Meet the Citadel. CNS:
A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.
The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho. The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who “voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson’s ideal of Rightful Liberty.”
According to the Citadel website, Rightful Liberty means that “neighbors keep their noses out of other neighbors’ business, that neighbors live and let live.”
I know. Bunch of racist kooks who hate gays and Mexicans, amiright? I mean, don’t they know it takes a village — and by village, we of course mean big centralized government and the sticky, obtrusive tentacles of its ubiquitous bureaucratic octopi? After all, how else will those with no discernible skills save the ability to articulate the rationale for willing enslavement ever expect to enjoy the real freedom that comes with surrendering any pretense of self-sufficiency?
Residents should also agree that being “prepared for the emergencies of life and being proficient with the American icon of Liberty — the Rifle — are prudent measures.”
Some of the benefits of the Citadel community include a safe, well-prepared, patriotic community where children will be educated in school, not indoctrinated.
The community will be protected by a perimeter wall that will be inaccessible to “tourists.” Each neighborhood within the community will have lower walls, dividing the town into defensible sections.
Not to go to far afield here, but let me just point out that in addition to creating an insular and self-sufficient community built around the ideas of individual autonomy, American exceptionalism, patriotism, and a prepared, voluntary community that in times of crisis can join together to resist economic collapse, natural disaster, or, say, disruptions to the power grid — such an arrangement is also kick ass should the zombies arrive.
While Citadel may sound wonderful to many who are reading this, the community has posted a warning on their home page:
“Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles.”
Citadel says that every patriot selected to live within the community “will voluntarily agree to follow the footsteps of our Founding Fathers by swearing to one another our lives, our fortunes and our Sacred Honor to defend one another and Liberty against all enemies, foreign and domestic.“
That sounds a bit like the oath taken by our elected officials — and yet when it’s ripped out of the context of just giving rote lip service to antiquated ideas as a kind of homage to our history, it sounds rather fringe extremist crazy, does it not?
I mean, swearing to one another your lives, fortunes, and sacred honor in an effort to secure the blessings of liberty and to live unmolested by a Leviathan who has laid claim to your life, labor, and property?
Sounds pretty nuts to me.
In fact, these people sound like they may have mental health issues — and should therefore be prevented from owning and bearing arms. As part of the “compromise” on gun-control that we’ll soon be told we must adopt in our best interests. And for the children.
— Which means that their very desire to live a life based on the Founding principles and the Constitution as written is itself proof that these folks are dangerous extremists with mental health issues who must therefore be disarmed, by force, if necessary. Live and let live? Seriously? That sounds a lot like resisting tithing “your fair share” to the centralized government, who allows you to live on its lands and use its roads.
Somebody go slap a power dress on Janet Reno. Sounds like we’ve got ourselves an insurrection that needs puttin’ down. For freedom!
The craziest part of this is, to me, the math: acres divided by number of families.
Meh, 1/10th acre lots are common in many developments.
Kind of hard to do that on 0.1 acre lots, I think.
Slart,
Maybe I’m math challenged, but I come up with roughly .28 acres per family. (2,000 acres/7,000 families)
i love boise a lot it sounds like this citadel will be near there
i hope they have taco bell
Thast was the part that got me as well. Whoa, pardner. I already have more than an acre. I’m not moving into a subdivision.
this will be a great place to live if you love guns and hate mowing
Some. if not all of that land will have to be cultivated; potatoes and whatever else can grow in that short growing season. So, apartments?
If this idea takes off (and isn’t nuked from orbit by Obama and his marching Progressives) then more of these facilities might pop up in other areas.
This concept will be hated by our Leftist opposition, and viciously attacked. How dare anyone think they can escape progress?
‘feets, I’m guessing you might not fit in very well. They are looking for Grizzly Adams, not. Paul Reubens.
i have a lot to contribute
Sounds like an interesting idea but placing it in the US seems problematic given their goals.
They’ll still be as molestable as the rest of us.
I expect the FBI will ‘infiltrate’ to see if it’s a black market hub, a KKK safezone, or if any DIY bombers or hackers are around and quickly find out that it’s just a regular boring 2-3 bed neighborhood with no Obama bumper-stickers on the cars.
They seem to plan to be just south of Coeure d’Alene. It’s odd they speak of lifestyle and Jefferson in the same breath though, isn’t it?
oh. that’s far from boise and a lot more exposed to the treacherous ravages of winter
brrr
The Ideeho panhandle isn’t ideal for gubmint molestation. Lots of folks hole up in that area, notably white supremacists, who might not be suitable for The Citadel but who would happily join in to keep the feds off the land.
What, no comments yet on the cynically chilling (painfully clever?) title of the post?
I’d say its 50/50 on being ‘Waco Ridge’ or ‘Lord of the Fliesburg’, if it really happens at all.
I think the Founding Principles folk that I would want to hang with would want a lot more elbow room.
I just thought that the separatist-libertarian faction would want to be more self-sustaining, is all. Which is hard to do on sub-acre lots.
Not that it couldn’t be done, though. Just more crowded than most people would be comfortable with.
walls are expensive the bigger the lots the more wall they will need
We’ll know they’ve achieved success when TLC sends a production crew up there to film their hijinks.
You are only leasing the property, you don’t own it.
Actually, I think you’re throwing them in with militia types. The idea here seems to be a community subdivision that follows a set of selected principles. They can do that on quarter acre lots. Hell, with some heirloom seeds, each of them can feed their families from their own gardens, and there’s no reason they can’t open up little food shops or trading posts or stores right there inside the division.
Think of it as a giant block party, only with walls and lots of rifles.
Why don’t they just call it Woodbury and market it as the ideal retreat for when the zombie apocalypse arrives?
If such a plan were going to work, each lot would have to be owned not leased. Take away property and you take away a very important incentive to preserve freedom and liberty. Also, those who you lease from could, if they wanted, demand they be treated like firsts among equals.
What should be done is something akin to the Homestead Act.
I suppose something like the Homestead Act would be preferable to something like the Causes and Necessities. All I know is that it has to stop somewhere.
I think they may run into some problems with the name The Citadel.
Also, don’t count your crops until they’re harvested. Two summers in a row I’ve had my lovingly tended 15×30 vegetable garden blighted by merciless heat or freakish hard freezes. It hasn’t been so much a garden as an intensive care unit where all the patients die despite all my attentions.
each of them can feed their families from their own gardens
Well, sort of. I grew up with an enormous vegetable garden and several fruit trees in the yard, and though my parents labored mightily to harvest and preserve as much as humanly possible, we couldn’t have lived off it. There’s this thing called “winter” that I hear they have in the Ideeho panhandle, and I’m pretty sure things don’t grow so much during that time.
Greenhouses are expensive and energy-intensive, BTW, but not impossible, if you don’t mind spending half the year sweeping the snow off the roof so it doesn’t collapse.
Well, dicentra and leigh, it’s not like I’m suggesting these are Luddites. They can drive to the Safeway just like anyone else; and they still have fire and rice and beans and pasta and Pop Tarts.
Oh I’m not trying to throw cold water on growing one’s own vegetables. I think it’s a great idea and have always had a garden. (It’s a good experience for the kids, too. Knowing what is a plant versus what is a weed is decent skill.) I was only saying that Mother Nature is a fickle bitch and is not to be trusted.
Equal parts Interesting and Ho hum.
Creating your own ideologically constant living space is interesting, even though its been done passively–Santa Monica, Upper West Side–for decades. Practically, it sounds appalling though, likely to attract a core of people to the right of Glenn Beck, living on postage stamp lots in a sort of giant far right Levittown.
leigh, the simple solution is canning and freezing. The harder question is where does the meat come from other than Safeway? Tough to raise many animals on small lots and there won’t be any deer or elk within 100 miles after the first couple of years.
Perhaps New Waco would be an apporpriate name, if not Thermopylae North.
Quarter acre lots are not postage-sized. Or maybe I’m just not one of the 1%.
We also know that this will never happen, right?
Marketing to these types is no sort of precise business since they dont tend to have capital to hand. I’m NOT saying they are poor, but rather, tend to be self-improvement, fixer-uppers by disposition, not given to lightly writing $75k down payment checks.
Canning and freezing are options when your crops don’t fail, charles. That is what I am saying. I’ve been doing both for many years. Just not for the last two since, as I reported, the weather has killed my garden daid.
What’s the rationale for locating this enclave in Idaho rather than, say, Pennsylvania or upper NY state? Many many Bambis roam PA ans NY.
They arent really big is for damn sure and not very privacy inducing. Moreover, living on 1/4 acre lots in Idaho is like moving to Florida for the skiing.
Ima hold out for a larger gun-mune that will at least have room for a 1,000 yard range.
Just wait until they get sued by VMI…
The houses are not finished inside. You get a shell that you must finish yourself. So one of Roddy’s complaints, about such people liking fixer-uppers, is moot, as these homes seem tailored to that type.
Not that I think this will ever pan out, you understand.
I think I grew up on a quarter-acre homesite. My last two places were 1.2 and .99 acres respectively. Now I have almost ten acres with half a fish pond included.
Not planning to go backwards.
Does anybody understand or happen to know the source of the III device (or symbol? icon?) running through the writings of the Citadel enthusiasts? If it’s just a roman numeral three? Or something else? And whichever it is, wherefrom, standing for what?
‘
It ain’t exactly Ozzie and Harriet.
“Moreover, living on 1/4 acre lots in Idaho is like moving to Florida for the skiing.”
I would guess that there will be a variety of lot sizes available for different prices. In fact they might even have duplexes or other rentals as part of the development plan. It’s not a $#@#ing kibbutz divided into community owned fair shares..
I think it’s a great idea and have always had a garden. (It’s a good experience for the kids, too. Knowing what is a plant versus what is a weed is decent skill.)
When I was 13, I learned an even better skill: using a fraction of my allowance to buy super-cheap produce from our Amish neighbors, and turning my mom’s garden into lawn. Even at that tender age, I realized that toiling under the hot summer sun just wasn’t worth it, when the Ahm-bo’s were practically giving the stuff away.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any Amish here. We have some Mennonites, but they sell lawn furniture and gazebos.
The III deal is the name/logo of the arms company that seems to be behind it all.
http://www.iiiarmscompany.com/
I’ve seen that Bmoe, but still haven’t any sense of where it comes from or stands for. But yeah, it runs through a lot of stuff.
The biggest red flag I have seen, other than the whole feasibility thing, lol, is the lease for life plan.
I don’t know what this is, but it sounds like a bad idea.
beemore, sort of sounds like there will be articles of incorporation, possibly HOA type stuff.
I suspect the property will have to be sold back to the corporation if you decide to leave.
The Citadel Homepage specifically denies any HOA status. On the other hand, their written Patriot Agreement says:
“Twelve: Violations of this Agreement will result in review by an arbitration panel consisting of Citadel Residents with appropriate and proportional disciplinary action taken. The most severe disciplinary action may include the loss of Lease and expulsion from the community.
Thirteen: All Citadel Citizens agree to accept dispute resolution by an arbitration panel in the event a problem that cannot be resolved between residents.”
I am just wondering if the monthly payments are locked in with this kind of a deal. They actually look fairly reasonable depending on what the application fees amount to.
The III logo refers to the estimated 3 % of the population of Colonists who took up arms against teh British during the Revolution. It’s a common theme among many in the Patriot movement.
I consider myself as part of that percentage, should the occasion arise, but I won’t be joining these folks in “Galt’s Gulch”! I know this guy, and share many of his ideas and views, but I came to see the preponderance of branded gear pitches as a sign of someone who’s exploiting the Patriot movement for a buck. I’d stand with him given the chance, but I changed my mind about sending him my money.
Thanks for the info Dan. I suspected some such derivation, but couldn’t work it out from the cursory glance I gave.
it’s all very Snow Crash is what it sounds like to me
nishi would get a kick out of this i think