That's a very good point. Obviously the only way any country can be bootstrapped is with military power. If Liberland is serious they should immediately engage Paraduin with a show of force. Secondly, I think the best course of action would be to secure funding for buying a protectorate like situation with either Croatia or Serbia. Though I don't know what the political consequences of such a situation would be.

Imagine if from those 160.000 signups they could get 5.000 people to pay $1000 in taxes per year, that could fund a Serbian police/military officer and a small office. Just his presence and his commitment to engage in violent conflict with aggressors could deter any other party. (Killing him would be an act-of-war or at least a criminal act against his country)

> if they could get 5.000 people to pay $1000 in taxes per year,

Not sure they appreciate the concept of shared expenses though, from their objectives "a country where honest people can prosper without being oppressed by governments making their lives unpleasant through the burden of unnecessary restrictions and taxes.".

The key word there is unnecessary. Having some sort of police or military would be considered to be necessary by most.

That's why it's hard to make a country. You have to allocate resources to education, defense, health, public goods maintenance, etc. And inevitably some people will think that some expenses are not necessary.

It seems like killing the only security officer in a country would probably be the end of the war.. Most of the expressions of interest I've seen are explicitly because people think they'll be able to stop paying taxes so I'm curious what kind of voluntary funds they would be able to raise.

I think the point was that killing a Serbian military officer would start a war with Serbia. Of course, the challenging part would be convincing Serbia to back the scheme; if Serbia was going to defend the territory they'd be more likely to claim it themselves.

Serbia has no intention to claim this territory whatsoever. Serbia treats the Danube as the border and that is it. The new Danube stream that is, the one now dividing the two countries. There is an old Danube stream which is almost completely gone decades ago, and Croatia considers it its border. The reason is that there are some other inversely interweaving parts which are pretty and maybe a nice tourist attraction and both countries want them. So, accepting Liberland as their own territory would mean waving the right to those other, more profitable, territories. But TBH, using the old stream as the border would just cause more trouble.

To be fair, I'm a Serb and I fully welcome Liberland. Since the two neighbors cannot decide on their boundaries, I do not see why anyone else cannot take a no-mans land. The issue is that we must define our borders sooner or later, and I am afraid there will be no more space for Liberland. But, that will be Croatia's business then, I hope :D .

Neither Serbia nor Croatia claim the land because they both -- under different interpretations of the underlying agreement -- recognize it as land belonging to the other under an agreement between the two of them.

This also makes it unlikely that either would act as a guarantor of the independence of a new sovereignty that sought to establish itself on the land, or even to recognize such a sovereignty.

If they could get 100k people to use Amazon affiliate links for all their purchases, they'd have another revenue source.

I think that before they start to launch home made missiles they should check if Paraduin is not just some Dutch artists making a communication joke.

"Imagine if from those 160.000 signups they could get 5.000 people to pay $1000 in taxes per year"

Wasn't the point of founding this country to get away from taxes? How ironic

If your countrymen hadn't killed 126.000 Russians, and maimed 180.000 more, you would now be governed by homophobic, corrupt and oppressive Vladimir Putin.

I am not pro-war. I am not suggesting anyone should be attacked, but if you don't have the power to defend what you stand for, you will trampled by those who do.

I am from the Netherlands. The only reason we exist is because the U.S. won the second world war, and we allied ourselves to them. We're not as strong and mighty as the Fins, we use diplomacy and money to establish our sovereignty.

This kind of thinking leads to war. What I'm saying is that if we really want to create peace, we should think about peace. Not attacking. It doesn't matter who is attacking. If somebody is doing it, then it leads to more of this action.

Sorry for offending you, was not my cause. Just trying to see why somebody would think they should show force even though they are a new country and they have the possibility to act differently than we have done before.

I understand this is not a popular view, as we are being taught that we are "naturally" violent and warmongering race of beings, but I do not feel it is true. I feel it is something that is taught, and something that can be taught out of also.

Thanks for responding. I wasn't offended, I actually upvoted you to counter-act the downvote storm a little. (It was your offensive prejudice against U.S. citizens that triggered your downvotes, any apology should be directed at them)

I believe that violence is not taught, or even human. I believe it is a fundamental aspect of nature, and only humans have the power to overcome it. A group of humans overcoming nature and violence is what I would call a civilization. Unfortunately any group of humans has only a limited influence, so civilizations have borders.

Outside the borders nature rages violently, attacking civilizations for the resources they dig, farm and build. To keep nature out we need to make some sort of sacrifice, be it resources, lives, or our own morality.

Our morality is what makes us human, so war should never be a solution. But our civilizations are also precious, so they have to be guarded. That's what I believe anyway.

While the founding principles may be pacifist, the invading conquerers likely are not.

RDL from here lived on Sealand, I believe:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3766509

>But there are many rich people out in the world who would hire armies to kill for such a spot.

This is tribalism (or our modern version - nation states) in a nutshell. For all the hand wringing here about NSA SIGINT, defense spending, etc the reality is that the world is dangerous place. Not too long ago "liberal intellectuals", "russophiles," and "policy experts" were telling us how Russia was just going to eventually become a defacto if not outright EU member, would never invade a neighbor, never target civilians explicitly, never annex land, etc. These people forgot the golden rule of civilization: war happens.

While taking this opportunity to 'demonstrate' your point of view (and how it's justified) concerning military/defense, it is just an opinion. I'd say it's more of a cultural sickness, than a human necessity. At least most people claim to believe in the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi, even if they can't find a way to walk the walk (just talk the talk).

Considering the worst mass murderers, despots, and warmongers of history were usually devoutly religious, I really, really don't think you want to play the religion card here. Heck, by far our most Jesusy president, GWB, sent over 100,000 Iraqis to their deaths by starting a major conflict with them with trumped up intel and knowing full well the civilian cost would be huge. Hitler considered himself a good Christian. Putin is a good Christian loved by the Orthodox church. Iran beheads women who supposedly cheat on their husbands yet as a theocracy they follow Allah's benevolence. The religious middle-east in general is humanity's armpit. Need I go on?

>>> Hitler considered himself a good Christian

Well, sort of a nitpick but Hitler and religion is a bit more complicated than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler

> more of a cultural sickness, than a human necessity.

Probably not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War