creating a liberal utopia (only 1/2 way serious)

liberalcapitalist

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Mon Nov-03-03 02:13 PM
Original message

creating a liberal utopia (only 1/2 way serious)

This is part serious/ part fantasy... One thing that is not fantasy, I feel, is the very real movement to leave this country if W is elected or somehow in office in 2005. Usually, people talk about going to Canada; sometimes they choose Europe. But what would it take for Americans to re-found a New America? Again, part serious/ part fantasy. If you take it seriously, good; if not, indulge in the fantasy.

There is a website with islands for sale. Most of them are in US territories, and obviously, the US is not going to allow a separate nation within its own borders. But what about buying an island off of Luxemborg or a like country? Don't you think the government would sell the island outright for the right price?

Let's say a few wealthy liberals pool their resources together to purchase this island. From there, we allow Americans citizenship to the country for $20,000. With the goal of 1 million citizens, we're looking at $2 billion as the startup money for the nation (or is my math wrong? Too many zeroes!!)

People who wished to move to the liberal utopia but did not have $20,000 could ask to be sponsored by a wealthy liberal, or else join the government work corps to earn their citizenship. The government work corps would be used to build housing, a hospital, schools, roads, etc. Liberal businessmen and women (and yes, they do exist) could invest further into the building of resturaunts, malls, stores, etc., using the government work corps as their labor force.

Our utopia would be relatively small-- 1 to 2 million people or so-- so we could have a true democracy. The executive and judicial branches would be much like they are in the U.S., but the legislative branch would be composed of 50 congresspeople each elected to five year terms on a rotating basis so that each year ten congresspeople were up for re-election. Each election, citizens would vote on whether to keep the incumbent congresspeople in office or not. Challengers would run, and voters would be able to vote for up to two challengers. The challengers with the most votes would replace any incumbents who were voted out of office.

Our utopia would need only one large, state-of-the-art hospital. All citizens of the utopia would receive free healthcare. We would attract the best liberal doctors by offering them wages beyond what they earned in America plus freedom to do their jobs without the right-wing dominance of medicine.

We would pay our teachers two-to-three times what they are being paid in America. Our education system would not be sullied by the right. We would have one university, striving to meet our citizen's needs, but we would also sponsor study abroad for any needs our schools could not meet.

We could do all of this without taxing our citizens any higher than we are being taxed right now-- in fact, probably much less-- because there would be no waste or graft, nor any funding of a military (we would pay a small tax to Luxemborg to ensure protection), nor funding of a war on drugs.. We wouldn't need welfare, nor the constant building of prisons, nor extensive law enforcement.

Economically, a small country of 1 to 2 million of America's best and brightest should nearly be able to sustain itself. However, to increase our wealth, we would rely heavily on the internet, and internet business as a means to deliver high-tech services to non-citizens.