The Definitive "Free Island Project" Thread !!!

Nation of Antigua and Barbuda

0 (0%)

Nation of Bahamas

2 (5.9%)

Nation of Barbados

3 (8.8%)

Nation of Cape Verde  (Atlantic, Pt-Lang)

0 (0%)

Nation of Commonwealth of Dominica

1 (2.9%)

Nation of Grenada

0 (0%)

Nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis

0 (0%)

Nation of Saint Lucia

0 (0%)

Nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

0 (0%)

Nation of Trinidad and Tobago

4 (11.8%)

USA's Virgin Islands

6 (17.6%)

USA's Navassa Island  (or USA's other tiny Caribbean islands)

1 (2.9%)

UK's Anguilla

1 (2.9%)

UK's Bermuda  (Atlantic)

1 (2.9%)

UK's Virgin Islands

1 (2.9%)

UK's Cayman Islands

1 (2.9%)

UK's Montserrat

1 (2.9%)

UK's Turks and Caicos Islands

0 (0%)

Netherlands' Aruba

1 (2.9%)

Netherlands' Antilles

1 (2.9%)

France's Clipperton

0 (0%)

France's Guadeloupe

0 (0%)

France's Martinique

1 (2.9%)

France's Saint Barthélemy

0 (0%)

France's Saint Martin

1 (2.9%)

France's Saint Pierre and Miquelon

3 (8.8%)

Spain's Canary Islands  (Atlantic)

1 (2.9%)

Portugal's Azores  (Atlantic)

0 (0%)

Portugal's Madeira  (Atlantic)

0 (0%)

Other - Caribbean / GoM region

2 (5.9%)

Other - Outer Atlantic

1 (2.9%)

Other - East Pacific

1 (2.9%)

Total Members Voted: 15

[Alex Libman]

Assume above choices are in the Caribbean and English is the lingua franca, unless noted otherwise.  Please let me know what I've missed.


The inclusion criteria is:

• Reasonable flight time - say under ~3500 miles from New Hampshire, just enough to reach below the Equator in both oceans (while Hawaii would be ~5000 miles - I used Google Earth app's ruler tool to measure).  Let's face it, if spending more than 7 hours on a plane wasn't such a pain in the arse, New Zealand would be a lot more popular than it is, and this limit also makes various seafaring transport options feasible as well.  Aside from a few tempting British territories in South Atlantic (there has been talk of the Falklands before), there are better possibilities closer to home.

• Warm enough year-round to attract people who faint at the thought of a NH winter.  (But let's not set a specific latitude because, for example, the European side of the Atlantic is warmer.)

• Population of the whole archipelago / island nation must be smaller than NH (no go for Puerto Rico, Jamaica, etc).  It probably would have been a good idea to set the requirement far lower, but including T&T was a tempting idea.

• Must already be a sovereign nation (ideal, obviously) or a dependency of a country outside Latin America, which would make gaining independence far easier.  This excludes from the list a number of tempting places, most notably the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador, and also: São Luís in Brazil, Isla Margarita in Venezuela, San Andrés in Colombia, etc.

• It does have to be an island, because that brings a number of strategic advantages for autonomy.  (Four mainland nations that would fit the above geographic / population criteria but are excluded from this poll, ordered by population: Guyana, Suriname, Belize, and French Guiana.  Western Sahara is also within the 3500 mile limit, but I won't touch that one with a 10-foot pole.)

• A reasonably-sized island / archipelago - not some tiny obscure spec.  This probably excluses (correct me if I'm wrong) France's Clipperton Island in the Pacific, USA's Serranilla Bank, Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, etc.

• Micro-nations,  artificial island, and sea-steading are always interesting, but that's not what this thought exercise is about.

For the following that are independent nations, a 2013 GDP/capita estimate was available: Bahamas ($34K), T&T ($26K), Barbados ($25K), Antigua & Barbuda ($16K), Saint Kitts & Nevis ($16), Saint Lucia ($15K), Grenada ($15K), Saint Vincent & Grenadines ($14K), and Cape Verde ($5K).

Other rankings...  Barbados (#31) and T&T (#67) appear in the Global Competitiveness Report.  Barbados (#26), Bahamas (#27), T&T (#42), and Cape Verde (#46) appear in the Index of Economic Freedom.  T&T (#79), Bahamas (#90), and Barbados (98) appear in the Globalization Index.  T&T (#19), Grenada (#37), and Cape Verde (#45) appear in Reporters Without Borders press freedom ranking.


(Keywords because the search feature doesn't match poll options: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cape Verde, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Navassa Island, United States Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles, Clipperton, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Canary Islands, Azores, and Madeira.)


Discuss. 

[YixilTesiphon]

Navassa Island, but wresting control from the Fish & Parks service would be a problem.

[Alex Libman]

I agree that picking a U.S. dependency is better than a European one, one of the reasons being that the FSP and FIP could work together to lobby the government for more local independence.

Starting with a nation that's independent to begin with is a great advantage, of course, but many of those choices have large poor / government-dependent populations.  More research is needed - which is why I started this thread.

[Dylboz]

I picked Martinique just because it's freakin' beautiful! Still, the fact that it's French does present a serious problem. Anywhere you can't own guns legally is a place I'd be really, really hesitant to live. I looked into Costa Rica, and they do allow civilian gun ownership, that is more like an east coast U.S. city than out here in the wild, wild west of Arizona.

Long guns and shotguns don't require anything other than purchase from a licensed dealer (which creates de facto registration, since you have to submit to a background check that establishes your legal residency and lack of criminal record, as well as verifying your residency and other details) and being over 18 (or 16, I think, in some cases... can;t be sure about that) but handguns require a whole extra regime of intrusive government involvement, but sadly, it is better than NYC or Chicago.

There is a permitting process that includes justification for the gun (self-defense is not always enough, and it ultimately falls to some bureaucrat to arbitrarily decide whether your reason is good enough) and a class similar to the usual U.S. state level CCW course in the laws pertaining to carry, concealment, storage, and when you can actually use it. Lastly, and perhaps most onerously, there is a long and extensive battery of psychological tests to determine whether you're sufficiently sane to own a pistol. Oh, and did I mention that all of this is done in english and that you can't use an interpreter in any of the classes or tests, nor do they offer the forms in english, so you better be fluent in español!

Wasn't there a group looking at some island that was barely populated and only nominally under the territorial control of Venezuela? I remember seeing something about it... I'll see if I can find it and post it in this thread.

[GreatGherkin]

Fiji or the Solomon's for geographical purposes.

[Taors]

Atlantis.

[GreatGherkin]

In the Pegasus galaxy?

[Alex Libman]

I'm surprised more people aren't taking this seriously.  It probably has a far better shot of working than New Hampshire, and it can work very well in conjunction with it as well.

Fiji or the Solomon's for geographical purposes.

That's like 8,500 miles from New Hampshire in a straight line, not counting 2-4 plane transfers - probably more than 24 hours each way.  And the difference in sailing time / cost / risk is even greater!  Best to stay in one time-zone (or one time-zone over)...  What does South Pacific have that Caribbean doesn't?

[GreatGherkin]

That's like 8,500 miles from New Hampshire in a straight line, not counting 2-4 plane transfers - probably more than 24 hours each way.  And the difference in sailing time / cost / risk is even greater!   

Exactly!

What does South Pacific have that Caribbean doesn't?

See above

[Alex Libman]

What, you think U.S. army will have a more difficult time dealing with the distance than would-be Free Islanders?

[GreatGherkin]

I don't think they'd see it as worth the trouble.

[Alex Libman]

Exactly, while New Hampshire is sorta important...

[Lothar]

Regarding distance..  If Virgin Galactic, and others, are successful, you might be able to take a .5 hour flight from New York to New Zealand soon enough.  Earth is getting smaller.

The best place for free people in the not too distant future could be the moon.

In my opinion, an island would be simple do deal with, if a government wanted to.  Especially if there would be no fallout to any of its subjects.

I am of the opinion that perhaps the only potential territory on the planet that could be free is someplace that has no other qualities, other then that it would be free.  People who don't give a damn about freedom will always flock to a free state once the power of the free market, and production, starts influencing the quality of life.  Any place easy, or desirable, to live will be taken advantage of by those who don't care about freedom, at some point.  Any place with many natural resources would be desired by one of the world's superpowers.

Perhaps if it were arctic, desert, or possibly manufactured floating on, or beneath, the ocean, it would be less likely to be coveted by someone willing to try and take it.  A free market would provide for whatever was necessary for people to adapt to any environment.

Free people need frontiers to flee to from the state.  Colonizing in some government's established territory will likely not work.  This is why I am so interested in the private space industry.  It is likely the only hope for non-slave, human kind.  If the governments of the world continue allow commercial space ventures, real people could possibly beat the government agencies to the moon, but they almost certainly will to the asteroid belt.

Having said all that...  Maybe Cuba?    Maybe they're ready to both give capitalism a try, and give the finger to the US by making it obvious how free we're not (I can see our presidents now talking about Cuba, the haven of terrorism).

[jimmed]

Someplace without island niggers. I'm completely fucking serious.

[Blackie]

I'll take the niggers in Jamacia. The Rasafarians want to repatriate to Africa/Ethiopia anyway.