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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.
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...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
I wonder how seriously he took it since he was said to be proud of his service to England in WWII and, if the need arose, he would serve the crown again.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Sealand had a proud history, dating all the way back to it's founding, of letting it's citizens declare allegiance to foreign countries.
If you don't pay taxes you shouldn't get anything.
When are we going to get the converse? If you don't use the service, you don't have to pay for the service?
Probably never. We could just build the hospital and clinic when you get sick or surgery using your funds. Oh, and hire and train the doctors. And the roads and infrastructure. And provide schooling for the children of the people who work in the factory that will weave the bed sheets in case you want something better than hay when you're lying in your bed recovering. Heck, we'll be on standby. Not a problem.
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.
Revoking his citizenship could have put the British Gov't in the position that they were recognizing Sealand so they couldn't really do that...
The poor don't pay taxes either and they get healthcare in Britain. Seems to me the Brits would first have to acknowledge the independence of Sealand before they could debate denying him healthcare.
The point is that society can't work that way. Everyone pays in some money so that services can be available when people need them.
Yep, that. Taxes buy civilization.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
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?
Taxes buy civilization.
Taxes also destroy civilizations. A classic phase of a lot of dead empires is the squandering phase where an elite, which profits off of taxation by the empire, gets too greedy and kills the golden goose by raising taxes too much and using too little of those funds to reinvest in the empire.
Please name a few empires where this actually occurred.
What happens with most empires is that the components (several cycles of Chinese empires, the Western Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, etc.) is that the political/geographic sub-components become too powerful, siphoning off revenue from the central government for their own use, which atrophies and loses its authority. A new conqueror may then come in to reconsolidate central power by stripping away the authority of the peripheral components.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
The poor don't pay taxes either and they get healthcare in Britain
Depends on what you mean by 'taxes'. If you're talking about income tax, then even someone with a full-time minimum wage pays a small amount, and that's a large proportion of poor people. I'd have to check the current figures to be exact, but if you're working under about 4 days a week on minimum wage then you're below the threshold for not paying income tax. The only people not paying any income tax are either unemployed, part time and on minimum wage, or on a low income with a non-working spouse.
Even then, you are still likely to be paying council tax, although possibly at a lower rate. If you're in a shared house then this will, again, be quite a small amount. It's typically around £50-100/month for a typical house, depending on the exact size and location, with a 25% discount for a single occupant.
Beyond that, if you're buying anything beyond absolute essentials then you're most likely paying VAT on most of what you buy. You'd have to try pretty hard to find many poor people who don't buy at least something that isn't VAT exempt (homeless people probably don't, but anyone who isn't completely destitute almost certainly does). Of course, they may not be paying much tax, but they are paying some, and the point of taxpayer-funded services is you're ability to use them isn't proportional to the amount that you pay.
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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
Please name a few empires where this actually occurred.
The Roman Empire after about 200 AD. A number of Chinese empires, for example, the Han dynasty (it's so common in their history that it becomes part of the way that the mandate of Heaven is lost). And the Mughals of India. The loss of England's American colonies. The decline of the Spanish empire and the loss of its American territories.
In modern times, the Ottoman empire in the 19th century. A number of communist attempts to take over countries (particularly, the failure to annex Chile into the sphere of influence). The current weakness of the less economically sound members of the EU looks to me to be another such decline.
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!
You mean its royal family. Sealand doesn't have any citizens.
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.
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.
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.
Which authority amounts to pretty much zero unless those nations decide otherwise. The British Monarchy is something of an enormous LARP.
It was known as the era of Robber Barons, and they're so called because they could offer the services of private armies while the average citizen could not. So, hopefully never again.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Which authority amounts to pretty much zero unless those nations decide otherwise. The British Monarchy is something of an enormous LARP.
I beleive the correct term is "figurehead"
I don't expect non British/commonwealth to understand but the Queen is a leader we can point at and not be ashamed of (mainly due to the fact that she does nothing of note besides charity events and Christmas speeches).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.