Dropping out of the USA

[Ray Dillinger]

On Thu, 5 Jul 2001, A. Melon wrote:

>Well, this is not exactly on topic to any ongoing thread, but its
>something I'd like to get a few opinions on.  It seems that while
>science is moving ahead at a such a rate that I'm constantly amazed to
>see science fiction becoming science fact, at the same time we're seeing
>more political(?)-fiction(nightmares?) becoming fact as well in the form
>of government censorship and persecution.  As I'm not exactly excited
>about the prospect of being shot or winding up in jail indefinitely for
>'political crimes', it seems the best options are to simply leave the
>country altogether or forget about the personal freedoms granted by the 
>constitution.
>
>So my question is: where to go?  I certainly don't want to leave behind
>all the neat toys in the US like widespread broadband internet access,
>massive bookstores, high paying tech jobs, etc.  Is there any country
>that has the same technological benefits as the US without the
>government steadily encroaching into every sector of life?  

Honestly?  I don't think so.  Broadband is going to be planetwide in 
a couple of years, and massive bookstores can be found in major cities 
in every city on earth, or accessed remotely from anywhere if you just 
want to buy books.  But government encroachment is also increasing 
planetwide as the cost of surveillence and restriction is driven down 
by new technology. 

If you're profoundly optimistic about such things, there's a dude who 
has renamed himself as 'Lazarus Long' who is trying to found a nation 
based on strictly libertarian principles and has gotten as far as 
getting national sovereignty over a tiny island that has basically 
zero natural resources.  Personally I think it's going to be very 
marginal and isn't likely to last more than a dozen years -- leaving 
those who get mixed up in it at a risk of becoming stateless persons 
who may be shat upon by any government on the planet. 

Or you could try Nauru -- ten thousand people, more or less, on an 
island now ecologically ruined by mining -- but it's a republic and 
the citizens still have representation.  And it's English-speaking.
They are deliberately trying to cultivate an offshore-banking business, 
so there are opportunities for net-savvy people capable of tending 
server farms and caring for customer privacy there. But they may find 
that their close ties to Australia are strained if they take customer 
privacy too seriously.  The problem with Nauru is they have to import 
all their food except for some fish caught locally, so if they refuse 
to cooperate with the systematic sheepshearing of citizens globally, 
they are likely to find themselves hungry, or spending all their 
banking profits paying blockade-runners for taking insane risks.

If you feel so completely fed up that you want to do without government 
completely, there's always Somalia -- but you will need a gun, and if 
you have other property you'd like to keep, the will to use it.

				Bear