The next Waco?

[Gob]

A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.


The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho. The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who "voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson's ideal of Rightful Liberty."

According to the Citadel website, Rightful Liberty means that "neighbors keep their noses out of other neighbors' business, that neighbors live and let live."

Citadel explains that residents in the community will be bound by the following:

•Patriotism
•Pride in American Exceptionalism
•Our proud history of Liberty as defined by our Founding Fathers, and
•Physical preparedness to survive and prevail in the face of natural catastrophes --such as Hurricanes Sandy or Katrina -- or man-made catastrophes such as a power grid failure or economic collapse.

Residents should also agree that being "prepared for the emergencies of life and being proficient with the American icon of Liberty -- the Rifle -- are prudent measures."

Some of the benefits of the Citadel community include a safe, well-prepared, patriotic community where children will be educated in school, not indoctrinated.

The community will be protected by a perimeter wall that will be inaccessible to "tourists." Each neighborhood within the community will have lower walls, dividing the town into defensible sections.

The website has a link to applications where prospective residents can sign up. According to Citadel, more than 200 families have completed applications, even before any land has been purchased.

While Citadel may sound wonderful to many who are reading this, the community has posted a warning on their home page:

"Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles."

Citadel says that every patriot selected to live within the community "will voluntarily agree to follow the footsteps of our Founding Fathers by swearing to one another our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor to defend one another and Liberty against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

http://cnsnews.com/blog/gregory-gwyn-wi ... d-fortress

[rubato]

I always like it when people wave flags which say "Hi I'm stupid, exploit me." It's so good for the economy overall.

And paranoia is such an effective organizing force.

"The community will be protected by a perimeter wall that will be inaccessible to "tourists." Each neighborhood within the community will have lower walls, dividing the town into defensible sections."

So they even have walls to keep them safe from, each other?

FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR


yrs,
rubato

[Rick]

Why don't they buy a failed prison?

[oldr_n_wsr]

So they even have walls to keep them safe from, each other?

Fortress design. Being able to fall back to compartmentalized areas. Once the main wall has been breeched, defenders fall back to a continually shrinking area. A Smaller compartment is easier to defend.

[Crackpot]

From whom?

[Rick]

Aliems...

[Sue U]

So they even have walls to keep them safe from, each other?

Fortress design. Being able to fall back to compartmentalized areas. Once the main wall has been breeched, defenders fall back to a continually shrinking area. A Smaller compartment is easier to defend.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahhaha! Two words for these morons: Predator drone.

Also:

While Citadel may sound wonderful to many who are reading this, the community has posted a warning on their home page:

"Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles."

Citadel says that every patriot selected to live within the community "will voluntarily agree to follow the footsteps of our Founding Fathers by swearing to one another our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor to defend one another and Liberty against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Last I heard, Idaho was still located in the United States and subject to its laws. If this place is ever built, I would very much like to make it my personal business to stand in the town square reading the collected speeches of Eugene Debs through a bullhorn.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I never claimed it to be very effective given the advanced state (of the state) of technology. Just a way of defending against similarly armed foes (aka ground forces, FBI, etc).

[dales]

Injuns?

[Lord Jim]

Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans

Gee whiz, I'm not used to being lumped together with such unsavory company.....

[Sue U]

Me neither. (Insert appropriate smiley here.)

[Crackpot]

Some of the benefits of the Citadel community include a safe, well-prepared, patriotic community where children will be educated in school, not indoctrinated.

Not likely

[Gob]

Can you imagine the sort of people who would subscribe to joining this? They'd be at each others throats within a week!!

[Econoline]

You mean this sort of people?

(Gee, who wouldn't love to live next door to HIM?)

[Andrew D]

Last I heard, Idaho was still located in the United States and subject to its laws. If this place is ever built, I would very much like to make it my personal business to stand in the town square reading the collected speeches of Eugene Debs through a bullhorn.

It is evidently going to be private property.

[liberty]

Look on the bright side if they are there they are not I your community.

[Rick]

Look on the bright side if they are there they are not I your community.

How do know that? What if they are in my community now and just want to be in that community?

Just sayin...

[Sue U]

Last I heard, Idaho was still located in the United States and subject to its laws. If this place is ever built, I would very much like to make it my personal business to stand in the town square reading the collected speeches of Eugene Debs through a bullhorn.

It is evidently going to be private property.

It may be called "private property," but the plan is obviously to create a "town" with public spaces:



Despite its purported devotion to "Liberty as defined by our Founding Fathers," the group appears to be trying to get around actual constitutional freedoms by styling itself as "private property" and granting "lifetime leases" to those who apply:

Private vs. Public

One of the primary reasons for a lease paradigm versus private property inside the walls is our desire to make the community for Patriots only.

The model will be similar in many ways to that of Disneyland. It is walled, gated, private property with controlled access. People pay to enter and agree to the rules because they see value in doing so. It is all based on a voluntary agreement between the owners of the property and those who want to come inside. Millions of people visit Disneyland and interact peacefully. It's exceptionally rare to hear of any serious problems. The key is that those people want to be there and understand what is expected of them. Surprisingly similar to what we are doing.

However, this is not Disneyland; it is not an amusement park for day trips. It is planned to be a comprehensive community with residential, commercial and ostensibly public spaces. It will be located in Idaho or one of the other United States, subject to state regulation, if not county and municipal regulation as well. While this may present a problematic free-speech case for residents who presumably relinquish their rights in return for the "benefit" of a lease, I think the proprietors would be hard pressed to find a valid and enforceable basis for denying free speech in toto. The more they make it look and operate like a traditional town, the more they are going to be required to open public space to speech they might not like. I'd be happy to make it a test case.

[oldr_n_wsr]

My father in laws "gated community" forbids lawn signs (aka Vote for Joe Blow, etc) in it's by-laws along with a whole pile of other shit like siding color and roof materials ....)
Don't know if this will be different.

[Andrew D]

It is planned to be a comprehensive community with residential, commercial and ostensibly public spaces.

"Ostensibly" how? They evidently say that their privately owned space will be quite explicitly non-public:

The community will be protected by a perimeter wall that will be inaccessible to "tourists."

I do not see how this has anything to do with "denying free speech in toto". These people do not need "to open public space to speech they might not like," because there is no public -- actually or ostensibly public -- place for them to open.

There are gated communities which contain parks, playgrounds, golf courses, restaurants, stores, etc. I have no right to enter any such gated community at all. So how can I have any right to engage in "free speech" in a place where I have no right even to be?

These people are, in my estimation, weird. But part of freedom in America is the right to be weird. And that includes the right to form a community of the weird. And the right to enforce the rules of the weird upon people who freely choose to join the community of the weird.

Obviously, people who freely choose to join the community of the weird retain the right to change their minds. But unless the community of the weird tries to coerce (as distinct from persuade) people not to leave, I do not see the problem.

I am an agnostic. I am a fervent believer in the freedom of speech. But I do not believe that my freedom of speech entitles me to declaim the (self-evident) virtues of agnosticism inside a Roman Catholic Church or a Mormon Temple or a Jewish Synagogue or a Muslim Mosque, etc. (Please pardon the redundant phrasings.)

If some hippie commune -- even a self-contained commune (grows its own food, digs its own wells, etc.) -- decides not to permit open-air readings of the works of Ayn Rand within its privately owned space, what is the basis for any complaint? If one is really desperate to spew Randiansim to the world at large, there is, well, a world at large in which one is free to do so.

You apparently believe that you have the right to blare "the collected speeches of Eugene Debs through a bullhorn" in what amounts to a private community's living room. I do not.