I myself personally see headlines like
An affordable holiday in a sunny paradise without the worries
long before those nasty political headlines.
This is just a thought, but are there any states that would actually “sell soveirgnty” to someone else of a small territory? If the Company was soveirgn over the island but simply abdicated its taxation powers to let the market work then that would solve a lot of questions over how the nearest state would react. Especially an undeveloped island with little to no tax base. Now would Americans investing/settling in such a place have their assets frozen for tax evasion or what not? Does anyone know the law on that?
I don’t see any point in buying sovereignty. We judge the state invalid. Buying land or territory would only validate the state as the proper owner.
I don’t think it’s feasible to buy sovereignty. This brings up another important question, however. Considering the land that we’re purchasing has most likely never been homesteaded or has been abandoned for so long it is effectively unowned, should we even buy the land that we shall settle from the legal owners? Not purchasing the land might increase our troubles, but it will be much cheaper in the short run.
Yes.
The Free State Project looks like a good start!
I don’t mind.
The only real viable means to microsession or even mass secession at this point in human history is to exploit political weakness and technological progress. In some ways, I think both are inevitable for the United States as the latter continues to advance at break neck rates even in medicine and biotechnology. I suspect within three to five decades the ability to circumvent most, if not all, basic infrastructure to provide goods and services that we’re accustomed to using nanotechnology, biotechnology, and many other technologies will be a practical reality. The problem comes in getting it in the right hands at the right times. It’s not like pow we got it, so lets throw off the chains of the State. There has to be a place that exists between the Market and the State in which people can find out about the technology, leverage existing infrastructure to move it into place, and to spread it to many other hands outside of the initial phases.
In some ways it’s a penumbra between what is to come (the break neck technological changes and the accompanied political/social up heavals) and what exists today. Such a ‘penumbra’ must be chameleon-like, it must be able to look like any other corporation, but in reality “works for us.” It gathers resources: for us. It researches the best possible technological candidates: for us. It makes a profit and greases the right hands: for us. And it also forms a culture: for us.
I think the last part is the most important because really does any philosophy of liberty have a culture to call its own? Does it has traditions and ideals and maybe even a faith to claim as its heritage? If it not, no amount of finangling as I suggest will even stick for the short term and may perhaps be more of a detriment to the ‘movement’ than doing nothing. I think this is evident due to the fact that many people believe that if liberty adds nothing to what exists outside of the State at present, then why bother throwing off the State? It simply “takes away” from the culture, rather than add to it. So, then not just a bunch of techno-wizards and trust-fund kiddies will be sufficient alone in light what I think is coming. I think the culture aspect of the hypothetical situation should be explored more than the theoretical aspects of playing the economy.
So, any ideas? What do any of you think about the potential ‘culture’ that is needed to make the philosophy of liberty something that people would want? That people would yearn to know and live by? Personally, I’m not sure, so that’s why I painted the hypothetical so maybe someone can get the ball rolling on the cultural aspects of such a secession (because I really think it’s more than a mere secession, it’s a cultural revolution that could reshape what it means to be human in more ways than one).
You might want to reconsider that. Not because I am being ideologically fanatical, but because pragmatically, purchasing property from the state, could create a counter productive legal precedent down the road.
Of course you must buy land. It gives you breathing space, time to exist in some autonomy and gather strength for when the state wakes up to the challange. Consider it a bribe if you have to. It does not make sense to challange the powers on day one already, from what is after all a position of extreme weakness.
There is no legal precedent for the future. We pay taxes is that a legal precedent? No, it is just paying off the state to leave you some degree of freedom for now, because the alternative is getting stuffed into jail right now.
I never said we shouldn’t buy the land. I’m saying we shouldn’t buy the land from the state.
If we’re going to setup a contract based legal system, then surely the contracts we agree to at the beginning, have some validity as well?
That’s another wake up call for libertarians. In a libertarian society, if you sign a contract, you had best be prepared to fulfill it. There will be no bailout, or convenient bankruptcy. Your word will have to be your bond.
I was talking about paying the state for a barren land that has not been homesteaded jet. But it seems you were instead talking about this sovereignty thing?
Voluntary contracts between ourselves. But not pragmatic deals with a heavily armed mafia akin to those we are pressured into every day.
Bourgeoisie paid tribute to kings for centuries, without ever binding themselves to them for real.
What state specifically do you think will grant you permanent title to any tract of land and then not aggress against you when you eventually claim sovereignty?
I don’t have the money to buy up tropical islands but if I did, I think that I would be more interested in the seasteading project than trying to purchase part of a country then secede from it.
Let’s not get off track on ideological tangents. A contract is a contract. By dealing voluntarily with the state, regardless of our ends, we would be obliged to honour the contract. I’m saying, minimize our interaction with the state, because to do otherwise, is to invite their attention and participation.
There’s nothing that makes anyone here think that. Obviously, the state will resist sovereignty. But if done on the territory of a very weak state, seccession becomes a greater possibility.
If people don’t want liberty themselves there’s nothing ‘we’ can do about it.
Ehm, you are the one that does not want to pay for the land state claims to own directly, but I am the ideologue? I have no qualms before double-crossing the state. No more than I have a problem with tax evasion. Why would we be binded by a contract of which a second party of which is something that supposedly does not even have a right to exist? That is like feeling binded to honor a deal with Murder Incorporated or a foreign occupation.
Anyways there are already people who do it your way. They are called gypsies. However they do not in this way escape government attention. In fact probably every day some are getting evicted from some place.
I am thinking formal secession is unrealistic, but achieving a special half-exempt status not totally unlike that of Hong Kong within China is theorethicaly achievable. But the state would have to be small and a basket case so that a very small prosperous region could already be of the importance Hong Kong holds for China.
We wouldn’t have to formally declare independence. We just would cease recognizing the government as a legitimate organization.
Now you’re being repetitive and incorrect.
I would not do business with someone who breeched voluntary contracts.
This is a tangent. Start a new thread.
This is off topic, and I am very interested in this [microsecessionist] idea, and understand exactly what you’re trying to say [with the analogy which I’m about to attack].
However, marijuana is NOT a gateway drug. Marijuana is less dangerous than alchol, and less dangerous than tobacco if vapourised (there are then no carcinnogenic effects), and has directly killed 2 people in the 4,700 years since its first recorded use as a narcotic. (By contrast, around 150,000 people die per year in the UK as a result of alcohol or tobacco). Now this forum is no place for debate on the effects of drugs, but snide comments about certain drugs fosters ignorance. I am not encouraging anyone to use the stuff, but arguing that it is a “gateway drug” is ridiculous. What is this idea based on? More people who use heroin have smoked or drunk than have used cannabis. I know around 100 people [personally] who smoke or have smoked cannabis, some of whom use the drug 5-10 time in a day. None of these individuals are anything other than “normal” people (in fact, some of them are my closest friends), but this isn’t the point. Of them, a few have tried cocaine, and one has tried crack and amphetamines. Perhaps half of them have tried some other “drug”, but none of them have used heroin.
Sorry for this, this isn’t an attack on you, I merely hate it when people attack cannabis without good reason, especially when they argue that it is bad because it is a “gateway drug”. To me it seems clear that much of the fuss over marijuana is just the muddling of cause and effect that you so admirably attack when exposed in poor economic analysis.