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Comment by WiseWeasel | Hacker News Reader

Who's going to help negotiate your release from some 3rd world prison on trumped-up charges, and with what leverage? And who's going to fight your extradition to some random country whose laws some judge deems your service to be infringing. Sometimes having a real country behind you can be a good thing.

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Well, I don't want to come off as libertarian, but presumably you could buy insurance against this in an environment where there's a bunch of people who need such a service.

There's more such arguments, like suggestions that you need a nation to subsidize your health care or protect you from every day crime, but all of those are reasonably privatize-able as well.

How is an insurance company going to stop an extradition? Unless it manages to claim sovereign status over some land where you can live and have your business, you're still at the mercy of your generous host country. And if that happens, I think they call it a country.

Insurance Company A has mercenary company B and diplomat C on retainer in case of conflict with foreign nations.

Really, we pay taxes, and taxes cover things like the aforementioned ambassadorial services. It is arguably doable that we could pay some other organization to do the same thing.

OK, let me illustrate my point. Let's say you, a US citizen, renounce your citizenship and vow allegiance to this new entity which doesn't hold any land, but with which the US has generously agreed to a permanent residency status for any of its citizens (however unlikely such an occurrence). You run your online business from the US, and a judge in, say, Thailand rules that your product is in violation of their laws incriminating insults to the king. The Thai embassy files for your extradition, as the country has an extradition agreement with the US, and since you are not a US citizen, you are placed in US Immigration & Customs custody until your residency status can be determined. Now, why would the US ICE administrator or Justice Dept. official in charge stick his neck out and prevent your custody from being transferred to Thai authorities? What could your "ambassador" possibly offer as leverage comparable to what his Thai equivalent brings to bear?

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