The PT Life

This piece over at LRC is making the rounds. So far I have seen it at Claire Wolfe's and at The Picket Line. Plus a couple of people have emailed me the link asking my opinion.

It is mostly an OK piece, but for the most part it treats Latin America as a monolith, which it is not, and it neglects to mention several "Elephants in the room".

As I have noted before Costa Rica is not a Libertarian paradise. Despite that I felt it was pretty good place for those who want a great deal of effective freedom. I am no longer sure about this position.

I recently saw this video interview of Bill Maher by Olbermann where Maher explains why he is criticizing Obama. Basically it is because Obama is not socialist enough. Specifically he criticized Obama's statement that he was not out to install a government health care system. Maher said "... why not, maybe our health care situation in this country would be as good as Costa Rica's or Morocco's" (at about 4:00 into the video).

It does seem to be a popular question these days, no doubt encouraged by Wendy McElroy’s essay Leave the Police State That Is America, which has been followed up with an excellent series of So ... You Are Staying in the States posts. Part V is the most recent installment, and includes links to its predecessors.

She offers good information, but I’d like to back up and consider Wendy’s advice to leave the USSA. As one who has done so, and returned (after much deep thought regarding that choice), I offer some of my perspective, based on our experiences.

These days it seems that almost everyone (yes I'm exaggerating) is talking about one type of "collapse" or another. We have Wendy talking about the collapse of the US$, Igor Panarin predicting the break-up of the U.S.A., Kunstler, John Michael Greer and others talking about Peak Oil and Man Made Climate Change. If you read The Daily Reckoning then you have been exposed to the view that the world economy is doomed. We have great choice in collapses. Which will happen? How to deal with them all?

First of all, what constitutes a collapse? I suspect from a personal POV it is going to be similar to the difference between recession (when your neighbor loses his job) and depression (when you lose yours). I think some hard times are coming, but I do not think that there will be a collapse. What follows are several different disaster/collapse scenarios, and how we would deal with them.

I don't have kids. But for those who do, I want to make sure you are aware of a resource that, to me, appears superb. There's a guy named Arthur Robinson, a scientist who long ago worked hand in hand with Linus Pauling, who was forced to figure out what to do with his children when his wife died leaving him with the brood. The Robinson Curriculum is what resulted. I highly recommend giving it a look. He has produced at least one impressive scientist son using this program and I expect the others will excell as well.

- NonE

That’s what ABC News is reporting, in O, Canada! More Americans Heading North; the subheading states that the number of Americans moving to Canada hit a 30-year high last year. And—absolutely no offense intended to any Canadians in the audience—I’m wondering why.

It has been eight months since I last posted. Shortly after disconnecting the TV back in April, I stopped reading the news. It had gotten to a point that I would read about something evil or stupid (or both) that some government official did and start ranting. It was not good for my health.

Instead I have focused on my life. Trying to be a good father, working on a few projects, tending to my property and reading a few books. All in all life at a slow, relaxed pace. Which is wonderful. Not that everything has been perfect, being the parent of a teenager is never easy and retaining patience can be quite a challenge at times. However, we seem to be doing a lot better than most people we know with teenage children and it is certainly much better than it would have been if I was still ranting about the idiots with power who are trying to screw everyone.

Of course the world has not stopped just because I crawled into a shell. The horrors of the US government continue, and continue to get worse. The recent election will change exactly nothing, in fact may make things a lot worse in two or so years when the Democrats take the Presidency and retain their majority in both houses. The current gridlock might (but only might) make things a little less bad for the next two years, but after that things will probably get worse a lot faster.

During the 90s Clinton was unable to violate rights at the rate he wanted to simply because the Republicans refused to co-operate. Not out of any principle, just out of spite. Despite this Clinton managed to put the final nails into the Fourth Amendment and violate a score of other rights. He would have been a lot worse with the Democratic party controlling the Congress.

The new Congress with not cut funding for the war in Iraq, nor will they repeal the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, and many other laws which grossly violate rights. The best we can hope for is that they don't cooperate with Bush because they hate him. But come a Democrat in the White House, watch out. They will rape the people just as fast, if not faster, than the Republicans.

In my view it is way past time to leave the US. Of course this is easy for me to say since I left almost 18 years ago. I realize that it is much more difficult for others, especially those with families and "real" jobs. To my mind the US is moving in the wrong direction at a frightening pace. The risk of having your door kicked in as part of the "war on drugs" is very real. The risk of dieing in such a raid is real as well, so is the risk of being framed. And this is only one aspect. No place is perfect and as I have said many times before we all need to choose which aspects of freedom are more important to us, but at this point I'm sure that for just about everyone who values Liberty, there has to be a place which is better than the US.

In any event it has little to do with me. I cannot control, let alone stop, those power hungry maniacs. What I can do is live my own life, avoiding the state as much as possible. Of course I need to keep my eyes open and pay attention to actions which might affect me, my family and my friends. As I live in Costa Rica the antics of the Costa Rican government are especially important. So far, despite continuing noise on taxes not much has changed here. This is good.

Of course US government actions are important also, especially those which cause the value of the US dollar to drop. As our savings, investments and income are largely in US dollars, this is a serious concern.

The dollar seems to be going straight down the tubes. Jomama has posted a chart at the top of his blog. The Mogambo Guru is ranting stronger than ever. This comes on top of the announcements by the Chinese and the fact that the dollar is now 1.32 to the Euro.

To protect ourselves we are moving into gold and silver. We still hold some stocks, those which we think will appreciate faster than the dollar will decline and some which we think might benefit from the dollar's decline, but mostly, now is a time for hard assets, not speculation.

I hope that what we are doing is enough to ride out the coming storm. In fact I hope that I am wrong about the storm. But I don't think so. It is a great pity that the actions of a few crazed lunatics with power, who reside thousands of kilometers away from me, could potentially screw up my life. In fact it is a pity that they have power, and that people let them have power. But that is the way it is. That is what we all must deal with.

As troubling as the dollar's demise and potential new taxes in Costa Rica might be, we don't let it overwhelm us. This is a small part of our lives. Much bigger is caring for our property and animals and watching our daughters turn into women. The joy of watching them make their own decisions and seeing them deal with the world with confidence far out weighs the frustration of dealing with a teenager.

It is clear that we will not change the world. Living this way will not convince others to throw off the yoke of the state. I do not feel completely comfortable about this, however it is clear that my previous actions and my previous outrages over abuses changed exactly nothing as well. Plus they expended a lot of time, energy and money. Better to use those limited resources in other, more productive, ways.

For me, this way is better. Many would view our lives as extremely boring. Many will consider that I gave up the good fight. To each their own. We find life in the slow lane to be very good.

But it is still independent from the USSA, which is worth something.

In this post Sunni refers to an article which talks about a contract received by a law firm to oversee the US government's asset-seizure efforts in Costa Rica. She comments that "It's also a safe bet that the C.R. govthugs are getting a generous slice of the pie too, to ensure continued docility."

Fortunately, that is not the case. I did a little digging. The US gov has contracted BLP-Abogados to represent them in Costa Rican courts for asset-seizure cases. If the US gov prevails, (in other words, convinces a CR court that the property in question should belong to the US gov) then BLP-Abogados will manage the property on behalf of the US gov.

The person I spoke to (a lawyer) says that the only way the US gov can prevail in such cases is if the property in question belongs to a person convicted of something that is also a crime in CR, and a US court has ordered the specific property seized.

It is not good that the USSA is contracting foreign law firms to attempt property seizures in other countries, but thankfully it has nothing to do with the CR government and they have to go through the slow CR legal process to accomplish it.

In other CR news, the Movimiento Libertario is "considering" accepting government funds for its political campaign. I predicted this here. Of course, they are only "considering" it right now. They need to change the party bylaws to be able to do this, but according to the article in La Nación (registration may be required, in Spanish), they plan to hold another assembly in September to do just that.

Finally, last week a friend of mine came from the states, so we went to the beach. For those who are interested, we stayed at Casa Camarona, which I highly recommend. Right on the beach with a truly excellent restaurant along with a competent, friendly and helpful staff. However, my car had a problem, so I had it brought back to San Jose on a flat bed truck (this did not interfere with the vacation). I went with the car. On the way back we ran into one police check point and were stopped by the police twice on the road. The check point is apparently a permanent feature of the main highway. The cops are looking for illegal migrants, drugs, smuggled goods (from Panama), etc. I asked the driver the obvious question, "don't the smugglers just use another route?", he said, "Yes, there are many other routes, but this is easy so the cops hang out here." On being stopped he said it was routine. They stop him, and other independent drivers, to check brake lights, turn signals, hassle drivers about the weight they are carrying, etc. Basically looking for bribes. He just accepted it as normal. No point in getting angry since it wasn't going to change anyway.

Note that the cops have never bothered me, but I do not engage in "public" type activities. If I started a tow-truck business, you can bet that I would suffer the same fate. Costa Rica is good to live quietly, but not a good place if you need to earn a living from the local economy. I know that there are those who have businesses here, and many will disagree with my assessment, but for me, doing business here, at least in any public way, is not worth the hassle. It is a great place to live quietly and inexpensively.

Just yesterday morning, my sweetie and I were discussing tactics and prospects for advancing liberty. His view, as I understand it, is that a voluntaryist community can't happen here -- not in the current social tides, at least: nation-states have claimed dominion over all the land where such an endeavor can focus on that primary goal. I'd counterclaimed that there's reason to be hopeful about educating more individuals successfully, and that achieving that could make enclaves possible in some parts of the world that are more disposed to laissez faire. But after reading two news stories pointed out to me by another friend (who didn't give permission to be credited), I may have to concede that my sweetie's right.

First, Costa Rican Law Firm Gets Half-Million for U.S. Asset Seizure Cases, from August 15. First and last paragraphs:

The U.S. Marshals Service this week cemented a deal to have a Santa Ana, Costa Rica-based law firm oversee its asset-seizure efforts in that nation. BLP-Abogados, located in the Forum Business Park, will get nearly a half-million dollars over the next year to perfom those services. BLP is the acronym for "Business Law Partners." ....

BLP staffers include Georgetwon University Law School graduate Luis Manuel Castro, former Washington, D.C.-based attorney Neftali Garro, Harvard Law School-trained attorney Vivian Liberman, and former justice of the Costa Rican Supreme Court of Justice Hugo Picado.

Costa Rica has long been one of the places held as a good alternative to Amerika, but this development seems to squash that hope. What the fucking fuck are U.S. Marshals doing seizing property in another country -- and at such a rate that they need to buy a law office to oversee their thievery? It's also a safe bet that the C.R. govthugs are getting a generous slice of the pie too, to ensure continued docility.

And as if that weren't bad enough, the next day saw this posted at the same site: Central American Rulers Push for U.S.-supported Militarized Police. The basics:

In the aftermath of CAFTA, the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua have proposed creating a regional rapid-response police force with military-assault capabilities-- if, that is, the United States government will provide resources for it.

This may be a statement from Central American governments to the United States government: you want us to join you in CAFTA, so give us the money, guns, and military training to control our people.

The irony's thick and layered throughout all this. But it appears clear that, for now at least, the USSA's mission is one of conquest, and no place is safe from its tentacles.

Jorge, do you know anything about this? Got any thoughts in response?

Trying to get Sunni's Salon back on schedule, so not much time for chat this morning ... a few quick (and nonmedical!) observations instead.

Got this month's interview nailed down -- just need to htmlize it. It's a fun one, with a very dear friend ... and Kirsten, when you're back from your vacation, maybe you'll want to consider the new business venture we identify. Or maybe not.

I've finally offloaded the pictures I took on our recent adventure to Colorado, and chose a few to bore y'all with. That won't happen until the Salon is done, though, so you've time to prepare for the dreaded onslaught of vacation snaps.

Saw a decent, brief consideration of going expat in Mexico by Fred Reed. Good info there, as far as it goes; and he's right, Mexico has a lot more de facto freedom than the USSA. (For more information, see the PT section at Doing Freedom! [not currently online].) If you aren't interested in doing the permission-slip-as-leash routine Reed describes, there are ways of disappearing far enough to accomplish that ... but it takes considerably more planning, of course. Desert, city, tropical mountain rain forest, rural ranch ... all those options and others are available in Mexico. Fred's suggestion of going down for a week is an excellent way to test the waters, provided one actually does some scouting instead of touristy stuff. Worth considering, along with Costa Rica, for those considering a "get out of Dodge" strategy ...

Every time I think about it, I am more and more convinced that leaving the US was the correct decision. Sunni's last three posts are indicative of the direction the country is moving in. Add to that the fact that the US imprisons a larger percentage of its population than any other county in the world (see Prison Brief for United States of America), and many other gross violations of rights that occur on a daily basis.

However, sometimes it is the little things, those that have a direct impact on one's day to day life, that add to my conviction.

There is currently a bill pending in Congress, the "Pet Animal Welfare Statute" of 2005 (PAWS), which would, among other things, define anyone who sells more than US$ 500 per year worth of animals, living or dead, as a commercial operation making them subject to a whole bunch of fedgov regulations. In the case of dead animals, directly subject to the USDA. This come to a bit less than US$ 10/week. In other words, if we lived in the US and the bill becomes law, my children's chicken and rabbit business would have to be regulated by the USDA. Of course, the fellow who we financed so he could start a pig business would also be subject to the USDA. This bill will put several people out of business in the US. Small rabbit and rodent breeders, dog and cat breeders, etc.

Another example presented itself when we were watching Elton Brown on the Food Network. The topic was cheese. He stated that the reason the Europeans produce better soft cheeses such as Brie and Camembert, is that they use fresh, whole milk, which is illegal in the US. Apparently, in the US, if the milk is fresh it must be pasteurized, which kills a good deal of the flavor. No wonder US dairy farmers can't compete in this market. No wonder we have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a European product. There is no reason that people in the US could not make an equivalent, or superior, product (witness wine). No reason except for law.

They can't seem to leave people alone. Be it for health care, food, security, you name it. The fedgoons feel it is their business. They feel compelled to mess up everyone's life in every way imaginable.

I am glad I do not have to deal with this.

The law requires that you carry ID on your person in all public places. A public place is defined pretty much the same as in the US.

There are three types of acceptable ID. The national ID for citizens, the various type of ID issued to legal residents, or a passport issued by a foreign government. A notarized photo copy of the front page and the page with the entry stamp is acceptable in place of a passport.

The IDs for foreign residents come in many different types, depending on the type of residency. The number formats and length are different for each type. Also, unlike national ID for citizens, this information is not online anywhere. If you need to put an ID number on a form, and they are not going to look at it, just about any thing will do.

US citizens are allowed to stay three months as tourists, which can be renewed, once. Many PTs simply leave the country for 72 hours every three months. There are also people who will take passports and stamp them to show that you have been out of the country for three days. There are many who just overstay, when they leave the county they pay a small fine.

Overstaying can be a problem, because every once in a while, they will decide to ban someone from returning. This happens very rarely, and there is usually some other reason as well, but it is a possibility.

A potential problem with the PT approach is driving. A non-Costa Rican drivers license is only good if the person's tourist visa is valid. If you show a traffic cop your US license, they will want to see a passport.

You can get a drivers license without being a resident. This is the best approach. If you have a CR license and the traffic police stop you, they will not ask to see any other documentation. A driver's license in CR is exactly that. It has a name, picture, issue date and expiry date. That is all. It is not an identity document. It says nothing about your status in the country.

If you bring a car you have six months to nationalize it (pay taxes). After that it must be removed from the country for at least three months. The folks who offer passport stamping services also deal with this. But you could face a problem. A Canadian couple I know did exactly that for a few years. After a while the traffic cops took to routinely stopping them. They figured that they paid less in bribes than they would have if they nationalized the car, so for them it was worth it. For me, I'd rather avoid police attention.

My view is that it is best to buy a car here and avoid all the hassles. Vehicles are more expensive here due to taxes. However, there are good deals to be had. This is a topic for another post.

Absent a libertarian society, we each need to find a place that gives us the maximum amount of freedom, in the areas we consider important. This is a very personal decision.

I'm pleased to announce a new Conspirator has joined us! Jorge is an American currently living in Costa Rica, and is involved with the Movimiento Libertario there. He's told me some interesting things about that group in private email, but rather than spill all that myself I'm hoping he'll provide some background into it, plus its current doings. Lest anyone suspect that I'm starting to go leashitarian here, I can assure you I'm not ... and Jorge doesn't seem to be of that stripe either. That said, the M.L. does seem to be having some success in reaching the Costa Rican citizens with its message, and as such it bears watching. As Costa Rica is widely considered to be a good expat location for Americans, it'll be interesting to get an insider's look into the political and personal situation there with respect to liberty, and anything else he'd like to talk about here.

Welcome, Jorge!