Claire Wolfe - the freedom community

[planetaryjim]

Dear TreadCarefully,

Switzerland is not the gun culture that everyone seems to assume.  For example, this recent nonsense:

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/detail/Soldiers_can_keep_guns_at_home_but_not_ammo.html?siteSect=105&sid=8258328&cKey=1190922022000&ty=st

The URL says it all.  No ammo?  C'mon.

Eastern Europe may be a place for a new free society.  Western Europe is a socialist nightmare.  Russia is returning to its old authoritarian ways, as Gary Kasparov seems determined to prove. 

Something Neal Stephenson wrote in "The Baroque Cycle" comes to mind.  The open plains of many of those countries are always going to be the scene of battles.  For thousands of years, those plains grew the fodder for the men and horses that came to slaughter. 

In one particularly chilling scene in Quicksilver, a character lifts a skull out of a pond.  The skull has clearly been dashed by a strong blow from the rear.  Having already fetched out a reaper's sickle or "whistle" he explains that something so terrible, so fearsome came to that part of Europe.  The peasant should have dropped his tools and run away at the first rumor.  Another character asks what could be so horrid? Tyranny? Oppression?  No, religious controversy.

I believe it is still an article of faith of many in Russia and elsewhere in Europe that the communisty "system" is not only necessary, but essential.  I would, therefore, be reluctant to place myself in the path of the next Trotsky leading the next Red Army.  I see it is an article of faith among many in Islam that the infidels must be attacked, whether they are men, women, or children, combatants, or not.  Eastern Europe is also the scene of religious warfare between Catholics and Protestants, between Christians and Muslims, pogroms against Jews, and so forth.  I would be reluctant to seek a long term home there, outside of, perhaps, the mountains of Romania.  And, I've taken a hard look at buying property in Romania.  I gave up.  It is far too difficult.

Let me also note that English is a second language for many of my friends from Eastern Europe.  It is extremely well-spoken by some there.  I have a very good friend from Estonia who speaks like a native-borne Ohioan.  But, English is not a language known to everyone there.  Go to Prague and you'll find lots who speak it, but make your way into the countryside because the cities are too dangerous at some point, and to whom would you speak?  Better learn the local language.  And the local customs.

Which is why Wyoming is so much better.  Or, really, any place in the USA.  I know the culture.  I know the language.  I know many people.  Why should I try to make a home in some purported (and as-yet unproven) libertarian paradise in some foreign country whose language and customs and people are unfamiliar to me?  Why should I expect from such folks the same sort of hospitality that I find in this country? How would I detect the nuanced expression of betrayal in someone whose language and gestures are foreign to me?

Besides, the fact is, wherever you go, there is tyranny.  Freedom is not something you can get at the corner store and bring home and enjoy for a few decades like a new fur coat.  Freedom is something you have to pursue.  Tyranny is something against which you must be ever vigilant. 

It might have been in John Ross's Unintended Consequences, I'm not sure.  But, I read or heard a very interesting story.  An American got fed up in the early 1930s, seeing the economy being taken over by the government, the money being inflated, gold being confiscated.  So, he sold everything he had and moved to a quiet island in the South Pacific, far from any conflicts.  The island?  Guadalcanal.

Running away is not quitting.  Running away is running away. 
 "Lose the fight and then run away
  You may live to fight again some day."

Running away has some good historical precedents.  The remains of the Roman citizenry fled to the swamps where Venice is located today, after Padua was sacked in by the Huns AD 452 or so.  Eventually, Venice became a great place.  And some people returned to Padua after a time.

There are writers who have fled their home countries to write in a neighboring country, often sending back important ideas to their compatriots.  So, there are things to do if one runs away.

And, of course, the FSW is about running away, in a sense.  Does it make any logical sort of behavior to stay in Chicago?  Some of rural Illinois might be preserved from the gun grabbers and the socialists, but most of it is as gone as Western Europe.

Try this image:


Try this essay:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle418-20070520-02.html

There is a top ten there.  Wyoming comes in at number four, without even considering who I know in Wyoming, what business opportunities I've found, etc.  Just looking at gun culture and taxes.  The appendices to Molon Labe offer a dozen other good reasons to choose Wyoming.

So, run away?  Sure.  Run away from Illinois, New York, Florida, or Oklahoma.  (There is a guy on trial in Oklahoma for daring to bring voter petition personnel into the state to work on voter petition drives there after one day - the state has a zero day residency requirement to register to vote.  Should he fight his fight there?  Yes.  And then get out.  Come to Wyoming.)

People, we have to come to grips with the madness we are up against.  Maybe Ron Paul is going to be elected and everything is going to be set to rights.  Maybe not.  So, if we are going to have a place in which to be happy, to live together, to work together, and from which to keep a watchful eye on the crazies in DC, "pick a place to go."

[vonu]

Anybody who leaves the USA will miss a very interesting time, one way or another!

________
FWIW, "Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged was based on a real place in Colorado.

Ouray, just south of Montrose on Hwy 550.
A marvelous little town, nearly totally boxed in by towering peaks.
I've spent many nights there and around.

Ayn Rand passed through Ouray in the 1940s while researching the railroads for AS.
(This info came from Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, who misspelled Ouray as Eurey.)

Boston

"Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged was based on a real place in Colorado.

Ouray, just south of Montrose on Hwy 550.

Just as John Galt was modeled on Nikola Tesla.

[vonu]

Has anyone here seen libertymls.com/gulch/?

[vonu]

Great posts everyone.  I've been thinking about this too.

At what point does it become suicidal to stay in the US?  I mean if you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, and knew what was coming.  Would it have been smart to flee the country?  To wait until it was over and then possibly come back?  Or would it have been better to stay where home is, hoping to fight against it?  Even though everyone else was oblivious to it?

At what point would staying and "weathering the storm" make you about as significant as an insurgent martyr in Iraq today?  When all the time you could have fled for a decade to wait it out in peace and come back to start over?  Thereby giving you a better chance to have real freedom in your lifetime?

Any thoughts?

Comparing Nazi Germany and Bazi America is problematic.
Germany could get lost in the lower 48, land mass and population are difficult to compare.
On the other hand, our dictatorship learned a lot from Hitler, absorbing many of his SS staff into our OSS when it morphed into the CIA, which is intolerable in every way in addition to being totally unnecessary and a mortal enemy of freedom.
Having travelled this country fairly widely if not throughly, I find people everywhere who want nothing to do with the current coup, nor would defend it.
My approach is to stay out of the way so as to not have IT land on me when it finally comes down.

[archy]

Anybody who leaves the USA will miss a very interesting time, one way or another!

________
FWIW, "Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged was based on a real place in Colorado.

Ouray, just south of Montrose on Hwy 550.
A marvelous little town, nearly totally boxed in by towering peaks.
I've spent many nights there and around.

Ayn Rand passed through Ouray in the 1940s while researching the railroads for AS.
(This info came from Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand, who misspelled Ouray as Eurey.)

Boston

First, the [maybe] bad news: I really, REALLY hate to tell you this....but Hollyweird is soon to release a version of Atlas Shrugged. Among others: Angelina Jolie in a leading female role. Best guess is a release in 2009 sometime.

IMDB entry here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/


Now the good news: Among other fun things about Ouray [Boston, how did you EVER leave out ALL the stories about Chief Ouray!?!?] is the fact that Bill Fries, who was half of the songwriting teat that churned out the C.W. McCall country and Western music tunes of the 1970s relocated there form Omaha after he hit it big with Convoy. Bill even served a couple of terms as mayor of Ouray, and last I heard, he was still alive and kickin.

Back in 2000, a bunch of us set out to run the route of the Convoy tune; it looks like in 2010 [C2K + 10] it's going to happen again. Details: http://www.cw-mccall.com/news/2008/20080731.html

And speaking of that Silverton Railroad that ran through Ouray: the nearby Ridgway Railroad Museum is doing well....and is worth checking out if you're in the neighborhood, which Ouray is. That Million-dollar was somethin' back in the 1940s, and it still is today... http://www.ridgwayrailroadmuseum.org/

[Lamb]

Try this image:

I think that image scores a *not so much* on the accuracy scale.
While they may look good on the surface for gun rights, Virginia and Kentucky are horrendous on personal freedoms.
Eminent domain. They are Commonwealth states. AT BIRTH your children are considered possessions of the state (in Va., it is written into the laws). Because they are Commonwealth states, even in cases where state employees grievously overstep their bounds and violate your rights, steal your kids or guns or very home, you have absolutely no recourse to sue as all state employees are protected by the state. I have lived in both of the aforementioned states. I would not go back to Virginia for any amount of money and would only pass through Kentucky as a tourist.

[MamaLiberty]

Amen! I lived a large part of my life in California, and there are not enough wild horses in the world to get me back there.

[Blaineus]

Eastern Virginia... been there, done that, and most likely have to go back.

Not looking forward to it.  That place gives me the creeps!  I would and have open carried once I got out of the cities in the Tidewater area and out towards the Western area of the state, but in Norfolk, Richmond and on up through to DC forget about it.  I've heard horror stories of police harassment.  The gun shops in Norfolk are vehemently against it.

Ohio is wonderful on that map, and I've lived there.  Although "Castle Doctrine" exist (http://www.cleveland.com/ohio/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1220949099108840.xml&coll=2) there as of this week, we'll see how that works out.  I wouldn't call it exactly friendly to guns, especially in the bigger cities such as Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Youngstown and Toledo.  I grew up in Youngstown.

I totally agree with you Lamb.  Florida (at least, Northern Florida where I spent a lot of time) was much better than Virginia, and yet that map shows it as horrible.

[MamaLiberty]

They are all horrible as long as you must beg some bureaucrat for "permission" to defend yourself, or consult a rulebook from street to street as you drive around, fearful you'll miss some idiot "law" against something if you are prepared to defend yourself.

The attitude of the general population is, however, at least as important as the "laws" in any particular place. 

[elk]

Not sure about you, but a cop was a place to sheath your knife or axe if you were in Yugoslavia, or someone to share your "take" with if you were in Romania.  Yugoslavians were remarkably astute on the nature of the state so if a cop pulled them over it was well known that someone wasn't going home to their honey that night.... especially so with gypsies.  Gypsies would knife a state thug without a second thought if assaulted under pretext of laws.   Or, come to think of it, gypsies tended to knife anyone who bothered them under any pretext, short of civilized intercourse.  (It is interesting for those of us who lived around them or knew any of them, gypsies were more honorable than the average "honest citizen".  A good deed or an honest victory in a brawl would get you respect and they would hold to their word.  Strange that.  Law abiding citizens and cops would be far less likely to keep their word.  Very strange that, come to think of it.)

And for awhile despite legal tyranny, in practice men were somewhat free.  They didn't consent to be searched and backed it with steel.  We don't have the stones for this here.  Not one of us, not you, not me.  Accosted by state thugs, I wager everyone will keel under.  For that I always admired the serbians and slavs.  Damn pity Clinton had Milosevich silenced, would've been fun to see him spill the beans on what was done in Kosovo.

[joseph sugarman]

Great posts everyone.  I've been thinking about this too.

At what point does it become suicidal to stay in the US?  I mean if you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, and knew what was coming.  Would it have been smart to flee the country?  To wait until it was over and then possibly come back?  Or would it have been better to stay where home is, hoping to fight against it?  Even though everyone else was oblivious to it?

At what point would staying and "weathering the storm" make you about as significant as an insurgent martyr in Iraq today?  When all the time you could have fled for a decade to wait it out in peace and come back to start over?  Thereby giving you a better chance to have real freedom in your lifetime?

Any thoughts?

Good Morning Richard,

There is a significant difference between the conditions in which you, I and the others find ourselves, today, in this country, and those which the Jews in Nazi Germany found themselves.  We are adequately armed for conventional conflict, they were not.  The people of the ghetto had rocks and wooden clubs for protection against their corrupt government.

There may well appear to be safe places to go at the moment. In my opinion none of them will be safe for much longer, certainly not a decade. If one were to go and wait ten years, there would be nothing here worth coming back, and most likely worldwide travel restrictions for United States citizens would prevent it. 

[Blakejoh]

Try this image:

I think that image scores a *not so much* on the accuracy scale.

I agree.  As I was reading the article associated with that image, the voice in my head kept saying "This doesn't feel right."  While I respect the author in general (assuming it is the same Jim Davidson I know of from other sources), I think his use of gun-related news stories is flawed, at least as a way of measuring the gun culture in any given area.

[socalserf]

At what point does it become suicidal to stay in the US?  I mean if you were a Jew in Nazi Germany, and knew what was coming. 
Good Morning Richard,
There is a significant difference between the conditions in which you, I and the others find ourselves, today, in this country, and those which the Jews in Nazi Germany found themselves.  We are adequately armed for conventional conflict, they were not.  The people of the ghetto had rocks and wooden clubs for protection against their corrupt government.

The Jews of Germany did not start out unarmed. They allowed themselves to be disarmed. They abided by the law, first they regisistered thier guns, and when they were outlawed they turned them in.
This is a lesson for all of us.
"Never Again!"

[SoundTheBell]

I realize I'm necro-ing an old thread, but think others might be cruising through the archives for pearls of wisdom like I've been doing this morning.

I was actually shocked to see that Virginia is listed as "golden".
While we can still buy guns here, open carry (unless you're in Norfolk, google it, argh), and get concealed carry permits - it's still not free.
My son was given a BB gun for his 8th birthday. He still wasn't quite mature enough to mess with it though, so now that he's 11 and has gone shooting with his Dad at the range a few times (a half hour's drive) we've gotten his nice little air rifle out, that used to be his great-grandfather's, and got ready to have him do some target shooting in the backyard. (It's a fairly large backyard.)

But we knew that here in Portsmouth (right by Norfolk, if you're familiar with the area) there's a law against firing a gun within city limits. Just to make sure, we looked up the city code on air rifles and kids.
Turns out my son cannot shoot his air rifle within city limits.  There is no "county" here, the entire place IS the city, even if you're in a more suburbian section of it. He can't even HOLD an air rifle here.  If he's found in possession of an air rifle, I'd get fined with a 5th degree misdemeanor.

So we figure okay, maybe he can shoot it down at my parent's house in Chesapeake. Look that city code up.  Nope, can't shoot it there either, unless you're within 150 yards (or could be feet, can't remember off the top of my head) of any house, building, road, or any other sign of civilization.

A BB GUN, folks.  A kid can't even use a BB GUN here. 
Add to it all of the big-government-loving people that have moved into NoVa (northern virginia) and how the politicians *count* on the state being "blue" in elections now thanks to those people, and you've got a heck of a lot of Virginians looking for greener - and more sensible - pastures.

[MamaLiberty]

Yes indeed, SoundTheBell, that's just one of the reasons so many of us have moved to Wyoming.   Vote with your feet.