Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.
Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place.
"Creating Galt’s Gulch from Scratch?... great idea," says the Cato Institute. "It’s a Rawls-ian experiment in how newborn societies develop under a given set of political rules... it’s the greatest game of Sim City ever," gushes Allahpundit.
Kia asks the pertinent question, though: If a flotilla of pirates decides to attack this floating pipedream, to whom will the Glub Glub Galtians apply for relief? Try to imagine Nick Gillespie, epaulets pasted to the shoulders of his leather jacket, drawing up plans for a naval counterattack in the captain's quarters ("We'll hit them with a satirical broadside!" cries First Mate Matt Welch) while Bryan Caplan frantically works the radio, negotiating a last-minute mutual-defense treaty with the nearest statist hellhole ("And in return, if Indonesia is attacked, we'll send in so many senior editors and SEO consultants it'll make your head spin!").
Me, I can't wait for the first Jolly Rogers to encircle Freedonia, and for all the rational self-interest boys therein to start shooting their own dicks off, and for their galley slaves, who have been paid in sips of water and crusts of bread since they were purchased in Gabon (minimum wage? That's socialism!), to turn against their masters and separate them from whatever penises they have left.
UPDATE: "I've always wondered if it's possible for people who make a shit-ton of money in the real world to relocate to exclusive, private island communities and to live as though they are above the law," says Gin and Tacos. "This experiment should answer that question once and for all."
UPDATE 2. Early comments are very promising. "A bunch of Libertarians living in the middle of the ocean on a rig constructed without building codes? " asks Big Bad Bald Bastard. "Where do I donate?"
UPDATE 3. Have to applaud MR Bill and cleter, respectively, for these alternative names for Freedonia: Galt's Gulf and Sea-malia.
