Indeed, the Federal Government not enforcing the US Constitution and federal law worries me much more than any state shenanigans.
8 Likes
Exactly. With the shift in wealth, increasing power of lobby $$$, GOP control, and Trump’s oligarchic leanings, Schumacher’s proposal moves from impossible fantasy to alarmingly possible.
12 Likes
Agreed.
As a matter of principle, I can imagine much worse futures than an Archipelagian one with a lot more different states with vastly different rules, norms, and ways of living. But only as long as there is some universally enforced ground set of rights - even if it were only something like “exit rights” to leave any such community at any time. But I do not trust the current US government to enforce any such thing.
2 Likes
36 square miles? So I’m guessing that we’re talking about survey townships here…I’d guess that some of the land would actually be federal land managed by the BLM in many cases…So I’m thinking that this is part of the plan to de-legitimize federal land ownership.
14 Likes
What, are there no more abandoned oil derricks available?
2 Likes
Which (to me) means… no safe bets. (Ex: Who ever thought that the GOP would ever back a traitor.)
3 Likes
OK. Things are starting to get a little weird now.
I used to think USA was too obsessed with football players, but they were never offered their own sovereignty. Why has there been this creeping reverence towards corporations?
11 Likes
I was thinking dozens of far-left anarchist communes. Just what every Republican would love.
Does anyone want to suggest it to CrimethInc?
5 Likes
Of course technically, that’s not an abandoned oil platform but an abandoned platform for anti-aircraft guns…The closer US equivalent would be the Texas Towers Texas Towers - Wikipedia and I believe that they were all dismantled.
Interesting snapshot of Honduras. I recently went to San Salvador for my kids’ chess tournament (#7 highest murder rate in the world). Because we had heard so many terrible things about San Salvador, our entire trip consisted of hotel-nearby mall-tournament. We didn’t explore much (though we did go to a surprisingly good children’s museum). Many parts of that article I could relate: armed private security everywhere, broken down taxis, and plenty of heavily armed “police”.
We avoided taxis when we could and only took Uber (yay Uber!). We had heard that flagging down a yellow cab on the street, you may find yourself with a driver who has bad intentions. At least the rating system of Uber gave us some confidence that this driver is not going to rob you.
I wish we’d had time to do some real exploring. Maybe next time.
1 Like
Interesting thought! But here’s population density:
…and here’s federal lands:
(I know these images are a little awkward to compare, this is just off of a quick search!)
So it looks to me like less of an attempt on federal land, and more of a misguided attempt to match up low-density land with corporate caretakers. (Though why you’d want to do that if it doesn’t increase the tax base is beyond me.)
ETA: I just re-read the article. The proposed law is for land with fewer than 10 ppl per sq mile, which means all of those national parks would in fact be toast, if a company wanted to take over and extract some kind of resource from it.
4 Likes
I wonder if the proposed law excludes cooperatives.
4 Likes
This began the reign of Empress Kathleen I.
7 Likes
I did not expect the Amazon Play to occur in Nebraska… what do you want to bet he suddenly has a really nice car or boat or something?
1 Like
Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world
1 Like
Of course what follows is predictable. Corps set up their little playgrounds, but then they want new roads, schools, infrastructure, housing, etc but they don’t want to pay for it. They petition the landlords (the state) to provide it, and the good state senator is right there to do their bidding. The take over of the government by companies is complete.
5 Likes
That still leaves a LOT of laws and regulations that aren’t covered under Federal law, including murder, iirc.
Surely this is so completely preposterous as to stand no chance of meriting serious consideration? Not unlike many other propositions routinely made by state senators?
You know, that’s an interesting idea. Stuff like murder isn’t illegal at the federal level iirc, so presumably burglary and theft aren’t either? Personally it sounds like a good excuse to make a shell corporation, buy up some land, and run all sorts of fun things.
So do employees still have to pay state income taxes? What if they stay within the boundaries of the “sovereign nation” at all times? I suppose there’s nothing to stop their employers from levying an income tax to keep part of their pay. It’s a win-win! (Well. . . unless you’re the employee I guess.)
4 Likes
