Ayup. It might be a podunk piece of nowhere, but it’s a soveriegn nation and well on its way to a generous foreign aid package and a seat on the UN Security Council.
Currency, flags, and such are not needed. The ritzier joints like 'em, makes 'em feel big, but us cheapies gotta focus on the essentials: food, water, and having a big enough gat to frighten the natives. Assuming you gotta motorboat big enough to bring supplies from the mainland, you got the first two covered as long as the dough holds out. Maybe you work a deal with Kinko’s to create Official JayBeeLand Currency as a tourist gimmick. Weapons are pricey, though, and here you’re relying on the kindness of strangers.
But I gotta say it: Three guys on an island alone? Not much chance for a second generation, anyway.
I wonder if you could pick an out-of-the way spot in the atlantic
and put a bunch of docks and boats of all sizes together and call
it a nation. Get your own power plant and food source and voila.
What tax beneifits would you really get? You’d have to buy everything from somewhere else and thus be taxed. And since you can’t really “work” in a 1 man country where ever you did work would still take you income tax.
I can’t see the tax loop hole (else I’d just “move” to a less taxed country like the US and still work in Canada) but I can see the appeal. “Hey baby, wanna come into my country and help create the next generation?”
Michael Bates of Sealand actually responded to some questions I asked of him. I posted them in this thread. It also links to several others on the subject.
So it actually boils down to finding land that you want to call your own and being able to defend it. Recognition would follow once any nation objecting to your nation building gets their ass kicked. Sounds like Israel…and the USA from more than 2 hundred years ago.
Ergo, the size of your military forces would be proportional to the threat of your neighbors and inversely proportional to the number of allies you might be able to get. Having 4 or 5 willing women per man should fix the permanent population problem.
When the Segway was announced there was a TV show about it and the inventor Dean Kamen. He invented that gizmo that stands next to a hospital bed and dispenses medication and the portable dialysis machine among other things. Anyway he flys his own helicopter and owns an island off of the Maine coast. The island has its own flag and name, but of course it is just some rich guy playing make-believe.
[sup]I googled but couldn’t find a cite[/sup]