[CAF Note Below]
By Kevin Flaherty
The link on this update mentions Decree #123-2011, which is just 15 pages long, but will have you wondering, “Is this real?”
I’m asking everyone out there: Is this real?
Let’s assume it is, for a few minutes anyway.
I took one semester of International Law, so I’m far from being an expert on these matters, but this thing is far and away the most breathtaking voluntary forfeiture of sovereignty by a state that I’ve ever encountered.
Look at Articles 15 and 69:
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Article 15.- Other domestic and foreign authorities cannot interfere in matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the RED’s.
Article 69.- The government of the RED?s may apply immigration controls on the entry, stay and departure of people from other States to the RED’s.
These REDs will have governments that are independent of the Honduran Government, borders that they control and their own police forces (Article 8). They are able to lease out and otherwise encumber the land, but they don’t own it. Because they don’t own the land, I suppose they wouldn’t pass the sovereignty test, but this is getting pretty damn close. The REDs, for example, are free to enter into foreign relations with other states independently of the Honduran Government.
Would Privatizing Cities Save Taxpayers Money?
[CAF Note]: What is being proposed in the above video is not privatization. What is being proposed is that government’s continue to have liabilities and the ability to tax and force, while turning over operational functions to corporations on a basis whereby corporations can make profits whether that is economic for the local area or not. So corporations will not be obligated to the citizenry and will not have to perform on an economic basis. This sets the stage for a model like the one described in the science fiction movie They Live. It is rather a financial invasion by an oligarchy that is using the force of government and the power of government law, regulations and credit to steal and kill and deeply pervert the culture of what remains. It gives total control to a small group of people. However, as an economic matter, it is highly destructive of wealth and the opposite of free markets.
If government is not efficient in the United States it is because government has spent the period from WWIII to date richly subsidizing private corporations on a non-transparent, secret basis.
See also:
Privately Owned “Charter Cities” in Honduras: Entire Urban Areas Handed over to Corporations
