Hypothetical: A New Homestead Act
 

Assume that the U.S. government starts a new Homestead Act in a foreign territory that is experiencing a void of power. The government formally makes the place a territory a la Puerto Rico or Guam, so there'll likely be a long-term American presence there.

With a goal of cementing American power in the region, the government offers homesteads to Americans such as yourself. The following conditions exist:

1. You will get an area large enough to support yourself via farming, with some income crops to let you acquire basic things you can't make yourself. Let's call it 640 acres.

2. You will get basic farming equipment to accomplish the above. It's not fully automated, but you're not out there with an oxen team. It's hard work, but not hardscrabble. You will receive some initial farming training if you need it, and a homestead extension officer will visit once a month to advise you as needed.

3. The government will provide a shipping container home for your use, along with four outbuildings along the same lines for equipment, storage, chickens, etc. You'll have to assemble everything.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...HDNocPW6liBYKI

4. You will get enough livestock to be self-sufficient per the above, and a seed stock and other stuff that you need to get started.

5. There are some native folks who are not happy at all about you being given their land. You don't really like their culture, and they don't like yours. They've been herded onto a territory a day's drive from your farm, but are mobile. They aren't violent, but they don't mind a fight at all and aren't above the occasional raid on one or two farms per year. However, the army will be running patrols that will include a welfare check on your property once per week.

6. There are enough Americans doing this that your farm will be surrounded by other farms of similar size. There will be 1,000 or so farms in your area.

7. There will be a town with a general store approximately one day's drive from your farm. It will have one cafe and a small hotel, and a small health clinic. The nearest big city with a hospital, college, movie theater, Long John Silver's, etc., is a four-day drive.

8. This area is isolated and a long way from the U.S. It'll cost you at least $10,000 to make a trip to the U.S., so you're not going to go back regularly at all.

9. You're on your own for schooling and child-raising and anything social.

10. You'll have solar power, access to a good well, and free satellite wifi.

11. You will own the land as long as you reside on the land. You can't get the land and then move back to the U.S. and lease it to the angry locals or some such thing. No loopholes.

Do you homestead, or do you keep your life the way it is now?

Am I reliant on Monsanto?

can we grow weed, man? /bump

To clarify, you are not reliant on Monsanto, and you can grow marijuana for personal use, but not for sale.

Does the satellite wifi support online gaming?

I wanted to see exotic Vietnam... the crown jewel of Southeast Asia. I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture... and kill them. I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill!

Homestead me

The satellite wife supports online gaming, but freezes up if you play more than two hours straight and requires a reboot.

I would homestead if I were younger. I think you need at least 10 kids to help on the farm. If we're limited to this scenario there's no way a couple of people could make it work. 640 acres is a huge expanse.

Would I be allowed to setup sharecropping parcels with the natives? I could also train an indigenous child to reboot my satellite connection every two hours.

TOTALLY depends on where the 640 acres are.

And my answer is no.

EDIT: 640 isn't a great expanse. It's a mile by a mile.

It's your land, so there would be no regulation about this. But it would be up to you to negotiate it and enforce it.

No interest in downsizing as you get older?

I'm in. Like now. I've had dreams that I was part of homesteading in our country over a century ago. I'd be all over it. 640 is alot. I'd probably let some of the natives hang out with me and share crop some of mine, like most of it. A few questions:
1. Are the native women good looking
2. Is there ample native fauna to hunt
3. Can I bring a still?

You realize how FAR a 4 day drive is? You can drive from Lisbon to Moscow in 4 days easily. I'm not sure there is an actual spot on earth that is remote enough to qualify for this condition.
(at least none that are arable)

That's a big negative, boss.

All good questions.

1. Not really. They're small and roundish and have odd ornamentation.
2. No. It's mostly open farmland. There is a rabbit-sized local mammal that is somewhat gamey but good in stew, and some long-necked birds migrate overhead twice a year.
3. 'T'aint nobody's bizness but your'n.

There aren't really roads. It's more like four-wheel drive tracks.

I guess I don't understand what we're doing. Homesteading to me is starting from scratch.

Do we have tractors, fuel, fertilizer, seed, etc.? One mile by one mile is huge if your doing things by hand. On a tractor with sufficient fuel, no problem.

I was with you until "on your won for school, etc..."

Not gonna send my kid to some rathole school in Guam. If part of the homestead act also put in a few American schools in the area, I'd be on board. But if my presence isn't exactly welcomed, I'm not going to send my kid to a school where he's probably going to be hated and barely speak the language.

Essentially, it's the same reason I won't be moving to East LA anytime soon...

That was my thought I could easily drive LA to DC in four days.

Maybe this is remote china.

Also what the skies at night like there, heavy light pollution or fantastic?

Is Chiefsplanet blocked? Might. Be interesting either way.

It's all about how much productivity you can get out of the ground. If it is arid and most of it has to sit fallow/have the livestock rotated off, 2 people can do it easy. If it is more productive, then you can keep some people busy.

RM said there would be mechanization. Better than oxen I believe he said. Even with oxen, 640 with 2 people is manageable in the right environment.

There would be a small one-room schoolhouse in the town that's one day away, but most people home school. Maybe you could rotate classes with your neighbors and their kids, too.

Not on these roads. They get heavily rutted during the spring mud season.

There is almost no light pollution. You can see the Milky Way with your bare eyes.

Chiefsplanet is not blocked unless your spouse does it.

How much influence would the US government have/exert? What would the justice system look like and how would that system be reconciled with the natives' existing laws?

Still able to access CP has to be a plus.

Still no.

I'm stupid. My neighbors are probably stupid. Me and my stupid neighbors teaching 8 kids about algebra and life lessons will work out incredibly poorly.

I'm going to end up with the Caribbean version of an idiot redneck child. Nah, not appealing in the least.

How do these indigenous folks feel about the raping of their women? Do they frown upon it or is it acceptable in their culture?

The army comes by occasionally for a welfare check as noted in the original post, and an extension office worker comes once a month for farming advice.

There is an American justice system. The court is in the big city that's four days away, but the judge does a circuit riding thing to the small towns, so once a month you have a court day in the small town that's one day away. Law enforcement is formally done by the army or a lone sheriff who patrols in a Land Rover across the 1,000 farms in the region, so if there's trouble it'll take a day or two or three for him to respond.

This is an American territory so the natives' existing laws will be politely but explicitly ignored, which is another thing they don't like.

Saw the title and immediately knew it was a Rain Man post.

They're against it unless you give them a pig, and pigs are hard to come by. But if you rape the youngest daughter when there's an unmarried older one, a mob will come with the intent of burning you in your home.

:hmmm: I'll have to get back with you on this.

Is ignorance a defense to the family roasting?

I mean c'mon, am I really supposed to ask for a family tree before I commence raping natives?

how far is the nearest Chipotle?

The natives are very serious about this. A pig will smooth things down if you don't shame the unmarried older daughter, but if you shame her by raping her younger sister then bad things happen.

The natives also make very attractive pottery but ask too high a price for it.

Four days. And due to local growing seasons, they only have black beans during the summer months.

:hmmm:
4 days doesn't seem too bad.

A follow up to my previous question...this will make or break my decision - how to the indigenous people feel about PIIHB? Would that require two pigs?

This is not covered in the homesteading brochures, but the rumors among the homesteaders are that two pigs will buy you pretty much anything, as long as it's not the younger sister of an unmarried woman. If you PIIHB and she's the younger sister of an unmarried woman, they will come en masse with torches and a local device called noothookas. You do not want to experience noothookas.

whats the local justice system. Say for example there is a rapist mother****er in the area. One that likes to rape the native women for example. Can I go over there, **** him up, take his shit, and rent his land out to the natives, thereby creating my own little Earldom?

See Post 30.

You are under no obligation to help protect a native raper's homestead from fire, but if he gets burned up then the land will go to a new homesteader. You are not allowed to pursue lebensraum and must remain within your allotted 640 acres, even if the neighbors are Polish or Austrian.

You can try, asshole...

dammit!

It's probably for the best.

I'd hate for the areas only dentist to not have any teeth left in his head...

This. No way in hell a dentist would ever **** me up unless I was sitting in his chair.

Speaking of Bump, haven't seen him around lately, maybe he's been popped for possession...

I believe I would stay.
Too far from medical facilities. No real formal education. Shipping container is not big enough to have a family with any children. No real protection. Too expensive to return home to visit. With Solar power there will be limited if any power after sundown.

I was quite torn about it. As I get older, the thought of a nice, quiet existence without a lot of drama sounds quite appealing. However, in this scenario the biggest deal killer would be health care. I wouldn't want to be a day from a doctor and four days from a hospital, because those things could potentially shorten my life. I reluctantly voted that I would stay.

I'm getting tired just thinking about homesteading and home schooling.

:(

It'll just take a two bedroom house on the beach in Malibu or Orange County and call it a day.

:D

Would Dane be allowed to build a runway for his private jet or a helipad for his chopper? If so he could fly you to the hospital in an emergency.

Yeah man the medical was the biggest thing. I am in my mid 40's. These are the years that I have always been warned about. Those years when things start failing to work correctly out of nowhere.
There are places still now today in the foothills of the ozarks where it can take the better part of a day to get to a small town in the car/truck. If you need to get away.

Fewer people are answering yes than I expected. This is a bit of a libertarian group all in all, so I figured more people would jump for the chance to get 640 acres and reduced societal and governmental interaction.

For those of you who voted no, what's the dealkiller? I've heard a couple of mentions of health care and one mention of education. What are the reasons among other stayers?

The work. I work in an air-conditioned office with a decent job, and I live a few hours away from Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead. I should be on track for an OK-to-decent retirement, too. I don't need this homestead.

Bunch of lazy ass ****s on this board just like the country
..ROFL

No idea why people wouldn't want to abandon their first world lifestyle for a third world lifestyle.

But, but, but LAND! **** all that.

What a pussy! ;)

I suppose you built everything you own yourself, right tough guy?

tell me more about the satellite Wife?


does she just hang around and watch you?
is she receptive?

is this just a hologram thing beamed in?

is she pay-per-view?

can I get any other channels
like satellite mistress, or nasty skank 3 way type stuff?

How's the tech support ' cause I have had trouble with wives before...
I need all the help I can get

On a john deere no big whoop
behind a team of oxen, yeah , that's a lot of area

:spock:

You think?

DUDE!

Well my parents paid for my education. I got a couple of degrees, got a good job and a good life and I did most of it on my own through hard work, I would go for the experience and adventure. And after I built something over there, id have to listen to guys like you asking me if I did it on my own? And the answer would always be the same. I'm not really that tough, but I do work hard. If you have to ask that question, you definitely wouldn't understand...

Sounds like a lot of pain and bullshit.

Also, the OP is NOT the first time the word "hardscrabble" has been posted on CP.

I was shocked to learn people use that word.

Trade the 640 acres for 640 square feet of hardscrabble beachfront condo and a $5000 per month subsidence income and I'm all over it.

Hardscrabble is the sort of board game they play in penitentiaries. I didn't think Rainman was so in touch with his deviant side.

Dude wtf happened to that dude? I haven't seen anything from him in months.

NSA news came out and he couldn't handle it.

Stopped all online and telephone communication.

Just a guess.

I'd do it if it was on Mars or France.

You wouldn't have to worry about that. I'd be more worried about this MTG idiot spreading his redneck genes with my OTHER serfs

**** yes.
That's easy living.

Not so fast. You realize you have to fight Rain Man on the undercard of MTD #10 vs me, for toughest guy on the plains right?

I'm a suburban wimp. I couldn't farm to save my life.

Yeah, 'cause you are the only person in this country that has worked hard for what you have. :rolleyes:

You didn't even pay for your own damn education...asswipe.

And since you're incapable of luring a women into your bedroom and creating offspring (although they probably couldn't figure out how to breathe), you'd likely die alone in the middle of 640 acres with your pants down around your ankles.

So I take it you two have met before and aren't fond of one another?

No. Good God, no.

He's a moron. And a virgin.

He's like the skinny GoChiefs circa 2002.

Hookers available? Or sluts? sluts would be good.

You don't think people like that will create sheep-man hybrids to do the farm work for them???:hmmm: