7 ms·

Stonewall Nation

58 points by samclemens 5y ago

trhway 5y ago
as an example of successful capture of governmental power by private individuals - a city which is basically a fiefdom run by one family and their friends. They had population of something like 50 people, and new people who tried to settle there were actively not welcomed (by the city police). According to wikipedia it looks like some changes were forced upon the city very recently though (if i remember in response to this city scandals CA was mulling 150 people cut-off for incorporation or something like this): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Recent_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Recent_hist... "In an effort to modernize the city and stave off the potential threat of disincorporation in the future, for the first time in the city's history Vernon has opened its doors to new residents from the general public."
- del82 5y ago
  See also Kiryas Joel, New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    I spent some time in chassidic communities in Israel a few years ago; that 13.2 median age figure is very believable.
nickdothutton 5y ago
Very interesting. Perhaps, since the US is large and population density is (compared to many countries) not so high, this model might lead to more harmonious relations between the different “warring” factions in American society. Less civil unrest, fewer marches, protests, etc. A sort of calming voluntary segregation. Given the country’s vast size compared to European nations, and individual states latitude for difference, I can’t help but think efforts to homogenise are both unnecessary and unlikely to succeed.
- nix23 5y ago
  That's exactly the point with smaller country's, where you have much more common interests/problems/culture than in big country's, and that's why i am absolutely against the EU (future united states of europe). Also if the Government is near to the people the can probe much better was has to be done (or not).
- grosswait 5y ago
  My instinct is it would go quite differently. I suspect there might be less civil unrest, but much less harmonious relations in almost any other way. Just a guess of course.
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    I would have to agree. It's a breeding ground for squabbles over resources and punitive measures against one another.
- bingohbangoh 5y ago
  It should be noted that Malcolm X thought exactly the same. His Nation of Islam's goal was to establish a separate nation for African Americans within North America. [0] (not agreeing or disagreeing with the idea btw) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam#Black_nationalism_and_separatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam#Black_national...
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  That factional territorialism can function if the features being selected on can be self-propogating within a community across generations (e.g. language, religion, culture and political philosophies) and concentrated into a specific area. For all of the upsides of the LGBT community, their defining features appear to limit fecundity, are not reliably propagated across generations, and tend to continue to crop up in society at large regardless of their concentration in a community.
  - gurumeditations 5y ago
ghastmaster 5y ago
The Free State Project has a similar plan for New Hampshire.
- plushpuffin 5y ago
  They successfully took over a New Hampshire town a few years ago. It didn't go well... The Town That Went Feral | The New Republic - https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    That story is almost completely made up (bear encounters have been getting similarly worse throughout the state, there's nothing special about that town)
FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
This is amazing, and, I assume, tongue-in-cheek: > According to gay rights activist Craig Rodwell, after the takeover of Alpine County was effected, work to take over the entire adjacent state of Nevada would begin by using the same process, only then involving tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians.
djrogers 5y ago
Odd that Wikipedia describes this as a “separatist” movement, when there was no apparent plan to separate from either the state or federal governments. Anyone able to explain that?
- vmoore 5y ago
  > a gay government, a gay civil service. It was a light hearted attempt to separate the official State from their little community. It wouldn't work in the U.S. You'd probably have to buy an island uncolonized by the British or the U.S to do that properly
subsubzero 5y ago
If you are interested in a similar plan like this that did take over a town and put in their own government, highly suggest watching "wild wild country'. Basically followers of a guru named Rajneesh move to a rural area in Oregon and bring in thousands of followers, they then elect their own mayor and sheriff, not going to say how it ends but an interesting experiment in this type of moving to establish a singular community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country
- ramesh31 5y ago
  The US has a long history of these sorts of movements. See the entire state of Utah for the most successful one.
duxup 5y ago
Outside of say a religious cult, or forced migration / war, I'm not sure this is a very viable process. I think for most people moving someplace by choice has to have more than just "hey we're going to make it about people like us".
- musingsole 5y ago
  Religious cult is really a spectrum, but that wasn't exactly the mindset of many American colonists? Some you could argue were religious cults, but I believe the majority were just wholesale communities who wanted more power for themselves than was possible in their existing communities.
  - duxup 5y ago
    >wasn't exactly the mindset of many American colonists No doubt, but they also were encountering persecution so there were a lot of motivations.
- throwaway1777 5y ago
  The sad truth is everyone wants to be around people “like us”. Sometimes realities like economic opportunity supersede but given the choice humanity is quite tribal.
chromaton 5y ago
In case anybody's interested in trying this, Loving County, Texas has an official population of 64, with 66 people (that's right) casting votes in the 2020 election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_County,_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_County,_Texas https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/loving.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/loving.shtm...
- mahogany 5y ago
  But also according to your link, it has 111 registered voters, a much higher number than the official population. What am I supposed to take away from this? That the census isn't counting people correctly, or that you can be registered to vote somewhere but not live there? Edit: according to this[1] PDF, Loving County, TX had an official population of 67 in 2000, but the voting data link in the parent comment says that 156 people voted. Hmmm. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-45.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-45.pdf
  - chromaton 5y ago
    Either the Census count is inaccurate or there's voter fraud.
    - mahogany 5y ago
      But what would be the point of committing voter fraud in a county that had 60/66 votes for Trump[1]? Seems more likely to me that the Census is incorrect or that there is something going on with multiple residences. [1] https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/ https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/
    - mcguire 5y ago
      Or some number of the residents are away at college, in the military, or otherwise have an official residence in Loving but are not living there.
    - chromaton 5y ago
dillondoyle 5y ago
I understand this desire especially today. Less driven by lack of equal rights/access to education. But more that I think we've lost a lot of community and the built in 'family' that LGBTQ people build together, often because of rejection from biological family which is becoming far less common. With the mainstreaming of gay culture we've lost gayborhoods and our spaces have been opened up. Plus with more acceptance non-queer spaces are more accommodating too. I personally think increasingly appropriated & co-opted. by straight white women in particular e.g. obnoxious bachelorette parties who treat our spaces as zoos and us as animals: honnnnney yasss queen vomiting on drag queens without tipping behavior lol. Lesbian spaces have basically disappeared even in NYC there are only a couple left.
- lostdog 5y ago
  Funny, this describes the immigrant experience pretty well too. First generations struggle to fit in and are forced to build strong communities, but after one or two generations, they are comfortable and accepted in the mainstream culture (sometimes). I had never thought of LGBT as immigrants to their own country.
  - Gortal278 5y ago
    It's maybe best thought the other way. Immigrants are minorities.
  - dillondoyle 5y ago
    Totally! I think it's more than struggle to fit in though, just like immigrants it was (is in some places) active discrimination and exclusion. It's funny the amount of people who identify as Irish or Italian that just a few generations later treat the new ostracized communities with discrimination just like their ancestors were.
- hnzix 5y ago
  I've seen a lesbian club handle this by have some nights as "lesbian only" (policed by "face control" aka the door bitch and bouncer) and other nights as mixed. It seemed to strike a good balance between mixing the tribes and creating a safe space.
self_buddliea 5y ago
At the end of the article... "It has since been suggested that the entire Stonewall Nation idea was a hoax perpetrated by the Los Angeles GLF to generate mainstream publicity." I don't see the advantage in employing this strategy, it seems risky. You could be fairly confident that you would get criticism from within the gay community about the plan, but nothing more. It would be hard to predict the level of hostile reactions from people outside the community, and how hostile the reactions could get. To take this chance over a hoax sounds implausible. Edit: I've forgotten how to format on this site, sorry.

58 points by samclemens 5y ago

as an example of successful capture of governmental power by private individuals - a city which is basically a fiefdom run by one family and their friends. They had population of something like 50 people, and new people who tried to settle there were actively not welcomed (by the city police). According to wikipedia it looks like some changes were forced upon the city very recently though (if i remember in response to this city scandals CA was mulling 150 people cut-off for incorporation or something like this): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Recent_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon,_California#Recent_hist... "In an effort to modernize the city and stave off the potential threat of disincorporation in the future, for the first time in the city's history Vernon has opened its doors to new residents from the general public."

del82 5y ago
See also Kiryas Joel, New York: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  I spent some time in chassidic communities in Israel a few years ago; that 13.2 median age figure is very believable.

nickdothutton 5y ago

Very interesting. Perhaps, since the US is large and population density is (compared to many countries) not so high, this model might lead to more harmonious relations between the different “warring” factions in American society. Less civil unrest, fewer marches, protests, etc. A sort of calming voluntary segregation. Given the country’s vast size compared to European nations, and individual states latitude for difference, I can’t help but think efforts to homogenise are both unnecessary and unlikely to succeed.

nix23 5y ago
That's exactly the point with smaller country's, where you have much more common interests/problems/culture than in big country's, and that's why i am absolutely against the EU (future united states of europe). Also if the Government is near to the people the can probe much better was has to be done (or not).
grosswait 5y ago
My instinct is it would go quite differently. I suspect there might be less civil unrest, but much less harmonious relations in almost any other way. Just a guess of course.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  I would have to agree. It's a breeding ground for squabbles over resources and punitive measures against one another.
bingohbangoh 5y ago
It should be noted that Malcolm X thought exactly the same. His Nation of Islam's goal was to establish a separate nation for African Americans within North America. [0] (not agreeing or disagreeing with the idea btw) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam#Black_nationalism_and_separatism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Islam#Black_national...
InitialLastName 5y ago
That factional territorialism can function if the features being selected on can be self-propogating within a community across generations (e.g. language, religion, culture and political philosophies) and concentrated into a specific area. For all of the upsides of the LGBT community, their defining features appear to limit fecundity, are not reliably propagated across generations, and tend to continue to crop up in society at large regardless of their concentration in a community.
- gurumeditations 5y ago

ghastmaster 5y ago

The Free State Project has a similar plan for New Hampshire.

plushpuffin 5y ago
They successfully took over a New Hampshire town a few years ago. It didn't go well... The Town That Went Feral | The New Republic - https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-int...
- mgraczyk 5y ago
  That story is almost completely made up (bear encounters have been getting similarly worse throughout the state, there's nothing special about that town)

FooBarBizBazz 5y ago

This is amazing, and, I assume, tongue-in-cheek: > According to gay rights activist Craig Rodwell, after the takeover of Alpine County was effected, work to take over the entire adjacent state of Nevada would begin by using the same process, only then involving tens of thousands of gay men and lesbians.

djrogers 5y ago

Odd that Wikipedia describes this as a “separatist” movement, when there was no apparent plan to separate from either the state or federal governments. Anyone able to explain that?

vmoore 5y ago
> a gay government, a gay civil service. It was a light hearted attempt to separate the official State from their little community. It wouldn't work in the U.S. You'd probably have to buy an island uncolonized by the British or the U.S to do that properly

subsubzero 5y ago

If you are interested in a similar plan like this that did take over a town and put in their own government, highly suggest watching "wild wild country'. Basically followers of a guru named Rajneesh move to a rural area in Oregon and bring in thousands of followers, they then elect their own mayor and sheriff, not going to say how it ends but an interesting experiment in this type of moving to establish a singular community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country

ramesh31 5y ago
The US has a long history of these sorts of movements. See the entire state of Utah for the most successful one.

duxup 5y ago

Outside of say a religious cult, or forced migration / war, I'm not sure this is a very viable process. I think for most people moving someplace by choice has to have more than just "hey we're going to make it about people like us".

musingsole 5y ago
Religious cult is really a spectrum, but that wasn't exactly the mindset of many American colonists? Some you could argue were religious cults, but I believe the majority were just wholesale communities who wanted more power for themselves than was possible in their existing communities.
- duxup 5y ago
  >wasn't exactly the mindset of many American colonists No doubt, but they also were encountering persecution so there were a lot of motivations.
throwaway1777 5y ago
The sad truth is everyone wants to be around people “like us”. Sometimes realities like economic opportunity supersede but given the choice humanity is quite tribal.

chromaton 5y ago

In case anybody's interested in trying this, Loving County, Texas has an official population of 64, with 66 people (that's right) casting votes in the 2020 election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_County,_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_County,_Texas https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/loving.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/loving.shtm...

mahogany 5y ago
But also according to your link, it has 111 registered voters, a much higher number than the official population. What am I supposed to take away from this? That the census isn't counting people correctly, or that you can be registered to vote somewhere but not live there? Edit: according to this[1] PDF, Loving County, TX had an official population of 67 in 2000, but the voting data link in the parent comment says that 156 people voted. Hmmm. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-45.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-45.pdf
- chromaton 5y ago
  Either the Census count is inaccurate or there's voter fraud.
  - mahogany 5y ago
    But what would be the point of committing voter fraud in a county that had 60/66 votes for Trump[1]? Seems more likely to me that the Census is incorrect or that there is something going on with multiple residences. [1] https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/ https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/
  - mcguire 5y ago
    Or some number of the residents are away at college, in the military, or otherwise have an official residence in Loving but are not living there.
  - chromaton 5y ago

dillondoyle 5y ago

I understand this desire especially today. Less driven by lack of equal rights/access to education. But more that I think we've lost a lot of community and the built in 'family' that LGBTQ people build together, often because of rejection from biological family which is becoming far less common. With the mainstreaming of gay culture we've lost gayborhoods and our spaces have been opened up. Plus with more acceptance non-queer spaces are more accommodating too. I personally think increasingly appropriated & co-opted. by straight white women in particular e.g. obnoxious bachelorette parties who treat our spaces as zoos and us as animals: honnnnney yasss queen vomiting on drag queens without tipping behavior lol. Lesbian spaces have basically disappeared even in NYC there are only a couple left.

lostdog 5y ago
Funny, this describes the immigrant experience pretty well too. First generations struggle to fit in and are forced to build strong communities, but after one or two generations, they are comfortable and accepted in the mainstream culture (sometimes). I had never thought of LGBT as immigrants to their own country.
- Gortal278 5y ago
  It's maybe best thought the other way. Immigrants are minorities.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  Totally! I think it's more than struggle to fit in though, just like immigrants it was (is in some places) active discrimination and exclusion. It's funny the amount of people who identify as Irish or Italian that just a few generations later treat the new ostracized communities with discrimination just like their ancestors were.
hnzix 5y ago
I've seen a lesbian club handle this by have some nights as "lesbian only" (policed by "face control" aka the door bitch and bouncer) and other nights as mixed. It seemed to strike a good balance between mixing the tribes and creating a safe space.

self_buddliea 5y ago

At the end of the article... "It has since been suggested that the entire Stonewall Nation idea was a hoax perpetrated by the Los Angeles GLF to generate mainstream publicity." I don't see the advantage in employing this strategy, it seems risky. You could be fairly confident that you would get criticism from within the gay community about the plan, but nothing more. It would be hard to predict the level of hostile reactions from people outside the community, and how hostile the reactions could get. To take this chance over a hoax sounds implausible. Edit: I've forgotten how to format on this site, sorry.