Liberland - A brand new country in Europe!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In case you missed this important international development, last Monday saw the birth of a new country in Europe: The Republic of Liberland!

The BBC has extensive coverage [1], there is a Wikipedia article [2] and Liberland does of course, like every legit country, have it’s own website [3] and Facebook page [4]. Liberland also has a capital called Liberpolis which, as of now, appears to consist of a wooden hut [5], but Rome wasn’t built in a day either.

[1] Balkans: Czech man claims to establish 'new state' - BBC News
[2] Liberland - Wikipedia
[3] Free Republic of Liberland
[4] Liberland
[5] Liberland - Wikipedia

2

Grand Fenwick Lives!
or maybe Genovia…

3

Liberland? I know there will be a libtard joke somewhere in this thread.

4

Astonishingly reasonable, based on the information on the Wikipedia. Genuinely unclaimed territory, reasonable aspirations, and a motto, “Live and let live.”

5

What’s their beer, and what’s their airline?

6

If Grand Fenwick actually existed I’d move there, at least for a while.

7

It’s over twice the size of Monaco, so they should be fine.

8

I suggest a beer garden as their only ground-based business, and a zeppelin dock.

9

From Wikipedia:

“The goal of the state is to create a society where righteous people can prosper without inefficient state regulations and taxes.”

“…According to the official website, only communists, Neo-Nazis and extremists are ineligible for citizenship.”

“The politicians will be constitutionally forbidden from indebting the nation.”

10

(bolding mine)

There seems to be trouble on the horizon. The Communist Party of Liberland (CPL) has already been founded:

11

Who collects the garbage?

12

Ah. I can see their economic policy is “blatant stupidity”, which might actually be troubling were this place to ever become relevant to anyone.

13

They need definitions for righteous, inefficient, extremists and this constitution they mention.

Other than that, they’re good to go.

14

Up till right now, I’d never seriously considered becoming a Communist Neo-Nazi extremist.

15

Yeah, but what are the odds of that?

16

They have the worst flag, holy moly. If you’re going to start a new country, for God’s sake, at least design a decent flag. It’s got at least eight colors and a central design element that looks like a child’s coloring sheet.

If they can’t get the flag right screw them.

17

The vice president.

18

I thought when I first heard this it must be one of those BBC April Fool’s jokes.

19

According to their Facebook page, the president has met with the Austrian ambassador and is going to meet with “representatives of the OECD” today. I don’t know if those are substantive meetings or just “have your photo taken with a politician” kinds of things. I’m interested to see how this turns out. I like mocking libertarians as much as the next guy, but if Liberland can get going and show libertarian principles in action, it could be a learning opportunity. I mean that snark-free. If the claim that this was no-man’s land holds up, and a random guy can get his own country off the ground, more power to him.

20

As the wikipedia article makes clear, there are actually quite a few of these “micronations” around. Indeed, I heard a report on them just last week on NPR’s All Things Considered–there was some kind of conference of the “heads of state” of various micronations in California. Audie Cornish interviewed Kevin Baugh, the President of the Republic of Molossia.

Not all of them are exercises in libertarianism. Some of them are just for fun, some are experiments in political or social science, some of them are efforts to study how nations start and how a particular group of people become “a nation.” Some exist only online, and don’t even have a physical presence. Interesting, if weird.