Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast
of the Free Cities Foundation.
Hello and welcome to this episode number 152 of the Free Cities podcast,
brought to you by Veritas Villages, our wonderful sponsor.
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please use that link so that they know that we sent you if you're interested it's all in the
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We'll be speaking at the Free Cities Conference in Prague in just a couple of weeks time.
I hope you've got your ticket.
I certainly have.
If you haven't, www.freecitiesconference.com.
There's also a guide to the city.
If you look in the show notes, you don't want to miss the Free Cities Conference.
I've queued up already nearly 20 interviews.
I can't wait.
I literally can't wait.
almost certainly will have lost my voice. I'm going to be out in Prague for just over a week.
Right, on to the show. It's an interview I recorded in Serbia recently. I'm losing my
voice today. I've been doing some voiceovers. I'm not cut out with this, am I? And it's another
delve into the government of Liberland. Yes, I spoke with the President Vitt a few weeks ago.
This time I'm speaking with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Thomas D. Walls,
is a US-based libertarian activist.
It says here in his bio, he has a deep appreciation for Europe's languages, culture and history.
He's held positions in the German Bundestag and at the US Embassy in Germany.
A travel consultant and professional translator,
Thomas co-founded the Republican Liberty Caucus and has worked with the US Libertarian Party.
He's the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Liberland, helping shape Liberland's vision as a free and
prosperous nation. Setting an example for the world, right, let's see what my AI agent made of
our chat in this episode. Thomas DeWalls delves into Liberland's pursuit of peace, diplomacy and
self-determination. Amid ongoing tensions with its neighbours, he shares insights into the delicate
balance of building legitimacy while facing resistance, the growing international curiosity
surrounding Liberland and the nation's efforts to expand its influence beyond borders through
community innovation and libertarian ideals. From behind-the-scenes diplomacy to bold visions for
the future, Thomas offers a candid look at the challenges and hopes driving one of the world's
most unconventional political experiments. It's not bad. Yes, it is indeed a little insight into
the way things run over there in the Liberland project. And for me, more interactions with
Liberland for my deepening understanding of what's actually going on there. And it is deepening.
I'm learning to love Liberland. Right. Before we go, quick advert for something I'm involved with.
bit fest uk it's coming up 21st to the 23rd of november up in manchester up north in the uk
five events over three days excuse me there's a nostra day you know what nostra is we talk about
it all the time here there's a bitcoin day there's bit flicks which is the bitcoin film festival
there's bitcoin art exhibition and a saturday night bash a concert party with djs etc
brick coiners you're all out there almost everyone i know is going and if you're in this scene you
probably should too and you can use this code for a discount free cities 10 will get you a 10%
discount on your ticket which i think is pretty reasonably priced anyway so i will hopefully
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freedom world i'm just happy to be here right let's go to the show you know what to do for the
upteenth time just sit back relax and enjoy my conversation with Thomas Walls
it's a good expression actually did was that yours yes go on then explain it diplomacy by
example right of course Liberland in its philosophy is basically peace and cooperation
so we want to lead by example instead of being presenting sort of a threatening or hostile
entity we want to be seen and perceived and embraced as a community that's that's very
peaceful and we want to work together with with our neighbors so but the diplomacy bit
um yes because you're what's your title i forget your minister of foreign affairs minister of
foreign affairs is that that's a particularly diplomacy heavy definitely right definitely
and diplomacy is coming to agreement where there was none before and of course we have our
disagreements with certain neighbors of ours and we seek to come to an agreement and understanding
which allows us to flourish and will allow our neighbors to flourish too right that's a good one
agreement because my like this is my second time now in around here um and i'm i'm building up an
impression of what's happening here and i'm i'm i am definitely more on the skeptical side and i'm
i you know and you probably know that but that's good i you know i i as i said to vit yesterday i'm
happier that this is happening than not happening but would i would i take on your roles and do your
jobs absolutely not I find it incredibly long term but agreement is a hugely important aspect
of this whole thing and this is where I think one of the places I get stuck because when I look at
Croatia and I think what's in it for them like what makes what makes Liberland move past this
spot you're at at the moment which is kind of like what it looks like to me anyway is the incentive
for either party, let's say there's three parties, there's you, Serbia, and Croatia,
the incentive to do anything, apart from yours, doesn't really exist. So how do you come to some
kind of agreement? Well, we need to demonstrate that we're ready to, for example, make significant
investments in the region. And there's been some talk of that. And luckily, there's been some,
I don't want to say breakthroughs, but there's been some positive signals from the other side,
from certain individuals on the other side and certain institutions that they might be willing
to work with us if we can offer something tangible, something concrete. And there is some
dialogue going on that I'm not directly involved with, but I do have some open channels to some of
the individuals involved and I cautiously optimistic about moving forward in a positive fashion with the other side That does sound very diplomatic the way you just said it It sounds like you said that before Thomas No no no
There's been some interesting developments since we last spoke, Tim.
And, you know, we've got some individuals working on our behalf,
speaking to organizations and entities and individuals on the other side
to sort of an olive branch, sort of a peace offering,
and seeing how we can work together.
And there's been some positive signals back from them.
So I really hope that we can move forward.
But would you say your major hurdle is Croatia?
Yeah.
So I'm right there.
It's both on a couple different levels.
On the local level, there's some opposition from the law enforcement
and some of the groups that have used that area and exploited that area,
and our presence has disrupted their exploitation of that area a little bit.
So we understand that there's some resentment there.
Also on the national level, there's some institutions that, you know,
are these guys a threat? What do we do?
I think it's sort of maybe I mentioned this last time.
And there's sort of, you know how a reptile thinks or a lizard thinks, is this a threat or can I eat it?
You know, what is it?
I think we've been approached in that manner, not really analyzing who we are or what we want.
But, you know, is this a threat to our national security?
And, you know, we must treat it as a threat because we can't eat it.
So, I mean, really, from my perspective, at least, you are a threat in the sense that whatever you do, you're taking land away from somebody.
Because the situation is beautifully paradoxical.
We know that.
that they can't croatia can't be seen to necessarily own liver land because by conceding
that they by default then lose another tract of land but either way they lose land right
because serbia presumably wouldn't budge on that serbia is more invested in keeping the large
pocket of land because number one it's literally on their side of the river now but also it's a
bigger piece of land so so so i would say and you know this is my relatively i mean i haven't
dived too deeply into it not nothing like you guys but that does seem like if i was to weigh
up the incentives and look at it i would say that you're a threat obviously i suppose the
counter argument is you're not if you become a very vibrant community and you bring wealth into
the region and blah blah but still in a way it's not croatia getting that it's just getting a
neighbor that they don't really know yeah uh i can see that perspective and croatia's position
as far as i understand it and i try to understand it is that the land will be
awarded to one side or the other in a future state of affairs
our position is that since it's never been part of croatia how could they ever have a even a future
claim on it that's a big if and our position differs from theirs and we feel that since the
land had been abandoned for over 25 years that and they hadn't claimed it it's it's not theirs
to claim basically so we're not really taking it from them as it stands now or in the past
um they their position is that in some future arrangement they might get it so therefore we
have no claim um i i disagree with that hold a minute let me get this straight i thought
so the reason that they are showing an interest in it now is because the new border which is the
river has put liberland on their side is that right okay right so so in that direction it's
not their side in the sense that they own everything on that side, but it's closer to
Croatia, of course. Now, I'll point out, maybe I talked about this a little bit last time, but
after the war between Serbia and Croatia in the 90s, the UN occupied the former ethnic Serb areas
over there, the Serbian Krajina, and that was eventually integrated into Croatia. The majority
of the population was Serbian. However, during the war that was contested and the Erdut
Agreement established basically the end of the war. It said, okay, these areas in the
Krajina will become, will become in the future, part of Croatia. And they did. After two years
of occupation by the UN, those lands of the Serbian Krajina were integrated into Croatia.
and that did not include Gornaciga or Liberland.
And that was specifically excluded on the maps
and all the documents that Croatia filed with the United Nations.
It wasn't on any of those maps.
So maybe that was their first mistake.
They didn't claim it at the time.
If they intended to incorporate it at some point in the future,
that would have been the time to do it.
However, that was not done.
It was viewed as Serbia.
and you know it was not part of the Kraina either during those few short years where the Serbian
Kraina was a self-proclaimed state it didn't include Liberland either that was still considered
okay this is Serbian map it's part of Serbia but you know as time went on Serbia just didn't do
anything with it they you know it was abandoned effectively so okay i mean so where do you think
where do you think it's going then that side of things the diplomatic side because like i say
i think the salute i think there's i personally think there's kind of like two two outcomes
which are good for liberland one is just a an amazing diplomatic relationship with croatia where
they suddenly understand you and take you seriously and say yes and the other one is is a
complete change of everything some kind of crazy sort of socio-economic incident in europe or
something which means that it's much more expensive to police what you're doing and then by default it
kind of happens and i actually think the the the diplomatic one it would probably i don't know
You might have an opinion on this.
It would probably involve a sort of Millet-type character,
like Argentina's, you know, who would just come in,
which it doesn't seem like there's many of those characters in Europe,
unfortunately, but would come in and say,
right, we're going to, excuse my language, fuck shit up here.
And then suddenly, yeah, let them have it.
Come on, we're into liberty now.
Yeah, we'll have a special arrangement,
and they can have their free markets and things like that,
and we'll make money off of it.
And that would actually be not a bad arrangement.
And it might take a Malay-type character to do that.
I was just talking the other day with someone here at LiberPulco
that it might take something like that.
It might seem from the outside seen as crazy or unprecedented,
but that's the way it could happen.
Yeah, the two outcomes that you propose are pretty interesting.
I think there's three or four possible outcomes.
one outcome
Croatia would win their
argument, their claim and then
Liberland would not, definitely
not be part of Croatia
but they would
obtain or re-obtain
all those lands, those pockets
those several pockets on
this side of the river
which is a considerable amount of land
how they would manage
that I don't know, they normally don't
come over here to patrol things
but Serbia kind of deferentially treats it as Croatian territory for example planes don't fly
over that airspace when they're flying in Serbia they go around those pockets because it's considered
Croatian airspace so in some senses it is treated as Croatian territory Croatia says Liberland is
Serbia but yeah they they act like they own it and Serbians who tried to go to Liberland are
treated even worse than your average non-Schengen, non-EU person like you or me.
And it's very interesting, the Danube Convention, signed in 1947 by several parties who basically
states along the Danube River, there are certain provisions in there that you cannot obstruct
any kind of traffic going across the Danube from one country to the same country.
If they consider it Serbia they shouldn obstruct boat traffic coming from this side over to there which they officially state is Serbia
And just on the recent geodetic agency issued maps and they reaffirmed the borders in eastern
Croatia on the Danube River that Gornyo Siga is not part of Croatia.
So everything they say and have on paper, it's outside of Croatia.
And you need to change the constitution to change the borders.
Or you need an act of parliament to change the borders, according to the constitution.
And the constitution also says, Croatian constitution, it also says,
Croatian forces cannot cross their border into another country
unless act of parliament and order of the president.
or if they're participating in some NATO maneuver,
then they can participate in some exercise that's beyond their borders.
But they can't have forces there, according to the ruined constitution.
That would need an act of parliament and order of the president.
So I don't know what they're doing.
Yes, they have the right and the duty to protect their borders.
Yes, and we agree with that.
And they should protect their borders.
But we're outside of their border.
They're treating the whole zone as their border, which is kind of weird.
What's the difference between you claiming Liberland and them claiming Liberland?
Them claiming Liberland, again, they would lose their claim on this side of the river, all those pockets.
Us claiming it, you know, we're just outside of Croatia and we're our own jurisdiction.
I think there is a fear that things might descend into anarchy or chaos if there's no overwhelming monopoly of force there.
And they're imposing a monopoly of force just to prevent a bunch of migrants coming over or chaos from raining.
And I think by making it so hard for us, they kind of fulfill their own claim.
Like, well, these Liberlanders, they can't run their own affairs, you know.
Well, they don't let us.
They don't let us establish strong community infrastructure.
And they don't let us bring, you know, things in to build.
I mean, we can bring small amounts of things in to build a treehouse or a beach bar or very small structures.
but we can't bring in things to establish like a regular infrastructure that you would expect in any community
and to build those institutions like security and justice and health and things like that.
We were building a medical center on Jefferson Square, and we had the foundation there,
and we were building up the walls, and we had plans for a medical center on that very spot.
but they brought a backhoe in and collapsed the walls and filled in the basement too which we had
been working on which still existed was part of an older i went there yeah yeah i saw it after it
was demolished but then it was demolished again after that wasn't it they went in even harder
yeah yeah and that was going to be part of our infrastructure you know both uh sort of uh
government house and a medical that what what i thought about that though that did show that
someone was using it because it was a hunting lodge right so someone owns some someone thinks
they kind of own it if you see what i mean yeah the title to that particular piece of land was was
serbian at one time it was a serbian hunting club used that particular lodge you know called the
lavachki dom lavachki is hunting or adjective meaning of hunting dom is house or you know
structural structure. So yeah, that was definitely, it was on the Serbian cadastral maps
for the longest time. The thing, I mean, the thing about all this, though, is,
and I appreciate that coming at it from a kind of legal standpoint and precedent and this is
correct. But really, at the moment, the rules don't matter, do they? Right. But really,
because no no one's kind of enforcing anything and and i this is the bit where i get stuck
because i don't see how that changes because it if you try and change that and start enforcing
things the whole thing comes a hell of a lot more complicated and in a way it suits everyone at the
moment apart from yourselves but you're the incumbent so you've got you're the ones that
kind of got to prove yourself in a way it's like you know what I mean that's
where I get stuck how does that how does that change because you've got you could
prove everything on paper but really if no one's enforcing any of these rules it
might change in a couple of ways it might change by sheer numbers we did have
200 people visit at one time almost 200 and they've just walked right in without
too much without any resistance from from their side you know I'm just trying
to think in it you know theoretical scenario where if we had the numbers we
could just march right in and occupy it and they couldn't do anything about it
right now with smaller numbers of people when you have you know 6 to 12 to 18
people going there yes they can put up enough resources to make things a little
more difficult for us in the last few months though things have been from what
I've been told from the settlers directly the you know police have been okay they
haven't been too they haven't given us too much harassment too much trouble
they just you know come say hello check your documents and then they leave I
was wondering whether that wasn't just because it's summer it told me that he
said it's been good for the last three months I thought when it that's summer
no one wants any hassle during summer
they just want to sunbathe
even the police
and winter too
I mean
who wants to stand out
or stand around
in you know
freezing conditions
and you know
and then some of the
officers have expressed
like we don't want to be here
we don't care to be here
but like I say
they are there
and I suppose
the new sort of idea
that I've sort of been introduced to on this trip here
is that you're working on your kind of,
it's a bit like the network state theory of community.
You know, you're working on your brand.
Liberland is not just a group of people living here
or living over on Cornishiga.
It's actually a big group, a global sort of gathering of people.
and I and I didn't understand that before but I can see that is actually a pretty good tactic
going forwards because um the more people who associate with the brand of Liberland
the more powerful it becomes I suppose is that is that true that is definitely true um you know
a lot of people know about us but the majority of people still don't don't know about us the more
people we get on board on our side and from a global perspective the better it will be
and the other the more we can enlist other countries to support us then of course you
know Croatia might you know think think again about oh well gee if we treat these guys nicely
then we'll be the good guy so I you know we've we've been had dialogues with a number of other
countries, good dialogues as well. And actually since our last talk we've had,
we've sent a few delegations to a few different countries and we've signed one
agreement, we've got other agreements that the drafts have been approved so we
may have some agreements with other countries as well.
But the brand of Liberland is getting bigger, right?
Oh, yeah.
It is.
Do many people know about it in the States?
You live in the States as well as here, right?
About 20,000 applicants for Liberland citizenship from the United States in our database.
And quite a few citizens.
I'd say the U.S. is a big chunk of our real supporters.
So we have a pretty good organization there too.
And how does that follow through when you look at people who show an interest
and people who actually turn up here or even come to Liverpool, where we are now, this kind of stuff?
Oh, it's great. People find this very interesting,
especially people who are on the libertarian or free market conservative side of things.
The one catch is that, as you well know, if you're not a Schengen or EU citizen,
it's a little more difficult to visit Liberland because of how the police treat people
from who are not EU or Schengen citizens.
So you know a lot of Americans whom I meet are interested in acquiring land in Liberland But how can they do that if they only If they jump through the hoops they can get seven days but then they have to leave
So that's a little bit of a...
I mean, I didn't know that.
What's the problem? You get a short visa for Croatia?
Well, not really a visa.
It's that anyone who's not from the European Union or a Schengen's own country
if you try to go to Liberland
they'll give you a quick trip to the police station
and issue papers that you have to leave Croatia
yeah on what grounds is that
because in my case
they got me on a technicality
which was the lady who we rented the Airbnb of
didn't register us
with the police
which is true
but apparently no one does it
or whatever
either way
it's selectively enforced
and it was definitely enforced on me.
I was given seven days to leave, which didn't really matter.
But I wasn't aware that there was a...
I thought that was a good reason.
I mean, they did have me.
I had to put my hands up and say, yep, true.
With other people, they've given them papers that say,
well, you did not state your reasons for entering Croatia correctly.
We suspect that you're going to start illegal fires in the forest
or you're going to go camping illegally.
And it says that on the paper.
So we're going to refuse your entry into Croatia.
You have seven days to leave.
You are not to enter for another 90 days.
So they falsely accused them of wanting to start fires or going.
And how can they enforce that, though?
How do they like how do they know you're about to start a fire?
You can't predict that unless they've got some matches on them.
It's absurd.
And does it work?
Has anyone stayed more than seven days and seen what happens?
I don't know.
I think some people wanted to, but I don't know what happened.
Because in my case, I could have stayed for another three months.
They didn't know.
Obviously, after seven days, it would have been good that I didn't run into the same police again.
Right.
But the truth was that there's no border on the rest of Croatia.
I mean, getting into Serbia, you actually have to go over a border,
but the rest of it, you can go as far west as you want, really.
Those technicalities are a tool they use to, you know, eject people who want to visit Liberland and kind of discourage them.
So it's one of the tools that the border police uses on people.
We feel this is totally wrong, and we're challenging a lot of those expulsions.
You know, I think we've got our hands full when it comes to legal cases.
There's like, I think, over 90 or 100 legal cases that we've won quite a few of.
We've won them on the basis that, okay, they ticketed somebody for building a structure without a permit or camping or whatever.
And they were thrown out of court.
They should be because you don't need a – it's not Gratian land.
There's no jurisdiction.
Yeah, there's no permit.
And we counter – well, we tried to file suit against the SHUMA, which is the forest authority who destroyed our buildings and took a lot of our stuff.
and the court in Osiek over there said, well, we have no jurisdiction here.
We can't help you.
And we don't have any information to give it to a foreign court,
because sometimes cases would have to be remanded to another court somewhere else.
And they said, sorry, we can't process this case because it's not within our jurisdiction.
That's when we tried to bring legal action against their authorities.
So, okay. So that's the, like I say, I keep, I will always keep coming back to this. How does it move forward? Like, how does, how does this thing budge from, from where, from where you are at the moment? And I know things are happening, small things.
But we reach decision makers on that side.
We convince them this is a good thing.
We convince them they can benefit from this,
and Croatians can benefit from this,
and we can bring jobs and investment and a lot of tourists.
And it can be orderly.
It can be a great thing.
It can be like the coast, and the coast has tons of tourists.
Why don't we make this region into something like that,
something where people are actually interested in coming
and checking things out, going to a local winery, taking a biking tour, maybe going fishing,
stuff like that. It can be a totally positive thing. And I know they want to do that.
I checked out the Croatian Tourist Board's attempts at marketing this region. Yes,
they try to market the region, but they could have a real unique selling point if they included us
as part of the whole package.
And that's a very unique selling point.
I think maybe they'd be interested in it
as a jurisdiction of Croatia, probably.
I'm pretty sure you don't want to go that direction, right?
That wouldn't be in the spirit of Liberland,
the autonomous place, you know, free republic.
I could foresee an alternative where we were a special zone,
a special autonomous zone that we you know we have our own laws and ways of running things but
it's within like for example the the croatian defense perimeter that that would require act
of congress and or act of their parliament etc but that would be an interesting scenario and
they're not prepared to do that i don't think uh any more than they're prepared to incorporate
gorn josega into croatia that's that's a long way off well i'm just thinking about it then
if the issue was um not wanting cornicea because it it means they lose the other land
if it was a if it was a special zone it would actually become a very valuable piece of land
actually it would be better to have that than it would be to have the the disputed land on the
other side probably even though it's more in surface value it's like if you could choose to
have Hong Kong or you take it. It's a small area but it's a very you know and
you know I never thought of that before but so you said no one's ever been shown
any interest in in that angle before. Not that I know of. I mean that's
something you know that could come up for discussion in the future. I think the
dispute, the larger dispute, it seems to be interminable. I don't know they've they
do have a committee that's supposed to discuss these issues I think they
convened maybe once or twice in the past 20 years and you know it's one of those
blue ribbon commissions that you know proposes to do something or promises to
solve a problem but they never do and they haven't done so and they haven't
made any plans to do so so okay special zone not gonna happen fair enough I mean
It could happen.
I mean, even before a dispute is resolved, it could happen.
And then the ultimate fate of that land would, okay, well, do we incorporate it in Serbia?
Do we incorporate it in Croatia?
This is its own little thing.
We do have some other more than thought experiments.
You know, we could get it declared a river island.
because technically Siga was a large island.
Then a canal was cut down in the middle of it, and that became the Danube.
And there's still a canal on the western side of Liberland.
So in one sense, it's still an island, and sometimes people refer to it as an island.
There is a small land bridge that goes over to Croatia in the northern part,
but we could get it declared a river island and get a special status.
That's been done.
There's an island in Slovakia, I think, on the Danube, as well as between Romania and Bulgaria.
There's a river island.
There's a website that lists all the Danube river islands.
And it's actually an actual organization for the purpose of protecting them and giving them a special status.
But what is that special status?
I mean, does it give any kind of autonomy?
That's a good question.
That's why we're looking into it.
And I think we've got some people and some organizations that we're going to,
we've already taken up some dialogue with to see what options we have.
I saw in your presentation yesterday, you went to Ron Paul's 90th birthday party.
Oh, yeah.
How was that?
Amazing.
Sorry for the complete right angle conversation, Neil.
Well, he's our most famous citizen.
Is he a citizen?
Yes, he is.
We gave him a passport a couple of years ago.
Did he ask one?
Well, we just gave it to him.
He's an honorary member.
You know, we had to get his details and everything beforehand.
So it was already, you know, agreed upon.
And it was amazing.
It was over a thousand people there.
It was in Lake Jackson.
Texas, where Ron Paul lives and has his office and does his show from.
And we also presented him with the First Class Order of Merit, which is Liberland's highest
national award.
That would have been impossible to do at the event itself because of all the people.
And, you know, we didn't get to speak to him at the event, but we made an appointment to
go see him on Monday.
So we had a private meeting with Ron Paul on Monday following the birthday event.
Daniel McAdams, who is the co-host of the Liberty Report and also the director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity,
he said, OK, well, we want to give the award to Dr. Paul.
So come to the office on Monday before you fly out and we can give him the award.
We can spend some time together.
and we got to sit in on a taping of the Ron Paul Liberty Report on that Monday.
Has he mentioned Liberland at all in any kind of sense, meaningful sense?
Sure. Well, he addressed our events, our anniversary events twice,
our fifth anniversary and our tenth anniversary.
And he's been very generous with his time towards us.
and you know you might have seen we published a deck of playing cards with different characters
and figures and on the playing cards and Ron Paul is the ace of spades in a playing card deck and I
was able to give that to him as well in addition to the award and a pin and they mentioned this on
the show on the day we visited and it's been great we've also met with his son Senator Rand Paul
a few times and he had heard about us and his staff are big fans of ours as well what's your
take on the current i mean ron paul's 90 and he i would say he's probably one of the most
influential libertarians of all time possibly and well certainly of the modern age let's say
and when when you mentioned ron paul most people know him and when you mention ron paul as well
especially in America, a lot of people were turned on to libertarianism by him.
When he goes, who are the main players?
Because there are, all right, there's Rand, but it's not,
Ron Paul's a real, Ron Paul's the brand of libertarianism, isn't he?
So who's coming through?
As far as politics go?
Or even popular culture.
I mean, you know, I'm not sure libertarianism and politics go together very well.
I think there's an oxymoron.
Whenever I see libertarians doing stuff, the last thing they want to do is be political.
It's the opposite.
It's almost like they would campaign on leaving us, leave us alone.
That's not a good campaign, really, when you think about it.
It's like live and let live.
It's like, well, how do you, you know, but is that a political?
Is that a program?
Yeah.
Is that a program that you can build on?
Well, maybe.
In politics, I'd say Thomas Massey, who's in the Congress.
We've met with him as well in his office.
He's a great guy.
There's Justin Amash, who's currently not in Congress.
He's very well-spoken.
He was also at Ron Paul's birthday event.
There's a few others in politics who are up and coming.
As far as popular culture and generally, I think maybe Elon Musk is a little libertarian.
not not 100 but you know who cares i think he's pushing for a lot of things that are good
some people might not might be critical of him in some aspects which is fine and so am i but uh i
think you know he's articulated a lot of pro-liberty things um he certainly did with doge
unfortunately it didn't work i mean you know the this the solution that no one ever dares talk
about in politics is the government needs to be smaller i don't think i know many people in my in
the uk the us who do actually campaign on that um and i'm not even sure people general the general
population understands that that's a great solution to so many of the problems you can't
currently see in the world is make the government smaller and obviously elon thought that and and it
was quite exciting watching it from, albeit from Europe where we were, like watching it all happen,
but then nothing happened and actually the government's bigger now. And, you know, a funny
thing about that is that the press and the left in general, the establishment left, not the, you
know, more anti-war left who are usually pretty good sometimes, they think it's still going on,
even though Doge has been pretty much shut down, they still think that's what Trump is doing.
They still think his administration is cutting, cutting, cutting.
And that's what they run with.
But it's increasing.
It's just like under Reagan, Ronald Reagan, the myth was that he was cutting government spending.
He never cut any – he increased it by quite a significant amount.
I don't think it's possible, though.
if you look at the incentive model of the current system it's actually not possible to
make it smaller without losing votes i mean democracy unfortunately works that way it's
a process of buying votes off people and the if you decide to make government smaller which would
be a good way to sort of change the amount of spending that you you do you basically cause
problems for the people that vote for you. So they won't vote for you. And then as a result,
you lose power. And the point of democracy is to stay in power. It's not actually to...
And the major parties funnel funds and taxpayer money to their special interests, whether it's,
you know, defense industry, or the medical industry, or any special interest you want to
name, they get largesse or welfare from the federal government. The banks are, of course,
got everybody in their pocket. So one example that's great in the Trump administration is Tulsi
Gabbard. She's the head director of national intelligence. She was also at Ron Paul's 90th
birthday, by the way, and she has cut her department, the directorate, the office of the
directorate of national intelligence, ODNI. She's cut the staff and the budget by 40 percent.
And that was a huge office in Virginia that was created after 9-11, the 9-11 attacks.
And it was basically, it's in charge of all the intelligence, the 16 or more.
We don't know about the two or three that are black operations.
But anyway, they're in charge of all the intelligence agencies, CIA, NSA, etc.
She cut her budget by 40%.
I didn't know that.
It sounds like a bit of a band-aid on a very large wound.
It's a band-aid, but since that agency was so large, that office was so large, that's several hundred million dollars that we're saving from that.
So that's optimistic.
I mean, in other departments, I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some interesting ideas.
Other departments, I think it's probably going to be business as usual, unfortunately.
I don't think it can't. That's the point. You can't remove money, especially welfare, without losing your position as the power. I just think it's too late now. It's a bit like the gun debate in America. It's like, you can't take guns away now. It's too late.
Right. That horse has left the barn.
Yeah. But so has the democratic horse left the barn long time ago.
And it's, it's a, it's a welfare system voted for.
And so you buying votes basically because the more people that realize you know I can get something the more they get basically bought with their votes and there more promised the more they promised the more they the government needs to find that
money which obviously it doesn't produce anything so it either takes it from you or you actually
yeah not me yes i still pay taxes yeah or or it it borrows or it borrows but it's getting people
are losing faith even in lending money to governments currently by the looks of things
Yeah, yeah. Usually people buy government bonds and that helps them finance things.
And, you know, of course, you know, they've been downgraded, of course.
Have you got a view on a potential future going forward, like, you know, 50 years time?
A lot of people say there's going to be a catastrophic crash.
A lot of people say it's just going to kick the can down the street forever.
You know, what's your opinion?
There are always going to be ups and downs, some more severe than others.
Like in America, we had the housing crash because the government inflated the housing market by giving cheap, low-interest lending to banks to fund these projects that ultimately failed.
They built condominiums that no one ever occupied, but they were bailed out by the government in the end because, you know, the government, federal government, insures deposits in the banks.
And the banks said, oh, we've got, you know, we can get bailed out if we lose the money on a particular investment.
So let's do it.
We'll make some off of it and then close the books on it, and we'll be sitting pretty.
And in the meantime, people lose their homes and it causes huge distortions in the market.
That happened fairly recently, and there's probably going to be some more of that.
I think maybe those in power have learned to not go too far with inflation and things like that.
We'll give a little inflation, enough to pay off our cronies, but not enough to destroy the system or cause a major crisis.
I don't know how.
I think you're overestimating how much control they have over inflation.
I know that modern Keynesian economists think that you can control those kind of things.
But no one's ever been able to stop a fiat currency trending to zero.
I mean, it always happens.
There's not much you can do about that.
Well, they can have influence, though.
I mean, again, with, like, for example, the housing crisis,
they created easy credit.
And, of course, in that sector, real estate, of course,
prices went up significantly.
So you can have sectoral inflation,
which is directly traceable to these actions.
Maybe not as a whole.
okay, our overall inflation rate is, you know, say 7% or something.
Maybe a half a percent was added to by, you know,
this inflation of credit, for example.
I agree.
That's an economist, you know, economist.
But the point is that why are they giving cheap credit?
That's a bad move even in itself.
Their modus operandi is try and stimulate the market
or try and sort of, you know, calm it down.
It's a free gift to the banks, basically, the large banks.
Sure.
You know, how the Fed operates, it just, you know, gives easy,
that's free money, basically.
Low to no interest loans to banks or credit, that's free money.
Yeah, I mean, it's literally free money.
And it's also free money to the people who probably need it at least.
and that's why i asked you whether you think that what where we're we're heading towards something
quite dark because that is out of control now i think personally i think that that that system of
um you know trying to manage the economy we've we've we've hit 0 interest rates
recent in recent history you know is there comes a time where there's things you can't do
You can't reduce rates too below.
Well, you can.
You can go to many negatives.
But that's very symbolic of a really major problem.
That's been the case especially in Europe and the UK, right?
Yeah, we had negative interest rates.
Yeah.
I think one thing that would contribute to the crisis, economic crisis, and debt is war.
You have to pay for war.
And certain sectors make a lot of money off those wars.
and you know we've got wars going on right now and taxpayers have to pay for it from all
basically from all the major western democracies the u.s is paying for a lot of that uk as well
eu they're throwing a lot of money into the ukraine war i take it if there was a catastrophic
crash in the world economy you'd come out here if you could yeah it'll be nice that'll be nice
Actually, we've got a farm here at the Ark.
We're growing a lot of different vegetables.
We've had a few white papers on making ourselves self-sufficient here.
So if that were to happen, it might be an option.
We probably have a little bit more work to do.
But that would be enough.
I haven't had a good look around here, actually.
I've only ever really been in the very immediate vicinity of here.
Just so that listeners understand, we're not in Liberland.
We're on the other side of the river, about half a mile down the river or something, on the Serbian side.
And this is also Liberland land, but it's not...
It's part of Serbia.
Yeah, but it's not Liberland land.
Well, it's kind of Liberland land, I suppose, but it's not in any official way.
It's like...
We can fly a flag here and no one...
Yeah, exactly. You can do what you want here.
But actually, you know, one of those pockets that Croatia claims, it starts like right over there, like not too far from here.
We're almost on the edge of that Croatian-claimed land, one of those pockets over here.
So that's interesting.
So where's the farm bit then?
The farm is on the other side of the lake.
So here's the lake out here.
And over on the northwest corner, we have a few plots with vegetables growing.
And there's sort of a greenhouse over there.
Last winter, I think we had to close it up.
but it's in full bloom and some of the food we're serving here is fresh tomatoes from our garden
and other vegetables cucumbers what would i mean if it's an interesting thought experiment to
imagine what happens if this place becomes very vibrant actually the ark like because
this is an intentional community really what you want over there yeah we're actually expanding
Arc 2, which is also the name of a kind of a weird 70s sci-fi series.
Arc 2 is going to be over here.
You can see the smokestack over here.
It's got a Liberland flag flying off the top of it.
We've acquired two more properties over here.
We're going to build several more cabins.
And I think we'll make that old pump house from which that smokestack emanates.
We'll make that into a spa type area.
But it's an interesting blurring of the lines, isn't it?
I mean, it's just a thought experiment.
Really, what you're trying to establish over there in what you call Liberland,
you're creating here as an intentional community.
It's just that you don't need to fight anyone here.
Right.
Because they just leave you alone.
You're just people coming, buying some land and living on it.
It's interesting.
I mean, what would be very ironic if this became Liberland?
you know and and and serbia just said yeah you can do whatever you want obviously
it might it might not be that they would give you independence you never know though you never know
you never know it could be it could be the the supreme irony could be that maybe one of those
croatian pockets if it still remains in limbo maybe there's some land over there that we could
make a deal with them and say okay i mean i mean an additional part of the theory of special economic
zones and this they do benefit the host nation You know and if you saying well look we because what interesting about Liberland is your mindset is we want to be a country
So, but that exists in your mind even when you're here, doesn't it?
Even when you're in Serbia.
Sure.
It's not that you need to lay a flag in a piece of land over there that no one's claiming.
The mindset is Liberland is a real place or is a nation, you know, in Allah, the kind of online nation.
You are currently a nation, but you're a network state or a network nation or a network country.
And that does give you a lot of interesting opportunities when you think about it.
The more we can offer, the better.
Like people can come here to ARK.
It's not Liberland itself, but it's part of our community, and it's our community that we're expanding.
And, yes, this is part of our development plan, and ARC 2 is part of our development plan.
And other, Napredak, which is at the Appetine Marina, there's a piece of land that we'd love to make a commercial center down there.
It's just five minutes down the road or even less.
And there's some other projects that we're trying to identify and hook up investors to come and bring money here and make it part of our community.
It's not just that one piece of land, Liberland.
It's about the whole region that we want to make a positive impact on.
But that's a very 21st century idea.
That's what I mean.
When you look at, because in the Free Cities kind of ecosystem,
there's a number of places which are beginning like this.
They're not going straight for sovereignty.
They're not trying to claim a piece of land.
But they are considering themselves as a group, as something.
and and um you've got yeah it's you've got morassan yeah but they have you have they actually
have autonomy they have regulatory autonomy but but um i mean the idea that you can create a nation
in cyberspace and then manifest it in the world it could only have appeared it could only have
happened in the last sort of 50 years or 30 years right right since the internet appeared and we
don't really know what that looks like yet because it's happening like new sort of sort of digital
borders are being drawn now currently in cyberspace aren't they and physical geography is has less
somewhat less significance than it did you know before this was possible to happen sure but but
that's what i mean and i when i think of live alone i always think of the aspect of it which is
we are planting a flag in a piece of land and claiming it but maybe that's that's the old school
way of doing it i don't know it is the old school way of doing it yeah and we saw an opportunity
where we could still do that yeah and we did but that's yeah that is part of it it's part of the
story it's part physical land it's part network state it's part branding it's part being part of a
global community, but we're both a global and local
community I would say, and this is part of that.
And we want to do it, we have, we're doing it in Croatia.
We've got some people, a number of people who have bought real estate over,
right just outside of Liberland in Croatia, in Zmajavac, in Batina,
and Knezjevi Vinogradi, and a couple of the other little towns around there,
nice area. People have started buying real estate, people connected to Liberland.
Here's another even bigger thought experiment, because I'm just thinking, I spent last, this year, I spent a couple of weeks in New Hampshire, meeting everyone from the Free State Project.
Did you go to the Porkfest?
No, I didn't. It was before that. I was there in America doing something else, so I just had to go at a certain time in the year.
But no, unfortunately, I didn't go to Porkfest, but I would love to.
But I did meet most people within the movement and interviewed them, all the major people anyway.
but it just occurred to me then that maybe if you look long term enough at the Liberland trajectory
like you've just described people over there are kind of integrating into the community slowly
blah blah blah who knows you the way you end up with a sympathetic kind of government or a
sympathetic community is that your numbers just swell around this place maybe I don't know yeah
Five years ago, we didn't have this place.
Vitt had an apartment in Sambor, and there were people here who worked for us,
but we didn't have this place.
So we are growing slowly, but we're growing.
And the more we can get people we can get to participate in this physically,
you don't have to be here all.
I'm not here all the time.
I'm here a good bit of the time, but I have to go home every couple of months,
and then I come back.
You don't have to be here 100% of the time.
what would it take for you to come here for good uh good question a nice house uh you know people
working for us so i could you know work together with them and work on liberal and stuff you know
if it were a little more you know i i have come over here for for most of the time so most of the
the time I am here. So in a sense, I have moved over here. But I still have a house back in the
States and, you know, a company do other stuff. So you've got everyone in the Liberland government
has to hold down a couple of jobs. Yeah, unfortunately. Well, there's nothing wrong
with that. That's, you know, I think that's a good sign. Yeah, I don't think governments should be
that big. I don't think it should be all encompassing. I think I think the best governments
are the small ones where the local businessman is in the government or a local worker we want to
keep it so small that if you blink you could miss it well there you go well um i think um maybe you
should just round up with a kind of i think i probably asked you this last time and i'm not
sure i got a huge answer but can you make any predictions over the next sort of year or so
Where's Liberland going? What's most exciting or what's most optimistic for you when you think about it?
I see us elevating people's awareness and consciousness about freedom and inspiring other Liberlands.
If we could inspire two or three other Liberlands, whether it's through the Free Cities Movement or some other project that has yet to be developed,
that I think were successful.
But I mean, Liberland, as in, you know,
claiming a bit of terra nullius, is not very easy.
Because as far as I know, there's only one other terra nullius
in the desert between, is it?
Egypt and Sudan.
That's right.
So in that sense, it's very difficult to sort of inspire change.
I think as an intentional group of people coming together
and doing something, for sure.
Is that what you meant?
Yeah.
I mean, it could take a different forum.
It doesn't have to be a terra nullius.
It could be seasteading.
It could be a special economic zone.
It could be a city declaring themselves free or mostly free.
I think if Liberland, if we can double our number of citizens
and maybe triple our number of e-residents,
we become that much stronger.
And the stronger we are globally, the more leverage we'll have.
And that's exciting, actually.
Well, thanks for coming in and chatting again, Thomas.
I'm still, like I say, I'm still on board.
I just always will probably watch Liberland from a distance.
I did say to Witt, though, that it would be very funny to wake up one morning
and I described it, open the daily paper, which you don't do, obviously, anymore,
and there to be some news that
Liberland had got independence.
Stranger things have happened.
Well no I with you on that This is the age we live in This is the internet age where things change like that You know like do you remember when we were all locked in our houses during COVID
No, nor do I.
That wasn't very long ago.
People have changed since then.
Who knows what will happen, you know?
And if, you know, politics falls apart in Europe and different things happen, countries split off,
that has also happened in recent memory, you know, that might affect us in our position, you know.
But we, you know, certainly we welcome people who, you know, we welcome skeptics and critics.
That's how we improve. That's how we deliver a better product. That's how we improve ourselves.
And that's how we learn to communicate better.
Yep. Well, you can count me as a skeptic. I'm a friendly skeptic.
um but i like i say until i can until i see a a no you can get a liberland passport already can't
you what would it take for me i think probably for me it would have to be some kind of um
um international recognition how does that happen like what would for what would it be for you guys
what what would be the thing that you would be literally celebrating oh my god it's happy it's
happening you know yeah in the rumble sense yeah what what would that be for
you though like say Argentina formally recognizes Liberland that would be a
huge win for us really yeah but what about the you know what's the what's the
moment when you you as a government come together and say right we have to start
you know pull up our bootstraps yeah yeah yeah yeah really really get to work
What would that be? I'm talking about concrete structures, you know, driving piles into the sand to make proper buildings.
You know, all this. When does that happen?
Yeah. When stuff starts becoming official, that's when when that happens.
And that would be a catalyst for me moving over here.
And what would that be exactly? Would that have to be Croatia acknowledging that you're...
Well, acknowledging that we're a community, regardless of the future outcome or status of that land,
saying, OK, you guys are a community.
You can build a little town here in the middle of Liberland.
Then, yes.
And we're not going to tear it down because it's not our jurisdiction.
Them admitting it's not their jurisdiction and leaving us alone, that would be a major win for us.
If you got, say, someone like Argentina acknowledged diplomatically that you were a place,
how much impact would that have on Croatia, do you think?
Do you think it would, I mean, is that big for them?
I know it would be big for you, but.
They would, you know, probably ignore it.
Even if Croatia recognizes us as a community and an entity, a legal entity,
that wouldn't necessarily affect them very much.
It might influence them a little bit.
Actually, when El Salvador was talking to us, Croatia contacted them.
and like, oh, whatever these Liberland guys are doing for you,
we'll double it and just don't talk to them.
And that happened.
Yeah, it told me about that.
Yeah, they approached El Salvador and said,
well, oh, they're donating to the children's hospital.
Well, we'll give some money to some schools in El Salvador
and just ignore the Liberland guys.
But, I mean, that's quite powerful in itself.
I mean, you could go and do a deal with the government and say,
look, if you could talk publicly to us,
you'll probably get a bunch of investment from from from croatia yeah yeah use that as a technique
actually there's an interesting story you may or may not have heard about it the island of
anobon is uh officially part of equatorial guinea right now um the uh they declared independence i
believe it was two years ago they are treated very badly by equatorial guinea which is essentially a
dictatorship. They have a government in exile. They live in Spain. We've been in contact with
them, and they've been in contact with Argentina. They were actually part of Argentina during the
Spanish colonial era, and they've either asked, we want to be independent, or maybe we could become
part of Argentina. So they've sent a delegation to Argentina. It's this tiny island near San Tomé
and Principe, we're off the coast of Africa, that are looking for independence.
It's a little bigger than Liberland, not much bigger.
It's got about 5,000 people there.
Equatorial Guinea has been using it as a toxic waste dumping ground.
So other countries have paid Equatorial Guinea to get rid of their toxic waste,
and they have been dumping it on the island of Annabon.
And the people there are treated very badly.
Wow.
Wow, so Argentina might, and this is all because Millais is a bit of a libertarian, right?
Is that the draw now to Argentina?
I think so.
It certainly, you know, it makes things possible that weren't possible before.
Could be cool.
Could be, this could be a signal.
I don't really know.
I'm in two minds about all this stuff as to whether now there's going to be a resurgence of libertarian ideas even in the Internet.
Well, there are a lot more libertarians around than there were 20 years ago or 30 years ago.
Yeah, because they've put a name on it, right?
Is that it?
That's what I think.
No, the name existed before, but more people know what the name means.
That's what I mean.
So there might be something to that.
But like, for example, in Europe, 20, 30 years ago, there was very few people of that, by name or not, there was very few people who believed in those ideas.
Now there's quite a few.
Yeah, I kind of class myself as one of them, actually.
Prior to the Internet age, I didn't change inside.
I'm the same guy I was when I was younger.
It's just that I realized other people were talking about them in the realm of ideas
and that there was a reason to exhibit these ways of being.
It wasn't just me.
It was, there's a whole, you know, people have debated this for millennia.
A lot of times people did feel that way in various countries,
but they just left to go somewhere else where it was slightly freer or somewhat freer.
like I lived in Germany for a while.
You could count the number of libertarians in Germany
on one hand back then,
but now there's quite a few.
They've got a party.
They've got a libertarian party there.
I interviewed one of the guys that's running it.
I can't remember what his job was there,
but no, I mean, yeah, maybe this is it.
Maybe this is the next hundred years
is when all this stuff takes hold.
Who knows?
Anyway.
It'll be exciting to watch and fun.
It will.
And I'm, as always, excited to watch Liberland happen, let's say.
And thanks for coming to chat.
Nice to see you again, Thomas.
Anytime, Tim.
Enjoy the rest of Liberpolka.
Oh, yeah.
It's great.
I wish more people could come.
More people are here than last year.
And then next year, hopefully, we'll...
Sounded like a Freudian slip.
Yeah.
There's plenty of people here.
It's lovely.
Especially what I wish that my children weren't...
had just gone back to school because it's a lovely place.
They would absolutely love spending the few days.
We might have it a little earlier, so before school starts,
you can bring your family.
And, of course, we're a very family-friendly place here.
It's wonderful.
It's a wonderful site with a lake and swimming everywhere.
It's beautiful.
Yeah, if you could do that, Thomas, next year,
I will bring my family here for this because it's beautiful.
I will push for it.
We already have people suggesting that,
so that's an added ammunition to push for that great thanks and yeah see you
next time thanks Tim great anytime