Intriguing idea, but then I went and read the whole article. Beck was quoted as saying there would be no Gap or Ann Taylor stores. So how would the community be based on freedom if some businesses are ruled out before the city is even formed? That sounds like something liberal mayors would say about having a business like Chic Fil A in their cities.

Three gets you five somebody hooked up with Glenn is going to make a killing selling space in the mall on the outskirts of Independence. ;)
More seriously, the mom & pop store v. chain store critique isn't a purely leftist thing - there are any number of social conservatives who are on board with it as well. I don't plan on living there myself; if that's what they want to do to themselves, then I could really care less.

**Gasp** no Gap or Ann Taylor!

I don't see any mention of people being able to own their own piece of property. Take away property rights and you assure yourself of failure.

And yet many a mall has dozens of businesses few to none of which own their own property. There are plenty of productive doctors and nurses who rent their property until and unless they are ready to buy a residence. The benefit of any given property can be assigned to a renter in a manner than benefits both parties.

Obtuse, much?

Under the benign dictatorship of Glenn Beck.

So long as the guard posts at the East Beckistan border don't shoot escapees I don't see much need to be concerned.

We need a whole state.

This is what the Free State Project was supposed to be all about, but the libertarians are having a hard time with the immigrants from Taxachusetts who forget why they left the Bay State the minute they cross the state line.

Happens every time.

As that is needed is enough freedom in any place, shape or form.
http://reason.com/blog/2013...

While I have sometimes smiled at Glenn Beck's sudden discoveries of ideas and principles I knew forty years or more ago, much in the way a child's wonder pleases me, the idea that he could so much as bring the "Vision thing" to a project to build a "self-sustaining city and theme park hybrid" - whatever that even means - is laughable.

He talks about "freedom" and "American dreams" but no colleges or GAP stores allowed, and the "free" citizens will be funding "learning" centers for public officials from around the country.

Mr. Beck, you keep using that word "freedom." I do not think it means what you think it means.

One area not addressed in the article linked is the financing. I'm guessing he is at least $1.999 billion short of his goal so far, and doubt the pledges he does have are firm.

Well put, Adj.

We also have to remember that the best communities arise out of the uncoordinated actions of individuals. Experience is one of the best teachers. Towns founded in error will inevitably become ghost towns.

The best thing, for those of us who want to restore freedom and liberty, to do is move to one of several states where there is still a basic assumption in play that The Constitution means something and build enough strength within said states to mount a resistance to the national government, just as the American Colonies did against the British Government.

That is a great comment that made me LOL

Mr. Adjoran, you keep abusing that word 'freedom'...

If you don't want to live in Beck Town nobody will force you.

Planned cities have a poor track record. The free market aspect is interesting but it is still subject to federal interference. But good luck...I guess.

I'm not sure where you get that. Salt Lake City, Reston, Columbia (Maryland, not SC) and Greenbelt have all done moderately well. Brasilia doesn't seem to have done too badly either.

Salt Lake City and Glenn Beck...hmmmm, what do they have in common? Do you think Beck can claim victory if he builds New SLC in Texas?

As for Brazilia, you mean that city planned by a Communist that sat empty in the Jungle for 40 years?

As for those other places? I am not even sure what they are.

But if that crazy genius Beck builds Disneyland in Texas, that might work!

Lots of towns and cities in the Midwest were planned, too. Outside a small town in Indiana, I had to take a dirt road between corn fields to get where I was going. Driving along, there was a narrower dirt lane cutting off as a cross street into the corn fields. It had a street sign "194th St NW" or something like that.

There were no shoulders or ditches on the dirt road I was on. But when that cornfield turns into a subdivision in another century or so, they will be ready for it!

Brasilia has done well for the same reason DC is doing well right now; it's a one-company town and that "company" can take wealth from the rest of the country at gunpoint.

Wombat, who run Bartertown?

The best place to show where free markets and limited government works is in the states. A rich state like Texas has to someday say to the Federal government we don't need any of your money so we are going to do things on our own.

Actually, Texas has said that in a number of things, most notably on joining Obamacare. One overlooked aspect of the Roberts decision was the ruling that the Feds couldn't use the threat of withholding current Medicare / Medicaid appropriations as a club to force Texas to do that. It will be interesting to see if that precedent can be used to knock that mechanism out of other areas.... and what else the states will start saying no to as a result.

If Disney couldn't pull off Epcot, I don't see how Beck can pull this off. The problem will come with the first set of voters who want to vote themselves other people's labor.

Glenn Beck -- The new Jim Jones?

Well...I don't know if we can go that far, but, since he discovered that he's going blind, he has started acting messianic.

I found this project interesting, but the properties are lifetime lease and I'd like to know more about who actually owns the property.
http://iiicitadel.com/index...

Any such project that does not allow for people to own, use, and dispose of private property is doomed to fail because property ownership is a pillar of liberty and freedom.

It's already been tried, many times. The Mormons did it with Salt Lake City. Disney did it with Celebration Florida:

http://jimhillmedia.com/edi...