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Comment by Kosirich | Hacker News Reader

Idiotic decision by Croatia, here I'm talking both as a Croatian, as well as someone supporting this kind of "liberal" experiments. Instead of seeing this as a fun experiment that wouldn't cost Croatian tax payer anything, the most politically controlled nepotistic organization full of "uhljeb's", Hrvatske sume, decided to act this way (under direction). If Croatian government was smart, they could have tried reaching some deal proclaiming "Liberland" as a free zone, under protection of Croatians army until UN recognition is made (probably never). The potential touristic revenue to local areas could have been used to justify it to Croatian people. Sad...

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>Idiotic decision by Croatia, here I'm talking both as a Croatian, as well as someone supporting this kind of "liberal" experiments. Instead of seeing this as a fun experiment that wouldn't cost Croatian tax payer anything, the most politically controlled nepotistic organization full of "uhljeb's", Hrvatske sume, decided to act this way (under direction).

I feel as though you're taking a rather naive view of the situation. Currently Croatia isn't claiming the land as their own because it's part of a larger dispute, and if they do lay claim to it, they lose a larger chunk of more important land to Serbia.

Do you REALLY think if they allow ethnic Croatians to start building permanent settlements on the property in question, they can continue to claim that it's not theirs in the broader land dispute?

This isn't "a fun experiment that costs taxpayers nothing". It is a GREAT way to lose permanent rights to a much larger swath of land so that some people who think they're free from government oversight can play make believe. I'm not sure what the actual benefit to the people of Croatia is but I'm open to ideas.

> Do you REALLY think if they allow ethnic Croatians to start building permanent settlements on the property in question

Do we know the ethnicity of these settlers? The founder is Czech, and the resources I've found suggest that local Croats and Serbs are a tiny minority of those involved.

You are right, I was being purposely naive in order to show the narrowness of thinking. The "gray area" of the law could have worked in this case for both side. Croatia government didn't have to do anything besides close one eye, which they do ALL THE TIME, for people "who know the right people".

Feel free to google search the term "ilegalna gradnja" with Croatian location, to get a feeling of scale of it and how little a settlement like the one that was demolished really matters. There are too many of illegal settlements, usually in form of houses and luxury villas, that haven't been demolished for years, even even local governments pleaded to have them destroyed.

To be crystal clear, I didn't suggest giving land to anyone, just make an exception that is made constantly for the "right people".

What's would be the purpose of such liberal experiment? I don't see what is there to learn about it. Allowing some entity to establish a government in your lands just to see what happens doesn't seem like a wise move to me. This would only legitimize their claims to the land and legitimize them as a sovereign state. It's a good way to end up losing this land and creating yet another microstate.

> What's would be the purpose of such liberal experiment? I don't see what is there to learn about it.

Not that the only group of people who want to bother nobody else need any justification for living their lives as they see fit, but how else is humanity going to learn about the different ways we can organize society if we don't try them out?

It would be phenomenal for humanity if people with ideas outside of the box organized as they saw fit without outside interference and we all get to see what works and what doesn't.

Isn't that why we don't have just a single country with a single set of laws? What experiment is being performed in Liberland that cannot be done in other countries that already exist?

It is indeed like you say. You are making a hyperbole, but essentially we have a single type of country.

>Isn't that why we don't have just a single country with a single set of laws?

Historically this is not the reason. And as a justification for continuing to have many countries it would only be convincing if people were free to choose which "experiment" to join or start.

The reality is, we are all guinea pigs that get thrown into some random country where some experiment has already started and we have no right opt out. If this is indeed someone's experiment, I would say it's highly unethical :)

> What experiment is being performed in Liberland that cannot be done in other countries that already exist?

Existing countries are captured by various interest groups who use their control over the government to their benefit. In a democracy this is generally various industries or government factions that control a large voting bloc or resources politicians need like campaign contributions. In a non-democracy the existing rulers want to remain in power and continue to rule as they see fit.

If the experiment you want to run is a country with an extremely limited government, you would either need a stable country where that is already the case (not currently available), or a way to overcome the entrenched interests in some existing country (good luck), or you need a new country not already beleaguered by entrenched interests.

People relearning Hobbes and the fact that sovereign claims need power to be enforced, news at 11.

> Allowing some entity to establish a government in your lands just to see what happens doesn't seem like a wise move to me.

It is land that Croatia very actively considers someone elses land. That is why Liberland was established there in the first place. Two countries are arguing "not mine, its yours" about a plot of land.

If anything, this can be used against Croatia to argue that it is in fact Croatian territory

The reason why both countries refuse to claim ownership is actually really interesting: both sides agree that the Danube should be considered the border, but the Danube has changed course over the centuries in a way that left a lot more land on the east than was there before. Naturally, that means that Croatia insists on using the historical path of the Danube, while Serbia insists on the modern one. For either side to claim the land on the west of the current Danube would be to cede the larger quantity of land to the east.

> It is land that Croatia very actively considers someone elses land.

It doesn't consider the land to be "someone elses land" it considers the Serbian definition of the shared border faulty. Letting people that cite the Serbian definition of the border settle there is the last thing they want, since it actively undermines their own definition of where the border between it and Serbia should be over its entire length.

Liberland doesn't cite the Serbian definition of the border, they accept both definitions at once. If either definition were given preference there would be no terra nullius. If Croatia were serious about their border claims then they should see Liberland as strictly Serbia's problem.

Edit: I suppose that actually allowing an independent state to settle there would ruin their chances of ever trading it with Serbia for the eastern land, but the chances of that are slim to none anyway.

In the article they directly call out correspondence where Serbia disclaims the region, Croatia wants the exact opposite.

> their border claims then they should see Liberland as strictly Serbia's problem.

They don't want it to just be "Serbia's problem" they want a signed document by Serbia accepting Croatias definition of the entire border stretch.

Also just because both sides do not want to claim the territory does not mean you can leave it entirely lawless. Hell there is a small but popular lake near my home town that the three towns bordering it disclaim any ownership of, which doesn't get rid of the issues surrounding the lake, like the fact that they have to pay for road maintenance and everything else related to it, it just makes it a mess to sort everything out. Police would also drag of any group of crazy people trying to create their own floating country in the middle of the lake.

The difference with your local municipal dispute is that there's no question that it belongs to a given county. If it were a county dispute it would still belong to the state/province. If it were a state dispute it would still belong to the country.

You only get into full terra nullius when no country will claim the land. Since there is no higher umbrella authority, any police force operating in terra nullius is operating outside its self-professed jurisdiction.

> You only get into full terra nullius when no country will claim the land.

After looking up the definition of terra nullius it seems to be a term historically rooted in colonialism where states could only establish themselves by successfully applying massive amounts of "sovereignty" aka military power against colonial powers.

Given that Liberland seems to be unable to showcase its sovereignty against Croatian invaders it fails the basic test for acquiring land or even official statehood required by terra nullius.

> Since there is no higher umbrella authority, any police force operating in terra nullius is operating outside its self-professed jurisdiction.

And who is going to complain about that? Certainly not an established state.

Well it's not a lawless area; some enterprising people founded a new constitutional Republic there.

No, they didn't. See: the article we're commenting on.

There is certainly a difference between "lawless" and "not MY laws" or "not the laws I prefer". In my view the parent comment is framing the situation in an incorrect or at least incomplete way. The residents of Liberland were not conducting activities that would be considered obviously criminal by most societies. And I don't know the details of their legal system but "complete anarchy" seems unlikely.

The Darien gap, China & Myanmar border region, central Africa -- these are "lawless" areas despite having clear territorial ownership.

There are great artistic and cultural reasons to let this happen.

After all, look what happened with Kugelmugel - another of these liberal experiments:

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/austria/articles/kugelmuge...

Spoiler: the bigger states always win.

Denmark's Christiania had quite a long time of "hippie semi-anarchy", but it was formally reintegrated into society about 10 years ago.

However, this was a product of the Boomer generation, when they were young. It might not be possible in today's more authoritarian world.

Most people would not consider it 'smart' for a sovereign nation to voluntarily give up territory. Maybe they could have responded less aggressively, but if you're waiting around for governments to start giving away land, keep waiting.

It's not a situation where someone is "giving up land". Croatia doesn't claim the land from its own legal perspective. The Croatian ambition is to use a historical path of the Danube river (from something like ~150 years ago) as the border. This way, Croatia could control larger pieces of land which today belong to Serbia. The line of control, after the war, is the modern-day river, which follows Serbia's claim.

However, despite Croatia's claims, there's also been some gray-area Croatian forestry going on there, through Hrvatske Šume. And since the Liberland movement started to claim the parcel as "no man's land", Croatia started patrolling it with police and arresting people occasionally.

As a Croatian, I can't do whatever I want (esp. building) with various bits of land I actually own, why should these people get special treatment?

I'm all for liberalisation of land use, and think Croatian bureaucracy and petty corruption are slowly destroying the Croatian state economically, but people acting independent of the law, because they claim they're special, doesn't wash. The tourist angle is a red herring. Tolerating unlawful occupation isn't smart at all.

> Croatian bureaucracy and petty corruption

ok, but you get Kentucky Fried Chicken and 7-11 stores in the current version of things.. right?

What makes this weird is that Croatia says this land belongs to Serbia, but sent police there to enforce Croatian laws against people there.

What you're saying is repeated constantly through this discussion, but it's very misleading. There is a border dispute and that land is a part of the dispute.

Another reading of the situation is that Serbia can claim that the land is a part of Croatia because they've allowed people to inhabit it and it's contagious to Croatian land, given that 'Liberland' has no legal basis.

Given that Croatia has no good options here, they've chosen the least harmful option.

It doesn't seem like the "Liberland" people have any claim to the territory, but I don't think that makes my point misleading.

If Croatia says the territory belongs to Serbia, then Croatia has no business sending police there outside of very narrow circumstances such as people there launching attacks into territory Croatia does claim. On the other hand, Croatia would probably be within its rights to enforce a border with this territory, as would Serbia. That would rapidly become unpleasant for anyone trying to live there.

The Liberland people are exactly claiming the land, that's the whole point of what they're doing.

Croatia, even if it claims the land is Serbia, consistent with its border claim, it still administers it as a practical matter, that includes keeping people out of where they shouldn't be.

Yes, they messed up in this. Croatia did a mega police operation, in order to get rid of people that brought them tourist revenue and didn't bother anyone. Now all the money will go to Serbia, as the participants hold their events and "Floating man" festivals in Apatin instead.

The moment the experiment would turn illegal level of abusive or a murder would happen or whatever, the goverment would be seen as responsible.

From Croatia's point of view, these squatters would only make it even more difficult to resolve the border dispute. Croatia wants this land to belong to Serbia (in exchange for more land on the other side of the river), and having these people there might throw a wrench at the negotiations. Furthermore, if the negotiation goes Serbia's way then Croatia would have to deal with a bunch of squatters trying to set up a sovereign micronation on Croatian land.

They experimented, and they discovered what happens if you try to claim land that isn't yours. They also discovered what happens in a libertarian world when someone stronger than you wants your stuff.

> They also discovered what happens in a libertarian world when someone stronger than you wants your stuff.

How is this in any way unique to libertarians?

Maybe take a look at civil forfeiture abuses in the US?

Not to mention other county where the rule of law is more of a polite suggestion.

It's not unique but only apt as libertarianism advocates for dominance of the strongest

No it doesn't. You're projecting your own value, interpretation and criticism of libertarian concepts to make it mean "dominance of the strongest". It's no more the case than with all other forms of government, including the majestic and noble "democracy".

You seem to have conflated libertarianism with some other philosophy like the Ayn Rand stuff

Can I own a town and buy my own police force or not ?

Sure, it depends on the disposition of the polities around you and how strong the police/defense force is. You could also run it with any system of government you like, libertarian or otherwise.

A lot of people in this thread are laughing at the Liberland folks for being doomed to fail, not realizing that "might makes right", etc. Well how would we be reacting if they became terrorists instead? Defended the area with homemade bombs? What if Jeff Bezos built a private army and decided to secede from the US?

The morality or intellectual interest of a people's claim to a territory (along with their chosen system of government) is completely orthogonal to their ability to enforce it. For the other end of the spectrum just look at Ukraine, as others here have pointed out.

And btw I'm personally not even a libertarian...

You've never read about Disney World's deal in Florida?!

Where?

> They also discovered what happens in a libertarian world when someone stronger than you wants your stuff.

Libertarianism requires a government to protect property rights.

I've seen quite a few libertarians that would argue for private enforcement of property rights, thereby abolishing the need for a government altogether.

Yes, there always tends to be a large number of hypocrites in the world, see any socialist or communist of modern times who are all talk but take on none of the risks by living their ideals.

So if I pay a bunch of guys to enforce "my property rights" over their house, then it is my house right? So now I'll force them to pay rent for it or my private thugs will evict them from "my home".

Is that what they want? That is how society worked before we had modern governments. The only way to prevent this is to have a government who tells me I can't just bring a bunch of thugs and take stuff from people.

Undoubtedly, but those aren't real libertarians. They're anarchists.

Libertarianism is a free market economy, with the government serving as enforcer of property rights and contracts. The government also enforces individual rights.

Such as the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

How would this libertarian government be funded?

Taxes, import duties. For example, the early US government (excluding the slave south) was fairly libertarian.

When stronger groups want your stuff it doesn't matter what world you're living in. The same is true of non-Libertarian states like Ukraine.

Ukraine situation is a conflict between two states. International world is a libertarian world. The whole point of having countries is that a country can offer something better to people within its borders. This is achieved through monopoly on violence. Internationally, there is no monopoly on violence; arguably, the only thing keeping the world mostly together is nukes.

in other news, check out "intelligence", "trade" and "medicine" as other alternatives mechanisms before the recent invention of NUKES

They don't fit well into "Mutually Assured {}" pattern.

> They experimented, and they discovered what happens if you try to claim land that isn't yours.

Well, its about claiming land that the Croatian government doesn't even claim to own.

Ironically, the fact that the Croatian government kicked them out, harms the Croatian government's legal claims with Serbia.

The world would be a pretty different place if the organizations that make up the government of countries always did what was in the best interest of their country...

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