[Rothbardian]

Somalia has a theocratic government thanks to the U.N. Not libertarian at all unless you think putting women in jail for being raped = libertarian. It's a shame too because when they had no government, they were making significant strides towards creating a stable middle class and a decent quality of life. They have the most advanced telecommunications infrastructure in Africa.

My guess would be probably one of the scandinavian countries or parts of the U.S. There really arent any options though. If you have the money your best bet is to move to some third world paradise where you can pay the government to leave you the hell alone, since only the ultra rich can afford that luxury here.

[Godstud]

Avoid third world countries and look at developing ones.

[fuser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Bangladesh_enclaves



No government presence at all.

No taxes, no police, no army, no elections.

[The Immortal Goon]

Tax is theft. What you call "social obligation" is just the presumption that zombie bureaucrats have the special magical ability to milk the cattle people for their own good. You may be a happy tax cow but I am not.

Exactly. For the last seven thousand years there have been taxes. But did you know we only have them because NoBama and other socialist-fascist-Muslims are tricking you into believing 9/11 had nothing to do with the lizard people?

Wake up sheeple! Roads build themselves, the police and firefighters are happy to work for free, and children will spontaneously learn to read if you just give your boss everything you have and begin the glorious descent into warlordism by slavishly licking the hands of the wealthy!

[SolarCross]

Exactly. For the last seven thousand years there have been taxes. But did you know we only have them because NoBama and other socialist-fascist-Muslims are tricking you into believing 9/11 had nothing to do with the lizard people?

Wake up sheeple! Roads build themselves, the police and firefighters are happy to work for free, and children will spontaneously learn to read if you just give your boss everything you have and begin the glorious descent into warlordism by slavishly licking the hands of the wealthy!

Crazy person alert ^

[emmitt]

You haven't said anything about Switzerland yet, taxizen.

Would you agree with me that it's a better choice than the US or Denmark?

[Godstud]

Taxizen, The Immortal Goon was being sarcastic.

[SolarCross]

You haven't said anything about Switzerland yet, taxizen.

Would you agree with me that it's a better choice than the US or Denmark?

Yeah, easily better than either US or Denmark. Apparently Switzerland is the richest country in the world per capita which is nice.
Okay so there are options out there for low / no taxation but there are other considerations that I should mention.
- Warm climate (well at least not a cold climate).
- Cosmopolitan / easy immigration: It won't do me any good trying to go to a country if they are hostile to foreigners or otherwise make it difficult to stay there, gain citizenship or residency.
- Decent communications: I'm a tech-fiend, net-head so at least broadband internet is a must.
- Language: I am gung-ho about learning a different language but it does take time so if the country in question has an language very unfamiliar to me then it should have a minimal cost of living such that I can not work or do business for a year or so while I learn it. If the cost of living is relatively high such that I have to be working from the get go then English needs to reasonably widely understood to give me a chance to get by until I learn the local lingo.

[emmitt]

Yeah, easily better than either US or Denmark. Apparently Switzerland is the richest country in the world per capita which is nice.
Okay so there are options out there for low / no taxation but there are other considerations that I should mention.
- Warm climate (well at least not a cold climate).
- Cosmopolitan / easy immigration: It won't do me any good trying to go to a country if they are hostile to foreigners or otherwise make it difficult to stay there, gain citizenship or residency.
- Decent communications: I'm a tech-fiend, net-head so at least broadband internet is a must.
- Language: I am gung-ho about learning a different language but it does take time so if the country in question has an language very unfamiliar to me then it should have a minimal cost of living such that I can not work or do business for a year or so while I learn it. If the cost of living is relatively high such that I have to be working from the get go then English needs to reasonably widely understood to give me a chance to get by until I learn the local lingo.

English is widely understood in Switzerland. When I went to Geneva, I spoke English to the people there (because I thought my French wouldn't be good enough).
The Swiss have gotten used to most immigrants. You'll be fine as long as you're not German (in the German-speaking parts) or a muslim (in the rural parts).
Swiss German can be pretty hard to learn. You'd be basically learning two separate languages if you moved to the German-speaking parts.
French or Italian might be better in this case.

"Lugano has an oceanic climate that is almost subtropical characterized by relatively mild winters, warm, damp summers and plentiful precipitation year-round."

That makes me want to move to Switzerland.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

It's a bit amusing to see people call Switzerland a libertarian country.

[Happyhippo]

It's a bit amusing to see people call Switzerland a libertarian country.

Having spent a year in Cambodia, I find it even more amusing that it`s on the wish list. Actually I don`t find it amusing at all, but incredibly offensive. A clearer example of a country where an elite fucks over the general populace is hard to find.

[SolarCross]

Having spent a year in Cambodia, I find it even more amusing that it`s on the wish list. Actually I don`t find it amusing at all, but incredibly offensive. A clearer example of a country where an elite fucks over the general populace is hard to find.

Really? How so?

[emmitt]

Go troll somewhere else. Nobody called Switzerland "a libertarian country".

"Switzerland is definitely much better than the US (in economic terms) or Denmark (gun laws!)."

"Would you agree with me that it's a better choice than the US or Denmark?"

"Yeah, easily better than either US or Denmark."

These are the only things that have been said about Switzerland. If you think these sentences imply that it's a libertarian country, you're clearly trolling.

[Rothbardian]

Really? How so?

I've never been to Cambodia but I have been to that part of the world so Happy Hippo please correct me if I make any errors here.

In third world places like Cambodia you will have a government that doesn't hide it's nature the way we are used to in the west. It's the iron fist without the velvet glove. They don't really make an effort to even pretend they are anything other than the biggest mafia around and bureaucrats at every level can be had if you've got the money.

I've already bought land in a neighboring country and plan on developing it, through my wife. It's not a libertarian society but if you have the resources, you can pay the mafia-state off and live without their intrusion. What you do from there is up to you. I would just avoid getting involved in politics in any way because individuals that try to help 'the people' through political action in places like that tend to disappear over night.

[SolarCross]

Rothbardian - Given Happyhippo is some kind of leftist (if I recall correctly) then I expect what he means by "A clearer example of a country where an elite fucks over the general populace is hard to find." is just that the government / elite don't do anything at all to the general populace, they just let them get on with things. "Helping" the people for a leftist means stealing from them (taxes) and bossing them around morning, noon and night (regulations) thus in turn not doing those things is "fucking the people over".
What interests me about Cambodia is that cannabis use is practically legal, low to non-existent taxation, relatively easy residency / citizenship options, no or few restrictions on immigrants buying land, working or starting a business and though it is a developing nation it is developing quite fast. The only drawback that I can see is that the language is deeply unfamiliar to me and so it will take a lot of work to acquire fluency.

[Decky]

Having spent a year in Cambodia, I find it even more amusing that it`s on the wish list. Actually I don`t find it amusing at all, but incredibly offensive. A clearer example of a country where an elite fucks over the general populace is hard to find.

Libertarians are fine with the elite fucking over the people as long as it is a private sector elite and not a government one.

They could watch two identical atrocities and would be fine with the one where the soldiers had logos stitched onto their uniforms but not the ones with flags.

Crazy but what do you expect?

[work-in-progress]

[quote="taxizen"]
I didn't realize I was posting in Libertarian Land when I wrote those comments.....that's one of the problems of just looking through the New Posts tab. So, whatever I say here will likely be drowned out by those who consider the breakdown of our social fabric to be a good thing.

But, while I'm here, since the subject is taxes; here is my main reason why I turned against libertarian propaganda: it pretends that the only sources of power are governments, and doesn't address the private power of extremely wealthy people and the growing legal, political and financial power of artificial citizens - corporations.

I'm not a "happy tax cow," but I would rather pay than continue down this road of gutting infrastructure and public services. Not to get too far sidetracked, but this recent category 5 tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma, has a backstory that the schools in this suburb do not have underground storm shelters! That's why so many children were among the casualties, and why teachers had to pull children into washrooms and utility closets in desperate attempts of survival. A city right in the middle of Tornado Alley that was hit by a category 5 less than 15 years ago, didn't even have storm shelters to protect the children.

When it comes to who pays, what about these rich, increasingly profitable corporate citizens, who are increasing profit margins as American wages decline, pushing the DOW over 15,000? Time to go back to the tax rates and the limited tax exemption structure of a former Republican President: Dwight David Eisenhower. So, I'll shortcircuit the usual propaganda that American corporations pay the highest rates in the world....every other country has been badgered by the same band of international oligarchs because they put fictitious HQ's in places like the Cayman Islands. Here's the real story of what corporations are actually paying as a share of GDP

Here's some artificial entities who can afford to give you the tax breaks you're looking for:

(Reuters) - Thirty large and profitable U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010, said a study on Thursday that arrives as Congress faces rising demands for tax reform but seems unable or unwilling to act.

[SolarCross]

work-in-progress - don't worry we already had The Immortal Goon and Decky crash this party, a pair that believe in 100% taxation and bureaucrats having the power of life and death (mostly death) over the cattle people, if they can put their gore splattered snouts in here then so can you. Tax is theft and inflation is fraud and if the "social" fabric needs to maintained by such measures then there is nothing "social" about it, just the opposite. Luckily good things do not need to be funded by theft and fraud because contrary to Comrade Tyrant's delusions of superiority the cattle people actually know what is good for them more than he does, so given the choice they will still want schools and hospitals and all the rest. Choice is the issue see? Choice is what delivers quality not coercion. You mentioned organisations that have gotten clever at keeping the thieving taxman out of their collective pockets, maybe the lesson from that is not that the robbers should up their game but that everyone else should follow the good example. Crime should not pay.

[Happyhippo]

Rothbardian - Given Happyhippo is some kind of leftist (if I recall correctly) then I expect what he means by "A clearer example of a country where an elite fucks over the general populace is hard to find." is just that the government / elite don't do anything at all to the general populace, they just let them get on with things. "Helping" the people for a leftist means stealing from them (taxes) and bossing them around morning, noon and night (regulations) thus in turn not doing those things is "fucking the people over".
What interests me about Cambodia is that cannabis use is practically legal, low to non-existent taxation, relatively easy residency / citizenship options, no or few restrictions on immigrants buying land, working or starting a business and though it is a developing nation it is developing quite fast. The only drawback that I can see is that the language is deeply unfamiliar to me and so it will take a lot of work to acquire fluency.

You are correct that I`m a leftist, but the rest of your post is nothing but hyperbole. I would label myself as a mutualist, but it`s more like the closest group than a perfect representation of my views.

You could take a look at this.
http://www.asiaecon.org/special_articles/read_sp/12231

It`s pretty sad, but unfortunately all too true:(

I would recommend it as a travel destination though. Khmer history, culture and behaviour is something to admire, and I`m especially fond of their music from the 60s and 70s.

[SolarCross]

Happyhippo - I like mutualism, it is the only flavour of left-anarchism i am aware of that isn't top-to-bottom batshit crazy.
Ok so I read the article to which you linked and here is my take: The Cambodia government has sold rights to various companies to develop resources such as oil. Right well as far that goes every government does that. Should the government sell those rights? Well the companies have the knowledge and the equipment to perform the development and the government doesn't so it does make sense for the companies to do it not the government. Is the oil the property of the government such that they are properly the ones to do the selling of the rights? Well in a perfect world those resources belong to whoever claims them first which for all I know was the government, so maybe they should be the ones to sell them. Is that corruption? Right well supposedly the government represents the interests of all the people under their dominion, well that never happens anywhere, so when do the people get a cut? I don't know but if the people at least aren't being taxed they don't have that much to complain about. In the UK a litre of diesel costs £1.40 and about 70% is directly tax which means the about 40p goes to the petrol stations, refineries, hauliers, oil wells, prospectors and all the rest that actually go to the trouble of producing that diesel and putting it somewhere convenient for me to buy it and about £1.00 goes the the UK government for doing absolutely nothing except waving a gun around in a self-important manner. Now that is what I call corruption.