Maybe "government" as we know it today is a just a "fashionable solution" - to riff on pg's earlier essay.
Not really. There is this one interesting thing called the US Military. If necessary, anyone deemed enough of a threat can either be droned, or black-bagged by Seal Team 6.
Aside from taxes, most other laws exist to prevent one harming another. If someone goes to an island in the ocean, why ought we to care what he does there? To put it differently: many cities have regulations against shooting off fireworks due to safety concerns. Few rural counties do, because while people can still harm themselves, there aren't too many others nearby to injure.
Many rural counties have them as well. In fact entire states have rules against fireworks.
Outside of places where wildfires are likely, firework ordinances are often there to prevent the people who are shooting the fireworks from hurting themselves.
>If someone goes to an island in the ocean, why ought we to care what he does there?
In an extreme case lets say a billionaire starts his own island nation, convinces people to move there to work for him, and eventually enslaves his workers and their children. This isn't an unlikely scenario--look at guest workers from SE Asia in the Middle East. What starts off as voluntary can quickly become involuntary.
We have enough powerful people in the world with no checks on their authority. We don't need to create more.
From a more practical concern, what's the upside to existing countries? The new island nation will only admit productive people, and will likely try to ship unproductive people back to their country of origin.
In any case, that's yet another reason we shouldn't allow American citizens to set up their own private countries.
Also, hiring for service jobs might be hard :)
And some of those members aren't afraid of using them, or their Navys, or Air Forces...
Items of interest:
Article 88: Reservation of the high seas for peaceful purposes
Article 98: Duty to render assistance
Article 99: Prohibition of the transport of slaves
Article 100: Duty to cooperate in the repression of piracy
Article 101: Definition of piracy
Article 103: Definition of a pirate ship or aircraft
Article 105: Seizure of a pirate ship or aircraft
The law is very clear on the authority of warships to intervene.
[1]https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...
If it's done by henchmen, we're no longer in the "billionaires only" city state that I'm making fun of.