BOOTLEG FREELY: BUY YOUR OWN COUNTRY

Ever since America invaded Iraq I've toyed with the idea of expatriating myself until MY America returns--you know, the one that is fair, just and not oppressive or abusive and doesn't torture. Of course then I did [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060838655/thepetecom-20|some reading] and came to the conclusion that America has always been pretty dickish--it just had better PR in years past.

But then the idea was where would I go? What country was beyond the reach of American Dickishness?

None that didn't have broadband Internet...

But then I heard about [wiki: Sealand]. Sealand is a offshore oil rig that got turned into a country. What's even weirder is that it's for sale and the Bit Torrent site ThePirateBay.Org is [http://www.thelocal.se/6076/20070112/|looking to buy it]. They're even offering citizenship to anyone who donates money to help them buy Sealand. Sadly, the current "owners" of Sealand [http://buysealand.com/?p=7|do not appear interested in selling] to the current owners of ThePirateBay.Org, so file sharing site is setting its sights on buying a real island and claiming it as a country, instead. You know said island wouldn't exist for long before they got a big, thick connection to the Internet run out to it.

That's the bizarre world we live in today, where if you don't like your own country's laws, buy your own! I wonder how much it would cost to build your own island on a bit of shallow land (if any exists) in international waters. You have to admit that creating your own country is much more preferable to trying to take over one that already exists--especially since there aren't many countries that would willingly allow themselves to be taken over.

So, create your own! Too bad there isn't much land left in the world to claim in the name of your own country.

Interested in becoming a citizen of whatever country the folks behind ThePirateBay.Org end up creating? Check out BuySealand.com. You can also check out FreeNationFoundation.org to learn more a group wanting to establish "an ecologically sustainable society that provides the freedom to advance humanity through science, reason and cooperation."

Yikes--and they want humans to live in this country? Good luck!

I shouldn't joke--if they establish such a country I'd want to move there sooo badly!

Like I said, this is the bizarre world we live in. But hey, I think that trying to create your own country from scratch is a pretty cool idea. Much better than the old fashioned way of getting control of your own country--waging a bloody coup.

[asin: 0060838655]

Here's a link to that Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States. It's a must read for anyone who wants to know the good and the bad (in other words THE TRUTH) of American conquest. What I mean by this is that our regular history books explain the winner's standpoint of American conquest while this book covers the losers. I highly recommend it as a supreme eye-opener. Not only does it teach you what happened, but it also calls your attention to a centuries long disregard by most Americans of the gross, less convenient truths of life.

I mean, seriously. Do you really want to think that Native Americans were just like those guys on F-Troop? Or do you want to know how they were real people and how most of them were slaughtered just so Europeans could have a place to "live free or die." I'm currently reading the section of the book that talks about how the middle class was created to be used as a buffer between the rich and the poor. Without said middle class as a dangling carrot to the poor, the poor might have risen up and overthrown the rich in disgust and frustration. Funny how we're headed in a direction that sees the middle class getting smaller and smaller...