This NYT piece about America’s emptiest county starts off with the usual stuff about closed-down schools and vanished churches. Then, without any warning, it segues into a story about Libertarians plotting to take over the county and legalise cannibalism (no, really!).
As they say, read the whole thing.
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Belle Waring 02.25.06 at 5:55 am
the libertarian guy runs a Philippines-mail-order bride business. this stuff just writes itself.
Oskar Shapley 02.25.06 at 6:51 am
Cannibertarians?
etat 02.25.06 at 7:42 am
Shades of Rajneeshpuram…
Brett Bellmore 02.25.06 at 8:07 am
Don’t knock Philippines “mail order” bride services until you’ve tried one. They’re actually very nice online dating services, with webcams and online chat, and all the other communications advances of the 21st century. And both sides are VERY happy about their existance.
My fiancee is a filipina, and if you suggested to her that she’d been bought from a catalog, she’d give you such a pinch… (And years of washing laundry by hand has given her a grip that could crush steel pipe!) The truth is, she picked ME out…
Carlos 02.25.06 at 8:27 am
Um, Brett? I glad you’re happy — really! I’m all for Fil-Am relationships — but:
a) this guy does not seem like he’s the most honest apple on the tree,
b) the Philippines has a godawful large and mostly exploitative sex industry,
c) this guy probably would view said industry as “consensual” going by his stated “libertarian” credo.
You know, I often mock Texas for, well, being Texas — did you know you can legally shoot a repo man taking back your car in Texas? apparently so! — but this is a mark on the angel’s side for a change.
Carlos, who occasionally posts from lovely downtown Zamboanga City
Barry 02.25.06 at 9:12 am
The NYT missed an obvious flaw in these guys’ plan – there is no water service in that county. Therefore, they can’t flouridate the water, contaminate the precious bodily fluids, and so forth. Those Texans are savvy.
Barry Freed 02.25.06 at 11:40 am
Mmmmm, it makes me want to reconsider my long-term reluctance to have anything to do with the restaurant biz.
“Our special tonight is a fine Cajun-style dish, blackened buttocks au Katrina, which comes drowning in our special chocolate sauce.”
Or,
“And how would you like your pound of flesh tonight, would that be medium, rare or well-done?”
abb1 02.25.06 at 3:17 pm
I thought they planned to create their liberty-paradise for cannibals in the North-East – New Hampshire or Vermont: http://www.freestateproject.org/ ; this has been going on for years…
josh 02.25.06 at 3:30 pm
I’m still scratching my head over the contention that cannibalism is a victimless act (or dueling, for that matter) …
abb1 02.25.06 at 3:38 pm
You’re perfectly aware that there are cannibals out there – and it’s up to you – not the nanny-government! – to make your meat not worth their while…
nik 02.25.06 at 3:40 pm
I think they’d only regard cannibalism as victimless if it didn’t violate the corpse’s owners property rights.
KCinDC 02.25.06 at 4:06 pm
Look, if the poor want to sell any of their limbs or other body parts they can get along without to debauched millionaires for food, that’s between them and the millionaires. There’s no coercion, just as there was no coercion involved in child labor, 84-hour work weeks, or any other example of a functioning free market that the statists want to stick their noses into for no reason. You’re standing in the way of freedom! Freeeedom!
Luis Villa 02.25.06 at 4:39 pm
abb1: but the free state project was always doomed, because of the ‘state’ part. Sounds like this was a ‘free county project’, which makes a lot more sense, really. Surprised no one has found the emptiest county in Nevada and tried the same thing- it seems like the logical place to start. The lowest level of state resistance, located closer to libertarian/hippie California. All you’d need is a thousand folks to take over Esmeralda County (pop. 900-something) in Nevada.
imag 02.25.06 at 5:22 pm
I’m still scratching my head over the contention that cannibalism is a victimless act (or dueling, for that matter) …
Now I’m picturing a duel between two cannibals with knives. And forks.
Scorpio 02.25.06 at 5:59 pm
Looks like *lot* better place than South Carolina for fundies to move to so they can put wimmin back in chains and make everyone go to church.
Feh.
serial catowner 02.25.06 at 7:11 pm
Well, actually, Cheney and his friends already did the county thing. With one ranch at 52 square miles, there can’t be many more in that county. And how convenient is that, employing the former sherriff? Definitely the “ownership” end of our society.
But ya gotta love it- the libertarians wanted to establish a state with absolute freedom, but what’s really going to happen is South Dakota will establish a state with absolutely no freedom.
dave heasman 02.25.06 at 7:13 pm
“Seven children ride a school bus 33 miles to Wink in the next county..”
Someone said that Lubbock, where Buddy Holly came from, was an isolated nowhere place, but compared to Wink, birthplace of Roy Orbison, it was a bustling multicultural metropolis.
eweininger 02.26.06 at 12:39 am
Now I’m picturing a duel between two cannibals with knives. And forks.
Been there, done that.
http://www.virtualdali.com/37CannibalismInAutumn.html
If you squint a bit, it kinda looks like Texas.
Steve LaBonne 02.27.06 at 10:07 am
They really meant to legalize cannabis but of course they were too stoned to spell it correctly.
Matt Weiner 02.27.06 at 1:12 pm
Albert: Choose yo’ weapons, you varmints! I gone whop you both!
Seminole Sam: Uh – we fights with knives — so keerful!
Albert: I fights with a knife an’ fork, an I is hongry.
(Pogo 10-31-49)
Ann 02.27.06 at 5:12 pm
After the New Yorker article that tried to correlate the increase in feral hogs nationwide along red state/blue state lines, I’m not surprised at anything in the MSM.
Steven Crane 02.27.06 at 5:23 pm
Is there any question that the people behind this “project” are literal, unintentional strawmen?
They’re no more representative of libertarian thought than your average dorm-room, daddy’s-money anarchist is of leftist thought.
John Quiggin 02.27.06 at 7:02 pm
I don’t think anyone suggested they were representative, Steven. But they’re not alone on this one.
Matt Weiner 02.27.06 at 10:39 pm
How did this pass by without a reference to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?
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