They bought a Caribbean island to start their own country

From a quick glance, it appears to be inside the outermost barrier islands of Belize. Consequently, I believe UNCLOS would typically mark their EEZ equidistant from the nearest Belize coastlines (either mainland or island). Which is to say: small.

And that's even assuming they overcame the insurmountable challenge of becoming a recognized party to the convention.

Everyone wants to be a sovereign island nation, but no one wants to sit through 20+ years of UN proceedings to make it happen.

Where "right" means "properly structured to create the necessary opacity".

I find it hard to blame the small guys with big dreams since they're only trying to emulate their tax evading, asset-hiding heroes.

You can already "buy" a small/third-world country with that kind of money. No need to go mess up with an island.

I can't recommend you be as tax-docile as I am, I don't spend any time recommending it to anybody, but come on. "Taxation" is considered such a bad thing but there's just no way for eg. an orphan to have a dignified existence without it. Donations just don't work, depending on them is too degrading, the orphans end up having to forcibly write thank-you notes if they want the less-bad food (thank-you notes on a good day, there's much worse).

That is bullshit. I'd rather pay taxes (in my case way above what is mandatory) and have those orphans write fuck-you notes instead. To whom? To all the people in society who want to benefit from their vulnerability.

Or, to put it another way, why wouldn't Belize just "do nothing" and refuse to recognize their sucession?

Belize is still the "sovereign" owner of that island, the ultimate owner that trumps every other one.

I don't think Belize cares that a bunch of rich white kids are playing pretend on one of their islands. They'll do as they were.

In the long-term, no. In the short-to-medium term, yes. If we are talking about relatively small religious subcultures, numbering in the tens/hundreds of thousands, the idea that they might make it to many millions before hitting fundamental barriers to further population growth is not implausible. And going from tens/hundreds of thousands to many millions would have huge political consequences, especially if we are talking about communities with a history of bloc voting.

> Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous.

Of course not – and I think my comment acknowledged that by speaking of Hasidic/Haredi. There is a great deal of internal diversity within ultra-Orthodox (as opposed to Modern Orthodox) Judaism. However, at the same time, the different groups cooperate with each other heavily, through organisations such as Agudath Israel, Central Rabbinical Congress, Edah HaChareidis, etc. There is frequent intermarriage between them–indeed, it is the norm for marriages to be arranged between the children of the leaders of the different Hasidic dynasties. Their internal cultural differences are, by and large, not an obstacle to political cooperation between them in North America, when it comes to domestic political issues such as education, zoning and development, etc.

Most ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that the modern-day State of Israel is a sinful attempt to pre-empt the Messiah; but, they disagree on whether accepting Israeli government payments or voting or standing for election to the Knesset makes one sinfully complicit in that sin. These different attitudes towards the Israeli state are a major obstacle to the cooperation between the different groups in Israel; but that is a very Israel-specific issue, it doesn't impact their political cooperation in North America – especially since ultra-Orthodox Jewish political lobbying in the US focuses on practical domestic issues and (unlike other streams of American Judaism) is rather disinterested in foreign policy issues such as relations with Israel and the Middle East.

So, I doubt their internal cultural differences would be an obstacle to the scenario I'm suggesting.

> It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders.

Of course they disagree among themselves on a lot of things, such as details of Jewish religious law – but those differences have little political relevance. They don't believe in using the government to force other (Orthodox) Jewish groups (or non-Jews) to follow their particular interpretation of Jewish religious law. They would, however, likely support the government forcing people to follow generically socially conservative mores (not fundamentally different from those espoused by conservative Christians and Muslims)–bans on abortion and pornography, anti-LGBT measures, etc

> And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.

I think a fundamental difference is that those two kingdoms used to be one kingdom, which then split in two, and even then they were bordering on each other. By contrast, my hypothetical ultra-Orthodox Jewish state in North America would be a long way from Israel, would have a very different history, and a rather different culture and politics too–among other things, its dominant language would be Yiddish not Modern Hebrew. (That's putting aside the thorny historical debates about whether those two ancient kingdoms really existed or are legendary; and whether or not it is anachronistic to call them "Jewish".)

Buying the land is the easiest step in this process. It's like dreaming of being a star athlete and going to the store to pick up some athletic shoes. But then buying them and not being sure what the next step is.