Hello from Galt's Gulch Chile,
I apologize for missing last week's Weekend Vigilante but after having been on four continents in less than two weeks I just couldn't muster the energy.
I'm currently in Chile attending Galt's Gulch Chile's spring (it's spring here south of the equator, weird huh) event! There are a lot of fabulous freedom people here including Tatiana Moroz, Bob Murphy, Luke Rudkowski, Ben Swann and many more. I'll write more on that next weekend as a glass of world class chardonnay from this region (the Casablanca region which is right where Galt's Gulch is located) is calling my name. But you can see some of what is going on down here in this excellent video with song, produced by Tatiana Moroz (a.k.a. "Ron Paul Girl" during the last rigged election). The best part is the bloopers at the end, well worth the 3-minute watch!
I'll have plenty to update you on next weekend as I'll be here all week.
So, in the meantime, let's talk about my most recent trip to the fasco-communist police state of America and, antithetically, my hope for the world.
RETURN TO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
As you may last recall, two weeks ago, I was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and was incredibly excited about the freedom and growth in that region. In fact, this week I wrote to TDV subscribers about all the plethora of business and investment opportunities there, including how to earn 36-120% interest by lending money in that country. I also wrote about how I have identified regions where I expect real estate prices to rise, at minimum, 150% in the next few years… and it perhaps being the location of the next "Galt's Gulch". If you haven't already subscribed, you can learn more about subscribing and getting all the details on these profitable moves here.
I was in a great mood. Drinks cost $1, cigarettes cost $1.50/pack, everything is open 24/7 and the entire time I was in Cambodia I didn't see one policeman nor a police car! It was a beautiful place for an anarcho-capitalist to be. Then, after a brief stopover in Hong Kong to meet with our new representative for TDV Passports in China it was time to prepare myself for my brief trip back to the fascistic USSA starting with the dreaded United Airlines.
I fly nearly constantly and so I have seen United Airline's smirking CEO, Jeffrey Smisek (even his name rubs me the wrong way) on the inflight passenger safety announcement a thousand times. This parody video exactly parrots in the subtitles what I hear when Smisek talks.
To be fair to Smisek, the reason United sucks so much isn't all completely his fault. He has to run an airline based out of the US, so the business has to adhere to thousands of regulations, deal with countless fascist-powered unions and be profitable in an economy that is shrinking while getting paid in dollars that are worth less every day. But, watching him say in the pre-flight announcement how United is working hard to provide the best service on the best planes while sitting on a forty-year-old plane for 13 hours without even 90's level comforts is grinding on one's soul. Especially while the unionized, angry flight attendants who appear to be just waiting out their days to their pension actually appear to try to make you have just as bad a day as they are.
I would have known I was back in the USSA immediately upon arrival even if I'd been drugged and blindfolded upon touchdown. Once they announced that we were allowed by the government to use our cell phones again I could hear an inordinate amount of beeps and notifications going off. Within minutes at least three people within hearing distance to me were on their phones. One man exclaimed, "Gloria, I just received an email saying that my health insurance has been cancelled!"
He paused to hear what Gloria had to say and then said, "You've got to be kidding me! They surely can't just cancel my health insurance for no reason?"
The other two I overheard were having the same conversation. I guess on the 13 hours between Hong Kong and San Francisco at least three people on my flight were notified that do to the new, fascistic, (Un)Affordable Healthcare Act, they no longer had health insurance… and weren't too happy about it.
Another woman was saying, "How much? That's four times more than what I was paying!"
"Poor slaves," I whispered to myself, put on my headphones, turned on my music, closed my eyes and just told myself, "Just a few days… I'm only here a few days… just relax."
The airport bar eased my pain even as I had to endure CNN blaring at me about the latest scandal of the week in the US: Obamacare.
SPOKOMPTON
Soon, though, I arrived in Spokane, Washington for the Silver Summit conference. I always enjoy the Silver Summit because almost the entire crowd is libertarian and individualistic… and full of characters.
I walked out of the airport, quite tired from my long trip from Hong Kong and was happy to see taxis everywhere. All I could think of was getting to my hotel room and getting some sleep. The Spokane airport is small so I had been worried there might not be any taxis waiting. But there were white-colored taxis everywhere, much to my happiness. There was one on almost every corner and intersection and numerous others along the sidewalk in front of the airport. Having been on a long trip and having already been told by United that they would put me on some sort of watch list if they caught me smoking in the bathroom again, I hadn't had a cigarette in a long time so I happily lit one up as I walked towards the taxi queue.
Less than five seconds later, however, one of the taxis screeched out from one of the intersections and put on his siren. I squinted, dazed from nearly 24 hours of travel and realized that all the white cars weren't taxis. They were all cop cars!
A plump man in his forties egressed not-so-smoothly from his car and waddle-ran around the car, waving his hands in the air, "no smoking! no smoking!" he shouted at me.
I stopped, cigarette in hand, and took a long look all around me, including the sky above.
"Why?" I asked, confused.
"No smoking at the airport!" he said.
"But I'm not in the airport," I responded, "and I'm outside… as in, outdoors."
"Do you want to escalate this?" he threatened.
"Nope," I said, dropping the cigarette. I've had enough time in handcuffs so I acquiesced.
He glared at me and went to grab for his ticketbook when I put my hands out to the side and gave him a look of, "really?"
He must have sensed that I was not going to be an easy target and he made a huffing sound, gave me a stern look, and then waved me along.
I waited for about five or ten minutes, still shocked at the amount of police cars there when finally a mini-van drove up. The driver is quite typical of that region… a small town country boy who was very nice to me and waved me aboard and began making small talk the way many in that region do.
I didn't mind too much. I was tired but he seemed like such a genuinely nice guy that I made small talk back. We had plenty of time too because he couldn't have been driving more than 5 miles per hour. I was a bit confused as to why he was driving so slow and then he just seemed to stop in the middle of nowhere, still at the airport.
He continued to make chit chat, "Nice weather today. Real nice. Yesterday was a bit too chilly for my likin'".
But I finally had to cut him off, "I'm sorry, but why are we stopped here?" I asked.
He gave me a shy look. "Well, I'm sorry mister, I really am," he said. "But if I don't stop for that woman on the crosswalk, I'll get a ticket and I just can't afford it.
I looked both ways, "What woman?"
He pointed about 20 feet back on the sidewalk to a woman who was walking with her luggage, still a good 15 seconds from even being close to the crosswalk.
"How do you know she is even going to cross?" I asked, perplexed.
"Oh, well," he said, "out here at the airport you got to be careful. Real careful. If I don't stop and she wants to cross, I'll be in a heap of trouble," he said, doe-eyed.
By now I was less unhappy about the situation than curious. I wanted to see if this woman crossed the street!
Finally she made it to the crosswalk, looked both ways for a few seconds and then dawdled across to the other side.
She made it to the other side and we were still sitting there stopped. I looked back to see if perhaps another person was within whatever arbitrary zone within which we must stop and there wasn't.
I waited another second. The driver could sense my confusion.
"Just another few seconds," he said, "Just got to make sure she is clearly out of the crosswalk zone and then we'll be on our way mister."
My eyes crossed a little bit as I slumped back into the seat, reminiscing about the freedom I had just left in Asia to come to this bizarro East Germany like place.
I took a deep breath and thought to myself, "Dorothy, we ain't in Cambodia anymore!"
After hearing about all sorts of inane, unimportant things and driving exactly the speed limit to the hotel we finally reached our destination and I got out in the driveway of the hotel and reached for a now much needed cigarette.
"Sir!" came a call.
I didn't even look up for a few seconds hoping it was all just a bad dream.
One of the hotel concierges had come running over, "No smoking in the hotel," he said.
I looked up at the sky, yet again, "But, we aren't in the hotel," I replied.
"Not on the property sir," he responded… albeit in a much kinder way than the stormtrooper at the airport.
Defeated I walked out on the sidewalk and gave a look back to make sure I was off the property.
The concierge gave the thumbs up.
I lit up and took a long, deep breath when I ran into some TDVers. We exchanged greetings when we heard a bunch of sirens. A car pulled over close to us with three squad cars behind it and it was all very tense.
The man, a dark-skinned person in his 30s was eventually taken out of the car, handcuffed and quite roughly put to sit on the sidewalk.
Both myself and the other TDVers all instinctively knew what to do and we all took our camera phones out and began recording. One of the cops who appeared to miss no gym time in the last decade spotted us and came over gruffly.
"What are you guys doing?" he demanded.
"Just recording this event for everyone's safety," my friend said.
"Well, you are obstructing an arrest," he returned.
I asked him how that is possible since we were just standing there twenty feet away. He told us we had to move at least another 15 feet away and we did.
I then asked, "What did he do?"
The cop looked at me angrily as though it was none of my business and said, "Suspicion of drunk driving."
I looked at the man sitting on the sidewalk who looked completely sober and he looked back at me with sad eyes.
"Poor slaves," I said again to myself.
They hauled him off and one of the TDVers said to me, "Welcome to Spokompton!"
Welcome indeed.
THE ESCAPE
I made it through the next few days without getting arrested and spent a few glorious days in Acapulco. There are lots of police in Acapulco, almost all funded by the US government and their eternal "war on people" (drugs) but they don't bother anybody. They just stand around and eat tacos for the most part. It is always such a nice refuge to get here after being in the land of the free.
I should note that numerous TDVers have been buying condos in a building we have there (see AcaCondos – $70,000 for a fully, newly furnished studio condo on the beach) recently so this winter should see some fun times ahead amongst like-minded people. Even if you don't want a condo, we also rent the condos out when the owners are not there so if you'd like to escape the USSA for a few days you can also stay there (LTGPS.com) and have some fun in a place where the bars never close, you can smoke anywhere you want and life is free and easy.
Or come on down to Chile. There are already dozens of TDVers who have moved to the region around Galt's Gulch and dozens more who have purchased lots and plan to build here.
Either place is wonderful. Stay tuned to the blog here or on my personal Facebook page to always find out where I am and what I am doing. Some people say I am crazy for talking about what I talk about and publicly telling the world where I am at any given time… they say that I shouldn't because the US government can find me too easily. I tell them, with the NSA, they already know exactly where I am at any time anyway… so what's the harm.
And with that, where's that chardonnay?
