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Nation-building is arduous work. Microstate-building, maybe less so.

But don't tell that to the libertarian architect of a seven-year campaign to further subdivide the tempestuous Balkans by turning a tiny, neglected sliver of woodland on the Danube into the Free Republic of Liberland.

"I realized from the beginning that building a country is not a summer job," says 38-year-old Czech Vit Jedlicka.

He and his fellow Liberlanders have recently recommitted to their U.S.-based lobbying effort, seeking to get their republic recognized internationally so they can make it a free-trade zone with the status of a state.

A July 9 filing with the U.S. Justice Department confirms Liberland's ongoing cooperation with a New York-based lobbyist and "global political and business ambassador" pursuant to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

In a region where relations between nations are frequently tense, including a recent diplomatic dustup between Serbia and Croatia over war memorials, Liberland's neighbors appear to have gotten used to the idea.

Serbia regards the project as a "frivolous act" but no threat so long as it stays on the western bank of the Danube, which marks its border with Croatia.

"Our ties with Serbia were very friendly from the beginning," Jedlicka, who lives in the Czech capital, Prague, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service recently.

Liberland's "closest partner" is the Vojvodina provincial government in northernmost Serbia, he added.

We believe that in the near future [Croatia] will recognize the great economic benefit that will be realized by [the] creation of Liberland."

Croatia was less accommodating initially, routinely blocking access and even detaining visitors, including Jedlicka, for alleged border violations.

But Jedlicka said, seemingly without irony, that they've since built "strong ties" to the Croatian secret service since some Liberland citizens "are in contact with them frequently."

"It seems their interest in Liberland grows over time," he said of the Croatian authorities.

Call It What You Like

Jedlicka, chairman of a Czech libertarian NGO, and his wife, Jana Markovicova, a former licensed massage therapist and self-described "first lady at Liberland," proclaimed the aspiring state's existence in April 2015.

They described it as 7 square kilometers of no-man's-land that had gone unclaimed by either Croatia or Serbia since Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991.

It has a flag, a coat of arms showing a tree, the sun, and a bird soaring over the river, and -- in keeping with Jedlicka's aversion to government interference -- hopes to base its economy on a cryptocurrency, the "merit."

It has already been active in virtual and crypto projects, including a futuristic-looking Liberland Metaverse that is admittedly a "work in progress."

Its website claims upward of 500,000 citizenship requests, although RFE/RL could not confirm that figure. It also claims 1,000 "citizens" and 10 "diaspora villages."

And it says it has "diplomatic relations" with six UN member states, including Haiti, and purports to have representations in 74 spots around the world, including places like Switzerland, Venezuela, and Afghanistan.

But it's also missing one of the 20th century's most widely cited touchstones of independence, along with defined territory, a government, and a capacity to deal with other states: a permanent population.

Liberland is uninhabited, and no country has ever formally recognized it.

Are Microstates A 'Thing'?

There are currently seven microstates across Europe, of various renown, most of them wealthy and established centuries ago.

Four of them are monarchies and another is the domain of the Roman Catholic Church, so their histories are not necessarily steeped in democracy. They are: Vatican City, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Malta, San Marino, and Sovereign Order of St. John.

The main thing that sets microstates apart from larger states is their size, or lack thereof. But in his 2012 book The Microstates Of Europe, P. Christiaan Klieger describes them broadly as "designer nations" marked by "tenaciousness of national aspirations and ethnic solidarity."

Liberland, a "new libertarian country," seems like more of the former.

"We aim to develop a critical business hub and a free port on the Danube River," Michal Ptacnik, who was recently named Liberland's "minister of justice," told an audience at a libertarian-minded conference in Prague last year.

He said the governing principle should be "a mix of Swiss democracy and corporate governance." The focus is "to be a free-trade zone where individual liberty governs supreme," he said, adding, "We seek to build the freest country on Earth, and the most prosperous one."

Slow Progress

Liberland describes U.S.-based lobbyist Steven Melnik as its "ambassador at-large." An immigrant to the United States, Melnik appears to be trying to nudge U.S. and other influentials toward recognition of an eighth European microstate.

In the Justice Department document, Melnik said he continues to represent the Free Republic of Liberland under an agreement that "does not contemplate remuneration for services."

Melnik, who has represented Jedlicka's group since 2019, said that in the previous six-month reporting period he was "not required to perform any services" and that "all my actions have been voluntary and not for payment."

For Jedlicka, the end goal still seems a distant dream. But he remains an optimist.

He said Croatia now "recognizes us as a serious national movement and suggested that Zagreb was comfortable with not claiming the 7-kilometer patch he's staked out.

"We believe that in the near future they will recognize the great economic benefit that will be realized by [the] creation of Liberland," Jedlicka said.

The benefits of eventual sovereignty, for a founding father and Euroskeptic like him, and for all five members of Liberland's "government," might seem obvious. He said their current goals include creating "more benefits" of Liberlander "citizenship."

"We aim to be a shining example of how a country's government can be organized in the new millennia using strong ideological principles, as well as the latest decentralized blockchain technologies for governance," Jedlicka said.

And he doesn't seem to be in any particular rush to force his model on anyone.

"It is nice to have formal recognition by other countries," Jedlicka told RFE/RL, "but we are also happy if we are informal friends and if they recognize our motto: Live and let live."

Original post:
Wedged Away In The Balkans, Would-Be Microstate 'Liberland' Keeps Up Its Fight For Recognition - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

TEHRAN Iranian short movies I Will Never Leave You and The Gift have won awards at the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival in Las Vegas.

Directed by Alireza Biglari based on a true story, I Will Never Leave You was selected as best international short narrative.

The film shows that Kabul has fallen and the Taliban have taken control of the city, killing ordinary people, journalists, artists and women. A journalist has filmed one of the executions by the Taliban, and now he wants to send the truth to all the news agencies in the West. But the Taliban have found out about him and are looking for him to destroy his camera and kill him.

The Gift, a science fiction and horror film directed by Farbod Ardebili, was given the best short drama award.

The film explores the darker side of human nature and how catastrophic events can occur when a climate of fear is cultivated.

It is set in the near future after alien ships appear in the skies above Earths major cities, throwing the world into chaos. But instead of destroying the planet or invading, the aliens do nothing. They simply hover in place for years; silent, inscrutable. Unable to determine the aliens motivations or why they refuse to make contact, the media feeds the planet a steady diet of fear, uncertainty and doubt. When the aliens true intentions are finally revealed, an unspeakable tragedy unfolds.

Winners were announced at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas on July 16.

The Anthem Grand Prize was given to the documentary Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words directed by Michael Pack.

In this film, Justice Clarence Thomas recounts his extraordinary life story from living in poverty as a child to serving on the Supreme Court.

It also won the Anthem Vault Prize for best original score and the audience choice award in the feature film category.

Photo: A scene from I Will Never Leave You directed by Alireza Biglari.

MMS/YAW

Excerpt from:
I Will Never Leave You, The Gift win awards at Anthem Libertarian Film Festival - Tehran Times

On his essay site, Unpopular Front, writer John Ganz argues that tech billionaire, venture capitalist, and radical libertarian, Peter Thiel, is not as complicated and enigmatic as he's often made out to be. According to Gantz, he's a straight-up fascist.

So, let's sum up. Peter Thiel believes he belongs to an elite group, often understood in implicitly or explicitly racial terms, that is entitled to set aside democratic governance in favor of pursuing a program of technological progress and national restoration. He believes the political means to accomplish this is through a charismatic leader with manipulative, populist appeals to past national glory and against parasitic immigrants and culturally decadent liberalism. For him, even the most milquetoast, reformist liberalism is "tantamount to communism." He's obsessed with romanticized fantasies of absolute power, domination, and control. He dreams of wielding the the national security state against enemies both foreign and domestic. He envisioned a kind of imperialist world-state controlled not through deliberative bodies like the U.N. but directly by the intelligence and secret police bureaus. He combines the ideology of white collar, petit-bourgeois intermediary class with its emphases direct management techniques and closely-held ownership with the grandiose, world-spanning designs of an industrial titan.There's really no contradiction within Peter Thiel's politics, they are quite consistent. He's just realized, more clearly than his opponents often, that there's ultimately a contradiction between the rule of capital and democracy, and the way to deal with this contradiction, as far as he's concerned, is to do away with democracy.

Read the full essay here.

See original here:
Revealing Peter Thiel essay on his anti-democratic beliefs - Boing Boing

Dennis Sobin first ran for D.C. mayor 40 years ago. Since then, hes made millions in the sex trade, lost those millions, moved to Florida, spent years in prison, gotten out, launched a nonprofit, written plays for the Kennedy Centers stage, and run a bevy of losing political campaigns.

But after all that, hes back in pretty much the same spot four decades later. A lot has changed in D.C., but Sobin is still running for mayor.

Hes earned the Libertarian Partys nomination to take on Mayor Muriel Bowser and hes all set to appear on the ballot this November, elections officials confirm to Loose Lips. And Sobin tells LL that hell run on much the same platform that has defined his wild career in D.C. politics: The full legalization of drugs and sex work.

Sobin was the master of over-the-top theatrics in his heyday, running a series of campaigns in the 1980s staffed by sex workers and funded by his massage parlors, but dont expect any of that this time around. He says hes a little more mellow now, and why shouldnt he be? City Paper declared Sobin D.C.s oldest living smut kingpin in its last cover story on him, and that was 12 years agohell turn 79 in a few months.

Hed have a snowballs chance in hell of winning as a Libertarian in D.C. even without his particular policy positions or his sordid past (there are something like 2,300 registered Libertarians in the city, as of June 30). So why keep running? He hasnt been much involved in local politics since his last mayoral bid in 2010 and he has his advocacy work with incarcerated artists to occupy him.

Yet Sobin sees this as his last hurrah to make something interesting out of his self-described twilight years. After all, he notes that hes actually a few months younger than President Joe Biden, so he sees no reason not to make another go of it.

I think Bowser really has done a good job, and I would follow her policies in every area except for law enforcement, Sobin says. I want to concentrate on real crime, not have them bother with the enforcement of victimless things like sex and drugs. If, during the campaign, I could convince the mayor thats the way to go, I think we would be on the right track and who knows, if I become mayor, I could hire her as my assistant.

If anything, Sobin believes mainstream politics have moved pretty firmly in his direction over the last few years. Not only has D.C. decriminalized marijuana and some psychedelics, but there have been at least some conversations about decriminalizing sex work toohe notes that even the mayor uses the term sex worker instead of the more loaded term prostitute.

He notes that he doesnt believe quite as fervently in the value of private ownership as many of his fellow Libertarians, and he sees the value in the welfare state (he relies on Social Security checks and food stamps to get by, so Sobins an unusual fit for such a virulently anti-government party). Thats why he expects his once-radical message might catch on a bit more than it did in his previous runs for mayor and Council.

I happen to be addicted to a drug myself, and thats Viagra, Sobin says. If they made it illegal, I might go out and steal and shoplift, too, if I couldnt afford it. So whats the harm of giving someone heroin if theyre addicted the way Im addicted to Viagra?

Of course, Sobin is well aware that people will be skeptical of him because of his pasthis time running brothels and producing porno magazines is one thing, but his convictions on fraud and child pornography charges are another.

He insists hes become more educated and insightful over the years, and has changed many of his ways. Im no longer a provider of sexual services, but I am still a consumer, he notes, but says he has otherwise stayed out of trouble. Court records confirm that Sobin has certainly slowed down a bit compared to his younger dayshis last case in D.C. Superior Court involved him suing the Department of Motor Vehicles in 2021, alleging fraud. It went about the way you might expect and was dismissed in May.

Yet he isnt much concerned with what people might think of him, buying into P.T. Barnums old maxim that theres no such thing as bad publicity.

People dont remember a lot of stuff when they walk into a polling place, but they may well look at the ballot and say Hey, I remember his name, Sobin says.

LL might suggest, however, that most people have a negative association with Sobins name, if they remember it at all. Hes periodically made headlines over the past few years with his very public, very ugly disputes with an estranged sonthe younger Sobin once had a restraining order against his father and worked for the District government, meaning that Sobin wouldnt be allowed to go to the Wilson Building if hed somehow won his mayoral bid.

That son has since left for a different job, per his LinkedIn page, so Sobin is in the clear on that count. However, their relationship remains frostySobin says the two havent spoken in years.

In the likely scenario that Sobin loses, he says hell have plenty to keep himself busy. Hell keep on running his Prisons Foundation and Safe Streets Arts Foundation, nonprofits that work with incarcerated people and help distribute their books and other works of art.

He seems generally content with the idea that hes pretty much faded into obscurity these days, quite the statement for a man that was once a fixture on City Papers pages (he infamously appeared on one cover in 1988 while completely nude and holding a blow-up sex doll). This may well be his last appearance in this publication or any other.

And thats fine by him. Sobin says hes never actually read any of City Papers voluminous coverage of his lifes twists and turns.

The way I see it, itd either make me feel bad, or itd inflate my ego, Sobin says. Neither seems good.

See more here:
Dennis Sobin Says He's Mellowed in Old Age. But He's Still Making Another Run for Mayor. - Washington City Paper

Jul. 26The Aug. 2 primary election is fast approaching. In fact, it's now just a week away.

Now is the time to get acquainted with the candidates and issues that you'll see on your ballot, if you haven't already.

There are numerous opportunities to do so this week:

Joplin voters may attend an informational meeting on Proposition Public Safety from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Silver Creek Community Center, 3106 Silver Creek Drive. Attendees can talk with police Chief Sloan Rowland and Assistant Chief Andy Nimmo, of the Joplin Fire Department, along with members of the citizens committee for Proposition Public Safety and other city officials.

The proposal would levy a $1 tax for every $100 of assessed value on all real and personal property, with the revenue to provide better pay for and hire more police officers and firefighters. For a home with a market value of $150,000, the owner's property tax bill would increase by $285, and for personal property of $30,000 it would be about $100, city officials have said. City officials have projected that the taxes would produce about $9 million a year.

Carthage voters may attend an informational meeting about a new performing arts center at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the school district's auditorium, 714 S. Main St.

The ballot proposal seeks voter approval of an $18 million bond issue to build a performing arts center on the Carthage High School campus. It would extend the district's existing 83-cent debt service levy for two years from 2040 to 2042.

Learn more about the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian candidates seeking their party's nomination for the 7th Congressional District seat in a Joplin Globe series called The 5 Q's. Each candidate had the opportunity to respond directly to the same five questions about abortion, gun safety, the Ukraine crisis and more.

You can find that series in the Globe editions published July 12-16 and online at joplinglobe.com.

Story continues

Learn more about the top Republican and Democratic candidates for Missouri's open U.S. Senate seat in a series of profiles from our partners at the Missouri Independent, a nonprofit, online news organization.

The Globe began running the profiles over the weekend and will conclude the day before the election. As of today, profiles of Republicans Dave Schatz and Billy Long and Democrat Spencer Toder have been published, with profiles of Republicans Vicky Hartzler, Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt and Democrats Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine still to come.

You can find the series in the Globe print and e-editions, and online at joplinglobe.com.

Original post:
EDITORIAL: Educate yourself on the candidates, ballot issues this week - Yahoo News