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[Danneskjoeld]

Hallo,

one point is not clear to me at the FSP.  

You want to get 20000 activists.  20000 is however enough, to settle around a region somewhere in the world, those is free from people, which is depending on their polity organisation.   One must create only one or completely buy up and it is free from politics.  Why is a whole state is tackled, hundredthousands of state fans against itself to have over there during a process over years with uncertain exit.  Why not secede right away?

Greetings from Germany

[Mountain Troll]

We're not interested in starting a new country, but in returning to an old one.  We want to restore the USA to the way it used be, a Constitutional Republic.  The Free State Project is the first step towards doing just that.  Besides, there isn't a patch of ground on this planet that isn't claimed by some nation or other, which would violently object to an attempted invasion by foreigners.  There's simply no place left to go to escape the State-worshippers.

I sometimes think we were born either too late, or too early.  A centuriy and a half ago, people like us COULD go off to the frontier in search of freedom.  A century and a half from now, there may be colonies on other worlds to emigrate to.  But in this time and place, the FSP is pretty much the only option for those dissatisfied with the state of society.

[SandyPrice]

Mountain Troll.  You gave the perfect answer!  Sadly many Americans (let alone Germans) don't understand what it is that we have lost in America in the last 40 or so years.  Our government schools have trained us to be slaves to the government bureaucracy.  

You are right, we don't want a new freedom but the old ones back.  This has been hard to explain to so many people because they don't recognize the loss.

[Danneskjoeld]

We're not interested in starting a new country, but in returning to an old one.  We want to restore the USA to the way it used be, a Constitutional Republic.  The Free State Project is the first step towards doing just that.

I understand that. But the advantage of the project is the bundling of the forces. Why do you concentrate your work only on the US. Why not for all people in the world.
Why do you want absolutely reform a certain hated state?
That looks like patriotism or nostalgica.

Besides, there isn't a patch of ground on this planet that isn't claimed by some nation or other, which would violently object to an attempted invasion by foreigners.  There's simply no place left to go to escape the State-worshippers.

Yes, i know; but that is not a reason not to buy a ground somewhere in property and to claim the right of self-determination of the nations. Nobody is really impaired thereby.

Greetings from Germany

[phylinidaho]

Mountain Troll.  You gave the perfect answer!  Sadly many Americans (let alone Germans) don't understand what it is that we have lost in America in the last 40 or so years.  Our government schools have trained us to be slaves to the government bureaucracy.  

You are right, we don't want a new freedom but the old ones back.  This has been hard to explain to so many people because they don't recognize the loss.

I agree. I believe this is why there is a sense of urgency in the FSP. We must do something while those who remember some degree of freedom (50 years ago) are still alive to tell the story of what we have lost so gradually over the years.

[Danneskjoeld]

"Committee Member __Patriot__"  

We must do something while those who remember some degree of freedom (50 years ago) are still alive to tell the story of what we have lost so gradually over the years.

Of course!
Thats the same problem in Europe or other democrazies.
Didn't you hear something of public choice theory and growth of the state activity?

[JasonPSorens]

Yes, i know; but that is not a reason not to buy a ground somewhere in property and to claim the right of self-determination of the nations. Nobody is really impaired thereby.

It's been tried!  The Atlantis Project tried to take over a small Pacific atoll and were run off by the King of Tonga.  The Oceania Project wanted to buy an island, but the organizer ran off with investors' money.  New Utopia wanted to build a platform in the Caribbean, but it fizzled.

We're just normal people doing what is a very normal American activity: moving to a different state for more freedom and a better life, then becoming politically active.

[Danneskjoeld]

First: None of the states are "hated". The most liberty-friendly are being sought.

I mean the state of government. Do you like governments?  

Second: In the "whole world" there is no place as free as the most free portions of some American states. If you disagree, then please show us where there is a more free area which would be receptive of 20,000 freedom-starved people and their families "yearning to breath free".

That's not my point. When you get complete freedom without balance with Washington so it is a great success. But that not your goal. Your plan ist to stay under the knout of the central government and its laws. Your best attempt is to get a portion autonomy without the right to secede and every day you must hope, the Fed or your own neigbours takes it again away from you. I think ist only an american way because you make bad expierences with secessions in america. So a strong president send the army immedeatly. That's an american problem at first.
The advantage of the project is to bundle the forces. But you bundle only for americans. I can not participate by you. And you not by me, because you need your resources yourself.
But i think, its a problem to bundle the resourses, secession or free state anyway. All libertarian projects on the world have the same problem. They are not enough and they have to few money.

These (plural) United States were a refugium of Freedom during their first two hundred years of existence. The inscription at the base of the Statute of Liberty epitomized that fact and the migration of freedom-starved people "yearning to breath free" here proved it to be so. These United States are ceasing to be such refugia.

What the FSP is seeking to do is to identify and reinforce a refugium within which the last major vestiges of Freedom can be preserved and restored to what these United States first established and which served as a refugia for the world's people "yearning to breath free".

The reason of bondage ist the state (mastery). You want to take mastery to eliminate the mastery. BTW: Your untertaking is on bad terms.

Can the Free State Project succeed in preserving a refugium of Freedom? Would it be better to try to do it outside of these United States or within one most-liberty-friendly state? The most favored course is the latter. No other nation large or small and its neighbors are more likely to permit a Free State to succeed than one small state within the United States. Again, if you can show where a refugium would be better preserved and where 20,000 freedom-starved people would be welcome, please do so.

That's my strategy. Thanks. I believe, there are many places in the world, which far away enough from a strong government and international interests. See the projects in Costa Rica and Somali. Bosnia, Marocco or Thailand have also interesting places without taxes and anarchistic people. There are a lot of chances. What we need is an international organisation, which gather money to invase friendy a little region in the right moment.
This garants the best chances by the best forces. Confincingly, insn' it?

Besides, there isn't a patch of ground on this planet that isn't claimed by some nation or other, which would violently object to an attempted invasion by foreigners.  There's simply no place left to go to escape the State-worshippers.

Yes, i know; but that is not a reason not to buy a ground somewhere in property and to claim the right of self-determination of the nations. Nobody is really impaired thereby.

Greetings from Germany

Would buying ground somewhere ensure its defensibility as a refugium for Freedom? Would it need defense in the short or very long term? Would the Free People there be able to defend it? Would the Free People have allies to help them defend it? What would such "help" cost in concessions or meddling interference? Who would those allies be? The UK? The USA? Would any such ally more vigourously defend Freedom somewhere else than at home? Would it be better to already be a member state or territory of the UK or USA?
Would a refugia more likely survive in remote New England or Alaska or Intermountain Western USA (the latter two being ancient ice-age refugia).
or
in a remote island in the Atlantic (St. Helena or Tristan de Cunha?)
http://www.sthelena.se/tristan/tristan.htm
http://www.lookat.ch/index.php/article/articleview/79/1/63

That are real problems, yes. But these projects need a lot of money anyway. The goal is to calm down the officials some time with bribes. Then they have no chance against the right of nations on long view. Corruption is agenda there. Also its neacesary to take over the living population there with money and there own relations. In poor regions that's no problem.

[Zxcv]

Danneskjoeld, I guess a lot of us are just not ready to give up on this country yet. We see qualities here that perhaps don't make it over to the European media. We understand there is a big problem with the feds.

There would be problems anywhere we'd go, of course. Just different ones. However there may be other places that give a better chance to be free, that I will admit.

The advantage of the project is to bundle the forces. But you bundle only for americans. I can not participate by you.

I guess you mean concentrate forces. We do have some foreign members. If you get over here on some visa or another, you can participate.

Besides, you can't be a cowboy in Bosnia.  

[stpeter]

Would buying ground somewhere ensure its defensibility as a refugium for Freedom? Would it need defense in the short or long term (as the Falklands needed)? Would the Free People there be able to defend it? Would the Free People have allies to help them defend it? What would such "help" cost in concessions or meddling interference? Who would those allies be? The UK? The USA? Would any such ally more vigourously defend Freedom somewhere else than at home? Would it be better to already be a member state or territory of the UK or USA?  Would a refugium more likely survive in remote New England or Alaska or Intermountain Western USA (the latter two being ancient ice-age refugia) or in a remote island in the Atlantic (St. Helena or Tristan da Cunha?)
http://www.sthelena.se/tristan/tristan.htm
http://www.lookat.ch/index.php/article/articleview/79/1/63

Our friend from Germany has a point -- the FSP will not result in a fully free society. Those who expect it to are deluded. If we look at Vermont (the other U.S. state that has witnessed a broadly ideological migration in the last 50 years), we see that the folks who've moved there since the late 1960s -- call them socialists, progressives, liberals, leftists, hippies, communitarians, Greens, or whatever -- have not been fully successful in establishing their ideal society. Sure, they've turned Vermont into something closer to their ideals than it was before (especially considering that it was traditionally a bastion of old-time conservativism), but it's not an ideal society by their criteria. The same will happen in the FreeState -- no matter which state is chosen, the end result 20 or 40 years from now will be a U.S. state that is relatively more free than the others (perhaps in some significant ways), but that is not fully free. So it will not be an ideal society according to the criteria of libertarians, Jeffersonians, Objectivists, anarcho-capitalists, constitutionalists, classical liberals, Old Rightists, freepers, sovereign individuals, or whatever else people call themselves around here. It will be more free, but it will not be the place to find total freedom. Personally I think people will have to wait for L5 communities or the Mars colony before they find total freedom (and even then I have my doubts). Not trying to douse the passion for freedom, just trying to be realistic....

[Robert H.]

Personally I think people will have to wait for L5 communities or the Mars colony before they find total freedom (and even then I have my doubts). Not trying to douse the passion for freedom, just trying to be realistic....

Thanks, StPeter, for injecting a dose of realism here.  I think we sometimes get so excited about the potential of what we're trying to accomplish here that we omit crucial aspects of what history teaches us about human nature and society.  I'm reasonably optimistic about our chances of winning a couple of states over to the liberty agenda in time, but I do not believe, as some apparently do, that the other states will simply fall over like dominoes in our wake.

Consider the United States of America itself.  All the world envies our power and prosperity, yet, how many nations out there are really trying to emulate our founding political ideals?  Indeed, most countries criticize us whenever they're presented with an opportunity to do so.  Why are the other nations of the world not falling like dominoes in the wake of our example?

By the same token, I don't believe that the other US states will simply conceed defeat and surrender the political battleground to us.  It's more likely that they'll find ways to tap our prosperity instead of recreating it for themselves.  That's the path of least resistance, and history bears out that it's the path most often traveled by individuals and nations.

I've joked about the federal government putting us all on a reservation somewhere and acting like we don't exist, but perhaps that's not so far-fetched after all.  If we succeed in holding forth for liberty in one or two states of the Union, and others flock there to benefit from it, our sheer numbers and volume may convince the feds to grant us the opt-outs that Jason has talked about.  In this aspect, we'd be very much like another country (or a commonwealth), but still remain a member of the United States.

Full secession is certainly not unconstitutional, but it is highly unlikely (at least in the near future).  Alaska may be the only exception to this; it certainly has the most potential for it.

[radracer]

Alaska would be great (already close to legalizing pot) but too much oil there for the US govt to let loose of probably   Also probably too critical an avenue to Russia militarily for ICBMs or invasion, maybe? How about Puerto Rico? Since the IRS is founded there I just read they pay no income tax (a GREAT advantage already overcome for us!) Sure it's remote but it's also tropical, a nice trade-off. Thoughts?

[freedomroad]

Alaska would be great (already close to legalizing pot) but too much oil there for the US govt to let loose of probably   Also probably too critical an avenue to Russia militarily for ICBMs or invasion, maybe? How about Puerto Rico? Since the IRS is founded there I just read they pay no income tax (a GREAT advantage already overcome for us!) Sure it's remote but it's also tropical, a nice trade-off. Thoughts?

Puerto Rico has a very large population and it is not freedom loving.  There are no federal income taxes because it is a Commonwealth.  It has a tropical climate but not a MILD climate.  Personally, I would enjoy living in AK or even ME more than I would enjoy living in PR.  PR has been brought up before and it was turned down then for very good reasons.