Privatizing government in Honduras

Honduras Signs Deal to Create Private Cities

Wow.  It is happening.  Privately run cities "with their own legal and tax systems."  Perhaps, we don't need to have sea colonies/seasteads to have these experimental governments.  Will these cities have their own police?  They have to.  Will they have their own military?  It would be fascinating to see how these cities develop.  Who will be allowed to live there?  What is the selling point?

Exporting allergies and some honey.

I saw a sign on Rt 15 in Dover-Foxcroft  protesting the East-West Highway which read "If you want another highway, why live in Maine?"  It is mainly because I want to live in Maine that I think we should thoroughly explore this highway in Maine.  The setting the the sign was a perfect.  It sat in the corner of a huge field of....goldenrod.  A wasted field.  Nothing being raised or grown.  Nothing anyone would want though there is a beekeeper set up nearby.  Clover would be better and sustain a beef critter. Next to that field heading south was the Charlotte White Center, which receives massive amounts of State and Federal funding.  Sure, leave the Maine way of life alone as if change wasn't happening and could be stopped.

It may work in Tahiti but what about Fiji

I was reading Sea of Glory by Philbrick hoping I would learn some about the Pacific.  The book was more about the personality conflicts among the men.  An interesting incident was the crews encounter with Tahiti and Fiji.  Tahiti was considered paradise, beautiful people who worked little due to the abundant fruit and fish.  They were also very...free with their bodies.  William Reynolds, one of the officers, mused "Who can judge one nation by another?" (pg 133)When the expedition got to Fiji they encountered cannibals who kindly offered them a fresh head and eventually killed two members of the crew.  The expedition retaliated with what can only be called a massacre of an entire village and Reynolds seemed to forget his earlier sentiments "{L}et no one say that there was one life too many taken."(pg 231) .  The pastoral idea is nice but the wickedness of man always pops up.  Even in Tahiti, it was soon altered by prostitution and venereal disease (Why would the women sell their bodies--the price was an iron nail-- if life was so good?) and alcoholism(What were they trying to escape?).  If a perfect society has to be protected from every other society (especially "evil" Western ones), I doubt its perfection.

First, do no harm

We've been thinking much about North American missionary efforts.  This statement is from a secular book, echoes-though rather coldly, the premise that you're not helping someone by doing something for them they ought to do themselves.

An important consequence of redistribution among cultures has been to make those who lived in nonindustrial civilization and adhered to non industrial values artificially competitive.  International aid, rescue missions to counter famine and disease, and technical intervention fooled many into believing that their life prospects had sharply improved--without the necessity on their part of updating their values or significantly altering their behavior.

--The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg, pg. 394

We have handed them the fruits of our faithful Christian heritage without pressing on them that this is the fruit of righteousness and their low condition looks much like the curse of God on a nation that disobeys Him.  Also at play is the our not believing that the church could so take hold of and transform their culture that they would receive the blessing promised in Scripture on a nation which obeys.

The Sovereign God of “Elfland” (Why Chesterton’s Anti-Calvinism Doesn’t Put Me Off)

I'm going to start a movement to recolonize Elfland

The Sovereign God of “Elfland” (Why Chesterton’s Anti-Calvinism Doesn’t Put Me Off)