Ubi Libertas Ibi Patria

[cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

The latest (Dec. 2004) issue of Reason magazine has an article by Brian Doherty,"Revolt of the Porcupines!," about the Free State Project and other attempts to establish autonomous libertarian regions. Because of my history of involvement in the free-nation movement (most notably through the Free Nation Foundation and Libertarian Nation Foundation), Doherty interviewed me some months ago for the story. Here's the paragraph that features an excerpt from that interview. (Please note that I am not responsible for the misdescription of me as “the” brains behind LNF!)

The Free State Project is the most recent and successful face of libertarian separatism -- or, as some call it, libertarian Zionism. To be sure, many involved in the search for new libertarian communities reject such terms. Roderick Long, a philosophy professor at Auburn University and the brains behind the Libertarian Nation Foundation, a group dedicated to theorizing about the possibilities for libertarian polities, tells me he doesn't like the term separatist because"the attraction is not that I don't want to live near or interact with nonlibertarians. Most of my best friends are nonlibertarians. We don't want to live by ourselves but simply want a chance to demonstrate to the world that libertarian principles actually work. We want to escape from government, not escape from ordinary decent people" who happen not to share their political philosophy.