THE FREE STATE PROJECT

<a href="http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/">Walter Williams, Georgetown University</a> ^ | updated August 21, 2002 | Professor Walter Williams, Contributer

[Bandolier]

Hey, cool man, does that mean I can get all the dope I want?

You can get all the dope you want, now. A major problem is that if you don't do dope, and your name looks a lot like somebody else's, the donut ninjas might still kick in your door and kill your kids. Ain't the WOD grand? So many oportunities for underendowed men to compensate for their inadequacies.

[Texasforever]

Are you still with us?

[Bandolier]

You like holding a Royal Flush, don't you?

This plan looks wonderful on paper, and in the mind of an addled juvenile, but it ain't happening.

Did you used to slide the chairs out from behind the short bus kids when they sat down?

[Texasforever]

Did you used to slide the chairs out from behind the short bus kids when they sat down?

LOL No I am cruel but not heartless. Believe it or not I pulled a Royal Flush one time. I won a whole lot of red beans too.

[Bandolier]

I pulled three Royal Flushes in one day on one of those pocket slot machine thingies. Man, I felt cheated. I coulda' won big bucks on one of the real poker machines. But, I'm too cheap to play 'em.

[Texasforever]

pulled three Royal Flushes in one day on one of those pocket slot machine thingies. Man, I felt cheated

Yep, what could have been. LOL

[Texasforever]

Geeze, I am right here. You want to discuss something?

[Bandolier]

The Free State Project is kind of like a good idea; but they/we need to test the waters by seeing if we can get a town librarian elected, even with opposition. If they can't take over a township; a state is out of the question.

[Texasforever]

IMO, and you well know I am not a libertarian, is that we need to get back to a 10th amendment America. That provides 50 laboratories in which to test differing philosophies. If California wishes to be the nations red light district with open-air drug bazaars then that is their right under the constitution. The same goes for states that, through their elected governments, want tough drug and vice laws they are within their constitutional rights to do so. That is what we had in this country prior to the 14th amendment and that amendment is why we have the mess we have today.

[Nix 2]

Sorry. I wandered to another thread and it was so interesting, I read it all. But I'm back, and here is the deal. FREEDOM is contagious. Most people don't even remember what actual freedom meant and nobody in these days wants them to learn. My problem with people like you is that you think you have yours, so the heck with everyone else.
WHILE we still have people who have read and understand the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of The United States of America, not the State of America, I still yearn for a place where someday my own children can breathe free. If that sounds farfetched to you now, it's because you are too old to care and your time is running out. Some of the rest of us aren't and we don't like what is happening to this country. It isn't slowing down. I want to keep my rights but I don't have them all and quite probably, if more people feel like you do than don't, I never will and your children's children never will either.
Grass roots movements start with people who care enough to get up and do something. If one woman could go to court and have the result be the *right* to cause the deaths of millions of babies, then surely 20,000 people can grow and undo much of the evil that has been forced on us. Or what? We lose. Bigtime. Everything. Bit by bit and no one will remember like the people who come here from dictatorships have no concept of freedom, so they don't realize how much we have already lost.
Old Eagle's Song; They called it Paradise throwing it away.

[upchuck]

We are reaching the point where nearly 50% of Americans don't pay anything and will vote to keep it that way until we fall just like the old Soviet.

Now this is interesting... 200 years ago, well, 201 years ago to be exact (1801), the Scottish Jurist and Historian Sir Alex Fraser Tyler published a collection of lectures. He advanced a theory of democracy based on historical observation:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until voters discover that they can vote themselves largeses from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

Doesn't this sound prophetic? Sounds to me like old Sir Tyler nailed it spot on!!

IMHO, we're in the "from complacency to apathy" stage. I thought (prayed) that 9/11 would push us back towards our roots a little. And, for awhile, it did. But then everybody went back to being sheeple again. Today, the average sheeple is much more worried about the phone company running out of numbers becaue of cell phones, pagers, etc., than they are about another terrorist attack on our precious country. A shame.

Your experiment is very interesting. I wish you well.

Quote source (which is worthwhile reading): http://www.ndonline.com/tribwebpage/news/jul2000/728200051046.html

[Bandolier]

We're solid on that point, my friend.

The colonies (now 50) were to rule themselves. If you don't like the rules in one colony; Delta is ready when you are.

[Texasforever]

Sorry Nix, no offense, you just made a speech. I want to test the theory with your groups definition as a starting point. Freedom may be "contagious" but you have yet to link that to any vector to carry it. It should be simple to pick a state and then go with the 3 main goals of the mission statement. Your group has surely thought it through to at least that basic level haven't they?

[Nix 2]

IMHO, we're in the "from complacency to apathy" stage. I thought (prayed) that 9/11 would push us back towards our roots a little. And, for awhile, it did. But then everybody went back to being sheeple again. Today, the average sheeple is much more worried about the phone company running out of numbers becaue of cell phones, pagers, etc., than they are about another terrorist attack on our precious country. A shame.

I know. I felt the same way then, but it looks as if the exact opposite is happening. Live for today and doom anyone who comes after. They have stolen the land that was stolen and as someone mentioned on another thread, karma can be a wondrous thing, but it can also be dreadful. It's hard to look very far in any direction without dread.
Thank you for the kind words. There has to be dreamers...even now.

[nopardons]

If you're calling Texasforever old, then YOU aren't anywhere near old enough, to claim that you once had " freedoms " , but have lost some. You haven't any idea, at all, what life was like ( personally ), in , let's say 50 years ago America. You haven't lost any " freedoms " ; you just imagine that you have. Why, I have no idea ... except, perhaps, through propaganda of one sort or another.

Perhaps you yearn for the " freedom " of the long dead , overhyped, anarchy of the lawless fringe towns of the " old " West ? Outside of that, there were NO civilized placed ( not even in colonial days ! ) where laws and yes, busybodies , had people by the shorthairs. Everybody " equal " and a " classless " society, governed by the same rules ? NOT HERE, NOT EVER !

For all of the damned hyperbole spewed on FR, some unvarnished , factual, historically correct, TRUTH should occassionally be posted; so I am. :-)

As far as 20,000 or even 200,000 people invading a state and attempting to " take it over " , that is the musings of a malcontent juvenile ( sheeeeeeeeeesh and I REALLY used to so like and respect Walter Williams, whom I have read and listened to, now, for well over 30 years ! ) , who has NOT even begun to think this through logically. The task is insurmountable !

[Texasforever]

This was actually done to a small community in either Washington or Oregon. It was by some eastern cult that moved into a town, took over their city government and then proceeded to drive people out that had lived there for generations and take their land their rationale was also “freedom”. They were using the EXACT same model as this group and yes it worked. However; it was NOT American.

[Nix 2]

Your group has surely thought it through to at least that basic level haven't they?

Believe it or not, I just heard about this two days ago. Walter Williams was on Hannity and Colmes and this was the subject of their discussion. All Revolutions start with an idea. The idea struck me like a Louisville Slugger. If you read the site at all, you would see that a place would not be chosen until there were at least 5,000 people who could agree and vote on it. No one wants to steal anything. You buy a home, land, register to vote and do everything by the book...if it ever gets to 20,000. It is a dream many of us would love to see happen. There is room in this country. There are some states who have barely any population at all. No one knows where yet. No one knows how many will feel that pang just as I did when I heard it.
Better to get the idea out first and discuss what we can do about it than never to have tried at all.

[nopardons]

A group can, as you've stated. do that to a community ; it can't be done to an entire state . Rhode Island is small, but far too many " mob " types and " insiders ", for it to work. Texas, as some here keep wishing for ? In a pig's eye ! LOL

Setting up a commune is one thing; taking over an entire state, quite another. How would this group survive ? Who would be their leader ? How would they support themselves ? All unanswered questions, which haven't been thought out; not even considered. Oh, and if FR is any example of the internicine warfare, which flares up even within groups here, then this " project ", is even MORE helplessly impossible , than I have previously stated ! :-)

[Texasforever]

Then I guess you are not capable of defending it then. However this is not the first time this has been posted on FR and no one could defend it then either. BTW, you don't gain anything by brining age into the debate. That is not a wining issue for most young folks.