This is cross-posted from a thread I made on the FTL website.
While I support the Free State Project and love the talk of secession,
I think that the chances of a state seceding without a short, bloody
fight that they will lose are slim. Free cities on the other hand - that's another story.
What if we managed to saturate a few hundred small local governments with libertarians?
If
these freedom-friendly areas, scattered about the nation, stop
enforcing unjust laws and fail to participate in tax extortion -- that
is a very realistic goal, and also a very effective one. They won't
attract nearly as much notice as a state. The fact that they are
decentralized (contrary to what state warfare doctrine would have us
believe) is a tactical advantage. Whereas a state has one big
geographical area with a political center that can be quickly taken
out, a whole lot of small areas present a completely different
situation.
What would happen is that the fedgov would either try
to take them on all at once, thus stretching their resources thin and
making coordination difficult - making it logistically very possible
for them to lose to the secessionists.
Or, they would try to take out one or a few free cities at a time - which gives the libertarians a number of options.
1. They could simply go to the cities which are unoccupied, making the fedgov play whack-a-mole.
2.
They could fade out of sight, so long as their identities are not well
known, maintaining a thriving underground until it is safe to resurface.
3.
They could have massive acts of civil disobedience, which would force
the fedgov either to give up, or do very, VERY unpopular things.
Combining that strategy of small-scale geographic secession with a broader movement of agorism is probably the best general strategy for liberty.
Of course, we still need to discuss the tactical details of how it might work.
To
start, I would suggest trying to use the influence of the Free State
Project to start working on the towns, rather than focusing on the
state government. I know that's generally the plan already, but I mean
incorporating the idea of small-scale secession rather than trying to make a state secession the goal
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!