Creating a Free Town or County

[helmuth_hubener]

Brainstorm: What would be a business that would stand to gain the most from the existence of a libertarian town or county?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Anyone?

 

[Deborah K]

Brainstorm: What would be a business that would stand to gain the most from the existence of a libertarian town or county?

I would think going back to basics would help a free town thrive. Like a local grocery market, butcher, mechanic, print shop, hardware, etc.

 

[Tywysog Cymru]

Anyone?

Maybe a gun store?

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Thanks for the thoughts. Perhaps some sort of amusement park or other entertainment thing.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

Where would the ideal place be?

You're going to have government intrusion on some level every place on the planet, no?

 

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Brainstorm: What would be a business that would stand to gain the most from the existence of a libertarian town or county?

I don't think there is a business that necessarily benefits from a libertarian town.

However, i think there are businesses that could be sustainable almost anywhere if the community agreed to support it as the "initial" growth mechanism.

Like, if you wanted to buy cheap property in a rural setting where there are no or few jobs, well, you'd have to import the cash and jobs somehow. The most obvious would be via the internet. So, finding a rural location next to a fiber trunk line, you could then pay for a fiber run to the community. In essence you could then do almost anything internet related. If you just purchased some random property in the sticks with taking that into account you really could not take advantage of internet related employment.

That's probably what I'd do if I really were committed to starting a liberty town.

1. Get national map of FIBER lines.
2. Overlay map of property / land values along map.
3. Over lay map of water resources / land fertility on map.
4. Once location with best mix for the money found, recruit people that could bring a "job" with them, which would be mostly people deriving income from the internet, or people like truck drivers that work like a week then go home for awhile.
5. Get Fiber line installed, start hosting, building websites, whatever to bring in cash flow.
6. Recruit people in the more traditional jobs areas, like an experienced builder, alternative energy installer, etc...
7. Wait for government to come kill us all.


Also, electricity costs vary greatly, in washington state near the hydro electric plants power is like .03 per kilowatt hour, So, if internet / computer related that has to be a factor as well.


Well, I take that back. Strip clubs, sex work, gambling, etc... would benefit from a libertarian town, if the county or state didn't ban it. But I guess I was thinking more traditional employment.

 

[TomtheTinker]

Naked ladies growing pot while toating guns all viewable for the public in person and via live stream.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Where would the ideal place be?

You're going to have government intrusion on some level every place on the planet, no?

I don't know that there is one single "ideal" place.

The main hurdle, in my opinion, is not identifying a location into which to move. The main hurdle is in identifying and gathering a sufficient number of libertarian persons willing to move. With a sufficient number of committed, serious movers, I believe there is a large number of small towns in which we could be successful.

Are you interested in such an idea, Bastiat? I mean, you're a little interested or you wouldn't have posted here, but what is your level of interest?

How about the rest of you? Deb? Tywysog? RPIG? Tom?

 

[Deborah K]

I don't know that there is one single "ideal" place.

The main hurdle, in my opinion, is not identifying a location into which to move. The main hurdle is in identifying and gathering a sufficient number of libertarian persons willing to move. With a sufficient number of committed, serious movers, I believe there is a large number of small towns in which we could be successful.

Are you interested in such an idea, Bastiat? I mean, you're a little interested or you wouldn't have posted here, but what is your level of interest?

How about the rest of you? Deb? Tywysog? RPIG? Tom?

HH, I started a thread on this very thing last year. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...ould-buy-1000-acres-or-more-who-would-join-us

I'm all for it, and am working toward that goal.

 

[mad cow]

I don't know that there is one single "ideal" place.

The main hurdle, in my opinion, is not identifying a location into which to move. The main hurdle is in identifying and gathering a sufficient number of libertarian persons willing to move. With a sufficient number of committed, serious movers, I believe there is a large number of small towns in which we could be successful.

Are you interested in such an idea, Bastiat? I mean, you're a little interested or you wouldn't have posted here, but what is your level of interest?

How about the rest of you? Deb? Tywysog? RPIG? Tom?

I think you are wrong here.Finding like minded libertarian sorts is the easy part,getting them to agree on a location is much harder.

Climate,scenery,proximity to rock/mountainclimbing,hunting/fishing,hiking/camping/backpacking,canoeing/kayaking/whitewater rafting,soil,weather and water conditions conducive to farming and gardening,Distance to shopping,bars and entertainment etc.etc,all have different values for different people,from unimportant to deal-killer.

 

[Deborah K]

I think you are wrong here.Finding like minded libertarian sorts is the easy part,getting them to agree on a location is much harder.

Climate,scenery,proximity to rock/mountainclimbing,hunting/fishing,hiking/camping/backpacking,canoeing/kayaking/whitewater rafting,soil,weather and water conditions conducive to farming and gardening,Distance to shopping,bars and entertainment etc.etc,all have different values for different people,from unimportant to deal-killer.

I believe a consensus on a location can be reached if the criteria is spelled out.

 

[Deborah K]

Here are some of my criteria:

gun rights
permitting structures
water and natural resource rights
homeschooling
farming/ranching
independent power via turbine; solar; natural gas; biogasification
taxes (if no state tax, how high is property tax?)
federal land

 

[helmuth_hubener]

HH, I started a thread on this very thing last year. http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...ould-buy-1000-acres-or-more-who-would-join-us

I'm all for it, and am working toward that goal.

Hey, that's terrific! I'll have to read through that thread.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Here is an eloquent presentation of the kind of thing I am envisioning:



1:00:30

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Here is some excellent information about some freedom community projects that have been planned or done in South America, coming to us from sophiaz from https://www.internationalman.com/im-forum/viewthread/2757/

~~~

First the summary, as best I understand it.

#1: LEC in Cafayate, Argentina
LEC (La Estancia de Cafayate) conceived by Doug Casey has sold about 250 of the 360~400 lots in their liberty-oriented expat community in Cafayate, Argentina. They completed the 18-hole golf course and golf clubhouse years ago. Since then they’ve completed a very extensive and modern indoor fitness center, tennis courts, polo fields, horse stables, social club and other amenities. A small 5-star hotel located itself within the community. Depending on how we count, somewhere around 50 homes are built, under construction, or about to be started. A contact in Cafayate tells me about 9 homes are occupied by owners in winter, and about 30 homes occupied in summer. In short, LEC is fully real, and most of what they promised has been delivered. The only major shortcoming is the HOA fees, which increased dramatically rather than fell.

#2: SVF near Talca, Chile
SVF (Sovereign Valley Farms) conceived by Simon Black was a gorgeous looking organic farm property near Talca, Chile. At various times there were supposed to be 36+ to 50 lots on that property sold to liberty-oriented expats. They would not allow anyone to know anything very specific unless you would fly down to Talca and personally inspect the property. I may not remember the number exactly, but somewhere around 5000 individuals and couples flew down to Chile to inspect the property, and according to SVF literature at least 500 people wanted to buy lots. For some reason Simon changed his mind, decided he didn’t want anyone living on the property he showed to thousands of people, and apparently attempted to find an alternate property to accommodate more people on more lots. Or so their PR claimed. Some have claimed that the larger property Simon was thinking of buying for the community was purchased by the GGC folks before Simon made his final decision. For whatever reason, Simon Black apparently nuked all his plans to create an liberty-oriented expat community. I believe his announcement said “temporarily”, but my interpretation was that “temporary” meant the same thing as when Nixon “temporarily” suspended gold backing for the US dollar. Recently someone who claimed to know (and claimed to be involved with SVF somehow back then), that actually Simon didn’t have even 50 offers to purchase when he was claiming he had over 500 offers. That claim may be BS or true, I have no way to know. At any rate, SVF seems to be gone.

#3: FO near Curacavi, Chile
FO (Freedom Orchard) conceived by Jon Cobin is located south and immediately adjacent to the GGC property. They have not received enough investment money to buy the property, begin serious physical development, and sell lots. This has been the status for at least one year now, and perhaps two or three years (not sure).

#4: GGC near Curacavi, Chile
GGC (Galt’s Gulch Chile) conceived by (not sure who, but with Ken Johnson and Jeff Berwick involved) is located north and immediately adjacent to the FO property. Depending on who you believe, GGC owns at least some of the property the claim to own (but possibly in partnership with previous owners, which may have caused some people confusion). GGC started a “founders club” program starting approximately May of 2013 (about 14 months ago) to sell a number of lots to “founders club members” on very interesting terms. They would get 80% to 100% of their money back over 18 months in 3 payments. Apparently the idea was to get enough revenue from founders to build roads and other infrastructure, which would then make the property attractive enough to sell large numbers of lots, repay the founders, and have enough money left over to continue to improve the property, and bootstrap from there. From what I recall, the founders were supposed to converge on GGC in early November of 2013 (about 8 months ago) and choose their lots. Unfortunately, from what I’ve been able to determine, delays in specifying lot boundaries and/or getting government approval has delayed this by at least 8 months so far, and counting. How this impacts their plans to pay back founders on the original schedule (and spend the revenue from founders on infrastructure expansion) is not clear to me, but I would not be surprised if the timing difficulties might interfere with their bootstrap plans.

——-

That’s my summary. That’s what I’ve heard from various sources (including principles or spokespeople at all these efforts). Needless to say, advocates of each place will want to add rosy sounding details, and omit not-so-rosy sounding details, but I have been as objective and balanced here as I can be. And at various times I was considering all these places as a place to buy. I’ve been trying to afford LEC since 2008, I almost certainly would have bought one of those 50 original lots at SVF if they were actually available, I was turned off by FO because they made clear they consider their community to have a religious-right like “anti-abortion” attitude/slant, and I was interested in GGC as an investment (buy the founders club lot, get a refund over 18 months, then sell the lot). I was not interested in FO or GGC for long-term living because they are much too close to a horribly polluted city (just over a ridge that thankfully keeps much of the air-pollution away), and because I prefer warmer weather and desert environment.

——-

Having said all the above as context, what I want to say is the following. Please understand that this is a personal observation, not criticism of these communities.

I would prefer if these and other potential projects were much smaller scale. I’m not sure why they were conceived as such large endeavors. Perhaps they simply were not thoughtful or creative enough to break free from the example provided by the first case, the Doug Casey LEC community at Cafayate, Argentina. As David Galland stated in another thread a few days ago, three of the instigators of LEC are billionaires! THREE of them. And that’s billionaires, not millionaires. Now, that is serious money. And so, the instigators of LEC could easily afford to spend $10 or $20 million to get LEC built out without worrying about revenue or bank accounts. As a result, LEC has been built pretty much as they promised at the beginning. They were easily able to afford it.

However, it does not appear any of the other liberty-oriented expat communities had anywhere near such extraordinary “deep pockets” going into the project. Yet, they all seemed to choose large scale endeavors. Actually, let me modify that a bit. Originally Simon Black seemed to plan for his 1100 acre farm to have about 50 lots/owners. Now THAT was a reasonable scale plan in my opinion, especially if we assume Simon had already purchased the property with his own money (probably $1M ~ $3M), and the property was already a producing farm (which he claimed, and all his photos certainly indicated). However, for some very strange reason, that plan vaporized and some grandiose plan for thousands of owners got substituted.

Now, why do I say all this?

Frankly, it may not matter at this point. The many problems with SVF, FO and GGC may have made the notion of “liberty oriented expat community” an inherently poison idea to anyone who might ever dare entertain such thoughts.

However, if anyone out there ever does entertain such a notion, I encourage them to THINK SMALLER. The very real and substantial economies of scale from such a project can be captured and realized by much smaller endeavors. Frankly, they can be realized on a scale as small as just a few individuals or families. But perhaps the sweet spot is somewhere between 10 and 30 individuals, couples or families. So the original SVF concept wasn’t out of line.

In addition, I advise the KISS principle. Keep it simpler. For example, don’t legally subdivide. The moment legal subdivision is performed, the amount of money spent on property taxes explodes. Now each individual lot is taxed at a high rate, whereas previously the entire property was taxed at a low rate (as farmland or undeveloped or some other more advantageous category). Better to hold the entire property as a single unit, and divide ownership of that single entity in some way. Perhaps that’s what the original SVF idea was… I’m not sure. Some people immediately say, “no, can’t do that, nobody wants to co-own property”... to which my response is twofold. One, tell that to tens of millions of people who live in a condo (in a condo community), where they don’t even own the entire building they live in, much less the land. And two, what liberty-advocate expat really wants to arrange things to purposely maximize the amount of money taken from their own pocket and paid to government?

~~~

This kind of thing is not exactly what I am envisioning -- I am envisioning something more like what Hans Hoppe describes in the lecture I linked just above -- but it does seem to be more along the lines of what most of the rest of you are envisioning. So maybe what I am envisioning needs to change. Maybe people are not interested in simply moving into an established town, but prefer to start their own. I am open to all ideas. Might I ask, though: why? It seems much harder to me to start a new town from scratch, build your underground earthship, drill for water, etc., than to just move into an existing town, pursue a career in a normal fashion, etc.

 

[oyarde]

Brainstorm: What would be a business that would stand to gain the most from the existence of a libertarian town or county?

I would go with a combination , gasoline , bait & tackle , liquor, guns and ammo ,hardware .

 

[helmuth_hubener]

So, what about some small town in New Hampshire as Keith suggests? Who would be up for moving and making a little libertarian haven?

 

[Keith and stuff]

I'm working on this. In the Democratic Primary for governor, there were 3 candidates. The person that took the 2nd most amount of votes is pro-liberty. In the Republican Primary for governor, 2 of the 4 candidates were pro-liberty. I'm looking at comparing the results for all of the NH towns for both of these races. There are already posted results for the 2012 Ron Paul campaign for all of the towns in NH. Ideally, results for all 4 of these candidates will somehow be combined. That should help us see which towns would do better for this type of things.

Ron Paul 2012
http://liberty603.com/maps/view/8

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Wow, cool, Keith!