Yes, it is very serious. There are some very high state officials that are the strongest proponents. Check this out: http://www.texnat.org/

If there is serious talk about secession of Texas, then I'll help.

Great reply! I share many or your thoughts. Well, help us save at least one state in the US, Texas! It is still the most free thinking state in the nation, and we have the legal right to secede. Once we have the majority, we can oust the freeloaders and stop the handouts. Start using an honest money system and make it the best little nation on the planet. I'm trying my best. Y'all come on down!

I always enlist all the power I can get! He's helped me many times, and I know He hears my prayers. I believe in "one nation under God".

I'm working on a book with a common-sensical explanation, namely meme theory. It will be controversial in the extreme, since it gores all belief systems' oxen.

Yes, I am married to a Vet who can think. I find them to be a bit rare, however, and usually they are Vietnam era or prior.

Thanks for confirming what I thought I had read, khalling.

Maree lives there. db 's best friend galted there 4 years ago. He 's a doctor. There is a high threshold for acceptance into the country.

New Zealand does have a lot of benefits. One of our Gulchers, perhaps freedomforall, has some experience in New Zealand. New Zealand is on the radar for consideration. The biggest problem is regarding the strict immigration - meaning that they might not allow us.

You bring up a lot of particularly relevant points, especially regarding the in-fighting. Thanks, puzzlelady.

+1 Great post.

A) 41 -I have little hope things will turn around in the US.
B) 0- I have no expectations or need for an Atlantis. I prefer to hide in plain sight.
C) I am already looking into where I will go. I’m seriously looking at New Zealand. It’s not perfect, but it’s near perfect. What I like most is that people seem to forget it’s on the map. Even ISIS when tweeting a map of the countries they would take over with their caliphate left New Zealand off. Lol. I also like about NZ:
low population
strict immigration
english is the official language
beautiful landscape
air-cleansing tradewinds
Non-assuming people
surf always within a day’s drive.
What I don’t like:
No flying birds
The country is remote
Two reasons I feel I have to make the move in the next five years. (At the very least --buy vacation property there.)
1) I don’t want to get to old to do this (I am 52) and I don’t want to spend anymore of my 20+ years left complaining endlessly about how this country is falling apart.
2) I do think things are going to get real bad in the US over the next twenty years and it will be easier for my children and their children to get out if they want if I’m set-up already.

ETA: I also like how NZ is on the cutting edge of most advances. For instance: dd you know ATMs and debit cards were first introduced in NZ for study? That’s a benefit of a low population.

Thanks, Carol. I'd love to hear your ideas about human nature. You can message me off-thread on my Facebook page @puzzlelady.

Interesting question. Throughout human history, when situations became intolerable, the daring and innovative picked up and moved, seeking greener pastures or freer horizons. (Too bad that sometimes meant evicting the indigenous from the desired new locales.)

Atlantis in AS had the necessary natural resources, plus invisibility from its hostile surroundings, and the symbiotic human skill sets, predicated on a power source "invention" of science fiction proportions and pipelines into the outside world. Atlantis was a microcosm, a prototype, of what an ideal and dynamic society could be. Now how to get everyone else to see and accept those values on the larger national and global scale, by persuasion and without bloodshed?

Today we've run out of places to run to. All the locations you are examining are vulnerable to attack, siege, being overrun, and exhausting resources. True isolation without dependence on outside sources may be impossible to maintain in a hostile and envious world.

Outer space occurred to me as well and was the first suggestion my husband made. However, that environment is the least conducive for human survivability; and for locomotion you'll need technology we don't yet have. See if Richard Branson is interested.

A Gulch-inspired Atlantis, with jbrenner-qualified applicants, would, I am afraid, quickly devolve into the same kind of in-fighting that all too often appears in these galtsgulchonline threads. Would it need a "boss" or head of state to issue edicts, a tribal chief who promulgates rules for everyone else and can banish those who become persona non grata? Will all members be constantly on trial for potential transgressions? Will it become a "commune" where cliques form and seek to dominate? Will the one oath, "I swear by my life..." be enough to guarantee toleration of otherwise individual differences?

I have lived in 60 places in my life (part of a refugee family's travail), so relocating would not be a problem. I live on the road much of the year now. As long as gas stations operate, I can stay on the move.

However, I have successfully lived and productively worked for the last 40 years out of reach of the system, and spread individualist ideas in subtle and user-friendly ways. I have built a wonderful group of associates and freethinkers, and I have not given up hope of changing things from the inside. We need to stand our ground. So my answers are:

A) 99% (USA)
B) 50%
C) 1%

You have no macro evidence for "things are improving." yet you continually say that. Is your evidence the stock market? You are aware that the pumping of monopoly money travels through the stock market first, right? the debt is at the highest levels it has ever been? record numbers of people getting assistance. the median family income is still lower than it was AFTER the recession ended. anyone who is serious, knows the GDP and inflation numbers are blatantly manipulated. 25% of homes are under foreclosure. Cite actual numbers to back up your statements.

just as true in the corporate world. Most decisions are highly political and power plays.

Check your assumptions....don't let the crap put out by hollywood bias you.

There are a LOT of vets in here, including myself.

Pray?

I have been surrounded by military types my entire life and what I've found is that obedience to orders is a fundamental personal attribute to them...especially when they are valued by management in a non-military setting.
No offense to you personally intended. I'm certain that your skills would be highly valued in the Gulch.

Agreed, but anything with any value has to be fought for continuously. The battle never seems to end. Usually, the battle is; to initiate proper and logical thinking - the battle of the mind. If Texas was free of it's federalist connections, we could eliminate the entitlements. And, I pray for secession and correction.

True. We're losing our momentum...our engine is sputtering.

Woah, I don't know where you get that idea. I was in the Navy, actually the Nuclear Navy and we are taught to be self aware and to think things through. We were taught that the Reactor was to be protected and if needed to question authority. No other service does that, they are taught to be automatons and follow orders to the "T".

True.
As for Naval personnel, there are few who would "Gulch qualify" as well...too obedient and very few who truly think.