idea is to promote a free state, just go somewhere underpopulated in the world. The Amazon forest would be a good place to start. And since it's at the equator, you can probably get a strong sattelite signal...
People keep making the point that "only 20000 isn't enough to swing any election," but they seem to be overlooking the fact that not everyone votes. When you look at the number of people who are 1) citizens 2) 18 or over and 3) have bothered to register and 4) actually bother to go to the polls, it becomes clear that American elections and issues are really decided by a fairly small portion of the population.
Still, as a libertarian myself, though I admire these guys' ideals, from a practical point of view, I don't think their plan has much chance of success.
So? 20,000 is still twice the population of North Dakota :)
Well, I fully support this move to Kansas. Come one come all. Infact, in support, I will live in Wichita, Kansas. Really, there is a lot of greatness to be found in Kansas -- its a sleeper state. There is a lot of room here for whatever you want. The temperatures go from tropical to artic all in a week! Its a great place to live.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I can't imagine getting a group of 100 people, let along 20,000 people, whom are vigorously opinionated enough to make such a move, and getting them to agree on any kind of governmental reform.
If I managed to get a free state I would reform the utilities not privatize them.
If you could colaborate the management between the utilities and drop the high costs of laying pipe/cable, processing waste etc.. youd end up with cheep efficient utilities, especially if your running the state and can control them.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Can anybody tell me why I shouldn't think of this as extremist or fanatical? Maybe I'm reading this in the wrong mood, but it seems to me like they're only trying to fix what they see wrong, as opposed to re-designing the system to be more useful. It doesn't seem like they understand why some things work the way they do.
"We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs." -- Define wasteful. There's some that think that healthcare coverage of birth control is 'wasteful'. Others think that unwanted pregnancies cause greater 'wasteful' heatlh expense.
"We will end the collaboration between state and federal law enforcement officials in enforcing unconstitutional laws." -- Who's to judge 'unconstitutional'? Not that I actively pay attention to cases like this, but there's always opposing views. Some think that a law may be unconstitutional, but others have a different perspective that says it is constitutional. So... where's the middle ground? Who's to judge?
They're asking me to donate money and sign a petition with promises of utopica, but other than pandering to my desires (no taxes! no gov't unfairness!) they're not providing me with any useful data about how they'd meet my needs.
So, no, I don't see value here. I would understand if they were saying "Let's get together all the 'like-minded about certain issues' people into one state", instead they're saying "let's create a land where the gov't can't intrude!".
I'm fairly certain there's actually going to be a surplus of dumbasses
i es.htm
Case in point: their whole strategy
http://www.freestateproject.org/strateg
They think the important thing in the Parti Quebecois election is that there was 1 paid member per 62 population - so that if they move in 1 person per 62 population, bam! they'll win. Never mind that the whole PQ thing was basically Quebec vs Canada, and most Quebecers felt oppressed (and often were oppressed) by Canada for hundreds of years. Most of the population of Quebec was already PQ - it's just the PQ didn't exist at the time...
If they can find a state that's already, essentially, 50% libertarian then it'll be an appropriate analogy. Otherwise, they're just 20,000 people that can maybe shift the vote a few tenths of a percent...
Perhaps they could go to, like, Florida to cancel out the Nader votes next time.
What can be done in a single state? A great deal. We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs.
I know that lots of political spending is horribly wasteful, but what are they going to do about the kind of programs that help poor old people afford heat during the winter? I'm sure they have a plan, but I didn't see it mentioned anywhere.
We will end the collaboration between state and federal law enforcement officials in enforcing unconstitutional laws.
It is the courts' job to decide what is constitutional, right?
We will repeal laws regulating drugs and guns.
Are these folks backed by a cartel? Want to see drugs and guns in one place? Visit Columbia or Jamaica.
We will privatize utilities and end inefficient regulations and monopolies.
Privitization can be great. Just ask California how they like privatized electric utilities.
Then we will negotiate directly with the federal government for more autonomy
Good luck. I am sure they will take it seriously.
-- Windows is not simply installed on a computer; it is inflicted.
Don't we already have a freedom oriented state? New Hampshire is about the best starting ground you're going to get, with its stances on most taxes and whatnot.
That's how I came to notice that it's bullshit.
By the way, if you can't stand a little bit of harsh and direct language, you're a piss-poor substitute for Thomas Jefferson -- not to mention that your habit of squealing about "welfare" and "socialism" is just the kind of name-calling that bothers you so much when it comes right back at you. No, I'm not going to change your diapers. Mom's not here. Be a man, kiddo. Words may hurt your tender, sensitive little ego, but they won't kill you.
You can call me anything you damn well please; if your political theories were correct, they'd still be correct in spite of all the yap about "welfare programs". I'm gainfully employed, by the way. I do real, productive work. How 'bout you? Sitting on the old ass in the community college computer lab, eh? Heh heh. How'd I guess?
Right now, I doubt there is anywhere on earth that is quite this way - transportation has made the world smaller and smaller, and most lands with any value already have indiginous peoples who are not likely to let some Americans in "to coexist peacefully and start our own government." Too much well-known history with the Indians.
So where is there a place out of reach of government by distance, where you might possibly find funding to get to and to develp, and where there are no indigiginous tribes to worry about? The moon! Simply find a corporation or society or extremely rich philanthropist willing to support the founding... until a hundred or so years later when they try to impose a tax on your tea and you have to mount a Revolution.
The homogenization of america is not a foregone conclusion... yet.
Seems this idea was tried mid-19th century.
However, over the years, the federal government's powers have indeed expanded. Thus, while it can't mandate country-wide speeding-limits, it can withhold highway funds unless the states comply. Phrased another way, they will take your money through taxes, and refuse to give it back unless you comply.
In other words, the constitution is very much concerned with protecting states' rights, it's just that over the years the federal government has found loopholes.
In any event, my impression is that Slashdot readers are generally not 'pro-freedom'. They aren't "anti-authority", they simply want to replace the existing authority with themselves. In other words, they want to be free to live as they would like, but they are not willing to extend that same right to others.
For example, the GILC does not promote liberty as a concept, but the freedoms it wants for itself. For example, it's principle is to extend the Internet to poor countries -- by taxing the rich. It believes in prohibiting descrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, etc. It is therefore against allowing racists the freedom to practice what they want (such as holing up in compounds and marrying their cousins
Take for example the word "hacker". The community outside of Slashdot uses one definition of the word, the Slashdot community uses another. Rather than fight for the simple freedom to use whatever definition people want, they fight to make everyone else conform to their definition.
Their usual name is Utopia.
They may differ in ideologies and objectives but the large majority ends quite badly.
The most ancient Utopia seems to have been the half-mytical Atlantis.
The most well known Utopia of Ancient Times was Sparta.
Roman Empire died to a religious Utopia of Armageddon and Salvation.
In Middle Ages there were several Utopias like the Albigois of Provence, the Templars.
Mongol Empire was an Utopia.
American Revolutions nearly started several Utopia States, some of its remains echo till now in the US and, partially, in South America.
Utah was pratically an Utopia in its first years.
French Revolution was a pure Utopia State.
October Revolution was the biggest, largest and most monumental Utopia ever.
Nazi Germany and several other regimes were Utopias.
Singapore still heirs a lot of its Utopia foundation.
Apart of this. There is certain data that points to the fact that Maya could be an Utopia. Also some strange tales of a certain ancient kingdom in what is now Spain point also to an Utopia. Many eurasian tales point to vanished city-states and countries that remind a lot Utopias, ex. the Huns, the Assassins, Turan, Shambala, etc.
What was the problem of these Utopias? They could have started well and with clear ideals. However, dogmatism and fanatism overcome. They tried to remain up to their ideals no matter the conditions and realities. Some Utopias vanished quite fast and they couldn't even manage to leave anything for history. Others could live for some time, basing its force on the economical power and resources of a nation. However the large majority ended tragically. Almost all Utopias tend to isolate themselves from everything that doesn't fit their dogmas. On one point of their History, the balance between their ideals and environment was so unequal that they were simply crunched to dust. Among them, there are only a few structures that manage to survive as they started to interact with the world, ex. the Jewish-Christian-Islamic canonical religions, the modern communist parties, The United States of America, The French Republic, Russian Federation, People's Republic of China and several others. For some this may look as if a big part of our world is Utopia based. It is. However, they are just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of Utopias that Mankind rised.
From http://www.freestateproject.org/strategies.htm
/me awaits the -2 flamebait, -3 troll
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.
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
Their theory of controlling by 20,000 voters is good, but if this project went through, and major law changes began, the rest of the population would see this on TV.
For the MAJOR changes they want, the rest of the population would actually vote to put down their little rebellion. NIMBA (not in my backyard as*hole)is a powerful motivational theory.
On another note, my choice for them is any state governed by a pro wrestler. That state has a proven history of voting a bit strangly.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
The weather isn't all that bad, easy access to Canada when you have to flee for your lives and theres a fair amount of industrial and agricultural base built in both states, but the population is still small enough that you might have some impact if you are able to grow that 20,000 to a few hundred thousand over time.
Or how about Alaska? Yes its cold, but you've got oil and gold among other natural resources, if you can get the equipment to drill through the permafrost to get at it.
Personally though, I just don't see this working out no matter what State they go for, you just can't get that many people to work together for that long.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
This is yet another Utopia, and like Thomas More's original, it doesn't exist. The difference is that More knew his Utopia was a fantasy. These guys evidently think you can make a perfect society with less than perfect human beings. Ain't happening.
Catherine
A. The Free State Project unequivocally condemns racism and all other forms of bigotry. Although we do not support a government ban on racial discrimination by private individuals, and we do not attempt to divine our members' private thoughts, we will exercise our right as a private organization to expel anyone who undertakes racial agitation.
Hmmm... They won't make a government ban on racial discrimination (or discriminitation, if they elect a Bush as supreme leader) but they will expel you if you undertake racial "agitation." That's funny. A self-negating sentence. This government rocks!
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
I can make you a ditch digger if you want?
Camel Pilot said: "Lets say the state of question is North Dakota. From whom would they need protection from? Saskatchewan - the war mongers that they are."
Oh, but Camel Pilot, the reason all the nasty terrorists hate us is because we're free. Not because of our involvement in their conflicts, not because of various complicated economic and socio-political reasons... no, no. Because we're free! A free state would be the PRIMARY target for terrorarism!
Hooray for job openings!
At best, 20k people will try to vote someone out of office and fail. 20k votes? Those're worth about as much as the stuff that comes out of my arse.
At worst..
The US government does not negotiate with those who are not a) equals or b) holding nuclear capabilties.
At worst, 20k Counter-Strike losers will be lined up in pretty rows, after they briefly and violently learn how guns really work.
Conch Republic ring a bell? Although the story of the Conch Republic is a bit more on the amusing side.
Hopefully in this free state, the /. effect will be a thing of the past.... who am I kidding?? Thats just like saying that communism actually works...
/, the . was in on it too...
Don't only blame the
The Libertarians and Greens could team up. Oh well.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Yeah, nice idea but does kind of remind me of the bit in Hitchhiker's GTTG where that planet gets rid of all its telephone sanitation engineers and then a year later everybody promptly dies of a disease spread by dirty telephones.
Nice idea but don't just take geeks...
> My profession (consulting) is all about being smart for other people.
You are the perfect ditch-digger. Not only do you like to do other peoples work without benefits, but you can think of better ways to get the job done.
It's unconstitutional as hell!
Hey, if they want to change the influence of government over their lives, I can think of no better way. Get everyone together who agrees with you in a small area and exercise your consititutional rights. They aren't talking about a revolution or coup but simply becoming an influential political group in local politics and operating within the rights given by the U.S. Constitution to the many states.
While the RIAA and MPA are buying votes like the House was an EBay auctioning site, this is a refreshing thing to see; imagine voters using their votes to influence government instead of lobbiests using their money to buy the government.
Lord, bless my users that they may stop being such fucking idiots!!
Just move to Mexico. At the current rate, Mexico will be completely empty of Mexicans in about 10 years, so we won't have to worry about stomping anyone else's territory...
Oh, i wish i was in the land of cotton
We have over 1.5 million in just the Las Vegas valley alone. Add to this the fact that (southern) Nevada is quickly becoming fairly cosmopolitan, have fun. Maybe you'd have some luck up north, but I doubt it.
Plus there's easily over $2mil spent down here this year for all of the adds for congress, state senate, and the such.
This is an excellent idea. It's thrilling. It would work fine. Count me in. We're close to defeating some terrible ideas like the drug war in places like California and Nevada. In ten years you useless naysayers get to try to explain to your children about your stupid slashdot posts about how it wasn't possible.
I think the choice is obvious. Pick a state which has practically no speed limit. Pick one that wants to legalize all sorts of things and has big money casino owners who'd love to legalize all the things that they wish they could do to really scare card counters and who'd love to legalize all the drugs their customers would want to buy from them. Think Nevada. Maybe start small with Vegas.
For instance, there is the classic moral problem of the prisoner's dilemma, where all players converge to a mutually distructive outcome. The only solution to a PD problem is a common moral code or government regulation. We all know how easy it is to ensure everyone has a common moral code.
Apparently governmental regulation of health concerns infringes on liberty. Fine then, the Free Staters should be happy when their deregulated corporations think its great for the bottom line to dump toxic waste into the water supply. Or they decide to use their liberty to break strikes, etc., etc., etc.
What these people don't seem to get is that the increase of govermental regulation happened for a reason, and it was not because of some evil fat cats twiddling their mustaches in a back room. The possibility of a society such as they envision died with the industrial revolution, and its not ever coming back.
They better go in with some cash and buy up media outlets.
Newspapers, Radio, and Television could eliminate the voting power of 20k on a monday morning whim. Think about it...just paint them as some sort of extremist, then claim anyone and anything they endorse is out to take away prescription drugs or *gasp* harm the education of our children.
Isn't this what Bhagwan Shri Rashneesh on a smaller scale to the town of Antelope Oregon in the 80's. Basically his followers outnumbered the original townsfolk and were thus able to take over city counsel and rule the town. Once in power they did things like renaming all the streets closing the schools and starting up there own 'security forces'. Oh yeah, and practiced biological warfare
They should all move to Strongbadia. I can see it now... Strongbadia. Population: 20,000 humans, 1 tire.
That was the Hare Krishnas, it was something much worse.
The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his posse came to Antelope Oregon in the early 80s/late 70s.
They did a little arson, attempted murder, drug smuggling, and vote fraud i.
They tried to pad the County Commission by busing in the homeless in 1984, then some of them did a little bio-warfare down at the Bonaza or the Sizzler in the Dalles
"The group contaminated salad bars in 10 restaurants in The Dalles, Ore., with Salmonella Typhimurium, causing several hundred people to become ill."
...then leave.
Unlike many other nations, we won't stop you from leaving.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
...don't drink the Kool-aid.
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
If they want autonomy from the US federal government, they can move to another country. There are several countries out there, especially in Europe, that are still independant and irresponsive to US pressure on most issues, in a variety of styles. Places like Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France come to my mind. Of English-speaking places, Ireland is probably the only one not to be a de-facto US colony.
Taking over a single state by moving a lot of like-minded people into it seems like some kind of evil scheme from the Twilight Zone, even if the goal is positive (right, like it won't be corrupted somewhere along the way). This plan seems overly complicated, risky, and unlikely to succeed with only one state involved (remember what happened the last time a bunch of states tried to break away from the US?). I know I'm not willing to move somewhere just to be part of someone's pet project.
Instead, I propose a geek breeding program that will aim to increase the percentage of freedom-demanding geeks in the US to a level that will give them political power that could rival the MPAA/RIAA/Microsoft/etc. This will give geeks control at the state and federal levels, and will allow geeks to stay where they are (though some areas might be better left ungeekified).
Now, I realize that this won't be easy. It would require recruiting a large number of females to the geek cause of course, and they would also have to be encouraged to have sex with geeks. In the beginning, it may be necessary to have multiple partners in order to build up a large enough genetic base to prevent genetic abnormalities. Similarly, different types of geeks would need to interact in order to keep the deficiencies of particular geek types in check. Still, I think more than a few geeks would be willing to take a chance on this program just because of the prospect of having sex.
Sure, some geeks might not need or even want the help of such a breeding program, but everyone will need to make sacrifices if this is going to work. This is a better world we're talking about here, not just for us, but also for our children and our children's children. This sort of thing isn't going to just happen on its own, we will all have to band together in our common cause of helping geeks get laid, um, I mean freedom! Yeah, freedom, that's the real reason, sure...
(The above does not constitute an endorsement of any of the ideas expressed above. All stereotypes mentioned above are for hypothetical use only and are not intended as an accurate description of any individual or group of individuals. The author takes no responsibility for the results of the attempted implementation of the ideas expressed above, as they are provided for entertainment use only. Interpretations of the above may vary, please allow 6 to 8 weeks before deciding that your interpretation is accurate. All complaints should be formally typed, notarized, and deposited in the nearest trash receptacle. Any females interested in this program should contact the author directly. Any females offended by this program should reconsider their feelings until they can appreciate the creative value of the above, at which time they should contact the author directly. Please be willing to relocate to the state of the author's residence. There are no disclaimers beyond this point. Author reserves the right to place additional disclaimers beyond this point.)
That's the strangest part. How do you get 20 thousand libertarians to agree to do any one thing?
Why not take over a Canadian state, then make it part of the US? Seriously, with an army of ~20,000 a group could easily annex part of Canada.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
There was a proposal to do something like this by setting up a brand new country, on the assumption that no existing country would ever allow this to happen within their borders. The new country was to be called Oceania, and was to be built in the Carribeans. There is also a FAQ for it.
If at first you don't secede
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Especially if they had real incomes. Only 7000 people on the island make over $50K. Prince Edward Island is a money-loser, subsidized by the Canadian government. About 25% of the island's income is is social security or farm subsidies. Economic growth in 2001 was 0.1%. Main sources of income are fishing and potatoes. Yet it's a beautiful place. It could become a high-tech center like Ireland. And there's a bridge to the mainland now; it's not as isolated as it used to be. You can drive there from Boston in a day. It's even a nice summer vacation spot.
nt
There's no such thing as a free state unless you don't want roads, water, sewer, phones, or anything else.
Doesn't sound like any place I'd want to live.
And who's running it anyway? As soon as you've got people in power, you've got greed, corruption, and the same mess you have anywhere else.
Overall, a dumb idea.
I cannot help but shake my head in disbelief when I hear some of the rhetoric that gets spewed by the loony Libertarians and their smug ilk. They bandy about terms like "slavery" and "bondage" and "repression", and by and large, they make these complaints in what is arguably the most free nation on the planet: the United States of America.
I've got some advice for Libertarians: why not try pulling your heads out of your asses, taking a good look around, and growing up? If you were at all interested in the world outside of the United States (and I can assure you there is one) you would know that there are people who are murdered by their governments simply for expressing unpopular opinions. There are countries where slavery is legal, and people are submitted to some of the worst working and living conditions imaginable. There are countries where people are imprisoned or executed for having the wrong religion (or no religion.) There are entire continents full of people who are starving or dying of treatable diseases.
Now, Libertarians, don't get your panties in a bunch; I'm not asking you to help these people, because I know you don't care about them. What I am asking you to do is get some damned perspective. You throw around words like "slavery" because too many of your tax dollars are being used to fund projects that you disapprove of. Here's a helpful tip: Get a life. There are people in this world who are suffering from real slavery and repression, and your self-aggrandizing cries of martyrdom come off as petty and childish.
I wish that I could find a Libertarian honest enough to admit the truth, which is that despite all of their whining and complaining, things here in the old U.S. of A are pretty damn good.
(1) we chose a state with no income taxes and a means for the people to get things done (i.e., laws supporting initiatives, referenda, and recalls);
(2) we arrange some sort of communal living structure, similar to college dorms, except we have multiple individuals or groups living together to split the living expenses -- safety and power in numbers;
(3) we all read Atlas Shrugged at least once to develop the mindset that being selfish is good, and staying behind for others (like family) to feed off us is bad.
But, really, how likely is that? Do you really want to live with me?
Marshall Islands or the U.S. Virgin islands. Better weather to be unemployed in...
As Republican as it comes and don't let our "Live Free or Die" motto fool you: Judd Gregg tried to do cute things like make encryption restricted and ram through the USA Act in the light of September 11th. Thankfully, both failed, but running with this, the "free" rarely refers to much more than "tax-free" these days.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Will John Galt be going?
Help President Bush save babies' lives! Vote Republican for Senate!
Congratulations. I will now vote anything except Republican. I assume your sig is an anti-abortion push. However, it can be read as a "Do It For The Children!"(tm) push. I automatically vote against "For The Children!!!"
I won't mention how this is illegal, of course. For a precedent, try, oh, the Civil War. Or the Militias out west.
Then, of course, you have to realize that the 20,000 people you are going to get are going to have about 5,000 different ideas about how to run this "free state." Geeks are not good at compromise...we're used to doing things the Right Way. Unfortuantely, government is not as cut and dry as code (and hell, code isn't that cut and dry, either).
Frankly, this whole things strikes me as a stupid idea originating from people who have no clue regarding politics, history, human nature, or just how damn lucky the U.S. was to have the amazing (and, yes, flawed, I know) leaders that we had when we started up. Look at what happened in France.
you dream. in fact, the reason why terrorist pick on the US is simply because they(you) pick your fights according to your needs. You need oil, you pick a fight with Irag. YOu need oil, you pick a fight with afghanistan (oil trade route). its quite simple really....it all boils down to money.
nb - the saskatchewanese are a deadly force....
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
Thru creating their own "citizens" which didn't exist prior to the civil war. Take an afternoon off and go to a reference library, and find the US Constitution Annotated with court decisions. You want the section on the 14th amendment (which takes up most of this very thick book).
You will find that it is only the specially enfranchised "US citizen" that is regulated thus. The pre-existing status of state Citizen was not affected.
Also, try http://come.to/foundation for information you won't hear from the ACLU.
Migration for the purpose of seizing political power frequently results in violence. Its ironic that Kansas is mentioned considering the history of "bloody Kansas".
Brief recap, Kansas was going to have a vote on whether or not to allow slavery, which would also determine the delicate balance of political power between those for and against slavery in the Congress. Partisans on both sides rushed in to qualify for the vote, low intensity civil warfare ensued.
I didn't see this in the google cahche of the sight so forgive me if i missed it. Is the FSP going to consider the vocation of its members when choosing a location? Or, are the Sowftware and Semicon guys going to have work on the docks new positions open. And, how about deadbeats and those down on their luck? Is the FSP going to allow wards of the state?
Just for the record, there is NO "off the record" record.
Make a record of that.
Sounds more like some refugee drug lords from Colombia would like a new place where they can run a drug/military op without government interference.
Oh and that monopoly thing... Somebody must have skipped a whole lot of economics class to believe all monopolies are bad. *Well* regulated monopolies for basic utilities is far more cost effective. Do you really think that five different systems of water supply pipes, or five different systems of sewage pipes for each house makes things better, even if there is competition?
No. OF course regulating this is a tricky thing, but certainly I've seen cases where the situation got *worse* after opening up for "competition" because the marked is a natural monopoly, a far more inefficent thing than a regulated monopoly. If these people don't see the difference, good luck.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Umm... I belive the other poeple in the state would be kida mad, Well that and I would like a more democratic state. ie. companys are not democratic. anyway just move to anartica and the north pole. no one lives their. But you might have to dug under the ice so you have somewhere to live when it all melts. Then we could all live in domes or underground. have a massive city underground.
Something tells me John Ashcroft is behind the whole plan.
"So we can take 20,000 of the most free thinking individuals in this country and put them all in one place?"
(tents hands and smiles wryly)
"Excellent."
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
I remember when the gay community in California was talking about moving numbers to Markleeville, a tiny burg (1K) in the Sierras so they could take over a municipal government and install a gay-friendly regime.
Perhaps these fellows should start small and take over a town first before trying a whole state.
I don't think the Markleeville thing came off, but it was the source of many jokes. To this day I pity anyone who went to Markleeville High.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
.
/.
First - How pro Freedom are these folks if they are willing to invade a state enmass and over ride the wishes of the previous residents?
I wouldn't want to be a part of it.
Second - Ever hear of a little place called the Alamo?
Read a couple of history books before you commit to a scheme.
Texas started out this way. Good idea (I guess), bad result.
The world's a lot more dangerous than it was back then.
Let me propose a better suggestion.
Stay where you are and organize, communicate, and activate.
Moving out is only going to make those who oppose your freedom stronger.
Set and example by setting up an 802.11 AP and take your notebook out to the front yard while trolling
Heh. When I originally wrote the message, I had put a tag at the end of it, but /. seems to have interpreted it as an actual html tag and made it invisible (instead of translating it into named character entities like <). Oh well, next time I'll check the preview a little more closely.
The threat to withold highway funds is only persuasive to some states: those states which have more roads, per capita, then their tax base would ordinarily support.
Specifically, highway funds come from a Federal pool to which each state contributes according to their ability, and from which funds are allocated to each state, according to their need.
It's only if your net take is larger than your net input that witholding of federal highway funds is persuasive.
Most unfunded mandates originate in California (the organ donor reduction acts -- also called "motorocycle helmet laws", and similar legislation on drinking age, speed limits, and other unfunded mandates are basically cafeteria plans for mandates that say "you will adopy 3 out of 5 of the following legislation in order to maintain funding")... and California is on the other side of that equation.
In the limit, the reason that the highway system was nationalized in 1956 is that there was a national security argument for support of mobile command posts, in the event of a nuclear war (and later downgraded to "any national emergency", after the widespread protests surrounding the vietnam war).
If that theory still holds, then it's in the federal government's best to continue supplying funds, regardless of what the state does or does not do (or it can see its interstate system go to hell in a handbasket, threatening national security).
-- Terry
If all they have is 20,000 people, they'd better make the state Delaware or Rhode Island. Even in teeny states like those I don't think 20k people could affect much change.
My state has nearly that many state employees!
In that, an influx of SO MANY people would overflow the local abilities to house, feed, and employ the settlers. IT wouldn't work
Free men go by bike or by train.
Unix makes easy tasks hard and hard tasks possible. Windows makes easy tasks easy and hard tasks $29.95.
After reading most of the replies to this I am amazed at how many socialists we have on Slashdot. I am more stunned by how many don't know they're socialists. We are a capitalistic nation build on the blood sweat and tears of people who left their own country to do just what these Lib's are doing and all I see is dozens of entitlement mentality people scoffing at the idea. I don't remember reading anywhere on their site about usurping federal law. I see plenty of legal opt out policies that they plan on, one major one was the federal funding for roads (you know the funds they blackmailed most of the state with so they could raise the drinking age to 21.) Anyone from Minnesota and Wisconsin will remember when Wisconsin had an 18 age limit and Minnesota had 21. It all comes back to the simple idea of competition. If you want a conservative state, fight for it (political fighting that is, no need to call out the militias.. yet..) and if you don't like it leave. If Minnesota is too liberal for you move to a conservative state. 80% of roads are built with state funding with the federal government only footing the bill for highways. I mean the idea is great, if they can pull it off. It's called ORGANIZATION. In a free society shouldn't people have the freedom to pass on certain things? They want to reduce the red-tape that the federal government has made. They aren't talking about ceding from the union, just opting out of many federal programs (which most states can). Why should I have to pay for highways in California when I live in Minnesota? I do, as California gets a larger percentage of federal dollars due to their size. Study many of the founding father's notes and writing and the current state of government is WAAAAAYYY different then they intended. They framed the Constitution to have a central BUT LIMITED federal government. The states were supposed to have the majority of power with the federal government setting standards to help regulate inter-state trade. I have the Constitution right here and it doesn't say anywhere that the federal government is supposed to:
Provide Low Income Housing
Regulate the price of Corn
Set housing construction standards
Set standards for pollution
Set standards on Fat content in beef
blah...blah..blah...
So far I saw hundreds of posts begging for bigger government (Democrats?) and less personal choice and even less competition (Socialist?)
I am awe struck that the American spirit has been mocked and turned into the butt of the entitlement generation's jokes.
My favorite post was:
"While in principle I agree with the objection to unconstitutional laws I have a real problem with privatizing everything. I see street sweeping, electricity, etc. as one of the reasons for government. As Enron, and California have shown private companies cannot be trusted with basic infrastructure. And, as AT&T, the RIAA, and AOLTW have shown eliminating all regulation is the best way to encourage monopolies."
This was the most ass-ignorant post out of the many I read. Let us take a peek:
Street Sweeping and Electric are the reasons for government? Holy have you ever read the Constitution? The argument at hand is Federal versus State. Find my any of the 50 states where the Electric and Cleaning is handled by the Federal Government? Why couldn't this new Free State provide those functions? I must have missed that in the Constitution somewhere? Was that near the Provide for the Common Defense clause? Private business built American, government programs are killing America. When we revolted against England how much of a person's income was being taken in the form of tax? Go do some digging, you'll wonder why we haven't overthrown our current government based on taxes alone. We fled Europe to come to the New World to avoid oppression, persecution, and yes taxes. That kind of spirit is what these people are expressing and try and they are the butt of your joke? Fuck you and leave the US.
Enron was a monopoly run by dishonest people. Companies don't screw people over kid, bad people running them do. Companies don't have a brain, they are not alive, it was specific people in power that screwed California. Put any person in a high place of power and they tend to become corrupted by that power. That is why the Federal Government was limited when the founding fathers drafted the Constitution. De-Regulation in the telecomm sector was a good idea, too bad the Federal Government did everything in their power to prevent new competitors from rising up after deregulation. Just look how fast many in congress wanted to Tax Voice-Over-IP communications and classify them as inter-state communications (All your telecomm providers pay a tax to the Feds, they wanted VOIP taxed too.) The RIAA is not a commercial company, it represents several recording companies. Name one product the RIAA makes? How is that a monopoly when there are more than one recording studio? AOLTW is a monopoly? How? Because they are big? I don't use AOL and I don't have cable. Why? Because I signed up with the competition, where is the monopoly? Now try and get a different electric provider, there's a monopoly!
You sound like on of those people, we Americans call them Socialists, which want all the wealth that people build for themselves re-distributed. Every time someone is successful you're the type that cries foul because, what, you didn't get rich? I can see that many people who are running out to bash these folks for their ideas have no clue of American history or the origins of the United States. Get on the fuck boat pal and go away so the rest of us that love freedom don't have to put up with you shit.
Hooray for the Dakota Carrier Network!
Help President Bush save babies' lives! Vote Republican for Senate!
So that he and Jeb can electrocute them or find other ways to kill them when they are older...
the biggest monoply is the government. just take schools as an example. if i want to send my child to a private school (basically, use a competing product), i have to pay for the public school education he's not using and THEN pay for the private school on top of that.
if i don't pay my phone bill, my phone is shut off. if i don't pay my taxes, i go to jail. privatization is better.
americans make america great, not the other way around. at its best, government just makes sure everyone plays fair.
char *mySig;
LOL. I hope this is a joke or sarcasm. Surely you don't really believe Bush's moronic feel-good analysis of Bin Laden's motives. Obviously, these guys are not some kind of rabid marxists out to destroy any hint of non-marxist countries. I don't know exactly what their motives are, but it is certainly not "to attack whatever country is the most free". We might not even qualify for that title anymore anyway. Hence the motivation for the FSP.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Cheney: Lets create a web site that will try to create the pinko liberal utopia that all them hippes want. We will announce it on slashdot. They all read that.
Bush: What' a pinko?
Cheney: Muhahahaha. Then we will gather their IP's and round them up for shipment to Git'mo.
Bush: I've never been to south of Florida, can I go visit Git'mo. Laura and I sure would like a day at the beach.
Cheney: You idiot. You're going to be late for your speech about how we should attack Iraq now.
Bush: Ahhh shucks. Can't we just play some baseball?
It sounds like it's close to the society created in Atlas Shrugged, and for the same reasons. If it's anything like that, I'm there. I just hope that they pick a good state, like Maine. I can't wait to read more once the site isn't Slashdotted any more.
For those of you who haven't read Atlas Shrugged, the basic premise is that the government sucks, and there are a group of people who are good at what they do and they move to a hidden place where they can live happily. It boils down to capitalism isn't being allowed to flourish under the federal government (like what we have now). Large, successful companies are branded as "monopolies" and are punished. People who invent things have those things taken away from them "for the greated good". It's all about being able to do what you love, what you're good at, and being properly rewarded for it. Of course, the society that they create is fantastic, and the US begins to fall apart as the government becomes more and more socialist.
Quite honestly, I'm surprised that this hasn't happened before. Of course in the book, the leaders of the successful, profitable, and useful companies are charismatic, idealistic people. Most of the current large companies are fairly generic.
If this is what the organizers are going for, then this will *not* be popular with most Slashdotters. Freedom, at least according to Ayn Rand, is all about the freedom to do what you want to do, and to be rewarded for it. It's actually the exact opposite of the Open Source, Free Software movement.
No.
It is protected speech. It is perhaps the most important reason for most of the Bill Of Rights.
A society which cannot tolerate dissent is doomed to minority. Insert comparative religion analogy based on degree of permitted religious scholarship here.
-- Terry
Why is it that so many Slashdotters want the 'net to be free, but get so upset when a society wishes to live that way? And just what does any of this have to do with tinfoil hats and white supremacy?
The Constitution clearly states that the federal government can only do those things that it has been explictly empowered to do and by extension things related to those. It is reasonable to establish more branches of the military as the military is explicitly federal. However the US Constitution does not grant any general authority for the US Government within the borders of the states. The "necessary and proper clause" only applies to those areas that the US Government already has jurisdiction which are in reality few and far between.
Did anyone ever open up Field and Stream again?... last I heard it had been closed for awhile. Minot also has Applebees, which spread thruout North Dakota like the plague in the early 1990s.
And then there's the almost monopolistic hold on the Bismarck/Minot grocery stores by the Barlow family...
All in all, it's a pretty nice area. But only if you like peace and quiet. It's not a place for the "d00d wherez da scene??" crowd.
Oh yeah, this sounds like a great idea. If you thought the Slashdot trolls were annoying, just wait until you LIVE in Slashdot.
Oh, waitaminute.... Texas practically runs the rest of the entire US already anyway. Nevermind :-)
Why not key west? They had the conch republic down there already!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
GPL-Marx
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
they will not agree on every issue. they agree that the federal goverment should stay out--that's one issue. that's the issue that brings them together.
take roe vs. wade as a basic example. you can be as pro-choice as they come and still believe (correctly) that the federal government has no constitutional right to forbid states from outlawing abortion within their borders. the problem is that it takes integrity to see the distinction. few people will fight to stop the federal government from doing something they agree with, regardless of the constitution.
char *mySig;
The ensuing disaster of epic proportions would make the greatest reality TV show ever!
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Anyone who thinks that something like this has a snowball's chance in hell of happening (before the gov't marches in to put an end to it) no matter WHAT the constitution protects, probably also believes that we have a 'voluntary' income tax system... and a democratic way of electing our leaders... and a representative goverment... I could go on and on. In short, it is a happy pipe-dream, nothing more.
there enough pro-liberty people in cali anyhow another 20k could not hurt, plus legalize pot
Yes, but Vermont, and other NE states, are quite liberal. That wouldn't be a good match for a bunch of liberatarians.
Just look at the medical marijuana thing in CA. The state says that it's ok, but the federal government says it isn't. And what happens? People get arrested for using and distributing it. Federal law has supremacy over local/state law, regardless of how charitable or well-intentioned.
And what if the federal government says that jaywalking is okay, but a municipal government says it's illegal?
Laws don't create exceptions from other laws, they just prohibit more behaviors. If the federal government forbids something, the state may not allow it, and vice versa. Now, the government system is supposed to be structured so that areas of responsibility don't overlap, but (as you might expect) theory and practice started diverging before the ink dried on the constitution. In areas of overlapping responsibility you must obey the restrictions of each level involved, which tends to reduce your freedom.
So even if the state government has the power to enact any law on those within its borders, it can do nothing to protect its citizens' freedoms from the regulation of the federal government. At best, it can decline to add further restrictions.
So I think it's a foregone conclusion that this will not have any great effect.
On the other hand, it would be pretty cool to gather with 20,000 like-minded people in one city, for the cultural possibilities alone.
Think about it. 20K is a very small percentage of the entirety of the US. If you looked hard you could probably frind 20K people somewhere in the US who would agree with 100% of the issues listed on the website. You could also likely get all of these people to vote as a consistent block (just look at how much power Unions have).
In the long run, there would, of course, be issues that not all 20K agreed on, and certainly as time went on this population of die hards would become dilluted. But I think it's well within reason for this group of people to come together and do it if they believe it can be done.
This plan has huge mounds of idealism piled onto it, but I think a fair portion of the idealism isn't completely ludicrous. On the other hand there are some parts that are more questionable. There will need to be taxes, and in all likelihood, they'd have to be rather high relative to most other locales because they may lose federal funding. It may be possible to structure these taxes differently though to provide a better return on investment, etc. There's a lot that can be done to improve how government functions if you can start with a clean slate.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Sounds familiar but if I remember correctly the Michigan Militia already lived in a state.
Also wondering just how this kind of Poo-poo winds up on Slashdot anyway? Is the crapola filter broken again? Or are this an open source secession?
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
> I think Don Marti was also the one who thought the geeks should do this by moving en masse to North Dakota.
North Dakota? I spent a few years in Buffalo and that was bad enough.
Why can't we take over Hawaii? Now THAT would be the place for our "Free State"!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
How on earth are they planning to bring in enough women to help keep the Libertarian population going for a couple of generations? It has been my (broadly generalized)experience that finding hard core Republican women is difficult enough; finding enough hard core Libertarian women (who are willing to mother lots of kids) is going to be nigh-impossible. Unless they're planning on just cloning themselves or living forever or something...
Cheers,
Mzilikazi
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
This is the most naive, idiotic thing I've ever heard of. Negotiate for autonomy? No government negotiates for autonomy. Autonomy is the opposite of government.
And to have any sort of political control by populating an area, you need both several million people and several billion dollars. Plus I would say the time window for inventing new religions closed at the end of the 19th century, so mind control would be of no help. Perhaps a militia and indoctrination system.
I am the founder and president of the Free State Project, so I thought I'd stop by to clear some things up.
First, if you are anti-libertarian and in favor of intrusive government, it is natural that you will oppose us, especially if we decide to come into your state. However, even if we are coming into your state, you can in no wise consider this a "takeover." As others have pointed out, 20,000 activists aren't sufficient to simply outvote everyone else in any state. They ARE enough, however, to make libertarian ideas relevant and to apply significant pressure to politicians. (Remember, these are not just voters, but activists.) We believe that once we have succeeded in doing these things, most of the populace will vote for our ideas. After all, we have a welfare-warfare state not because people clamored for it, but essentially through inertia: rising incomes have allowed politicians to increase taxation and regulation gradually without causing an outcry. 20,000 activists in a small state will be enough to put libertarian ideas and candidates on everyone's mind. So if you're a statist, you shouldn't fear the Free State Project, unless you fear a straight confrontation between rival ideologies in the public square.
Second, nothing about what we are doing is remotely illegal. We are working peacefully through the political process to achieve liberty at the state and local levels and to push for true federalism as demanded by the U.S. Constitution. This has nothing to do with "compounds," Jim Jones, or militias. Those of you making such ill-informed comments display a mindset that is extremely dangerous for democracy: apparently you would rather have your political opponents killed than to engage them in dialogue. Shame on you!
Finally, if you are a libertarian, I would point out that the Free State Project seems to be the most - nay, the only - viable strategy for liberty in our lifetimes. If we continue to squander our resources trying to bring Washington, D.C. to the light, nothing will change. We must concentrate our resources to achieve political reforms, and the Free State Project is the first credible strategy for doing so. Check out the website (the server should be doing a little better now) and examine our plans in depth. We feel that the precise process, including obtaining signatures before the move, researching the location, and holding a membership vote, make this project likely to succeed where others have failed.
http://www.freestateproject.org
Anyone ever read BF Skinner's 1973 treatise Walden Two in highschool? The big draw to this synthetic community would be a 4-hour workday, though chances are a lot of that would be plowing and washing dishes in the cafeteria.
Kind of a neat idea but sustainability is iffy. The only surviving Walden Two community I can find via Google is Los Horcones, in Mexico. Other Walden Two communities have failed (understandably) due to lack of human and economic resources.
Here's Walden Two at Amazon.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
Ever since the Civil War, every so often, a nut (or two) show up and plan on doing something just like this. Too bad it's illegal, they'll fail, and go home, or they'll get shot (a la Ruby Ridge) and then they'll no longer be a problem.
You can try me in absentia for heresy in your common-law court, if it makes you happy. Heh.
largely based on a desire to extract natural
resources:
http://jeffersonstate.com/jeffersonstory.html
perhaps paying closer attention to current events
would have influenced their timing.
Jesse Ventura's election was not strange at all. With two very poor candidates running for the democrats and republicans, the voters decided not simply elect for the lesser of two evils.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Now I don't want to jog anyone's memory here, but the last time we had people that wanted to "drop out of the system" was around the 1860s was it not?
Someone please jog my memory about how that plan worked out... I can't remember.
Also, if you want to turn a portion of the US into a "federal free zone" then you will become the new federal crimes enterprise zone and also the federal fugitives haven zone as well, leaving you with a federal crime problem that no one (especially the ones that don't want to *gasp* PAY for a non-regulated police force) to mop up all of the immoral acts that no one is enforcing.
Honestly, just move to the country people. If you mind your own business, most people will leave you alone. But honestly, if this is about the fact that you want to smoke weed, have an issue with pre-ban magazines on assault rifles, or generally just don't want to pay taxes, then I would suggest moving to Afghanistan. You can pretty much do what you want to there. Y'know.
Keep in mind that lawlessness is a great idea.
But only if you're paranoid, self-sufficient, unfriendly, armed to the teeth, healthy enough and disciplined enough to not need high technology, and and don't mind losing a child or two to the occasional resource raid.
Hmmm. WHERE DO I SIGN UP?!?
I assume that the goernment is already out to get them - by getting their site slashdotted they are saying "Down with the separatists! [website]"
Could 20K well-armed Libertarians take out Saddam's Republican guard?
Anyone else see the possibilities here?
.. it could take over the world!
How is this insightful? They are talking about taking over a STATE government through the ballot box. NOT talking about rebelling against the FEDERAL government. Why do people not read articles?
But, having said that, I think I'm on pretty stable ground when I say that a dominant system of laws, taxes, and accountability like the Federal Government, hates competition. It has the ways and means to obstruct, and flat-out put-down any social movement, regardless of the constitution. The Federal Government is the single most powerful organization within the CONUS, with the ways and means to influence legislation, and commerce with any domestic or international business. It controls aspects of the transportation infrastructure that are nightmarishly indentured by laws and regs that span the CONUS, and given even the slightest whiff of sucession from any of the laws and policies that empower it, we can expect a swift and immediate response (California is probably the most independent state in the CONUS, and they're walking on a knife's edge).
Anything short of a technology or an event which completely renders such an organziation impotent and the result will always be the same...the dissolution of the new order, and the replacement and reinforcement of the pre-existing order. In this way, the FedGov is like water being balanced between all the sinks, completely submerging the states. Any state that tries to rise above it will face a tsunami...people are weak, and softer than ever these days, and the technologies and methods of coercion are more sophisticated now than they have ever been.
We are a society of shoppers. We are no longer the farmers and the soldiers we once were...our hands are soft and our backs are weak. Maybe being brutalized by the iron-glove of the fedgov may turn all of that around. Society is starting to demand common-sense laws about some controlled substances that have existed in the underground--by proxy in the homes of the citizens, seeing constant use without all of the horror promised by the we-know-better-than-you government--but are seeing more and more demand in public...it may be a representational democracy, but even public figures have to occasionally listen to their voters. It's probably the most satisfying aspect of the democratic experiment, but everyone should enjoy seeing politicians squirm as they earn their money.
In the end, we all want our sitcoms, our nice roads, EMT service, and hospitals...and compliance pays more than grass-roots optimism and bartering ever have, or possibly will. In physics, there is a conservation of energy. In society, the same thing applies, but instead of energy it's comfort. As long as people are comfortable nothing is going to change.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
As much as I'd like an influx of 20,000 libertarians in my home state of Alabama, I think the most logical choice would be Nevada. They have a relatively low population, which would make the "freedom" voting block count more, and they already have a good reason (gaming income) to vote against vice laws. I hear they've also recently jumped on the marijuana-decriminalization bandwagon, and it would be nice to start with a state that seems kind of libertarian in the first place.
Caveat: I don't know how much federal support they accept. Anyone here from Nevada?
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
"Greetings from the Lord Humongous... The warrior of the wasteland... the ayatollah of rock and rollah!"
And a bargain at twice the .. uh.. price.. or something.
I don't know how many of you live in New England (probably a lot) but in Vermont, at least, we don't really like shitheads from out of state coming in and telling us what to do. Especially if all they want to do is repeal all the laws and let a bunch of idiots from New York, Mass. and Connecticutt move up here and build a bunch of goddamn housing developments. Go home flatlander, you're not welcome here.
We of the Free-City-State Society hereby claim future territorial rights to Blaine, WA due to its geographical size and location:
1) it's a peninsula that's already detached from the continental US
2) it's in the Pacific Northwest -- proximity to Seattle/Redmond and Vancouver, BC
To the geeks of the Free State (not to be confused with the Free-City-State) can go find your own neck of the woods to park your mobile homes.
I was always pretty partial to the Oceania idea, but now it has been abandoned (http://www.oceania.org/end.html) for the same reason the Free State Project isn't going to work -- Libertarians just don't have the resources. It takes money and lots of support to make it work.
Most people aren't willing to vote with their feet and move elsewhere, even when the outcome is certain. I know if I move to Las Vegas, people have a more libertarian outlook, but that's not enough reason to move.
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal -- Jello Biafra
Utah is full of them...
why don't we get 20k people together and oppose them on every issue?
c'mon, it'd be worth it just to see the looks on their faces!
Just raise the taxes on crack.
"What can be done in a single state? A great deal. We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs.
Repeal state taxes? Sounds really nice. But remember we live in the United States of Litigiousness. In addition, you'll probably have to change the state constitution and that in itself will take no less than a decade.
Bottom line: repeal of state taxes won't happen for the generation that "starts" the independent state, but for the second generation.
We will end the collaboration between state and federal law enforcement officials in enforcing unconstitutional laws.
In this day and age of the "Patriot Act," CARNIVORE, and the overwhelming need for security (according to our current administration) there is no way that 20,000 or even 100,000 people could break the federal hold on states. Those who have tried on a much smaller basis (Ruby Ridge and Pine Ridge) are either dead or in prison.
We will repeal laws regulating drugs and guns.
And the federal authorities that you no longer collaborate will seize any and all public or private property that has anything to do with any type of (federally) illegal narcotic; and when you resist, the President will federalize your own National Guard to defeat you.
10th Amendment power has been whittled away for the past 250 years. It does not have enough power to over turn federal drug and weapons laws.
We will end asset forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain.
See above.
We will privatize utilities and end inefficient regulations and monopolies. Then we will negotiate directly with the federal government for more autonomy.
Yeah, Jefferson Davis thought he could do the above too. Lincoln thought different. We all know what happened next.
There exists a delicate balance of power between the federal government and the 50 states. Before you go running off to create your own independent state, you may want to create some alliances with other states. If you go it alone (be it with 20,000 people) you will fail.
Don't forget history. It was not Washington and the Colonial army alone that defeated the British, it was the French Navy and Army with the Colonial army that defeated the British.
And a small request: after you have your own "free" state, work hard to call a federal constitutional convention, so that the Constitution can be changed.
Out
hurry! they are going to be putting a state funded medical system on the ballot in the near future. though expensive, the experiment may be very interesting. it would be nice to be in a place where the priorities are correct. education, health care... massive military.
that there are a lot of college professors on slashdot. This is the only way I have been able to reconcile their attrition towards non-tax-paying political ideologies such as these and their general intelligence and technical abilities. I see them whine a lot about "why do I bother to teach" and whatnot. Also, no average group of people would have such a high proportion of grammar-nazis. They don't think they're socialists for the same reason that most college professors don't think they're socialists: they and all of their friends are socialists.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
My guess is that even if they're successful guaranteeing things like the DMCA can't be enforced in some state, the rest of the US will just prevent them from access to such content. Kind of like if child porn or something was hosted in SeaLand, Britain would just cut them off upstream. You're always going to be censored on some level.
$45 per U Colocation Special
I think this
"free state" in Kansas would be more widely accepted by this crowd.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
Yes, because you need to be 21 to be old enough to drink.
It is much more important that you are that old to drink. Stuff like the following really doesn't require that much responsiblity.
Vote
Join the army
Drive a car
Have sex (and children)
Work
Pay taxes
Own a gun
Yeah good thing we don't let those kids drink.
As a Vermont resident:
(I don't have the generations in the dirt to qualify as a Vermonter.)
There's so much emphasis on the Evils of the Federal Government, but the same crowd doesn't talk about the Evils of Corporatism. Likewise the folks who talk about the Evils or Corporatism don't generally talk about the Evils of the Federal Government.
IMHO, neither side is completely right - or completely wrong. You've got to balance your poisons, and for the most part I like the balance that has been struck in Vermont.
We are in the process of electing not to participate in the Federal "education reform", bypassing the funding to go our own way - a potentially painful decision, but being taken with eyes wide open.
We were the last state to get a Wal Mart.
We are the only state without a McDonald's in the capital city.
We took away Dubya's majority in the Senate, as the Rebuplican party drifted too far to the Christian Right. (My brother holds that the Christian Right isn't conservative - they're liberal with a different set of values.)
It's a balancing act.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
then M$ will post armed guards at the borders to keep xboxen from being imported. Like they are about to do with Australia.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
...and then I demand to talk to my lawyer!
So they let me, of course, and the whole black helicopter abduction case goes to court.
The pilot of the black helicopter explains that they had a right to abduct me because I wrote "AZ" instead of "Ariz." on an envelope, thereby making Arizona into a "federal region".
What does the judge say? Well, we won't find out until he stops laughing, gets his breath again, and climbs back onto his chair.
The whole legal theory is pure voodoo. Is my writing "AZ" supposed to amount to a formal renunciation of my citizenship in the state of Arizona? What if I live in Delaware, and I only put "AZ" in the "to" address, while using a rock-ribbed True Citizen's "Del." in the return address? Does that mean I'm a citizen of Delaware when I'm in Delaware, but not when I'm in Arizona? Or does it mean I'm fine until I move to Arizona, whereupon I become a chattel of Congress because I've renounced my Arizona citizenship in advance? Or is it supposed to amount to a negation of Arizona's existence as a state? Or what?
If I live in Arizona, I live in Arizona. If I put "Guam" in the return address, guess what? I still live in Arizona! If I call it the "Holy Kingdom of Arizona Under Allah", that won't make it subject to Islamic law. It doesn't matter what you call it; it is what it is. I, in my private capacity as a private citizen (of a state, of the nation, or of Disneyland), don't have the authority to change these things by fiat. Furthermore, the return address on an evelope is not any kind of legally binding document anyway, under your legal theory or any other. Besides, without an intent to commit fraud, you say anything you damn well please. I can tell people my name is Tom Selleck, if that's what turns me on. I can claim to live in Morocco. I can dress up like the Pope. Nobody cares. Well, the neighbors might think it a bit odd, but I won't become legally liable for the Pope's parking tickets.
What if I use "Ariz." at home, but "AZ" at work for business correspondence? Does that mean they can take my gun away if I'm in the office, but not when I'm at home? It's voodoo.
No. States pay the highway funds. They are not collected directly from individual tax payers. They are not part of the federal tax bill you pay.
Utah had a lively discussion over this when the motorocycle helmet law mandate was introduced ("pass this law or lose your highway funding").
The state pays into, and the state gets paid out of, a federal fund.
The state can choose not to forward the monies.
The escalation curve is not pretty.
-- Terry
The United States Code defines Sedition with some precision:
18 USC Sec. 2384. - Seditious conspiracy
"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof..."
... or US Dept of Justice
To my knowledge, the only gov't that has removed sedition from its' laws is Canada.
and the "squares" tend to be the ones that stick out in a crowd. Even if the Laws are against pot, local police don't really bug people about it unless they're doing something else like having a turf war or driving into things.
there may be laws on the books but "It's casual"
I want CA WA OR and NV (so we get vegas) to just leave the USA and form a "west america" new country. then if you think it sucks, you just move back east where you weirdos come from.
seriously though, I think Califonia will end up leading the way anyhow.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Oops - corrected url for lexrex (cut and paste was too greedy). Sorry.
Which, interestingly enough, is not a state...and they're not particularly happy about that. They have no representation in the senate (at least, not any whose votes are actually counted), nor the House, and even put "Taxation without Representation" on the city license plates as a jab at the fact that they're the only part of the continental US that has no power in congress.
They might just be up for a revolution...would be worth a try...
This just in: it appears that Oobleck has reached the finals in Solo Mental Gymnastics--Freestyle Event. Starting with "Wouldn't it be nice if my neighbors shared my views on important political issues, and we all voted", this incredible athlete vaulted an amazing distance, to land squarely in "we're a compound-living, arms-stockpiling, demagogue-worshipping cult, based on the teachings of a madman, and eligible for government antiterroist action".
This unbelievable leap, executed without any intermediate steps, has broken world records, and is virtually guaranteed to win Oobleck the gold this year. The sheer audacity of the maneuver is sure to win the hearts of many moderators here today. Let's wish this great athlete the best of luck.
Good luck to you, Oobleck!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Mod this sucker down. Here's why...
I've been signed up for the FSP for months. I don't need a bunch of clueless kiddies signing up for the project with no intention of following through, THIS IS MY LIFE you're messing with, kids.
So you don't agree with the project.... Cool. Don't want your type anyway, shut up and go play xbox. Let us alone to succeed or fail on our own merits.
The state where the State Education institution removed Darwin and ordered creationism taught in the public schools? Yeah, thinking freedom-loving people would really be at home in that intellectual backwater. As if.
We don't have as many nukes as we use to. At one point the saying was that if N.D. succeeded from the rest of the US, we'd be the 3rd largest nuclear power after the US and the USSR.
:P
We need that kind of big stick - think about it... Unabombers and nutjobs to the west in Montana, 20 million bloodthirsty Canadians to the north, a state run by a pro wrestler to the east, and South Dakota to the south! (nothing need be said about them).
This is a dangerous part of the world..maybe those guys should look at something safer - like the middle east
I bet for most states the cost of maintaining roads is a single-digit percentage of the budget. What really takes up the dough is schools. And they do such a crappy job anyway. The free state should also opt out of the federal education system, and try to recruit a lot of good teachers for the required private schools.
I'm all for striping the power away from the government, but who are you going to give it to.
:(
"We will privatize utilities..."
Meaning take invaluable public resources from an institution with weak democratic control (i.e. local government) and give it to an institution that has no democratic control (i.e. corporations).
Oh, I know, I know... "Consumers get a voice by what they buy." BULLSH*T! Boycotts almost never work. (A few exceptions.) It's simple game theory. Really something like privatization you don't have to use guess work theory, just look at how well Central America has don't when they given up their public resources to private control. Prices went up, service went down. Profits go up though, so that's something.
How can you call yourself a "libertarian" when you don't oppose master and servant relationships at the workplace anyway? I know, I know... Workers are free to starve on the streets are choice from a list of masters. (I picked-up the word master from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. It what he called people how used wage labor.)
-Jeff
"All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." -Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations"
PS - I promised myself I would avoiding debating with "Libertarians" in attempt to avoid the 26 page response to a few lines. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.
Hey, *I'd* be in, except for that pesky transcontinental commute I'd have to make. Or is there a larger market for OpenStep developers in the badlands than I thought?
Here's a more practical idea: create a nonprofit political action committee. Get 20,000 geeks to join and each write a couple of checks -- $10, $25, $50, $1,000, whatever -- to selected federal candidates. Bundle the checks and deliver to said candidates. Write political briefings for the politicians explaining why specific legislation needs to be introduced, supported, or defeated, and issue yearly scorecards rating each legislator on his or her performance, tying the amount of funding they get to their performance.
It's worked for every other special-interest group out there, from feminists to anti-abortionists. Why not for us?
They already have an independence movement: the Alaska Independence Party. Here.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I'd like to suggest that they move to one of the Gulf states. Without them gub'mint satellites invadin' their privacy, the rest of us can just wait until the next big-ass hurricaine shows up and catches them clueless (more than usual, that is).
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I believe south carolina and a bunch of other rag-tag states tried this awhile back. Its called seceeding from the union, and I dont thenk the federal government would be down with that. No state can opt out of federal laws.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
If they are going to repeal laws regarding drugs, I think they have another thing coming their way. If they manage to repeal all the anti-drug laws, guess what, the druggies will come, en masse. I'm not saying all people who abuse substances are "stoners" etc, but you must realize that heavy and frequent drug users are the people who are not going to contribute much to the society. They'll be to busy getting stoned, smashed, shitfaced etc to help maintain the roads or help the community (like most of they pay their taxes anyways). The whole point of many of the drug laws is to keep the population from falling into massive drug use. Would America be where it is today if 70% or so of the American populace was heavy in to drugs? It's a known fact that drugs are extremely harmful to the mind, and when these brain damaged people flock to this place, I'll guaratee you this: 1. The federal government will have their eye on the people's drug use. 2. The colony will eventually fall apart due to gross incompetence among the populace. Then again, I'm no expert on this. This only my two cents worth. What does everyone else think?
This is such a bunch of bull! Like if they will never leave their little village to shop, travel, etc. But now they don't want to pay for the roads or anything else. This sounds like the idiots in Vieques. They are all born US Citizens, but they think that what they got, their freedom, stability, basic rights, just fell from the sky. And so they want to find somehing else, while the rest of us, regardless the state/territory, carry the burden to think about the future of our Country. It is always a little group of middle/high class idiots that can only affort this type of thinking. You don't like the freedom that we have all across the Country? Go and travel around the world and you'll see how good we have it. Time and time again, the same thing happens. The same guys/gals that are the ultimate rebels eventually realized what a bunch stupids they were and transform themselves to the ultimate capitalists.
California is the last place I think of when I think of liberty.
Doesn't the state steal money from the citizens for it's social programs, to run money losing subway systems (which if I am not mistaken cost $35,000 per year per rider), and to regulate 'so called' unregulated power.
Taxation = slavery = socialist state.
Californians, when you leave take New York with you!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
I disagree. Regulations don't work. Anything that impedes free enterprise and private ownership is ultimately harmful. Toxis waste dumped in a water supply? That's what the legal system is for. The company that does this should be sued out the ass for cleanup and for punitive damanges. That doesn't happen under the current system. Strike breaking? Absolutely. That's a *good* thing. If one group of employees isn't happy, but another group is willing to work under the existing conditions at the existing rate, absolutely they should work. We've had so much half-assed regulations for so long, it's hard to imagine a country without them. California power? It failed because regulation wouldn't let companies charge what they needed to to make a profit. Same thing's happening with the water supply. Regulations are rpeventing a fair market rate. Same thing with gasoline...
All we'd need to do is follow a simple four step plan.
1) Secede from the union.
2) Proclaim ourselves a Nuclear state.
3) Declare war on the US
4) Surrender
These steps should all be done in within the space of an afternoon. Once complete, we apply for foreign-aid from the US, and live fat and happy on the sunny beaches of North Dakota.
See y'all in Fargo!
I am the only one who sees shades of "Escape from NY/LA"? The are essentially calling for a gun toting, drug and alcohol free-for-all zone. So I nominate Snake Plissken for governor!
"We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy"
:)
:)
Yes, until some president will decide to bomb them because they settle a danger for the entire nation he's leading. Imagine the fun if this 'president' won't be the US president, but some other nation's president! Maybe their political autonomy will lead to things that are considered unfair and dangerous in a muslim nation. Now what..?
ok just kidding. But the idea is fun anyway... it shows how the uncontent people in the US aren't really willing to moving anywhere... they will wait and be quiet until things are gone bananas.
yes, I'm trolling.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I[...] a[..]m[...] a[...] mo[...]r[...]o[...]n[...].
I'd love to see a group of 20,000 armed nutcases try to take over a Canadian "state" (i.e. province). The invasion would last for about half a day, until the Canadian government got over their surprise and mobilized the Princess Pats and other nearby army regiments. I suspect Canadian troops initially wouldn't shoot to kill, either out of pity or some kind of misplaced humanitarianism. Eventually, though, there'd be 15,000 corpses. RCMP swat teams and local law enforcement would mop up the rest.
There's a silver lining, though... at least the survivors would get free health care. Maybe they could start a new "free society" from the comfort of their prison cells and/or straitjackets.
Ok, ignoring all the other silliness, 20,000 people is a small city... Not a state. What state in America would allow 20,000 outsiders to move in an take over?
This would not happen since it wouldn't be a welfare state. The places with the biggest drug problems are coincidentially also the biggest nanny states. They won't be setting these people up at the Hilton at the taxpayers expense.
Drug laws do not stop drugs as it is. So why isn't 70% of the population using illegal drugs now.
Ending drug prohibition would only decrease the flow of drugs. Answer yourself, why do so many people risk their lives to bring drugs into this country? Because the money is worth the risk. If drugs would, say as cheap as cigarettes, you wouldn't see 'mules' carrying drugs in their stomach and people literally dying to cross the border. Not to mention putting money in the hands of murders, aka so-called Drug Cartels.
Drug laws have been in affect for years and drug use is on the rise.
Besides it's none of your business what someone else is doing.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
see subject
I mean, didn't you Americans have a little skirmish called 'The Civil War' that was essentially a war between States and Federal rights. At least it started out that way. Maybe extremely careful consideration should be taken before people decide that States rights should override Federal rights, otherwise you're just going to end up in the same bloody situation all over again.
Even as stupid as some particular organisms can be, our species will inherit freedom. It's part of Who We Are and What We Want To Be.
Pulling yourselves away will only create more division and is actually a step away from True Freedom. True Freedom will only occur when all individuals in our Worldwide Villiage have it, not by creating a separate group designed for artificially create it.
I guess people are too quick to forget history. A religions group called... hrmm.. the MORMONS! tried this. But then again they wanted independence.
So if government control is out, and private control is out? What's left?
What the private sector has that government does not is accountability. Notice if a crook works for a private organization they get convicted (see WorldCom), if a government officials steals/wastes your money - they get elected (see hillary clinton.)
Besides your confusing libertarian-ism with no government control. This is incorrect. Libertarians believe in a strong local government that is used to protect the people, not enforce every twisted law they can come up with.
Your comments on Central America only prove this point. Corrupt officials look the other way when they receive donations, support, etc. from local businesses.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
My guess is that the Feds will find something unpleasant to do about this if they succeed, ranging from cutting off subsidy programs required to keep local infrastructures going to sending in tanks.
If they succeed, what I expect people to do to each other will be even more interesting. Someone said "where we can paint our house whatever color we please". Seems to be that the Libertarian philosophy that allows everything to be subject to contract would allow housing associations to pass restrictive covenants that make current city ordinances of the idiotic variety look benign.
What happens in an economic downturn with no safety net? 20K geeks with no local employment and no welfare make an interesting combination. The pure pursuit of any ideology doesn't guarantee economic prosperity.
What happens when local infrastructure becomes part of an unprotected commons where the only contributions to keep the streets paved are voluntary? What happens to schools when most people don't have kids? What happens to libraries when the people who dominate local politics are content with their own personal book collections? What happens when a major corporation decides to take advantage of no local anti-pollution laws, and hires a mercenary force to protect its facilities from shutdown when the locals make some?
What happens when every local service only exists as long as there are people who directly and immediately benefit from it?
I'm not arguing that the people working with this project shouldn't do it, I'd like to see it happen. And I hope that whatever else goes down in Montana, the Net stays up, because I want to see lots of reporting on the results. I could be wrong about this, perhaps people really are responsible enough to make it work.
Tech Public Policy stuff
The speed limit isn't just for traffic control, there are also good environmental reasons for keeping speed under control. This report http://www.epa.gov/otaq/reports/envspoms.htm by the EPA found a 153% increase in carbon monoxide emissions at 65 mph versus 55 mph.
"I think the U.N. is going to find that the blame lies with all the Sudanese rap music that glamorizes genocide."
not going to have New York. sorry.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
I dare these idiots to move to Wyoming, or Montana or another similar Western state. Those ranchers are well armed and don't like interference w/ their livelihoods. Also, the climate and lack of broadband may discourage most geeks
I'd suggest Alaska. Every couple of years someone starts a petition drive to secede from the small states. Our state government is located 1,000 miles away, and the average Alaska resident can't afford to go. Also, we get a nice, fat "Permanent Fund" Divident each October. This year it was $1,500+. It's beautiful, we have lots of Veterans, natural resources, famous weed, and awesome tech stuff. Unfortunately, we now have the highest alcohol tax, but we pay no state income taxes. My friend has a site with some cool pics at http://alaska-freegold.com
Microsoft should declare independence from the United States, and hire some mercs to capture Washington, D.C.
Scary thing is, they actually have the resources to do it, too...
liberty as in free beer, free speech, or just freedom to to die in the street because the only way to buy water is down a private road that just had it's toll hiked to 300$ after the other bridge washed out?
I consider myself liberty-oriented, but the people who consider themselves really liberty oriented scare me.
It might just be my perception, but it seems like people on the small ends of the bellcurve always think having guns is the final answer to their problem.
When you go enough standard deviations away from the normal curve, all you'll find are unusual deviants. sadly, they're so different, and yet so firm in their convictions, that their solution usually involves owning a lot of guns and canned goods.
Me, I'm happy moving to a state that just shifts enough over that I feel like people are more like me, and I don't get looked at askance for voting Democrat or thinking a war with Iraq doesn't make sense and might be unjust. that's why San Francisco's the place for me.
The people there are just deviant enough.
Whatever their grievance, the more standard deviations you go
Kevin Fox
Some of those things, like
- pave their interstate highways
we'll want, although we'll probably expect those to be speed-limit free toll roads. Other things, like
- provide accurate time bases for their devices
- keep the GPS birds flying
- keep stronger out-of-state entities from swamping their wireless frequencies
we think that individuals could probably do themselves, if there's a real need for such things. Or, for things like protection of wireless frequencies, perhaps we could find remedy in contract law, rather than federal regulation. After all, for the state to manage these things, we have to presume that the state owns them. Finally,
- back their currency so that they can do commerce with other states and countries
- prevent their utility companies from gouging them
are things which we explicitly would not want the government to do "for" us. Only a fiduciary currency (paper money, not backed by anything other than the trust of the State) needs the "backing" of that state. As far as "prevent[ing] their utility companies from gouging them" goes, I can't even imagine a free people making that kind of Soviet request of their government. (Except perhaps in California, where it's been said that the best thing that can happen for them is to have economics textbooks airdropped over Sacramento. I suggest New Ideas From Dead Economists by Todd Buchholz.)
Pave the roads (maybe), keep the Canadians at bay. That's all that I really want from the State. Everything else, a free people can do on their own.
P.J. O'Rourke describes this approach to Libertarian philosophy as it relates to federal spending much more tidily in his essay Would You Kill Your Mother To Pave I-95?.
Carthago delenda est!
It will be the first time I've ever seen more than 6 libertarians agree on *ANYTHING*. Their endless nitpicking on semantics alone will be enough to keep this thing on hold for at least the next century.
Henry George and the single-taxers did the analysis more than 100 years ago, and concluded that only in Delaware would it be possible. Sadly, it proved impossible here as well, with George's supporters taking only 3% of the vote on election day.
Although George did not successfully take over Delaware, and many of his soldiers were arrested, three communities devoted to his principles survive today, and retain a unique flavor as well as an unusual legal climate created primarily by elaborate deed restrictions on properties.
Arden, Ardentown, and Ardencroft are all thriving communities today. And the Georgists have a web site.
We didn't readopt the daytime speed limit because highway funds were threatened... We adopted it because people as a whole are jackasses, and if you just tell them to be "reasonable and prudent" you get everyone driving 110 mph in the rain.
Perhaps "coastal access" should have been termed "border access" which makes North Dakota, Idaho, Montana, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Alaska all candidates (if my geography is correct).
Steve
Why is it so wonderful to have the states interfere with my life and so terrible to have the feds do it?
...and stupid laws would be to have a mandatory sunset, say 5 years, on everything the legislature passes. Built into the state's constitution. This would keep the lawmakers so busy reviewing and renewing the existing laws that they'd have little time or willingness to pass anything new. The less action the government takes, the better off everyone will be, IMO.
As long as you're an adult and you can't inflict this on any kids I think you should be able to do anything to your damn self as you please. It shouldn't be a hostile takeover of an entire state. It would be fairer if you came together and bought some territory from some state+country, that is paid the current residents and the state+country it was in it's expected value + future cost to defend the new border from illegal immigration.
It would be important to shot anyone trying to cross out of the territory on sight so that they wouldn't export their less productive citizens to the US. They would of course have to give up their citizenship on entry, and put in escrow the cost of their possible reintegration into society if they wanted a visa to visit the US + pay Visa processing costs + taxes for the days they planned to spend in the US. The escrow would be set by the state department officer that processed their visa, so that lower fees could be charged for a respectible person with a PhD than some down on their luck refugee.
Wouldn't it be easier to just move to some third world country without much of a government than try to buy land from one of the richest countries in the world? I'm ignoring the hostile takeover of a state because that's just wrong. Or, maybe find a down on their luck indian tribe that will accept 10 billion a head to leave or accept you as voters. Probably the cheapest solution, you would only have to bargain with the US Government for air rights and entry rights with your new passports after you renounced US Citizenship.
If the wolves make the laws, the sheep know what's for dinner. The California energy system was never privatized. It was differently regulated. And as we can all see now, badly regulated.
You don't seem to understand that monopolies are not bad, per se. It is monopoly pricing that is bad. And in a free market, a monopoly has a very hard time sustaining monopoly pricing for any length of time. Said length being related to the cost of entry into a business.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Local population is not that large; 20000 motivated voters would matter. What is more there is a strong libertarian streak in many already in the state (and a state government that already has raised getting money from out of staters to a fine art).
Americans are not 55-45 on most of the issues that are mentioned in the article. More like 95-5; just think about how much vote Ralph Nader got last time. (I'm not suggesting any correlation between voting for him and supporting the free state, but I hope you get what I mean). Additionally people who are for princliples like that tend to flock to metropolitan areas; not exactly Montana. Nice idea to think about, but I'd much rather petition my local representatives.
There was a fellow I worked with. He went on and on and on about how he would manage the company. Wouldn't have made this or that mistakes, would have done this way or that.
One day he got his wish, he was made manager of a new division of the company. He got a team together and did everything his way. He did everything all the trade journals said you should to get quick, good results.
In one year, he had recreated every mistake that had been made. The only thing to his credit was that he done it in record time.
I think the Libertarian town would be a great experiment. I don't think it would be wildly successful, but it sure would be better filler for the news than getting hourly sniper reports between pondering how badly to crucify Martha Stewart.
I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
I personally am willing to put up $100 bucks towards a fund to ship these 20K or so asshats out of the country. If you don't like it vote or get out... bunch of cracked up tech head socialists. Jesus fucking christ...
Canadian provinces can secede ... consider, say, Prince Edward Island, with a population of 138,000 spread over 5,600 square kilometers. That's a plausible province for this scheme. 20,000 determined people really could take it over.
... would you want a bunch of gun totin', right-wing Americans in your province messing up your nice, socialized medicine and sparkling clean streets? Neither would they, and since the right-wingers don't have any distinguishing marks, that probably rules out all of us who'd like to emigrate north.
...
Here I was looking at the real feasability of moving to Canada (BC) and/or at least having a summer home there to run to if things get really ugly here in the United People's States of America, and now you go suggesting a thing like this.
There's no way in hell they'll let any of us in now
Nice going
[/humor]
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
is that all of the women will then move out. At least when we're spread out, they don't have anywhere to run to.
That green slime had it coming.
Perhaps is should have been labels so... but it wasn't. :P
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Pitcain ( 25:05S, 130:00W ) has a population of only 44 souls at the moment, and is in desperate need of a population infusion of fit men and women of reproductive age. Consider this as a possible destination. Fletcher Christian did, and founded a dynasty.
...in 1865?
I myself even run the ex-Libertarian mailing list, but I would move there for one reason only. 20,000 geeks in a concentrated area would allow me to open up a successful anime shop - letting me make my hobby into my business!
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Well if this is going to be anything like the slash dot meet up here in Ohio, how many people will sign up but be no shows?
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
Don't want your type anyway, shut up and go play xbox.
Is Civilization available for the xbox?
...I'm glad still to be here in MA, where people have jobs. I'm no fan of gun control, high taxes, or this moronic ban on selling liquor on Sundays, but compare the economies of the two states for a moment, and then tell me about the taxation thing again. I could lean out my window here, 150 yards from 128, and hit four other high tech companies with a rock -- and that goes on for mile after mile. I could've hit six two years ago, dammit, but it's not just Mass. going through a recession here.
I'm not arguing that high taxes are always a good thing, nor even usually a good thing; I'm just arguing that they didn't do enough damage to stop MA from turning into High Tech Hog Heaven, and low taxes don't seem to have helped NH displace us.
Another thing: If you were only here for school -- and if I understand correctly what you mean by "trying to save me from myself" -- you might be mistaking general college-campus fashionable-leftist-teenager idiocy for some specific Massachusetts idiocy.
But you can still buy a bottle of wine on Sunday, dammit. Bastard...
I think they mean "expel from the private organization that was previously mentioned in this sentence"... not "expel from the state".
You're thinking of the Bureau of Drinking, Smoking and Shooting.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Reverend Jones did just fine, at least for a little while...
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
By "sizable separatists" do you mean:
Taxation = slavery = socialist state.
There's a place that might intrest you. There's no taxation, no social welfare programs, and government to speak of. It's called Somalia. Pack your bags, this is your version of paradise!
...regard Ralph's as a home away from home!
(Whatever the fuck Ralph's is...)
While I can appreciate the motivation behind this, I think that by holding tightly to the old-tech definition of a state/State (borders, most notably), geeks would be playing by ancient rules.
I have thought for the last few years that, technology being what it is, the nation-state is doomed, and the virtual state is in the ascendancy.
Geekocracy, methinks, is the next step in human governance, whereby physical location has nothing to do with your valued citizenship and the exercise thereof.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
The fact is that they are at odds with themselves if they believe that their private organization (which is involved in the formation of their "free" state) should expel members who perform racial "agitation" but don't believe any government should do the same.
Completely hypocritical.
How can you value the freedom of people to live without prejudice based on race, yet not include that as a part of your government??? They even espouse the mentality that one of government's only functions should be to protect it's population. But they don't want to include protection from racial prejudice, which again is completely hypocritical.
Government cannot tell individual people how to think or behave. That is not it's job. However, it is the job of a democratic government to create laws based on societal norms (as mandated by the population through their voices and their votes - majority rules). But when you value the opinion of one over the opinions of many, your government becomes an dictatorship. And any dictatorship, however benign, will eventually lead to collapse. So, to value the freedom of an individual to have racial prejudice over the freedom of the masses to be protected from racial prejudice is totally off the rocker. This so called "free state" project is basically a load of crap.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
...nor could these fools organize a trip to the bathroom without spending three hours arguing and then ending up in the kitchen by mistake. Whereupon some state-citizenship knucklehead will prove by irrefutable logic that USC 3847, 1914, section four, paragraph nine, can be interpreted with his secret decoder ring to prove that kitchens ARE bathrooms -- whereupon he takes a shit in the sink and is DUMBFOUNDED when somebody objects: "You CAN'T object! It's PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for you to object! It's my CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT as a SOVEREIGN CITIZEN to shit in the sink!"
Whereupon the whole crowd spends another fifteen hours debating the issue, flaming each other, and taking turns shitting in the sink.
They never do make it to the bathroom...
Remember who ran the police department in Robocop? And remember his 4th order?
This is one of the silier thoughts from the Lib. camp. I agree with many of their principles, especially state's rights over federal rights. But then they throw an idea like this in. Just a tad too much.
This is not all that unlike what the Puritans and other groups tried to do: move en masse to a place where they were free to live the way they wanted and create a more utopian society.
Too bad it didn't work: they had kids, and their kids didn't behave the way they wanted them to.
Besides, if they do a good job and make the place nice to live in, everyone will want to move there and ruin it.
Depends on your definition of "liberal."
Vermont actually has the least restrictive gun laws of any state, including Texas. Compare that to Massachusetts, which has the most restrictive gun laws.
Since the enlightenment and protestant reformation it has been understood that true liberalism meant the nobility of human experiments in living - not constrained by the "one true church" nor any surrogate such as a "federal" government. The laboratory of the states was set up by the founders who believed in "federalism" (not a strong central government) precisely because they had just come from many decades if not centuries of wars freeing the provinces of the central control of theocracy. They were scientists and technologists, not theocrats -- and they knew the danger of imposing one experiment on all provinces. Such a laboratory of the states, each state being a separate experiment, might again be viable if the "Federal" government were to relinquish its taxation load but unless it does so the "Federal" government will necessarily use its ability to withold monies it has extracted from states and their citizens in order to violate the rights of those states and their citizens. Since the "Federal" government, largely under a cloak of pseudo-"liberalism" won't relinquish its taxation powers over the states and individuals, the only outcome can be war of one form or another just as it was when the Guttenberg Press rendered theocratic control of indoctrination moot and unleashed the age of Enlightenment and true liberalism.
Seastead this.
as long as it's about the task of identifying and organizing like minded people, consider that it only takes five people at each precinct meeting to completely take over the democratic party at the national level. that is a much simpler and more distributed task which so-called libertarians have yet to undertake. granted, it doesn't have the wacko appeal of secession.
Back to my point, in the old days you paid for your services just like the previous poster said. You call him a capitalist and not a libertarian, ignoring the fact that your own ideas are somewhat socialist.
Oregon has some advantages over other states.
1) Very clean drinking water;
2) A lot of cheap electricity (about 40% of power is from the hydro and 1% is from nuclear vs 7% and 20% for the entire States).
3) Enormous tourist potential.
4) Being between California and Washington and cheaper helps the technology.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Maryland is the Free State!
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Yeah good thing we don't let those kids drink
Given the slightest opportunity, they would:
Drink
Vote and Drink
Drink and Join the army
Join the army and Drink
Drink and Drive a car
Drink and Have sex (and children)
Have children and Drink
Work and Drink
Pay taxes and Drink
Drink and Drink
Own a gun and Drink
Starting to make sense now?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
See our FAQs. Someone did start an FTP, and we wish him well. However, since our numbers are growing astronomically (we were only at 300 at the beginning of August), we feel that we have a moderate approach that many people will feel comfortable with.
Nobody's advocating sedition. Secession might be necessary, but that would only be if the federal government engages in, effectively, sedition.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
This definition applies to all constitutional ammendment attempts, as well.
-- Terry
First off, if you're going to reject federal mandate/law you run into a huge problem. Namely, Article 1, section 8 of the constitution grants cogress the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrectioons and repeal Invasions" (emphasis added.)
Do you think congress/the federal government would simply stand by and watch laws be rejected? Or do you think they would construe laws that are contrary to federal mandate as an act of insurrection?
Yeah, a bunch of states basically tried this idea a long time ago. They were referred to as the "confederacy"... Yeah, that worked real well.
Why take 20,000 people when you could take 60,000 people and make your own state?? Don't like federal hiway taxes? Screw them! You have your own state! There's no size requirement for a state either. If there was, Rhode Island would've never made it into statehood.
So, get 60,000 of your closest, most personal, friends and move to a US territory! Write a state constitution, get 50% of the population (only 30,000!) to sign it, and viola! You're (with congressional approval) a state! Yay. Disobey federal mandate at own risk.
-Jokerghost
In all likelyhood the weapons carried by the average compound assault troop^H^H^H^H^H^H agent will be the H&K MP5 Navy . ;-)
Here you can see some of your future friends training .
I'm *sure* that the Feds will appreciate anything a group of people do that deviates from the norm.
They'll like it so much that they'll just *have* to come over and check it out, all in the interest of the public safety of course.
And if all geeks moved to North Dakota, then certainly I wouldn't be moving there. I would like some normal people around as well, not to mention people of the opposite sex.
And if you really believe you can get a significant portion of freedom-loving people to move to some state, you are severly misguided about what freedom means. Because freedom-lovers love their freedom, they will not be moved around like cattle.
And while getting all free thinkers to have the same fun idea at the same time (if even for 5 minutes) is close to impossible, making all of them have the same fun idea for long enough to actually sell their house and move to North Dakota (or wherever) is far worse than impossible.
It's called Montana. They majority there believe that the federal government should a) leave them alone b) do not take away their guns and c) lower their taxes. Pretty close to what FSP wants. That is, no democrats. However, the Republicans still outnumber the Libertarians, so they would still have their work cut out for them there.
Vote for Pedro
look at Utah and what the Mormons have done there, why the hell would you waist time
with succession, just make up some silly religion, government loves religion, the sillier the better.
First off where are you going to be able to do something like this? What state has a small enough population for this to even effect it? Why not a non-US state? And lastly, why not move into a state that is already close to the politacal vues that you agree with and sweep any election you want to?
Go ahead, but your libertarian soiety cannot work in the real world, people just arent responsible enough for it.
So when your state has the highest crime rates and lowest education standards blame yourself.
Fact is, you cannot educate the masses without public education, and you need police not militias, not to mention the more people are uneducated, the more crime you'll have, lets not forget about homelessness, and if you even think CEOs in your state will pay fair wages you are insane, so sure you sen programmers and upper level management guys can live there, but what about 90 percent of everyone else whos the working class? They depend on public schools, health care, and this safety net which you plan to get rid of.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This is because you're ignorant of the facts.
The police do not protect people, they investigate crimes after the fact. They are not objective, they are agents of the prosecution (and so are judges these days- ever seen the ads "I sent more guys to death row last year than any other judge, reelect me!")
In a competitive environment the police would not be competing against each other, but for your business.
The only reason robocop was like that was because they were a state granted monopoly-- robocop is the ultimate expression of the current system. You think the cops don't have the same 4th directive? They commit crime all the time to protect each other in every city in the country.
And you want to KEEP them dishonest?
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
What idiots. Everybody knows that Wyoming just doesn't exist. In fact, it has even been proven. Honestly, do you know a Wyom...wait a minute, they don't even have a adjective to describe them! What a fraud.
Out of their list, I like New Hampshire the best. Their state motto is "Live Free Or Die" - how's that for the basis of a Free State Movement? I live in Massachusetts, and drive up to New Hampshire quite often. It's a remarkably nice state. Great, well-maintained highways, lots of natural resources and natural beauty, a (small) seacoast, and no sales tax. It's amazing, driving on the road from MA to NH, as soon as you cross over the NH line, the road switches from crap to just about perfect (except around Route 3 where they're doing some massive renovations).
Hell, California has coastal access. It's not on the list, why?
Because there's no way in the Ninth Festering and Flaming Circle of Hell that they'd actually pull this off in California and they know it.
So clearly there are more important criteria than coastal access... which I'm sure they feel would be nice, and probably important. But not as important as being able to actually succeed.
when we need him! This is pure GOLD!
My little iMac can encode MPEG4 video in realtime. Show me an x86 that can do that. Or, shut up about x86 performance.
HAHAHA what a retard. Oh my god help me.
It's called the freedom of association. Basically, you're free to associate with whomever you like, and likewise you're free to NOT associate with whomever you like.
You can't say that you value personal freedoms and then go out and make certain viewpoints or opinions illegal. So racists are free to be racist (as long as they don't try to use force against those they choose to hate) and the rest of us are free to consider them morons.
Forget it. We tried in 1861 to create a society free of the Federal Gummint. They just swoop in and shoot you.
I still haven't heard anything back, but given the biological properties of the laundry bin, Bush will launch a premptive stike any moment now
I see someone just discovered a copy of The Harrad Experiement in the attic. Yeah, these folks will all move to this state, and those folks to that one... Must be silly season already.
... law enforcement is already in part corporate run. Highway Robbery, Inc is a subsidiary owned by states and counties; they are funded by our tax dollars and inflict additional taxes on us - driving taxes.
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
This reminds me of that group of people who wanted to start an offshore, man-made, floating country and call it Oceania. In theory it sounds kind of interesting but it wouldn't take long for all the whacked-out drugs users to pull the cork on this Utopian farce.
For those of you who aren't aware, this is Cypress Creek.
I read /. more than I ought to (my employer probably agrees with that.) But I post rarely, because usually someone has already said it, and I don't go for the "me too" stuff.
But damn, is there anyone here who can say anything positive? Does no one share this dream?
Why is it that when a "bad" YRO story comes out (RIAA doing something obnoxious, or the courts making some anti-liberty decision, or just another "The US sucks" story) commenters come out of the woodwork to say how bad it is. People scream "VOTE!" Or "Write your congresscritter!" Yet here we have a story about a group of people who are willing to not only vote, but CHANGE THEIR LIVES for the purpose of freedom. Not just to benefit themselves, but to be an example, so perhaps those of use stuck back here not-so-free states might see and be motivated and encouraged.
Isn't this what you want? More individual freedom? Or are all you only interested in being able to copy your OggVorbis files, but you don't give a rat's ass about true freedom in the wider world? I assure you, you'll still be able to have your OggVorbis files while under martial law.
I came across the Free State Project a bit over a week ago on my own. I was impressed, but more than that, I was in awe. It was a completely new thought to me. It was empowering. You mean here we are in the "post September 11th" US (God I hate that phrase), and yet there are people who still have the same dreams as Jefferson and company? And the BALLS to do something real to achieve it? To me, this looks like one of the few rays of hope left.
I want to sign up. I want to go. I talked to my wife about it, but she doesn't get as fired up as I do about freedoms. I am ready to go now, but it will take the screws being turned more before she would consent to going. I LONG to go.
You might say I'm talking out of my ass since I haven't signed up. I'm torn between family and freedom. But I'll tell you, I vote in elections, I write to my congress-people, and I strike up conversations with people about current events, and tie it back to freedom. I donate to the Libertarian party. I try to make other people see how one infringement on freedom--even if it doesn't directly affect them--will eventually come back to bite them in the ass.
But in this case, so far all I can do is lend my enthusiastic support, and long for the day I can join these people.
You might think these people are nuts, but consider: Perhaps 5% liberty-nuts can create a new Constitution-abiding state (or country). 5% (or less) can destroy it, as is happening now. The other 90% of the population is just along for the ride. Given the choice, I'll side with the freedom-nut any day.
Shouldn't you all be building them up, rather than tearing them down? Aren't we all in this together?
Think about it.
Thanks for reading, and considering.
Instead of voting for some athletic hero, or a pretty boy, you have elected me, your intellectual superior, as your king. Good for you!
These people will never win elections and pass new laws w/ 20,000 people, even in unpopulated states, without counting on the usual apathetic voter turnout. Voters are apathetic because politicians are typically stupid and their aspirations are of little consequence (except for the Kafkaesque effects of their accumulated stupidity). However, tell one million voters that you're going to take their state away (a sophist ploy, but you know that's how it would be worded) and you better damn well believe they'll be voting your ass into jail. Because that's how they really believe they'll make their world a better place.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Like I already said, you can't tell people how to think or act, but a government can make laws in order to protect people from those actions that cause harm.
But saying you will reject people from your private company that have racist attitudes, but you won't do the same in your government, is hypocritical. Therefore, the people in this "free state" project don't know what the hell they're doing and I wouldn't trust them one iota to construct any sort of positive society.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
If they feel that way, why not just move to another country? I know they mention things like citizenship problems, but it seems like it would be a lot easier (and less provocative) to move (en masse or individually) to another nation more in-line with their beliefs, perhaps Switzerland.
they wouldn't put up a fight. after thet, write a whole new Constitution and you are set.
Ev3ryth1ng 15 0wx0zxrxrredd!
It's not hypocritical at all. In fact, it's the entire point of the freedom movement. Private parties and organisations should be free to allow or disallow whomever they like, whereas the government should allow everyone to be as free as possible.
Simply put, just because you may consider racism to be abhorent (as most sensible people do) does not mean that the government should legislate against it. Freedom does not just mean freedom for those who you agree with, it means (most importantly) freedom for those who you *don't* agree with.
ever hear this phrase?
I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
The very fact that you don't understand this says alot.
This isn't the first time some idealistic libertartians tried to move somewhere to set up an utopia. Although the Atlanteans seemed to think it would be somehow cost-effective to start their new country under the ocean... The whole concept probably won't get this far, but I'd start being impressed if this free state movement will survive its first schism (the usual killer of idealistic movements).
...fucking black helicoptes got me...
Reading my statements, you would notice that twice I said "government's cannot tell people how to think or act, but that they can create laws to protect people from harmful actions."
That quote you wrote is exactly what I'm saying. People can think whatever they like. No one can change that. But a government CAN and SHOULD create laws that protect people's ability to live free from harm. One of those harmful things is an ACTION of racial prejudice. People can march and chant and protest all they want about their racial attitudes, but the minute someone is denied a job, an education, a bus seat or attacked in any way because of someone's personal racial prejudice, then government has an obligation to step in.
It is hypocritical for a person or organization to take one stand on an issue in one case but not take the same stand in another. That shows a lack of integrity. And since I find integrity to be the cornerstone of a well-functioning government, I'm afraid I have to take the opinion that these freedom fighters here are doomed to fail.
In a democratic government freedom means freedom to live your life withing the norms of society as dictated by the majority of the population. Absolute freedom is not possible in any form of government. Only in anarchy are able to have absolute freedom. But at what cost?
Don't get caught up in the idea of absolute freedom. It is not possible in a well-ordered society.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Even better, when the US Feds come with guns and loudspeakers, it's always in your best interset to let them in; foreign governemtns and internal cults alike get smacked by the feds.
According to the Branch Davidians they TRIED to let 'em in - and Koresh got shot while trying. And a lot more later, which amounted to the Davidians believing that they wouldn't be allowed to surrender - and that they'd seen a number of people being shot for trying.
Similarly with Ruby Ridge. That standoff started with a government tresspasser shooting a dog and a teenage kid. Then it continued with a remote-controlled buggy with a phone and a gun coming up to the door and the phone ringing with the gun pointed at the house. And a sniper shooting a mother with babe-in-arms.
There are a few documentaries on this. You're welcome to believe them or dismiss them as nutcase propaganda. (But at least one of those on Waco is by a local TV news reporter who started out thinking they were a homicidal nut cult and ended up thinking they were a majority-non-white church group that had been systematically tortured to death by a jackbooted death-squad. And with work by Failure Analysis and infrared footage from the government itself to back up this interpretation.)
Bottom line is, when trying to get out from under the government's thumb, you have to be careful not to end up ground under its heel.
And once you start, stopping may not be under your control. It only takes ONE side to run a war.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Knowing the liberal idiots that float around here, they would start the Township of the New Technological Socialists.
1/3 60's hippies, 1/3 youngin's who never went through a war, and 1/3 general idiots. Where do I sign up?!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
You can't opt out of "federal mandates". The obligations of citizenship are not optional.
Besides, it's been done and it didn't work. Reference the events of 1861-1865 for details.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The branch davidians, among quite a lot of other things, refused to cooperate with an ATF investigation that was being carried out as much in accordance with due process of law as one could possibly ask, and shot some ATF agents. The south in the civil war, among quite a lot of other things, seceded from the united states despite having no clear authority to do so just because they didn't like the results of a presidential election, and fired on U.S. naval ships outside charleston.
:P) are actually trying to achieve their goals by nonviolent, political, legal means. That is a big, big difference! The government isn't going to send troops in to stop people from bloc voting (unlike in some countries i could name).
:)
The 20,000 people in the article have a plan to move to some state and then vote there. And y'all are comparing that to armed attempts to declare oneself outside of federal jurisdiction??
I don't think the Free State project or whatever is all that realistic, and i don't know if i agree with all of their goals. But they are serious, honest attempts to work within the system to effect change. Their goal basically comes down to using the democratic system for its intended purpose.
As such, i have to respect them as a movement, and i don't really think comparisons to the confederate states or the branch davidians are really in order. The free state people (look at their FAQ
I for one would say attempting to force some kind of 10th amendment confrontation between state and federal governments is a noble goal, and would be beneficial at least in that it would bring a marginalized issue to the forefront and force the supreme court to clarify a constitutional question that right now seems very very muddy (where is the border between state and federal jurisdiction?). And i for one would say this even if the confrontation in question were caused by a movement led by a zombified resurrection of Ayn Wacko Libertarian Rand herself
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
And an employer shouldn't be free to hire whomever they want? A coffeeshop should't be free to serve whatever type of clientele they choose?
See this is exactly what I'm talking about. Freedom isn't just freedom for those who you agree with.
As much as I hate to say it (as I really do despise racism and all of the bullshit it causes) a business owner should have as much freedom over who enters their establishment as you should have over who enters your house. If a business practices racist hiring policies, don't patronize them. Otherwise, as long as someone doesn't translate their personal feelings into violence or victimization they should be free to do whatever they want with their personal property.
Just like MLK Jr. did with the bus line, if you don't like their policies boycott them. If enough people agree with you then the company will either be forced to change their policies or go out of business.
If we could get 10% of the marijuana smokers in this country (10% of something like 50+ million ~ 5 million people) to all move to one location... why, we could probably take over a *real* state!
Not true. I was stationed down on the Point Loma Submarine Base in San Diego, and the rules changed to 21 back in 1996. Some Fundies got offended that "kids" could drink on base, and so the Navy joined the other branches with 21. The problems caused by this greatly outweighed the misplaced moralism, because now the kids just went to Tiajuana to drink. We had a nice increase in the number of instances where sailors got in trouble down in TJ. Stupid Fundies!
Under the old rule it was 18 for beer, 21 for hard stuff; and we helped any who were too drunk back to their barracks room (or a buddy's room if they lived off base). The 21 for all crap definately set unintended consequences into motion.
You lost control with your first sentence "I'm a resident of Dustbin, AZ 90210" the rest doesn't really count for much. The problem is that you are not a Citizen of Arizona, but rather a resident. Is there a difference? You bet! The "AZ 90210" confirms that you are merely a resident in the state, and a subject of U.S. jurisdiction in the "AZ 90210" zone. Beg, borrow, or buy Mitch Modeleski's "The Federal Zone". He stays on point, and proves this thesis very intelligently. No black helicopters here.
You are right in guessing that Social Security is contractual. I would say that it is entered into by fraud because its terms are not fully revealed at the time of signing. Or afterward for that matter. Yes, it can be broken. Yes, I have done it successfully, and you can too. Yes they know about me. No I am not hiding from them. No they have not come back to bother me. Yes this is perfectly moral and lawful. Patriotic too!
Yes, yes, yes, the law differentiates between "state Citizens" and "persons" as defined by the XIV Amendment. Yes, the courts have to accept it, if you know how to present the argument. No, it will never get to the Supremes because that might make for bad publicity. I'm not sure about Rehnquist, but Bork knew the score.
Good questions!
This seems unlikely. Why would any state pay into the fund unless they're getting more out of it than they put in? They wouldn't; they'd pull out. This cascading withdrawal would bring down the average amount available until no state could receive more than they put in and there were no more participants.
Clearly it's more complex than what you've described.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
...extremists. (attached to the libertarian party)
Such a community project would make great sense if it had a left-wing bent to it, with a sort of good community-owned & controlled utilities (such as a community-operated broadband ISP that lets you do anything, etc)
Again it could "pose as a model", but one of development and direct democracy, especially for underdeveloped nations trying to figure a way to survive in this competitive world.
Yes, an employer or a coffee shop can do whatever the hell they want. But then the voice of the people will rise up and, through the power vested in the government they have chosen to lead them, will set the guidelines for how those businesses should act in accordance with the morals of the majority of the people. In a democratic state, freedom is freedom of those in the majority. In an anarchy, freedom is freedom of the individual.
Without a government with power to enforce the laws as dictated by the people, nothing would change. Boycotts may work sometimes, but not everyone has the time or energy to boycott 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That's where government steps in, with lawmakers, a judicial system, and a police force.
Like I said, absolute freedom does not exist in an ordered society. Everyone has the ability to voice their opinion and attempt to sway popular sentiment, but you still must have laws as dictated by the majority of the popular vote in order to have a functional society.
Racial prejudice is something that isn't tolerated by the majority of people in this country. Therefore, we have created laws that reflect that majority opinion. However, that doesn't stop others from protesting those laws or attempting to change them. If at some point, the majority opinion changes to the opposite, the laws will change as well.
So, basically, the freedom state people can talk all they want about freedoms for everyone, but when it comes down to creating an actual government, I think they'll find it a bit hard to find freedoms that everyone agrees with. And what they'll end up with is a government exactly like the one they despise so much right now. Or, they'll end up with no government...
But it is still my opinion that for them to not tolerate racial prejudice in their private company, yet tolerate it in their government, is hypocritical.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
See, that's just not correct. Democractic rule does not equal democratic tyrrany.
If racism isn't tolerated by the majority of society then it shouldn't be a problem, right? Any businesses that employ racist hiring practices won't get any business (P.S. boycotting is just abstaining from patronizing a certain establishment) because people won't patronize an establishment that they don't tolerate. So why pass a law about it?
As for hypocrisy, you just don't get it do you...? You very idea here is that the government should NOT be legislating things like that. That everybody should have the maximum amount of freedom possible.
This is exactly the type of thing that the country does far too much of already. Whatever people dislike they feel the need to legislate against. If you don't like racism, don't support it. Don't tell *other* people how they have to run their business or their life based on your personal feelings though. You wouldn't like it if the *majority* all of a sudden took issue with your musical preference and outlawed that would you?
I'm tired of people lieing about the Civil War and romanticizing the South's slave culture. "Imperialists" had nothing to do with the Civil War. Nor was the ante bellum South a garden of liberty. It was, in fact, just the opposite: a dictatorship of a minority planter class that sustained itself via slave culture. The South wanted to perpetuate an evil way of life and had spent the better part of the nation's first 80 years attempting to ensure that their despicable culture would be allowed to expand, unhindered, across the North American continent.
Proponents of slavery and ante-bellum culture precipitated the Civil War, were directly responsible for the death and destruction that the war brought to the South, and, in the end, deserved everything that happened to them.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It occurs to me... In point of fact it would be hypocritical for them to NOT adopt this stance.
To say that while you personally dislike racists, you won't encourage any legislation that restricts the freedom of rascists is not hypocricy. To say that you support freedom, but only for those who you agree with (what you advocate) IS hypocrisy.
I think what these people are really trying to collect here is an activist base to move into a state and become a libertarian rally-ing point from which state-wide ideas about state-and-government relations can be changed in such as way as to create a majority electorate willing to back a 'renegade' state government which while try to extricate itself from much of federal governments involvement. It's not like these people are going to move to a state and sit in their homes watching porn until election day comes and then vote the prescribed path. These people are basically implanting a political party infrastructure to push an agenda.
There seems to be a lot on the website that panders to the infinitely-idiotic libertarians out there, but any group these days accrues a Homer or 500. The beauty of their idea is you become less responsible to those people you think are idiots and who think you are an idiot.
i mean, seriously, what other drives are there out there to make some real structural change to a government that knee-jerks the DMCA and Patriot into existence?
---some asshole probably on the payrole
Actually, for private law enforcement I can't say I've seen a better treatment than Vernor Vinge. There essentially was competitive law enforcement. In case you didn't get it, Robocop was anti-privatization.
Alaska is already removed from the US. There is a low population with poor voter turn out. There are already people here (I'm in Alaska)with leanings toward seccesion (Myself not included). If you can stomach the inclement weather, it is actually a nice place. The state is relatively regionalized/factionalized, making it easier to conquer..... I mean free. So, how about it? Why not Alaska?
In 1970 to avoid some silly wheat quotas a bunch of australian farmers got together and officially gave our government the finger.
One friday afternoon they declared war on Australia and then accepted peace the following monday; declaring their independance. Of course our government hasn't said anything publically stating their position on the whole thing; they don't want to give the hutt river province any publicity.
Now they have over 13 000 citizens across the world (you can get mail-order citizenship), they avoid all government taxes, they have their own currency and are working on getting a seat in the UN.
The Hutt River Province is about the size of hong kong.
Of course there's heaps of sites about it on google including what i think is their official site
==
'No publisher will ever pay you enough to successfully sue them' - Dave Sim
Because Nebraska Blows and Oklahoma Sucks, hehe. Either way I live in Kansas and it sucks.
Fine, difference of opinion. I believe that government is required in order to create a structured society. You don't.
But, I'll leave these hypothetical situations:
1) What will the free state do when an individual decides that all other "races" are inferior to him or her?
Nothing, right?
2) What will the free state do when that individual forms groups of like minded people and they form a community.
Nothing, right?
3) What will the free state do when that community decides to imprison any "races" other than themselves that venture into their territory?
There'll be a boycott, right?
4) What will the free state do when that community starts forcing the other "races" to work within the confines of their community without pay and without the ability to leave, in the face of ridicule and laughter?
Another boycott, right?
It's easy for you to say a boycott can cause pressure when it's an economic situation, but things are not always set up that way, and in those cases, you need a government that can create another type of boycott. It will still be the voice of the people, just as a boycott was, but it will manifest itself in another way.
Every time you talk about boycotts causing public pressure to change a circumstance, you are talking about a democratic government. In fact, that is the essence of boycotting. It is pure democracy at work, but only applied to situations where there is an economic incentive.
Governments create legislation to act as a "boycott" when a normal boycott isn't appropriate. Sometimes it's economic, because the boycotts didn't have the intended effect and a more powerful force was needed. In other times, it is because boycotting doesn't make sense, because they're no economic force involved. Either way, it's still the voice of the people.
Government, as an arm of the public voice, is the only good way to create an ordered society.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
It's not about them personally disliking racism yet not encouraging legislation that restricts the freedom of racists. It's about creating rules in one organization that restricts the freedom of racists, yet not creating the same rules in another organization. That is hypocritical.
You have mistaken what I am advocating. I never advocated that freedom is only for those who agree with *me*. I advocate a government that represents the majority opinion to legislate according to the wishes of that majority, with the freedom for the minority to protest that legislation. But if the majority decides that murder is not allowed in this society, I don't advocate that the minority have the freedom to murder as a form of protest.
Freedom to act and freedom to think are two different things. Freedoms of action should be legislated. Freedoms of thought should not.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Are people really so stupid that they're going to stop going to school just because you stop forcing them to go? Are they so stupid that they'll borrow money to buy a big screen tv but they won't borrow money to pay for school?
Are workers so stupid that they'll stay at jobs that pay 'unfair' wages when there are better paying ones out there within their reach? (and there WILL be fair-paying ones because the whole idea of employers having all the power and employees taking whatever they can get is crap - if it were true then we'd all be making minimum wage or be in business for ourselves)
Notice I'm not talking about irresponsibility here - just stupidity. People in a free state are going to go to school and demand whatever wages they can get because it's a no-brainer to do these things, not because they're responsible.
Maybe some people will argue that people really are stupid enough not to see that it's easier to make more money by learning a skill and by shopping around for jobs. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
"I'll never understand why I'm 'elitist' just because I give the average person enough credit to tell their ass from a hole in the ground."
> > The state can choose not to forward the monies.
> > The escalation curve is not pretty.
>
> Clearly it's more complex than what you've described.
The escalation curve is not pretty.
-- Terry
Private school is just too expensive.
Borrow money? not everyone has good credit!
Stupid? No, people arent stupid but school is expensive.
Will workers stay at jobs that pay unfair wages? Yes if thats the only jobs that exist.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
No one is planning to negotiate, they're planning to vote. The political equivalent of the 'negotiation' in The Fifth Element. "Where did he learn to negotiate like that?"
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't think the Free State is going to last for posterity if there are no women around as mates. Geek Wars: Attack of the Clones.
--
3) What will the free state do when that community decides to imprison any "races" other than themselves that venture into their territory?
There'll be a boycott, right?
4) What will the free state do when that community starts forcing the other "races" to work within the confines of their community without pay and without the ability to leave, in the face of ridicule and laughter?
Another boycott, right
The FSP seems to only let the government do actions when responding to force and fraud. (and also to get taxes from their citizens, but this is probably a seperate issue) I think when groups in the community begins to use force then thats when the FSP will begin to use force defend people.And unless I misunderstood your hypotheticals, the groups would of been using force.
Situtation 3.
People are imprisoned using force.
Situtation 4.
People are forced to stay in the community.
No. Once people start backing up their beliefs with the use of force thats when asses get kicked.
As soon as they get to the point of imprisoning people based on race that's when they've violated laws and the government steps in. That's what we believe the government to be there for.
I was looking around the site, and they will issue you a diplomatic passport if you send them the appropriate info, plus about a 1000 bucks.
p 1.htm
Oh man would that be sweet, diplomatic immunity. Now I know where my next 900 bucks is going.
Link:
http://www.conchrepublic.com/diplomat_ap
What if the majority thinks that freedom of thought should be legislated?
See, the entire point of this is to establish a system where the ground rules are set regardless of the feelings of the majority or minority.
Under your system racist lynch mobs would be perfectly fine as long as the majority supports them.
On the other hand, the free state/libertarian system is that as long as you aren't initiating force against somebody else, you're fine. If the majority don't like what you're doing, they can piss up a rope. As long as you aren't initiating force or fraud against somebody you're safe.
Vermont is already fairly liberal, has a habit of telling established Federal authority where to stick it and has a small population more sensitive to voting with one's feet.
In a few years, I may be moving there (from Conservative San Diego, California) for these very reasons.
maybe I'm just closed minded, though I like to think I'm pretty liberal.
This sounds confederateish to me (yes I made that word up), and they loss. But anyway, I simply believe the governments in place do more good than harm, and this comes from a homosexual who cant get married. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and thats mine.
An infomation based economy. Over the web computer services, entertainment (porn and games), gambling, music and stories. These don't require a big manufacturing infratructure.
I support the Federal government intervention in local affairs ONLY when people rights are being violated. So yes State's laws can be trampled when the purpose of those laws are to take freedom away from people. That is what happend in the Civil War people were literally slaves and the state governments were no better than Aristocracies IMO. Since the FSP is a peaceful approach to INCREASING people's freedom the Federal Government SHOULD have no business stepping in. Also the Civil war was a war for secession neither of which the FSP wants to have.
Freedom in our Lifetime www.freestateproject.org
Freedom in our Lifetime www.freestateproject.org
Let's move to washington!!! huh. huh?? what? you weren't moving with us in the first place? shoot.
WTPOUAWYHTTOTWPA
What's the point of using acronyms when you have to type out the whole phrase anyways?
May I ask that all slashdotters sign up and specify any non-East Coast state? That way, should they actually put this into action, the strip mining, smokestacks (beloved of Ayn Rand) and smog that will blanket all nearby states can be somewhere else, not here :)
Think I'm kidding? :)
You just have to go without the federal government handouts that come with those mandates as strings attached (that the money probably came from your state in the first place kind of sucks, though).
There's another possibility these people may want to consider. Move to Northern California and push for a division of the state. It's not particularly likely to happen but:
1. NorCal has a pretty strong identity. A lot of people there don't identify at all with SoCal folks. And there's a history of a separationist movement (in terms of the state being split) in NorCal from the ecotopia-ists to those in favor of gaining better control of water.
2. NorCal has a fairly strong libertarian base already.
3. A lot of geeks already live in NorCal (ie. Silicon Valley). Although, most people who live in the northern regions of NorCal don't lay claim to Silicon Valley.
4. There's actually an economy in NorCal.
The biggest downside to this idea is that a lot of people in NorCal are dependent on federal subsidies (farmers and loggers) but probably not as much as those in the midwest (NorCal has more crop diversity and many of those crops are not covered by farm subsidies).
Garrett
If I happened to be a US legislator I would seriously consider banning the alcohol use of US soldiers of every age until they have retired into civilian life.
Thank you.
Ah, but there are other forms of harm other than those attributed to physical force. And these must also be regulated by government. Physical harm is one things But economic harm, environmental harm, property harm, standard of living harm... these also must be protected. Government must be allowed to step in in these situations as well.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
If the majority of people thought freedom of thought should be legislated, then it would be legislated, because that's what democracy is about.
Who sets the ground rules? What if those ground rules are not okay with the majority of the people. What if they end up causing harm to the majority of people? Sounds like the makings of a dictatorship...
If you'll remember your history, lynch mobs used to be *okay* with the majority of people. But the government, swayed by the vocal minority which created a new majority, changed that. In the free state project, there is none of this flexibility.
Who determines what is force and fraud in the "free" state? In a democratic one, the people determine that. And then they set laws governing that fraud and harm.
The problem with the free state is that they believe that most issues fall into simple categories that can be dealt with broadly. However, that is not always the case, and that's when you need to call in the voice of the people to determine what is right and what is wrong.
That's why the U.S. system is based upon simple rules as stated in our constitution, but then the government has the ability to modify those rules as appropriate per the will of the people. As we have seen through history, what used to be okay is now regarded as harmful. The free state would require that ability to change as well.
The free state, in it's simplest form, wants to start over with the same ground rules that were set when the U.S. was created. But they will eventually find that those rules will not cover all circumstances and they will eventually get right back to where we are now.
If you and the free state people believe that humans will be able to live their lives in freedom, not encroaching upon the lives of others, then that's good for you. But I've seen enough of human nature to know that most people are self-interested and to allow them unlimited freedoms will not generate a society of opportunity and progress.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
As opposed to the federally employed police that have proven themselves to never be corrupt, never take bribes, never purposely arrest innocent people, never abuse their authority, and in all other ways act as exemplars.
Do you honestly think that every judge, cop, and attorney general is honest just because they're being paid by Uncle Sam instead of a corporate taskmaster that gets paid by Uncle Sam?
What's the difference? I don't think there is one. You can meet a dishonest businessman just as easily as you can meet an incompetent, prejudiced, or downright corrupt government official.
Soldiers legally deprived of alchohol are soldiers who start thinking lots and lots about politics.
And maybe (in my dreams) federal intrusions on constitutional state self-regulation will go back to the pre-FDR era where they used the Interstate Commerce Clause as a pretext for everything.
I don't think equal protection would be a problem to a state freeing itself from the federal yoke as long as they don't start passing Jim Crow laws.
If people want that intrusion, let them go to another state that accepts it. That's the way it's supposed to work at least.
The police do not protect people, they investigate crimes after the fact. They are not objective, they are agents of the prosecution
First, investigating crime and bringing an offender to justice is preventing crime (be it future crime).
Second, police presence alone prevents crime. Hence, the black and white cars, light bars, and uniforms, etc.
Third, what does objectivity have to do with anything? Police officers are not interpreters of the law. They enforce the law. There is no objectivity in law enforcement.
However, there is definitely objectivity in whom they arrest. You either obey the law or break the law.
Police officers are not perfect: they make mistakes. But, they work very hard, everyday, dealing with people that you and I are scared of or just plain don't want to deal with.
And as far as this idea of "private law enforcement": are you suggesting that private police officers would be more objective (i.e. they would decide what laws to enforce and what laws to ignore?) Possibly leading to one company "allowing" some citizens to do whatever they want to in order to keep a "contract"?
In a competitive environment the police would not be competing against each other, but for your business.
Not quite sure what you're trying to preach here, but it makes no sense. They won't be competing against each other, but will be competing for your business? Isn't that competing against each other? Standard capitalist business model? Who does the job best, wins contract?
Amazing.
I would love to visit and observe such a society. Definitely would provide me with an afternoon of laughter.
Scenario: you dial 10-10-220-911 (and you're automatically entered to win 2 tickets to the SuperBowl) and report someone breaking into your home. Your local private law enforcement company dispatches a unit to your home.
A rival private law enforcement company intercepts the call and dispatches a unit as well.
Company A and Company B law enforcement officers arrive at the same time. Outside your home, Company A officer begins to argue with Company B officer. Meanwhile, there is still an intruder in your home.
After hearing your continuous screams, Company A officer and Company B officer race each other to your front door. However, before entering your home, they take out their PDAs and verify that you have given their respective company permission to enter your home (given that both officers are private citizens, if they enter your home without permission they are trespassing: misdemeanor but, if they force entry then they are breaking and entering: felony).
After verifying a signed release form, Company A officer and Company B officer enter your home. Company A officer spots the intruder, pulls out his night-stick, clubs the intruder, and handcuffs him. Company B officer realizing that he may lose this job if he doesn't do something, pulls out his automatic and shoots the cuffed suspect dead.
Both companies bill you.
Which company did a better job?
Most of the stuff coming from DC has nothing to do with equal protection. It's extra garbage thrown on the states at the behest of those of whom 1/50th (in the Senate at least) are knowledgeable about any one state. For example, remember the city in Alaska having to dump waste fish into its water treatment plant so that it could remove the federally-mandated amount of waste from drinking water? Their water was naturally too clean due to runoff.
I am not contesting federal laws such as the Civil Rights Act that keep the states from abusing their people. That's equal protection.
Also, state legislation trumping feds isn't a dead issue, just look at medical marijuana initiatives. It's still being fought. In that case, please tell me where the Constitution gives the federal government power to keep people from growing stuff in their own back yards?
Congratulations for having the resolve to stand up for something you believe in. I in no way intended to imply that the only people interested enough in this project to commit to it fit any of the classifications I listed. It just seems to me (from participating in the FSP Yahoo group, you can find me if you look) that folks fitting in those categories had more a more personal reason to desire the project's success.
To be quite honest, I was surprised at how negative the response was. Cynicism is a terrible by-product of the society we have build. I do support the project, and hope for its success. I just haven't taken the time yet to discuss it with my wife. Without her blessing, I will not sign up.
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
Actually it's not much like the Atlantis Project at all. We're not requiring significant financial contributions from participants, we're getting commitments before the move, and we're not trying to create some isolated community of pure libertarians. We will be ordinary folks, involved in our neighborhoods, local governments, and so on, and adapting to local customs and culture.
You need to be at least 21 to drink but only 18 to die for the Amerikan fatherland.
...dial 10-10-220-911...
ROFLMAO
Good reply. As you said, police presence alone deters crime. Rent-a-cops don't scare anyone anymore.
Might as well have posted a link to the Chrisitan Bible as disproof of libertarianism.
What?
I'm a die-hard long-time Libertarian, and an evangelical Christian (you can use the word "fundamentalist" instead if you insist, although I don't like the negative baggage attached to it) as well. Where is the contradiction between the two? I certainly haven't found one. I live by the rules in the book that God wrote, and I think others should too, but I don't think that those rules should be enforced as law by humans, because not everyone can agree on the authority of those rules, and because God gave people free will so that they could live a life of Liberty and choose their own paths in life. After the Bible, my next-most-important guiding document is the Constitution, and I treasure the writings of various Libertarian authors. I even think that Ayn Rand was right about quite a few things, even though she'd call me evil and wouldn't speak to me if she were still alive today (but she isn't, so her opinions have probably changed a bit... heh heh).
If you think there are no fundamentalist Christian Libertarians, you're wrong. There are a ton of us. I've talked to many. We're not terribly vocal, because if we speak up we risk being ostracized by the non-Christian Libertarians and the non-Libertarian Christians. We have to watch what we say depending on which group we're around at the moment, lest we get branded as disloyal by people who don't understand either philosophy. If you were a member of two groups that (wrongfully) hated each other, mostly out of misunderstanding, you probably wouldn't be too vocal about it either.
You are not very smart.
If they are going to repeal laws regarding drugs, I think they have another thing coming
It's a common mistake to mangle this old phrase, but it's a peeve of mine, so I have to point it out.
This is wrong:
"If that's what you think, you have another thing coming."
This is right:
"If that's what you think, you have another think coming."
The latter is the original (and correct) phrase; the former doesn't even make sense. Check the entry for this phrase on Snope if you want references, historical evidence, and linguistic arguments.
No, the law says they can't drink at all. All the other things, they can do.
It's stupid. The day I sent in my draft card, I should have been able to buy beer. End of story. If an 18 year old can be tried (& executed) as an adult, he should also have the rights of an adult.
Life is too short to proofread.
For much of its history, the US did not have a government run police force. Instead, it was handled by local organizations. some volunteer, some commercial.
And the people were freer.
Anyone who does not believe in liberty will not be able to conceive of living in a free society and so they will make fun. But its actually quite sad, really.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
"And thus, I leave slashdot."
Nobody cares what you think.