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Principality of Hutt River
- profsummergig 3y agoIt is worth remembering that every single nation on earth was created in the exact same way.
- stevage 3y agoThat's not true at all. Countries are created lots of different ways: merging other countries, splitting them, weird situations like Israel etc.
- yieldcrv 3y ago“the UN voted our existence in, so its legit!” “the UN voted about this other self governing region with overlapping boundaries as ours! since when is that a country, here’s an old map! no not that map, this one that I like! My argument also requires me to pretend that new national identities haven't come into existence over the last 75 years anywhere else either!”
- readthenotes1 3y agoNah. The British beat the ottomans fair and square* and took the land over. The they were obligated by previous agreement to form Israel. *Sure they had help
- defrost 3y agoStarted off with a four mile light horse charge with rifles slung and bayonets in hand across open ground into the machine gun nests at Beersheba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Beersheba_(1917) https://www.awmlondon.gov.au/battles/beersheba https://www.awmlondon.gov.au/battles/beersheba https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-charge-of-the-4th-light-horse-brigade-at-beersheba https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/the-charge-of-the-4th-l... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9kN6AHX37E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9kN6AHX37E
- tptacek 3y agoDeclaring the existence of a country is what you might call a necessary but not sufficient condition for statehood.
- rags2riches 3y agoMany nations are older than the idea of a nation. They were created much more gradually.
- twelvechairs 3y agoIn 2019 the claimant ('Prince' Leonard) died and less than a year later his kids sold the property (under Australian law) to divide assets and pay unpaid Australian taxes. So it has ceased to exist as a claimed sovereign state
- cranberryturkey 3y agoi'll redo your site for cheap lol
- vallassy 3y agoI cannot believe this showed up on HN front page. I was thinking about anarchy and secession on the way home, and remembered Hutt River, then bam, there it was. Hutt River has been a media curiosity for decades in Australia, Prince Leonard would get trotted out every couple of years on a slow news week. Sad to learn of his passing.
- tobinfricke 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River
- kstrauser 3y ago“Preceded by: Australia Succeeded by: Australia Today part of: Australia” Someone had fun writing that.
- neom 3y agoHaven't seen 1024 x 768 in a hot minute. nostalgia sigh
- max_ 3y agoI want to start my own micronation the size of Singapore (around 700 sq. Km). What should I look out for? Any great resources to learn about? Best/Easiest way to make this feasible?
- jenadine 3y agoI want to start my own macronation the size of the whole planet. What should I look out for?
- gnopgnip 3y agoWhat is the difference between a micronation and a ship in international waters with no flag?
- petesergeant 3y agoBrother, you will not believe your luck, there is still unclaimed land! It's a little warm in the summer though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil
- Nursie 3y ago1. Raise an army. 2. Take the land from its existing inhabitants. 3. Attempt to paint this action in the light of sovereignty rather than terrorism or just plain banditry. 4. Defend the land against the existing nation state(s) wishing to reclaim it. 5. Attempt to get recognition from other nations. Prepare for steps 4 and 5 to take decades.
- nirimda 3y agoNot just the existing nation states who want to reclaim the land, but also anyone else. Maybe Russia will recognise you for free, but no one else will. They will want something out of it. And they will have to believe it is cheaper to get it by recognising you than by defeating you. For instance, going back to the "about the size of Singapore" example, OP might try to find a nice perch next to some critical strait, and sink any vessel that passes through which is registered in a country that doesn't recognise them. But if OP gets too good at this, then the US Navy will be upset and start shooting their weaponry at OP. If OP manages to sink a few of USN's vessels, it's possible USN will say "well we will stop shooting you if you let through our vessels", but I wouldn't hold my breath. It's probably just cheaper and easier to marry into a royal family from some small country that whose royals still have a political power, like Brunei or Liechtenstein, then secretly start a secret murdering spree until your newborn is the only royal left and they offer to make you regent, then launch a self-coup against your own six month old.
- dang 3y agoRelated: Principality of Hutt River - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38691016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38691016 - Dec 2023 (1 comment) Principality of Hutt River - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7986300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7986300 - July 2014 (1 comment) Principality of Hutt River - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5858756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5858756 - June 2013 (10 comments)
- xenophonf 3y agoOh, I see. The guy was a tax cheat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Hutt_River
- jalapenos 3y agoIf you want to really make your head hurt, read their article on their legal basis for formation: https://www.principality-hutt-river.com/PHR_The_Formation_of_the%20Principality_of_Hutt_River.htm https://www.principality-hutt-river.com/PHR_The_Formation_of... Makes the "sovereign citizens" look well-adjusted.
- khazhoux 3y agoAm I being detained?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dugite-code 3y agoApparently their arguments against the Tax office was similarly nonsense. Although it seams the Tax Office didn't bother too much until recently when the bill got big enough to go to court over https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/hutt-river-province-decision-on-ato-fight/8624450 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-16/hutt-river-province-d... My understanding is the local council gave them a bit of cover because it became a bit of a tourist destination in an area the wasn't seeing much activity.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoYep. Legal standing aside, they were always in great voluntary receipt of taxpayer services that were provided because various levels of government either didn’t care enough or saw the tourist / cultural value. By the time Prince Leonard died, Hutt River had well and truly established itself as a piece of Australiana.
- altacc 3y agoThese people are casting spells. As they don't understand legal text (most people don't) they cargo cult the language and make up something that sounds equivalent and then utter it as a magical incantation believing that make their wants a reality.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoThere is a really easy way to test if an entity that claims to be an independent state/principality is real or not: Are they allowed to kill people to enforce compliance? One of the biggest functions of the state is to try to have a monopoly on violence and to use up to lethal force to enforce its will within its borders (or if are the US, even outside its borders). If they can do that they are a state. If not, they are a pretender
- readthenotes1 3y agoAllowed by whom?
- nirimda 3y agoIsn't that just the same question? The answer is "by the sovereign". If there was a conflict over the right to confine an agent of an Australian government, then whoever wins it is, to some degree or another, the sovereign of that land.
- shrx 3y agoMany countries have completely abolished the death penalty.
- nirimda 3y agoIf you and your friends declare that you are independent of the country you're actually in and stop paying your taxes, then at some point it's reasonably likely that that country would send an agent to your property and talk to you about your tax bill. So you say "You have breached the Foreign Acts Act 2024 of the Principality of Shrx" and arrest them and you confine them pending a trial (the Foreign Acts Act provides for three years' jail, but doesn't allow the death penalty). The agent's boss realises they never returned and identifies their last known position as your property and you say "this is my country and he has been arrested pending trial for breach of our law". They contact the police and attempt to use violent force to free their agent. You shoot back. Your best friend is shot beside you, and you shoot one of their police. They retreat and wait for more firepower and eventually defeat you. You declare that the police officer who killed your friend is guilty of murder under the Crimes Against the Person Act 2024, whereas they declare that you are guilty of murder and treason under the National Criminal Code. Your body is physically confined to a certain place, decided on by a government, for 23 years until finally you die of cancer, whereas the police officer who killed your friend suffers no unreasonable limitations on his freedom; like the other police officers who did that job, he receives a medal for bravery, and he keeps working as a police officer for another two years until his wife convinces him it's too dangerous now they have a kid, so he joins his dad's lumber business. He does suffer from stress as a consequence of the murder, but the police force pay for twenty-four hours of psychological counselling a year (over and above the 12 hours he gets from the national health insurance system) which helps even if it doesn't completely match the costs during the worst times. It's clear that the abolition of the death penalty isn't actually all that relevant to this scenario. We can still judge whether or not shrx was the sovereign of his territory or not.
- rdl 3y agoWhen I was living in Sealand >20 years ago (another micronation project), was fun tracking the other projects -- this one was one of the most successful. Liberland and a few maritime efforts were as well. Surprisingly few attempts, really. The new "network state" theories are a lot more interesting overall, though -- creating new groups of people FIRST, then building out progressively more solid physical infrastructure (potentially in different places), then networking them.
- maxbond 3y agoHow was living in Sealand? From what I've read it sounds rough.
- rdl 3y agoI think I did some talks about it ~15 years ago which are probably online. A quick search brings up some stuff but I don't remember which were about Sealand which were about the business. Overall, not horrible; water for showering was limited (rain and a watermaker which often clogged), food/cooking were intermittent (we got grocery deliveries from Tesco to a nearby dock and brought them out every 1-2 weeks) I've discovered I can tolerate almost any local conditions (tiny dorm room, Sealand, sleeping in a car, trailer in Iraq, tent in Afghanistan, random tiny apartment, hotel, airport lounge, 5 star hotel suite, villa, etc. are all not that different) as long as I have Internet. I'm currently looking at getting a (50-80', solar, nice) sailing catamaran in a few years and doing RTW trips on it.
- 0xEF 3y agoI've also found that I can tolerate a variety of lodging conditions and harsh environments, especially cramped ones, so long as I have Internet. I wonder, what psychological mechanism is at play here that allows us to trade comfort for connectivity?
- rdl 3y agoHuge life hack for early career if you are living condition and location independent is to work at direction of employer in some location they pay for; saves a lot of money. Might be a compound in Saudi Arabia with a villa and driver, might be a corp apartment in Mexico City, etc.
- petesergeant 3y agoI think my favourite thing about this is the _depth_ of content... Homepage > Defence Forces > Military College > School of Artillery > After Action Reports
- imarkphillips 3y agoAm so pleased to have visited the Principality and spent some time with Prince Leonard. Now the land is sold I wonder what happens with their UN country status.
- Nursie 3y agoWhat UN country status? Did Prince Leonard spin you a yarn? I never quite got there, which is a shame. Though looking a the map I drove past quite a few times.
- pjd7 3y agoCan't wait for Elon to declare himself sovereign of Mars.
- eterevsky 3y agoWhy does this website look like it was made in 1999?
- Aeolun 3y agoI always feel some sense of loss reading about these things. I recognize that these things rarely if ever succeed their creators, but I still feel like another piece of joy was taken out of the world.
- leashless 3y agoI've written a little about "weasels" (Weakly State Like Entities) -- think Disneyland and Burning Man. I think the world is already full of things which do most of what micronations or network states aspire to. Activists who want to build something in this domain should be looking at buying a casino complex near an airport and redoing the decor and values more than buying land. It's all about licensing and social norms in the end.
- Y_Y 3y agoThat sounds like something that would be of general interest, but I couldn't find it in your Medium. Could you give a link?
- bmmayer1 3y agoThe right billionaire / fringe group / clandestine evil organization could do something interesting with Bir Tiwal, the largest expanse of unclaimed land in the world.[0] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil
- oh_sigh 3y agoCould do something interesting, until Sudan or Egypt decide to kick everyone out (even if no one lays claim to it, they could still operate there under the guise of national security).
- teddyh 3y agoOr this: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38084734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38084734>
- jcranmer 3y agoIn the interests of being pedantic, the slice of Antarctica that no one has any claims in is the largest expanse of unclaimed land on Earth, and it has the advantage of being actually unclaimed. Bir Tawil and the Danube pockets are claimed, it's just that the border disputes mean that both parties argue it's the other side's claim; should the border dispute get resolved, there will be a clear owner of the land.
- greenie_beans 3y agothis is where the network state bros should go. far away from america.
- randombits0 3y agoThey sold stuff like coins/stamps. I have some silver coins.
- adammarples 3y agoI posted a letter in their post office, prince leanord acting as postmaster. It never arrived.