The Puerto Rico Solution

Politics & Elections
1

I have to admit, I’m liking this idea more and more. It goes like this;

Puerto Rico has the right to vote for Independence.
Tea Partiers move to Puerto Rico and buy up property.
Locals use that money to move to the mainland US.
Once they have acheived critical mass, the TP’ers vote for Independence.

Viola, Tea Party Nation.

NOT a US state seceeding. Not directly bordering any other state. Offshore, away from the USA, but not too far.

The ongoing entertainment value would be hilarious.

When all these people know is “tax cuts! tax cuts! tax cuts!” and the idea of raising taxes is “killing your children” bad, how will this new government even function? Once they’ve eliminated all taxes, will the cognitive dissonance kill the lot of them? (“Well clearly we need more tax cuts! Quick, find a tax to cut somewhere!”)

I want to watch them trying to create a military from scratch and then try to wage wars around the globe. While having zero ability to pay for them.

I want to watch the internal cognitive dissonance and denial destroy their ability to deal with common everyday issues like building and maintaining infrastructure, operating schools and dealing with huge toxic dumping on a massive scale the very businesses they worship and felate (while refusing to tax or regulate).

I want to alternately laugh at and weep for their children as they learn utter crap in their schools and are not able to function in the real world.

I want them to be angry and surprised (and far away) when they learn that the US is cutting off their medicare, social security and other aid because they’re now citizens of a (new) foreign country and that was part and parcel of the deal. And then have to deal with the fact that they have violently opposed government spending on the very things they demand and depend on - and refuse to allow their new goverment to approve even as they expect it for themselves.

And I want this to serve as an object lesson to everyone who supports the same crap here but isn’t brave enough to make the leap for the new experiment.

Even as I expect their responses will be “well it only failed because they weren’t conservative enough/weren’t christian enough”, etc.

2

I’d like to say I’m in awe - truly in awe - of your ability to engage in so many logical fallacies at once. I’m actually impressed with your sheer capacity for it. Fromprojection, to strawmen, to complete invention, as well as sheer mroal blindness along the way.

Brav-O!

3

While not exactly using this scenario, I’ve always wondered why libertarians has tried buying a patch of Africa or a large island and formed their own Libertarian nation. There is no shortage of rich Libertarians, and I’m sure that if they put their resources together it would result in a pile of money larger than the economy of many African nations. And if they actually believe what they say, such a nation with low taxes and no regulations should immediately prosper and would be a beacon for the rest of the world. Based on what I hear on the internet there are scads of people wanting to go Galt, yet nowhere to go Galt to. I personally think that such a nation wold collapse faster than biosphere 2, as human nature trumped political theory, but then I’m not a true believer. Any true blue Libritarians out there want to speculate why no one has tried this?

4

Still plenty of room left on Sealand, isn’t there?

5

I say they settle in Bir Tawil and declare independence. Who’s “they”
Libertarians
Tea Partiers
All Dems that threatened to leave when GW Bush was (re)elected.
Birthers

I’d love to see that 4 party Congress in action.

6

I hear Rapture’s nice this time of year

7

But if they’re pooling their money to create a nation, then obviously they aren’t libertarian enough for this hypothetical country to work.

8

Puerto Rico is a fucking island paradise with a rich cultural heritage, et fucking cetera. If I lived there, I wouldn’t leave for a million dollars.

9

And now they want a steak! What’s next, a baked potato?

Oh.

That’s very different.

Never mind.

10

Viva el Partido del Te! :smiley:

11

ROSALIA
Puerto Rico,
You lovely island . . .
Island of tropical breezes.
Always the pineapples growing,
Always the coffee blossoms blowing . . .

ANITA
Puerto Rico . . .
You ugly island . . .
Island of tropic diseases.
Always the hurricanes blowing,
Always the population growing . . .
And the money owing,
And the babies crying,
And the bullets flying.
I like the island Manhattan.
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!

– West Side Story

12

There’s true in both. But I would prefer my co-islanders to focus on the first, keep it, and improve on it, because it is by preserving and improving what beauty we have, that we can combat the negativity we also suffer.

13

Well, we had this…

Aside from seeding a bunch of Bioshock jokes, I don’t know that it’s gone anywhere.

14

As far as the Tea Party is concerned they already have a country: Real America. It’s sort of like the United States and is mostly located in the same place but the majority of the people who live in the United States don’t live in Real America. But as far as the Tea Party is concerned they’re living in Real America and they don’t want to leave. They want all the people who aren’t Real Americans to leave.

15

They could just go to Liberia. It’s perfectly named for them.
But I’m not sure if they are still using Obama postage stamps there.

16

An isolated artificial island with a libertarian attitude towards building codes, land use, pollution, resources, weapons, etc. Yea, that’ll work real well. :rolleyes:

17

You guys are behind the curve on the Libertarians. They’re already working at turning New Hampshire into their homeland.

18

Thank God there is a place to escape the tyranny of seat belt laws!

What is there, something like three cars in New Hampshire?

19

I’m not a libertarian, but if I had to guess, some libertarians aren’t as doctrinaire as others and appreciate certain provisions of government and just don’t want to pay for them. Others may have an affinity for their state, workplace or neighbours. Others have a globalist view and realise that free trade doesn’t matter very much if all other countries impose very large stamp duties on the country advocating complete freedom from regulation.

Finally, there may be strictures of convention. They’ll get right around to donating to the Sealand fund after they attend this Ron Paul rally, read this Mises article, speculate on a few shares, watch this Cato video… Oops, time for bed.

I think there’s an exact analogue for the left contributing to campaigns for centre-right politicians in the US, rather than contributing to a fund to allow workers to purchase their means of production. The majority probably range from capitalist with an affinity for science/social issues, to Keynesian. The few that actually do believe that workers can manage their own affairs feel a sense of alienation from production and are too disjointed to effectively combine.

20

First of all, any libertarian Tea Party experiment is destined to be a success because they will freedom their free free freedom free yee-haw! The fact that it hasn’t occurred to this date is due to supreme coincidence and does not indicate that the group is collection of delusional blowhards.

That said, I think a better candidate would be St Lawrence Island. It has a population of 1,292 and a population density of less than one person per square mile. Although part of Alaska, it is actually closer to Siberia than it is to the Alaskan mainland.

They can choose to sign a defense treaty or not with the US – their choice. But if they do, residents would be expected to pay US taxes, though they would not be subject to the conventional court system. Enforcement would occur via aerial bombardment, as stipulated by contract ahead of time.