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Prince of Sealand Dies At 91
jdavidb writes "46 years ago, occupying an abandoned WWII platform off the coast of Britain, Paddy Roy Bates declared independence, naming himself Prince of the Principality of Sealand. Today, Bates has passed away at 91. Long time Slashdot readers will remember Sealand as the site of HavenCo, an unsuccessful data warehousing company that tried to operate from Sealand outside the reach of larger nations' legal structures. They may also remember plans that the Pirate Bay had at one time to buy Sealand. Bates had moved to a care home a few years ago, naming his son Michael Regent of Sealand."
...rudderless.
My blog
...naming his son Michael Regent of Sealand
Kind of an odd name. His middle name is Regent? And can you change the name of your son once he is an adult? Weird.
Spare a thought for master bates
He was the prince of a principality, yet required the care that British Healthcare provided. Reminds me of some Americans with Canadian dual-citizenship who come back to Canada to get Healthcare. If you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get anything. Citizenship is an obligation as much as it is a birthright.
I want to move to Sealand! Where even those of modest means will be treated!
Yeah, It's called the NHS.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
udderless
... utterless.
Despite AC's typical lack of taste and manners, he/she has a point.
Most of the rest of the civilized world has this.
It's only Americans who think it should be for profit and that "those of modest means" are on their own if they don't have the money.
That's an overly broad generalization. It's primarily only republicans in America with this point of view.
It's only Americans who think it should be for profit and that "those of modest means" are on their own [emphasis added] if they don't have the money.
Seeing as how Americans are (in general) the most charitable people in the world [ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111220/charity-us-most-generous-country-world-giving-index%5D, I don't see how you arrive at this.
Isn't that about 50% of the US? Give or take a few percentage points.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
scutterless
Of inserting an erroneous apostrophe in the word "its" all the time.
If you are interested in freedom, of the variety that conflicts with current nations tagging and tracking of all their citizens, then you undoubtedly find micronations to be of interest.
An island with no tits?
Sounds like a veritable Seahell.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Only in the electoral college. Using the total population:
including the number of people that don't vote: 52% (48% turnout)
or
are independent: 'about 30 percent'
That would mean only around 36% of Americans are Republicans, but have around 56% of the control in the legislative branch.
Micronations are a pipe dream for libertarian morons. Your nation is only as strong as your ability to defend it. And that goes for whether it's on an oil rig or half of an existing country. If you're going to declare independence, you're going to need an army that's as least as strong as the army of the country you're declaring independence from. Otherwise, you're just a nutball clown (like "Prince Roy" here).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I'd like to think that most of those people have no idea who or what they're voting for. They just think either "My daddy always voted republican cuz he was a real 'merican", or "My church told me that guy is a secret muslim", or some other such nonsense. Then they just repeat whatever Limbaugh says.
I'm not saying there aren't Dem's that aren't the same way, but my experience lately has been mostly ridiculous misinformation on the republican side.
No, the number of independents in the US is rather large. The numbers range between 22 and 35%
So many Americans think they are helpless against the size fo the government....
And butterless.
It's only Americans who think it should be for profit and that "those of modest means" are on their own [emphasis added] if they don't have the money.
Seeing as how Americans are (in general) the most charitable people in the world [ http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/111220/charity-us-most-generous-country-world-giving-index%5D, I don't see how you arrive at this.
Most charitable to non-Americans, perhaps.
Since China, India, and vast majority of Africa don't have universal healthcare, are you excluding them from the definition "civilized world"?
It comes in the form of anything involving the 1%, job outsourcing and class warfare usually.
Both sides are just as guilty of it, you tend to be blind to what you don't want to see. (You as in a general population you, not you specifically, I don't know you and wouldn't presume to judge you)
They are also interesting from a theory of sovereignty standpoint, and for a slew of other political theory reasons. Are you seriously suggesting that just because something is impractical it's uninteresting... to a group of nerds?
I met Prince (Regent?) Michael years ago, during the dotcom boom, when HavenCo was still on Sealand. He was in San Francisco to meet with techie folks, and we all had sushi together. He struck me as a good, knowledgeable, fair fellow.
I wish him the best and offer my counsel (for what it's worth) in the service of Sealand.
Tom Geller
No, based on what The Dancing Panda said I'd definitely put him in the category of "you tend to be blind to what you don't want to see".
Remember the douche-bags who refused to pay their option fire department insurance/taxes?
Those good little Libertarian/Teabaggers got exactly the government they paid for.
And New Zealand was named so that there wouldn't be any patent issues with Sealand ;-)
Well that's what Jesus would have done, if crony capitalism had been invented back then.
U S A, U S A, U S A, U S A!
He did defend Sealand with it's deck guns, and he doesn't have to defend against the UK full military might, only the part they can fit around/on the platform.
You're either blind, deaf, and dumb, or you simply haven't been paying attention during this political season.
Modern understanding of good hygiene, sanitation, vermin control, physical activity, accident prevention, and adequate clothing, shelter, and HVAC systems contribute most to longevity. Those in the medical profession would have you think that you are living twice as long as you would have were it not for all of their medications, treatments, surgeries and other procedures. Of all the medical "miracles", only antibiotics and insulin have had enough effect to substantially increase life expectancy for the general population. Most of the millions of dollars spent on healthcare, whether privately or publicly funded, go toward "heroic" efforts to prolong life well beyond where it should have been allowed a more graceful and comfortable ending, or in some cases on virtually quack medical treatments that may cause ailments just as dangerous and/or painful than the underlying condition without even slowing down the disease, all because some statistics seemed to indicate that 3-5% of patients showed some improvement. There is a lot of money to be made in the sales and marketing of hope and hype in clear, empty bottles.
Now there are specific cases where a person has been allowed to live a much longer and greater quality of life due to certain advances in medicine and surgery. Most of these are in the cases of transplants, where, in the USA at least, one person gets unlucky, dies, and their estate billed tens of thousands of dollars, while a needy patient pays tens of thousands of dollars (even with insurance) to receive a healthy replacement organ. Most of us will not benefit substantially from medical care, but we will likely be depleting what savings we may have aquired through hard work and frugal living when at the end of our lives we are placed in a nursing home or hospice care for weeks, months, or years paying for someone to change our bedpans, wash our soiled sheets, and feed us preprocessed institutional food.
One of the few areas where medicine can do the most good is to catch and correct problems at the very earliest stage when they are easiest and most affordable to treat. But in the USA, policy makers and insurance executives, in their infinite wisdom, have erected cost barriers along every step of medical care to "consumerise" health care choices, with the presumption that Americans drive up the cost of health care by over-consuming medical services. The end result is that patients inevitably drive up the cost of care by either choosing to ignore early problematic symptoms to save money or they simply do not have the money to afford medical diagnosis or early treatment. So problems are not treated until they get out of hand, when a family decides that medical treatment is more important than little Johnny's college fund, the tax and penalties of withdrawing from a retirement account, or in many cases, paying rent, mortgage, or car payments. Even with insurance, if the medical problem is serious enough there will likely be so many uncovered expenses, travel, time off work, etc., that a family will burn through their paychecks, emergency fund, home equity, and college/retirement savings in the first few months or years of treatment. For some it will be only weeks. And then there will be life threatening delays as hospitals with multi-million dollar endowments and non-profit tax status withhold treatment while a family struggles with bureaucrats, case managers, and charity providers to convince them that they are needy and should qualify for aid. If they are lucky and quickly and correctly discover, fill out, and submit the appropriate applications and grant requests, and if there aren't too many doubts about how many assets they are retaining for themselves (usually $2,000.00 max. per family), and if their incomes still are not too high, they might receive just enough help to treat some of their "qualifying" conditions, but usually only if they are or have minor children or are legally disabled.
"I like to ride my goat while swabbing the deck. And that is NOT a euphamism for anything." --Hetalia
I remember having a talk with an International Relations professor at university, he said (I'm paraphrasing) that in the international arena all nations have to fend for themselves eventually and that is defined as Realpolitik. The example was that if all nations were boats on the ocean, the size of each boat representing the power and influence of each nation, and if some big boat makes waves then all smaller boats will have to align themselves to the incoming ripples. The smaller you are the hardest the hit if you don't align yourself quickly.
So... for Sealand... I think it could be easily be overrun by the Bolivian Navy.
I myself am the Earl of Buckman. I haven't gotten round to dreaming a BS legal theory to justify this title, but does that really matter?
And then there's the well-known Duke of Santa Monica? Never heard of him? Really? Surely you've heard of the Santa Monica Peer!
Micronations are a pipe dream for libertarian morons. Your nation is only as strong as your ability to defend it. And that goes for whether it's on an oil rig or
half of an existing country. If you're going to declare independence, you're going to need an army that's as least as strong as the army of the country you're declaring independence from. Otherwise, you're just a nutball clown (like "Prince Roy" here).
Really/ You had better jump in your tardis back to 1776 and tell those 13 American colonies that they will fail because the only have a handful of militia men and are challenging the strongest military on the planet at the time.
A cat can not attack and kill a dog but it can injure it enough that the dog will leave it alone.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
This guy was not another Emperor Norton. Even before he declared himself the sovereign of an abandoned radar platform, he was involved in activities (unauthorized radio stations, gambling) that he conducted offshore in an attempt to put himself outside UK law. Basically, the dude was a small-time criminal with a particularly creative lawyer.
A lot of dumb people who are into silly "antigovernment" movements think the Prince of Platform #2 was a hero because his legal gimmick vaguely resembled a seastead, an offshore settlement a lot of libertarian visionaries advocate. That's doubly stupid, since "Sealand" never had any actual settlers and because the idea of seasteading itself is just plain hilarious.
There's actually nothing wrong with a micronation in theory, especially in modern society. Obviously, a great nation doesn't just pop up overnight, and unlike the settlers of ages past, we no longer really have large land masses far out of reach of other nations to claim, settle, and build up over time without interference. (Well, unless you're looking into colonizing other planets or moons?)
The reason a micronation *should* be feasible is the hope that the rest of the existing nations of the world are civilized enough not to come in and slaughter their populations, just because they don't like a little competition. It's actually a sad commentary on mankind that folks like yourself would call anyone attempting such an experiment a "libertarian moron". War is very costly and usually unjustified in the first place. Certainly, there's scarcely a reason to start one with a country that never attacked you first.
I think you are being a bit pedantic there. While you are technically correct, it does not change the essence of his argument - that you need to possess sufficient force to give your declaration some credibility.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
To be fair, a Trident missile fits nicely on the middle of that platform and doesn't *have* to be armed with a nuke to be really effective. Politically it would be disastrous, but...
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
As opposed to random people on the Internet.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
For one thing in 1776 the UK Military was not #1 in the world. They had virtually no standing Army, and most of India was still under the Mughals. That's why they needed the Hessians. The Royal Navy was top of the line, but the Army basically didn't exist.
For another you're ignoring the fact that the colonists actually had the resources to create an Army strong enough to resist the Brits. The OP was exaggerating with implying you need more actual troops on the day you declare independence, but his main point is sound. If you can't protect your country you don't have a country, period.
And if that biggest military hadn't been distracted and occupied elsewhere, and if handful hadn't gained the assistance of the second biggest military... things would have gone considerably different. They were brave as hell, but even more so - they were lucky as hell.
Especially since the US now openly bombs friendly countries to kill people they don't like.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The key point here was: Britain for all intents and purposes said 'We don't care if you want to be a country there, however we'll ensure nobody else takes the same idea', proceeded to demolish the other man-made platforms, and extended their sovereign waters out such that no such nation could again be brought about within British territorial waters.
And what's it gotten them? The country basically dying out on it's own. I'm pretty sure if it gets monitzed into a casino or whatever else like was being discussed a few years ago, british officials will either be gettting significant bribes to look the other way, or we'll suddenly find the british government giving them the option of providing taxes to the crown, or having their nation blockaded due to non-payment of dues.
Either one will get them what they want, without internationally antagonistic behavior.
After reading the Haven Co press release they put out towards the end, I got the distinct impression that the whole SeaLand thing was a complete fraud. Did we ever figure out if SeaLand is actually a country, or not?
This signature intentionally left blank.
Just ask Hawai'i, the Aleutians, and the various Native American nations about that :)
To date, with approval of said country.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They beat off some dutch mercenaries who tried to invade, I think in the '70's pretty well. What with that and recognition (through an error) from the British government it's one of the more interesting micronations.
Borders though, how quaint. It's time to see something new in the area of countries. Most countries have tax havens bolted on, perhaps we'll see something like this in the future but even more odd.
A blog I run for the wealth
For one thing in 1776 the UK Military was not #1 in the world. They had virtually no standing Army, and most of India was still under the Mughals. That's why they needed the Hessians. The Royal Navy was top of the line, but the Army basically didn't exist.
This,
In 1776 the colonial militia was the army in the American colonies. Back in the 18th century they would raise armies as needed rather than keep professional soldiers on payroll. The force that made England powerful was the Navy which was did keep professional sailors on pay during times of peace but the Navy's main purpose wasn't warfare, it was trade. In the Napoleonic war a soldier was a farmer or worker who was given a guinea (gold coin worth 1 pound and 5 pence in 1800) to sign up and received enough training to stand in a line and fire a musket.
For another you're ignoring the fact that the colonists actually had the resources to create an Army strong enough to resist the Brits. The OP was exaggerating with implying you need more actual troops on the day you declare independence, but his main point is sound. If you can't protect your country you don't have a country, period.
And this,
A successful armed revolution not only requires an army, but a regular supply of arms, ammunition, fuel, war materials and most importantly, new recruits.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The hypocrisy of the people praising the idea of a hereditary monarch with absolute power being some sort of protector or haven for human rights.
I guess it fits into the mythos of the "wise, benevolent leader who will not screw you over later because they're too nice".
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Modern understanding of good hygiene, sanitation, vermin control, physical activity, accident prevention, and adequate clothing, shelter, and HVAC systems contribute most to longevity. Those in the medical profession would have you think that you are living twice as long as you would have were it not for all of their medications, treatments, surgeries and other procedures. Of all the medical "miracles", only antibiotics and insulin have had enough effect to substantially increase life expectancy for the general population.
You left out good nutrition, also not high tech medicine, but extremely important for longevity (more important than accident prevention by far). And you left out vaccinations a tool that is doing wonders right now in extending the lives in the Third World right now, just as they did in industrialized societies (they are far more important for this purpose than HVAC).
But you entirely leave out "quality of life". How many people go through their entire lives without ever requiring intervention from modern medicine that relieved some otherwise excruciating/debilitating/disfiguring intervention? In my immediate family of extending to third degree I can't think of anyone.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
By 1776 America had become a long distance pain in the arse for Britain. At that stage there was no real concept of a British Empire, so there was no real economic purpose in trying to hang onto an unwilling trading partner. Plus, we didn't have nukes then.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yeah, like the Vatican City, Liechtenstein and Andorra.
When I read the words "prince of ..." it just happens to autocomplete with persia.
Anyone else has this problem?
If you can't protect your country you don't have a country, period.
If you have someone else to directly protect your country or infinitely supply you while threatening and tying hands of your opponents at the same time, then you do have a country even if it can't stand on its own, at least as long as your protector is alive and well. Today, we simulate democracy among nations in UN, by feigning independence of plenty of small sock-puppet nations, but in a less hypocritical times, we would (and in fact did) just openly annex them into our ever-growing empire. It's Peloponnesian League all over again - empire in disguise, Athenian style.
To be fair, they are all part of Europe. Europe as a whole has enough muscle to defend itself. The countries in Europe just decided to work together, rather than wait for the next one to try to take over the world. We've learned our lessons by now.
I think the smaller countries of Africa are a much better example - because you do have a good point.
Isn't that about 50% of the US? Give or take a few percentage points.
That suggests to me that the US is approximately 50% over-populated. Couldn't you start a nice low tech war somewhere and draft all the extreme right wingers to fight it? Teabaggers versus Taliban, knives and sticks only, last one standing wins.
Charity is not the basis for a sensible system of funding for society. Personally, I would abolish all charities (especially religious and educational ones) and increase direct taxation to fund things that benefit everyone.
In a socialist system charities, like religion, would be superfluous.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Since China, India, and vast majority of Africa don't have universal healthcare, are you excluding them from the definition "civilized world"?
Perhaps "fully developed world" would be a better choice of words.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Which requires possessing sufficient force.
Micronations are a pipe dream for libertarian morons. Your nation is only as strong as your ability to defend it. And that goes for whether it's on an oil rig or
half of an existing country. If you're going to declare independence, you're going to need an army that's as least as strong as the army of the country you're declaring independence from. Otherwise, you're just a nutball clown (like "Prince Roy" here).
Really/ You had better jump in your tardis back to 1776 and tell those 13 American colonies that they will fail because the only have a handful of militia men and are challenging the strongest military on the planet at the time.
A cat can not attack and kill a dog but it can injure it enough that the dog will leave it alone.
============
Didn't the 13 American Colonies convince the Native Indians to ally with them? And the long bow and Indian accuracy with it was more frightening than the rifle that made noise and pin-pointed your location.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
"Your nation is only as strong as your ability to defend it."
True.
"If you're going to declare independence, you're going to need an army that's as least as strong as the army of the country you're declaring independence from."
False. You only need an army that is strong enough to cause more damage than taking your nation is worth. That is far less for a tiny island, oil rig, or abandoned naval base than for massive island with billions in natural resources like Britain.
Prince Roy actually had that. If you bothered actually looking into the history of Sealand instead of making instant unfounded decisions about people you'd discover that the British navy attempted to reclaim Sealand. When he fired a single warning shot from the guns the British decided it wasn't worth the potential loss of life required to take the base to reclaim it. At that point, they officially gave ended their unprovoked war of aggression against the island nation of Sealand.
Of course, it was a given that it would be trivial to refute an argument from a moron who labels entire groups of people and declares them to all be morons. Only a moron could thing that everyone who reaches different political conclusions than they do is a moron.
Doubtful, it would take a lot of resources to blockade it. At the end of the day it isn't about how much military can be fit around the platform but about how many resources it is worth expending to take the territory. Trident missiles and nuclear weapons are very very expensive; in the case of a nuke you are also talking about serious ecological consequences in British waters. Also anything launched on a missile could potentially be shot out of the air by the anti-aircraft. Sending someone close to the platform means risking not only equipment but lives.
No sane person would sanction a blockade that costs more tax dollars than any potential taxes that could be collected.
Sealand was brilliant. It was built as a naval base so the British navy had the opinion that the platform could do more damage to attackers than the platform itself was worth from the start. If it weren't they either would have adjusted the firepower put on the platform or not built it.
No I think he cuts right to the point. You need enough force to repel attackers and attackers are only going to invest an amount that makes sense given the target. The British attempted to reclaim the platform and were deterred by the deck guns.
There are no shortage of recognized nations that don't possess a military that could provide any sort of serious challenge to the British.
Sealand defended the platform against the British navy successful. He was trying to set the required military strength bar at some arbitrary point higher than that possessed by Sealand and failed due to ignorance. Sealand didn't have much of a military but had guns and forces sufficient for defending a tiny cement platform with no natural resources.
The amount of military you need isn't defined by the size of the enemy but the amount of resources the enemy is willing to commit and that in turn is in no small part defined by what you are defending.
Unless you have enough arms, ammunition, fuel, etc to make conquering you more expensive than its worth. Sealand did, that is why it successfully repelled the British navy when it attacked.
Recognition from the British was two-fold and neither of them an error. A court decision (the court decision is the final say on what is error and therefore by definition never an error itself) and by the PM when he called for the British forces to retreat from their naval attack on the platform.
Being attacked by the Bolivian navy would have been the fast track to political recognition. The British would have allied with Sealand faster than you could imagine and everyone would have followed.
The British did not try to reclaim the platform with force - he fired at a British buoy tender, which wisely retreated. The only two times the platform was stormed by force, it was privateers.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Sealand was brilliant. It was built as a naval base so the British navy had the opinion that the platform could do more damage to attackers than the platform itself was worth from the start. If it weren't they either would have adjusted the firepower put on the platform or not built it.
You're kind of an idiot. HM Fort Roughs (the name the Brits gave it when they built it) was one of seven Maunsell sea forts placed in the Thames estuary to defend against German air raids. The idea was to detect and shoot down aircraft attempting to use the Thames as a navigational aid. The Roughs-style fort design (four of the seven installations) was used further from shore, and was primarily an early warning system. Each Roughs-style fort was a single platform, lightly armed (and with AA guns, not anti-ship guns).
They were not in any sense designed to "do more damage to attackers than the platform itself was worth". That's just moronic nonsense you invented because it sounded good in your head. They weren't designed to resist assault at all!
I have no substantiated information on what type of vessel was used in the attack and doubt you do either. It doesn't really matter though UK government documents make clear the Prime Minister made the choice not to take the tower by force due the cost in resources and life.
From http://micronations.wikia.com/wiki/Sealand:
"British Government documents, now available to the public under the 30-year expiry of confidentiality, show that the UK drafted plans to take the tower by force, but such plans were not implemented by the then Prime Minister due to the potential for loss of life, and the creation of a legal and public relations disaster."
So clearly the British feel its defenses are sufficient. The subsequent defenses against privateers indicate the same. It is no different than computer security. Anything is hackable, the question is really whether or not your defenses are substantial enough to make attacking you not worth it. Thus the argument is made regardless of what type of craft he fired at.
You didn't claim some the guns were dismantled but some AC replied indicating as much claiming the British removed the weapons from all the forts long before. He pulled the idea out of his backside. Here is an image of Sealand. You can clearly see some of the guns from this vantage. These forts were armed with "3.75-inch guns and two 40 mm Bofors guns."
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Sealand-sky.jpg
No but the British tried to get the natives to side with them, the Indians. The natives did not really like the settlers especial after the resent French Indian war so were not keen on helping those they saw as invaders.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.