Laforge Posted April 19, 2015 Posted April 19, 2015 A new micro country in eastern europe, check out a short article from the country's website: http://liberland.org/en/about/ Apparently they are talking about using bitcoin+gold http://liberland.org/en/forum/?threadID=1615349180552d9bd2eb58c 3
Crallask Posted April 19, 2015 Posted April 19, 2015 It'll be interesting to see how it goes at least. Freedom has a strong spirit for people to be willing to try something like this, ahaha.
Sal9000 Posted April 19, 2015 Posted April 19, 2015 As a Croatian native I strongly discourage anyone moving there.
luxfelix Posted April 20, 2015 Posted April 20, 2015 As a Croatian native I strongly discourage anyone moving there. Why's that?
Sal9000 Posted April 20, 2015 Posted April 20, 2015 There are negotiations on the status of this region. In the future it will either belong to Croatia or Serbia. There is little infrastructure and the landscape is not that impressing.
luxfelix Posted April 21, 2015 Posted April 21, 2015 There are negotiations on the status of this region. In the future it will either belong to Croatia or Serbia. There is little infrastructure and the landscape is not that impressing. Ah, so it's not currently claimed by either country, but will be? I figured land along the Danube would be premium real estate.
SWMA Posted April 21, 2015 Posted April 21, 2015 They want 3-4k people in the 7 square kilometer area. That's a lot. Means they won't be able to be self-sufficient in the slightest. Probably has no important natural resources to start with (except for water and ground). Wouldn't want to live there.
Cantharis Posted April 22, 2015 Posted April 22, 2015 There are several problems with it, one of it is the usage of flags and official language, etc. and the other is the aforementioned border issues. It's close to hungary - the country in which I live in - and some people I know travelled to check out this place last sunday. They were told by the croatian police when they arrived to "liberland" that this whole thing doesnt exists and they must go. So they came home, and basically das ist alles
BD91 Posted April 23, 2015 Posted April 23, 2015 From what I hear (minimal actual research at this point) it's basically swampland with nasty beasts. Also, quasi-legal obtaining of the land (not that that's ever really been a problem for civilization before)
m.j. Posted April 28, 2015 Posted April 28, 2015 Very interesting initiative. I honestly do not know what is the level of realism for all this, but it is very educational to simply follow and comment the entire evolution of it, no matter how it will end. I personally have very little faith anything more than just a provocation will happen, mainly because 7 square kilometers of the land constantly reshaped by the river Danube in that part of the world, does not even guarantee the territorial integrity. It is not an accident that this zone is not populated. Secondly, so far Serbia and Croatia did not agree on this piece of land, because it has very little value for any side, but now that is claimed by these 'crazy minarchists' it will suddenly become of strategic importance for both, and more the Liberland founding fathers will insist on this, and bigger the reaction of the neighboring states will be. It will become one of the old statist sad songs: "foreigners are steeling our territory defended by our grandfathers, this is adding instability in the region and bla, bla, bla". The economies of both neighbors are terrible, so any distraction from the real problems is useful for the politicians. I read the constitution of this, may be to be born country. It is the 'classical' minarchist approach, a minimal state. I am not a lawyer, but any person with some educational background should be able to understand it, and it is very short. There are several very good things inside, but all this reminded me about the anecdote of the german mathematician Kurt Godel the day he was giving oath to become USA citizen. His friend Einstein was begging him not to emphasize the logical contradictions of the US constitution to the burocrat, but it was stronger than him. I am saying this, because minimal state is the contradiction in terms, minarchists are, as we know well, the non consistent anarchists. There are various way to prove this, let me illustrate this with couple of paragraphs from Liberland's constitution: Legislative power: §15. Any Bill proposing taxation and/or taxation-like burdens shall be subject to the mandatory referendum to take place within ninety days after the Bill was passed by the Assembly, and shall be deemed to be vetoed if the majority of the Citizens taking part the in that referendum vote ‘No’. Bill of rights: §32. A person who has been arrested, detained, imprisoned, tried, or sentenced either illegally or in error shall receive fair restitution. So, let us examine that a very rich person gets arrested and every day of non liberty costs him 1 million monetary units. After one year, the justice system may recognize he was detained per mistake, so his just restitution is 365 milions. This would almost certainly provoke the increase of taxes and therefore a mandatory referendum must be invoked. It is very likely citizens will say 'No', so Liberland enters the condition that can not be solved. Either it imposes the 365 milion to everybody, but than it is in contrast with the paragraph 15 or it gives a considerable subset of the fair restitution and therefore it is in contrast with chapter 32. What would happen? Well, some strange new ad hoc bill would be created to cover up this illogical situation, and it would be just the first one in the long series that would transform the small state into the monster state, like it always happen. So, dear minarchists, please pay attention to this, only anarchist solution is imune to this problem. In the anarchic society, the DRO or its equivalent would promise certain restitution but only within its own budgets and would never be able to promise something vague like 'fair restitution'. In this world, there are no infinite money budgets, and anarchy knows this. Anyway, i support the idea of Liberland, i think it deserves at least one podcast show, to spread the information about new interesting initiative. It will fail, but so what, throwing the sand in the eyes of the traditional states is always useful, just to let them know different thinking people exist. 1
SWMA Posted April 30, 2015 Posted April 30, 2015 §15. Any Bill proposing taxation and/or taxation-like burdens shall be subject to the mandatory referendum to take place within ninety days after the Bill was passed by the Assembly, and shall be deemed to be vetoed if the majority of the Citizens taking part the in that referendum vote ‘No’. Bill of rights: §32. A person who has been arrested, detained, imprisoned, tried, or sentenced either illegally or in error shall receive fair restitution. So, let us examine that a very rich person gets arrested and every day of non liberty costs him 1 million monetary units. After one year, the justice system may recognize he was detained per mistake, so his just restitution is 365 milions. This would almost certainly provoke the increase of taxes and therefore a mandatory referendum must be invoked. It is very likely citizens will say 'No', so Liberland enters the condition that can not be solved. Either it imposes the 365 milion to everybody, but than it is in contrast with the paragraph 15 or it gives a considerable subset of the fair restitution and therefore it is in contrast with chapter 32. No. How does that "almost certainly" provoke the increase of taxes? Why would the citizens be against a so called fair restitution, if it was indeed fair AND they're believers in their constitution? Why do you think your arbitrarily ridiculous figure would constitute "fair" restitution? What is your definition of "fair" in this context and why do you think they would adhere to it? Or more to the point - why do you think "the authorities" would adhere to it but at the very same time the people who pay for it would not? Why do you think they have to be of different opinions on this? Why do you think they have to be completely different people to begin with? Just because that's the way it is in the system you live in?
m.j. Posted April 30, 2015 Posted April 30, 2015 My assumption of 1 million per day was not arbitrary. It was the assumption of what is fair. There are methods and formulas in the insurance companies that consider many real facts from the life and career of the evaluated subject. Say, in the last 10 years, prior to the unjust arrest, he was creating 365 millions per year, with the stable trend. In reality the insurance company criteria is more complex, but for the sake of this example, let us limit it to this. So, he was in prison unable to continue with his trend, and very probably he would have created the same amount if he was free. So, this is, for my example the definition of fair for this person. The citizens of this country subject to this constitution might like the freedom, etc... but still they are practical people. Evidently some burocrat, made a mistake, so the mistake was private, but the toll was socialized to everybody, because the state must issue the restitution and the budget might not be enough to cover it. This, among other deviations, is inevitable in the minarchist society, because there are still mechanisms for mandatory taxes. In anarchist society, the DROs knowing they can never rely on any mandatory tax, would have to think about this problem ahead of the times and they would issue a clause in their contracts on what is the maximum possible restitution. In the anarchist society, there can not exist the absolute term, fair. There would always be some real world limits, or the DRO would fall into bankruptcy. But only some particular DROs, never the entire society, because there are no damage distribution mechanisms like in minarchy. This is the key difference. Minarchy is a logically not consistent system. Now, you may say that in the Laws section of Liberland, the term 'fair' could be made more accurate, and some real world limits could be introduced, but this is the beginning of the nightmare. If the constitution is already imperfect, everything else is subject to deterioration. There is a good saying in science "less is known is a specific science domain and more there are books about it", while for the Newtonian physics, one single text book is enough, because we know all about it. I see, even in this constitution, the symptoms of this. For example, there are several reactive paragraphs, like the state can not bail out the broken companies etc... there is a long list of particular cases. Why? Because it is attempting not to repeat the mistakes from the current states. Very honorable, but this should not be right approach. The constitution should list the philosophical principles and that's it. Like the explanation of the ownership of one's body, mind and the actions of one's mind and body etc... It is relatively easy to derive from there that nobody can bail out anyone with force, because it would negate principle of self-ownership. It is redundant to put into constitution the consequences of the first principles. At best this could be put into the Laws section, just to make it more usable, like the mathematical theorems. They exist only as the shortcuts to solve some practical problems, because it is very very long to start from the axioms every time. But, in this case the theorems (or the laws) are not helping axioms (the constitution) to become valid, but only to be more efficient in applying the constitution.
doodydota Posted May 9, 2015 Posted May 9, 2015 The president of Liberland, Vít Jedlička, has been arrested by the Croatian police. We are seeking help in finding the correct phone number to the relevant police station. Thanks for any help. source: https://www.facebook.com/liberland?fref=nf
GRosado Posted May 10, 2015 Posted May 10, 2015 They want 3-4k people in the 7 square kilometer area. That's a lot. Means they won't be able to be self-sufficient in the slightest. Probably has no important natural resources to start with (except for water and ground). Wouldn't want to live there. Hong Kong has almost no natural resources & yet it's an economic miracle so that doesn't mean anything. 2
Romulox Posted July 24, 2015 Posted July 24, 2015 For those interested in hearing about Liberland straight from the horse's mouth, here is a podcast with Tom Woods interviewing the President of Liberland. http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-440-liberland-a-new-libertarian-country/ I'm certainly skeptical of many aspects of the setup of the micronation, but they had my full attention after mentioning that the next revision of the constitution will require that all state funds be raised through crowd-sourcing.
Recommended Posts