The Hot Gates

[Raginfridus]

Ranfridoos

 

[wizardwatson]

Ask a question about thread topic, get a cover song dedicated to you. Sweet deal while it lasts. Any takers? If you ask a question don't forget to include a song that can sound reasonably decent when played on an acoustic guitar.

 

[wizardwatson]

So was your business sprung with the initiative to further liberty locally, on a scale you can actually measure?

[MENTION=67878]Raginfridus[/MENTION] and everyone else...

Pretty much, yes.

“Measuring” progress. In addition, it’s about being able to focus external efforts into a well-defined area (“The Hot Gates”).

The New Hampshire “Free State Project” has a similar idea. They say, “Hey, let’s all the liberty people move to New Hampshire, then we’ll dominate the precincts and we can elect our leaders.” But what’s the metric for success? The only thing on their site I see is the number of people who’ve moved there which is between 4,000 and 5,000. How long did this take? Well, it started in 2001, NH was chosen in 2003, they finally had their goal of 20,000 signers in February 2016, at which time 1,909 were classified as early movers, so since then about 3,000 more have moved.

I’m not trying to downplay. This effort is supported by Ron Paul and Walter Block even said of the project, “You are doing the Lord’s work.” I’m simply trying to point out that the project strategy doesn’t really extend beyond “move here”. And by that metric, when you look at time spent and numbers achieved, what did this success gain for the liberty movement?

Shawnee Solari Inc. is very much along these lines, only it’s even more laser-focused. We define our area of operations not as a state, but as an individual county within a state, and we define our success not by how many people who have moved, but by how much economic value the solari has invested in that area (and our membership statistics). Our maps (which are barely started but posted) are at the precinct level.

Unlike the FSP, you can participate without moving here (or wherever else a solari exists in the future). Unlike the FSP you don’t have to be libertarian to participate. Whereas political action requires unity of political ideals, the solari concept unites on economic grounds. This removes the cyclical aspect of political action (you can do this work every day or whenever you have time and inclination) and makes any activist with goals related to improving living/working conditions a potential partner.

I’m aware this will take time, literally just kicked off two days ago. Patience and persistence I’m well stocked in.

The plan though, is to market this pilot program on both the local and online front. I think this project has great potential to be an asymmetric strategy for liberty that when understood by enough people, can become the “Hot Gates”.

That is the communication goal for me, getting people to understand the “Hot Gates” strategy. “Our movement is small”, says everyone. “What can we do?”

Well, we have to find a strategy that when you look at the game board, our side has an advantage compared to the others. How do we do that? Well, we develop a strategy where the oppositions greater numbers are cancelled out. That is what local economic action does. If we could get even 3,000 people not in Shawnee County, Kansas to support Shawnee Solari Inc., it would create serious attention, and it would be a catalyst for local people in Shawnee County to take notice.

The benefit for non-locals is that this is the prototype. What we are doing we are doing transparently. We are learning how to make this model work. What we learn here, every step of the way, makes it that much easier when it grows into other counties, and other states.

That isn’t the only potential benefit. Our initial stock offer plans (none at the moment) are to offer to Kansas residents, mainly because the red tape is nearly non-existent for doing that at the state level (“Invest Kansas Exemption” is like a one-page form which I could fill out tomorrow if I wanted). But beyond that, when the $1 million cap is reached on that exemption, I plan to register for probably the Regulation A Tier 2 or maybe the SCOR exemption to offer to out of state people, though the SCOR exemption limits us to 11 midwestern states. Anyway, there is a plan in place. However, the barrier to this working isn’t even money in my opinion, it’s getting people educated and interested. There is no time constraint with how this model could grow. We aren’t limited by election cycles or “setting things up”. I’ve already set everything up in the legal sense. We are currently operational, just operating as one-man lemonade stand at the moment. I just happen to be the guy who knows how the operation works from top to bottom so I can keep the thing running without help while it’s incubating. It’s also part-time for me. So I can operate it losing money indefinitely as long as it’s minor expenses like website and annual report filing fees.

And THAT is just the solari model, which is 1 of 3 of my main objectives. Objective two is reforming the banking system with Metric Reserve, and objective three is fixing the tax system with a very simple land tax based initiative. 2 and 3 are back-burner though and need additional planning. The solari piece, however, is live right now. These are 3 concrete defined objectives that anyone can educate themselves and understand the steps necessary to achieve them. These are not “bullet points about more bullet points”, as in “Step 1: come up with a plan”. The plan is there.

The real challenge is pulling people out of their propaganda-induced trance of staring at screens and following news cycles “exclusively”. If a gun story is in the news, “Oh, we need to march for gun rights!” If a middle-eastern conflagration is in the news, “Oh, we need to march for anti-war” We tread water and then once the MSM is following politics during an election cycle we’re stuck in that again. I’m not even saying “don’t watch the news.” Just don’t make the news cycle your strategy. Be a watcher AND a builder. But be a builder in something that isn’t based on what’s popular on TV and on the internet. This, to me, is a very tough problem. All these supposedly “woke” people are asleep when it comes to action. You could hand the liberty movement a staff, a plan, and a million dollars, and 90% of them don’t have enough spare attention to even recognize the opportunity.

Anyway, enough for now.

So just like the movie 300, which is where I draw the “Hot Gates” reference, yes, it’s about focusing in a small area so that we can not only measure our progress in achieving real objectives, but it’s EASY to win, and if there’s push back from those who oppose the efforts, their numbers won’t help them.
Hope this answers your question.

- David

 

[wizardwatson]

Renewing my offer today:

Ask a question about thread topic, get a cover song dedicated to you. Sweet deal while it lasts. Any takers? If you ask a question don't forget to include a song that can sound reasonably decent when played on an acoustic guitar.