Move to Paulville: the town where rightwingers will be free
Posted April 15th, 2008 by jdb
output
Paulville: the town where rightwingers will be free
Paul Evans The Guardian, Monday April 14 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk...
At last, some cheering news for downhearted fans of Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican now certain to fail, by some distance, to secure his party's presidential nomination. This month has seen the first meeting of the shareholders in a fledgling community development planned in rural Texas, to be comprised exclusively of Paul's supporters. It is to be called Paulville.
The gated settlement will house freedom-loving folk, living unbound by the shackles of planning regulations. Its founders hope that when complete, it will inspire further Paulvilles around America and, in their own words, "literally change the world, one community at a time".
The Hudspeth County project has attracted derision across the US, though, with the political gossip website Wonkette.com uncharitably dubbing it "Paultard City". And even at this early stage, it appears that ideological compromises might have to be made. Necessity dictates that the community will function on a cooperative basis, albeit with the ability for households to opt out. The idea is that the option not to access communal utilities, such as electricity, will ensure that its founding individualist principles remain unsullied.
Paulville's supporters believe that politically like-minded individuals can form a thriving community, detached from a busybody state. But historical precedents do not augur well. Some 115 years ago, a group of disillusioned Australians set sail for South America, intent on toiling their way to a new society, in this case, free from avaricious capitalism. Colonia Nueva Australia was duly established in darkest Paraguay. Sadly, rows over leadership and booze quickly sealed the cooperative's fate.
Not all idealistic communities have failed. The Findhorn Foundation, a settlement in the north-east of Scotland, has flourished. Built on spiritual principles and ideas of environmental sustainability, it has become a model for eco-villages around the world.
Though they might have little in common philosophically, advocates of Paulville and Findhorn share the desire to create a template for another world. Jonathan Dawson, an educator based at Findhorn, doesn't see much point to inward-facing micro-communities and talks about "providing an example" to others. "It's not useful to retreat just for the sake of it," he says.
At present the online chatter amongst prospective Paulville residents is of septic-tank permits. But when residents are settled into their new homes, it will surely turn to the right to wield semi-automatic weapons and the abolition of income tax.
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I hope the citizens of Paulville
start a munitions factory. They will need it.
UMMM
Mees thinks this has been tried on a small scale already such as WACO and the FLDS. You cant get much smaller than Ruby Ridge. It didnt turn out so good. They dont like you having a free society. They dont even want you thinking that way. We could all join the Lakota Souix ( I think thats how you spell it ) they are claiming thier independance from the union. When I was a child and we played cowboys and indians, I always wanted to be the indian. :)
Paulville
Paulville will become the new Freetown Christiania.
Greeeeeeaaat!!! <-sarcasm
not so sure about this because
sounds like a hippie commune without the hippies...they are all democrats, right?lol
Paulville is a good, practical way to jump-start a free-state
I spent a good bit of time in the Free State Project back before the state vote, and in thinking about how everything turned out, I decided that a small project like Paulville would have been a better way to start. The problem with a large scale effort is that there is always going to be doubt as to whether it can succeed, and people are always going to be very reluctant to move until they see some proof that things are going to work out (they've seen too many such efforts fall apart in the past...usually after at least a few people lost a lot of money).
The advantage of a Paulville type effort is that it is far easier to put together than an effort to change a state government, and yet it can lay the foundation for ultimately doing so. How? Consider:
1. Putting a small town together is relatively simple. At the very least, all you need do is buy some land and put some trailers on it. It can be more elaborate and inviting than that, of course, but, hey, trailers are a beginning.
2. Once the town is put together, you have visible proof that your project is not just another harebrained scheme that is doomed to failure. You have a success story to crow about, and people will see that.
3. Those who see what you've accomplished with your small town, and who desire the same sort of proximity to other freedom-lovers, will either join you, thereby enlarging your town (and its impact in the region), or else they'll start other such towns. Either way, chances are very good that you'll see more freedom-lovers joining up. Again, the key is a small, successful venture. Moving is a tremendous commitment, especially if you have to move very far, so not many are going to do it until they see substantive results. This type of effort will give them that.
4. As more people come on board, your influence grows, giving you the ability to start changing government at all levels.
The statement, "If you build it, they will come," is absolutely true. Most people are not pioneers, but many will join an effort that someone else starts. The key is to establish a good community charter, thereby ensuring that everyone who signs on knows what to expect where community life is concerned; and, of course, to pick a good state. In the FSP we poured over heaps of data on the various states, and basically came to the conclusion that Alaska, New Hampshire, Montana and Wyoming are the freest. My personal favorites are Alaska and Montana.
Something to think about.
Robert Hawes
rhawes73@gmail.com
http://jeffersonian73.blo...
Author: "One Nation, Indivisible? A Study of Secession and the Constitution"
Free State Project
Dr. Paul endorses projects like Paulville - see this article from the Free State Project
Anything to turn the sheeple away from the cliff . . .
fsp
it's not at all the same kind of arrangement.
fsp is a state wide sprinkle of libertarians.
paulville is a "gated community".
personally, i don't think he would endorse paulville.
it will just be a target.
I don't think so. It could
I don't think so. It could be very successful.
Biggest problem, to me, seems to be its site in Hudspeth County. How far out is that from El Paso?
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fyi
http://lonestartimes.com/...
Oh look..some witless
Oh look..some witless wonders started a website, and they don't like Ron Paul. So what..?
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fyi
http://lonestartimes.com/...
Come on guys...you can't be FREE...in the patio of tyranny !
Trans Texas corridor...Mexican flags flying over municipal buildings...etc.
Discover Costa Rica
The Amish
lead lives of simplicity and sexual modesty. These are two indispensable traits of a successful community. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to libertarianism which upholds financial and sexual conquest. Intentional communities usually fail because they forget about the children.
Incoherent garbage
where is the flag link?
Fianancial conquest? Free markets are the most fair markets there are. If there were truly free markets wealth is distributed very evenly. As for your reference to sexual deviance being tied somehow to libertarism. Take a look at your government officials......I don't see our libertarian minded congressman tapping his foot in bathroom stalls or rubbing cigars in strange places. And your child comment, Libertarians beleive in education their own children as they see fit and teaching them morality and ideals and the golden rule. You post is nonsensical and the ramblings of a drooling idiot.
No Paulville for me, thank you.
It kind of reminds me of cattle locked in a barnyard together. I read somewhere that farm animals have smaller brains than their wild counterparts. Being fed and caged in is bad for the neurons. I'll just remain free, thank you.
Someone once said that trying to get libertarians together is like trying to gather cats. Angry cats. I find that comparison to be a good one.
By the way, Animal Farm is a really good book.
I think Paulville is an
I think Paulville is an excellent idea, although I disagree with the concept of buying cheap desert land for building political enclaves just because they're 300 miles away from civilization.
There are a lot of attractive areas in the southern southwest; I love the desert...I'm especially fond of southern Arizona. But unless the founders of a desert community have deep pockets, they will have infrastructure problems on the order of (a) jobs, and (b) health care. The youngsters will need the former; the old farts will need the latter. Few will move to a "free desert project" that offers neither.
As for water and agriculture, I think both present serious challenges way out west, although the jobs and health care issues will be harder to solve than groundwater issues or living off the grid.
None of these are necessarily insurmountable problems, but things that will require serious planning AND funding to overcome.
That's why I personally prefer the idea of building experimental political communities in rural farm and ranchlands closer to the city. It's less pristine that way, but the basic infrastructure is already on the ground, and people can just move in without reinventing the wheel.
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Raising chickens
A neat idea but in a way I see it as surrendering. I've raised chickens, and to those chickens I was big brother. There were times when the roosters would attack when I entered their pen, but I put them in their place, and now when I enter the pen all the chickens flock to the opposite side of the pen as me, and I like it just fine like that.
However, if all of those chickens, or even 4-5 of them decided to attack me at once, you better bet I'd get the flock out of there!
Personally I agree with freethepawn, I'd prefer to just stand up for my rights - right where I am.
hm
Fortune Favors the Bold
I don't see why gates are necessary. In fact, i think tourism could potentially be a boon for the "paulville" economy. But I don't think it's an intrinsically bad idea.
I think you would just see
I think you would just see the buses rolling in to load us up. It would sure help them save time in trying to round us up from all over the country.
I think you would just see
I think you would just see the buses rolling in to load us up. It would sure help them save time in trying to round us up from all over the country.
well
Fortune Favors the Bold
I was talking to a guy from Camden, new jersey, who is working on community outreach shelters and a network that would function autonomously of the government. They work with local farmers, have buses, and do services etc. They don't use money, and rely on voluntary co-operation to provide a positive altertnative to the rule of the corrupt competing governments in the area (the bloods and the city). He was not a Ron Paul supporter, but he shared the same principles of opposition to centralized government.
I think these types of ideas are very positive. Ultimately, it will be the responsibility of liberty minded individuals to pick up the pieces when the empire inevitably crumbles. If nothing else, these types of projects are great learning experiences. If it fails, mistakes can be analyzed, and new attempts can take into account what went wrong.
BTW, as far as the free state project goes, Vermont, being the 49th smallest state in the union population wise, would be strategically viable, as well as being extremely clean and unspoiled.
Right Wingers
Sheesh, when is someone going to get it right? You don't have to be a right winger (whatever that means) to support Ron Paul. There are people who are just interested in freedom and non-intervention who support Paul.
Did you guys
See the Village? The director is M Night shamilan.
Anyways, It is an interesting movie that I dont want to ruin it for you, BUT it is alot like what you are talking about. ACTUALLY they do it right, and you can get some hints about it. ALTHOUGH, I cant and do not sugguest living without electricity....
Dont know how to remove
Dont know how to remove posts. sorry for the following.
Sorry
Sorry
triple post
triple post
Sorry
Sorry
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Sorry
Boooooooooo!!!!
NEVER tell me that I am certain to fail at ANYTHING. Go find a rock off the coast and invite your flock of pansies to Loser Island. I didn't become a delegate, which required that I stand shoulder to shoulder with McCain people (ewe), for NOTHING. Now into the kitchen and wash some spuds, we need the fighters up front!
ummm, err,,,,well...
whose going to break the news to the government they cant send in martial law troops???
Um. Whereas you are safe
Um. Whereas you are safe from Martial Law in your suburb..?
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Lame article.
Lame article trying to make us all out as Branch Davidian style cult members, another smear basically. "These 'Ron Paul fans' are not mainstream, look they're even outcasting themselves now".
Do people really feel that this would work?
I just can't help but think it will be attacked like any other community. Look at what's happening in Texas and the Mormons, Waco, and that other one in the 80's I think it was Utah (can't remember)
The government would find a reason to distroy this and people could be in danger.
I am not trying to be negative, I just not sure this would work. I think it would be great, but unfortunatly it would be destroyed.
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Who knows you could learn a few tricks of your own.
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It could work, but it would
It could work, but it would require building skills, good planning and money to sustain itself.
For example, I would screen anyone coming in to make sure they understood the basics of carpentry--otherwise you'll have a shantytown of rotting plywood shacks.
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Free State NH
You are all welcome to stay within the USA and move to the Free State:
NH
www.freestateproject.org
www.ronpaulhq.com
My thoughts exactly, why not
My thoughts exactly, why not just join the FSP and move to NH? Hell, it's already up and running with plenty of people already having made the move. Save yourself some work, and remember, strength in numbers.
Because they chose the wrong
Because they chose the wrong state? Who, besides northeasterners, would want to move to New England, to a place that borders Ted Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts? If the FSP had chosen Montana, the free state movement would now be thriving and spreading like wildfire.
Also, even the denizens of Paulville will have one thing the FSP does not have: Everyone in their community on the same political page.
Someone in the FSP should consider a Free State II, that only chooses from among western states. The splinter groups. like Molon Labe, can't herd the libertarian cats. The original FSP sold the concept well, I believe.
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I Disagree
They didn't choose wrong. They examined several different states, including Montana. They chose NH because of several reasons, not the least of which was that they felt they could have a larger influence on a smaller state than on a larger one. They also felt that, economically, NH was a better place to find work than one of the mid-western states. The membership reviewed a great deal of information on many states before deciding on NH.
The real problem with the Free State Project, same as Paulville will encounter, is that there are relatively few people willing to change their lifestyle, let alone take on the hardships of building up a community from scratch. Dedication to a cause on that scale needs a conviction bordering on religious feeling - that's why the Mormons were successful in building up Utah, Idaho and Nevada - because they had this strong religious conviction that what they believed was true.
Projects like Paulville and FSP will only ever draw those with true conviction of conscience. Still, for all that, a minority can make a big difference over time, just as a small minority of Americans freed us from British rule during the Revolution. I support projects like these because of the long term possibilities and because we should try to preserve some small enclaves of freedom loving people against the time when our societal house of cards falls down around our ears and the accumulated consequences of our deceptions finally catch up with us.
This is one big seed that I
This is one big seed that I hope will spread like wildfire.
Don’t you guys read the
Don’t you guys read the news, and see what government at various levels do to people who want to be left alone in rural Texas. They seem to either get burned alive, or have their children stolen at gunpoint. Some location for a community of the free…
Montana is a better place for Libertarians to move to. Lots of Paul supporters already, as a percentage likely to increase with overleveraged bicoastal retirees having to retreat during the coming recession; and not that many people to begin with, so a concerted move by (soon to be laid off anyway) freedom lovers is more likely to yield influence in state legislature. North Dakota is another state with similar qualities.
And btw, why is Dr. Paul not making more of a stink about the biggest case of government overreach since Waco going on right in his back yard. I really hope it has something to do with it being a Texas issue and not a federal one or something. Otherwise, I’m starting to worry about the good doctor.
I agree that Montana is a
I agree that Montana is a better choice than Texas, but Texas is just fine on one level: Building real libertarian towns (not cult compounds). The number of libertarians and real conservatives in Texas is very high. A less statist community, a true republican community, would be easy to construct in rural Texas.
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Texas is too big
In the eyes of the currently only ones in Texas with access to big guns, anyone preferring education to statist indoctrination for their children, are members of a cult. Texas has now quite obviously moved so far in the direction of a collectivist police state, that finding a minority to harass and abuse in public is pretty much a prerequisite for career advancement within its all encompassing bureaucracy. Texans might not live under the sheer level of oppression Californians do, but their reputation as a free state no longer meshes with the facts on the ground. Both the Branch Davidians and the FLDS’ers ignored this at their own peril.
While I agree that there are, in absolute numbers, quite a few Texans who at least proclaim a love for liberty, facts are they are outnumbered to the point that the current terror regime was democratically elected into power.
Which brings us to the second point I was trying to make; Texas is just too damn populous for freedom seeking people to make a dent in politically. Even using the most optimistic projections for the number of libertarians willing to move in search of freedom, there aren’t nearly enough of us to give us any kind of sway in Austin.
Texas has 23+ million people. Montana has less than 1 million. North Dakota less than 650,000. South Dakota about 800,000. New Hampshire less than 1.5 million. Wyoming less that 550,000. Alaska less than 700,000. (All per Wikipedia). And these are total populations. Those actually voting are far fewer. Considering the share of these states' voters who are already supporters of liberty ( using Ron Paul primary votes as a proxy ), we wouldn’t need that many to move there before we have a fair shot at a libertarian dominated state legislature. Even in these days of unprecedented federal meddling, this is huge. Really, really huge. As in no state tax, no state education bureaucracy, no state gun laws, possibly no state drug laws, no state any other oppressive laws, huge.
A town in Texas, regardless of its founders' idealism, could never even dream of this level of influence. More likely, they will simply become another victim of some run amuck state agency honcho figuring he/she can get politically advantageous television time by labeling them a right wing cult and attacking them.
Oh, I agree that Texas,
Oh, I agree that Texas, which will soon be number one in population in the US, is a poor choice to try to influence politically at the state level. My choice in that case would be Montana. Montana is where the action is, free state-wise.
I'm talking about building towns, and I think there is a certain amount of rampant paranoia that Texas will clamp down on anything right-wing. Texas IS right-wing. The cult at Mount Carmel and the Polygamy sect are not the same sort of thing we're talking about here.
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It is also a very ugly
It is also a very ugly state, imo.
The difference between a
The difference between a town and a cult or sect is simply a matter of political popularity. If some careerist government scumbag can label someone derogatively and subsequently jail, shoot or torch them, he will do so, as long as it gets him on TV and increases his name recognition come next election.
That said, I’m all for local Texas libertarians forming their own town. For those willing to move long distances in pursuit of freedom, however, the payoff potential is much higher other places. So much so, in fact, that I consider encouraging liberty seekers move to Texas almost fraudulently negligent.
Despite its historic reputation as an anything goes kind of place, so many statists of various persuasion have poured into Texas over the years, that any remaining libertarian sensibilities are diluted to the point of virtual nonexistence. Were this not the case, the public would simply not have stood for either Waco or its current reincarnation. The chances of anyone down there getting off their stars and stripes upholstered couch to complain when the oppression go after Paulvillians, for abusing (i.e. home schooling, teaching how to shoot etc.) their children, is slim as well.
As opposed to this, a serious, concerted move to, say, Montana, could really have a reasonable positive expectation in terms of liberty. In many ways, these low population states are the oppressors’ soft underbelly. Freedom lovers everywhere should take advantage of this. It might well be our only hope.
There's alway hope. I
There's alway hope.
I wouldn't go as far as to say 'encouraging liberty seekers to move to Texas is almost fraudulently negligent'. I'm for liberty seekers forming communities wherever they may be.
I do agree that if you seriously subscribe to the free state project concept, Montana is the best choice. In truth, I don't think there are many good choices among the low population states. Montana is one of the few where the free state idea could bear fruit. I'm unconvinced at this writing that it can in New Hampshire or Wyoming.
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rightwinger lol
Move to Paulville: the town where rightwingers, leftwingers and everybody else will be free
The Findhorn Foundation!!!!
is ,was and continues to be simply a New Age Religious Fraud. Period have a great Ron Paul thought for the Day...."OM"............
lighten up
Everyone is living at Findhorn by choice. It's a wonderful place for those people. I doubt they are aggressing against anyone.
Certain To Fail?
Just who do you think you are JDB? Who do you think you are posting a message like that with the line that Ron Paul is certain to fail?
Go jump in a lake you puke! You are from the other camp no doubt and need your head soaked. You are the same type of maggot like Tokyo Rose and Jane Fonda. You will fail with your predictions and attempts to discourage.
Go jump in an ice cold lake to warm it up!