Josh Abbotoy on Freedom Cities

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the purchase of American land by either foreign investors or major private equity funds.

00:07

This is a secular trend. I mean, I think people comment on Bill Gates buying up, you know, hundreds of thousands of acres.

00:13

But in most states in this country, it's entirely legal for Chinese investors to buy vast swaths of acreage in America.

00:21

Same thing with with private equity funds. And at some point, that consolidation of ownership also becomes a threat to our

00:28

Republican form of governance. Land ownership cultivates an ownership mentality. It's a place where you practice virtue and practice self -governance, even over a very small sphere.

00:52

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host, John Harris. We have a special guest today who's actually been on the podcast before,

01:00

Josh Abattoy. He is the executive director for American Reformer. He is the president of Ridge Runner USA.

01:07

You can go to RidgeRunnerUSA .com and find out more about land in Burksville, Kentucky, in Greensboro, Tennessee.

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And if you want to follow him on X, it's B -Y -Z -N -E -S, business, spelled differently, obviously.

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And he's going to talk today about the network state and, well, land,

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I guess. That's his thing anyway, right? Land. And as a developer, I think he's got a lot of good information to share with us, especially in the wake of Senator Mike Lee's proposal that he withdrew.

01:40

So we're going to talk about this land out West, what could be done with it, American cities, and then what does the digital age have to say about these things?

01:49

So without further ado, Josh Abattoy, thank you for coming on the podcast. Thanks so much, John. It's always good to be here.

01:58

So Senator Mike Lee obviously withdrew this proposal. And at the time people are listening to this, because this is a recording, it'll probably be maybe a week since that he's withdrawn this proposal, but people were really fighting about it.

02:13

There were fractures going on in conservative circles over this. And I dipped my toe in and finally found myself being shot at from both ends.

02:21

I was a little surprised. Maybe let's talk about that because there's all this land out West, a lot of it's federal.

02:28

You look at the size of the federal land in Arizona and Nevada, for example, and it's like, you know, it's such a large percentage.

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I think it's like 80 % of the state in Nevada. It's insane. Fans land under federal control, whether that's like Bureau of Land Management land or state land that was then federalized, meaning the federal government has all these regulations and states can't do what they want to do with it.

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And, you know, Bill Clinton obviously put a lot of that in. And anyway, it's sitting there.

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Shouldn't we do something with it? Why should the federal government just have it? So I have some sympathy with Mike Lee, but of course, people freaked out that corporations are going to just buy this land up and it'll be our enemies, it'll be

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Chinese corporations and that kind of thing. So what are your thoughts on that and what's the alternative?

03:14

Yeah. So so look, I mean, for for years, decades, really, like the standard conservative line on government land was the federal government owns way too much land.

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And just to really steel man it, it's a it's a serious like state sovereignty issue. If you're in a state where the federal government owns over like 80 percent of the land surface, think about that.

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Like your state government controls effectively 20 percent of the state with the balance being, you know, controlled out of Washington, D .C.

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And so like the government of a state that's in a situation like that is actually much less powerful to actually affect the physical surroundings of of the citizens of its state.

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Then, you know, then the federal government, which is sitting bureaucrat country, right.

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And that's you know, that is in our federal system. We want sovereign states. We want states that act like, you know, like like sovereigns, like they control their territories and to have, you know, have a semblance of power over over their holdings.

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And so, like, you know, the standard conservative critique is this, you know, this federal ownership actually undermines federalism.

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And then in addition to that, of course, you have all the issues, you know, that you that come with government ownership.

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You know, often you have mismanagement or underutilization. So in a lot of the Western states, Idaho, for example,

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I have good friends there who talk about how the federal government has gotten very negligent in managing managing the forests in a way that would mitigate forest fires and things like that.

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So there's a lot of, you know, if you're a citizen of one of these states, there's a lot of reasons why you actually might want the the federal government to sell that land to the right person.

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But but again, I think that the the reaction to Lee's proposal, I think, underscores some ways that like the

05:06

Republican Party has changed in the last 10 years. So first first of all, he was proposing roughly three million acres be sold scattered around the country.

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But a lot of it was actually in some some nicer areas, some areas in the mountains in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho.

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These are places that really struck an emotional nerve because they weren't they're not national parks, but they're close.

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They're places that some of them had ecological significance. And, you know, so just from a conservation angle, a number of conservatives are worried about that.

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You know, I'll just stop and point out there is a resurgent interest in conservationism on the right.

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A lot of this goes back to Teddy Roosevelt, who was a populist. He was the original antitrust guy.

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He was also the National Parks guy. And as Republicans have sort of rediscovered Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy,

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I think a number of them are actually a little bit more interested in this idea that, you know, we should reserve a portion of the public land that can be accessible to all members of the public.

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And it helps to build national cohesion and pride. We've got a beautiful continent. Let's save part of it and keep it in its natural state.

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And that's good for national identity. It's a gift and some of it should be protected for all generations.

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So that's part of what's going on. But then the other the other big thing that's going on is much of the defense of this move was actually predicated around how can we expand affordable housing?

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And that's a fraud argument right now, too, because, you know, we just like the vice president said on the campaign trail, illegal immigration is actually a massive driver for housing costs.

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I mean, if you think about it, you know, if 12 million people illegally entered the country under Biden, that is that's that's a massive proportion of our population.

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But it's actually even larger if you compare it to the number of people who are looking for new housing.

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Right. I mean, in any given five year period, you know, maybe maybe 10 or 15 million

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Americans are going to be on the market for buying a house because they've gotten married or they've gotten a job.

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Well, if suddenly they're competing against, you know, 12 million illegal immigrants who would not otherwise be in this country, but for breaking the law, all of a sudden, you know, you're sort of like doubling the number of people that are looking for a house, you're doubling the supply side.

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And so, of course, that's going to drive prices up. And so I think with some good reason, you know,

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MAGA folks have said the solution to affordable housing is actually enforcing our immigration laws.

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And if we do that, then we're going to see housing affordability really improve. And then finally,

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I'd say that the the third issue that's been in the news for years now is the the purchase of American land by either foreign investors or major private equity funds.

08:10

This is a secular trend. I mean, I think people comment on Bill Gates buying up, you know, hundreds of thousands of acres.

08:17

And, you know, in most states in this country, some states have tried to pass laws to prohibit this. But in most states in this country, it's entirely legal for Chinese investors to buy vast swaths of acreage in America.

08:29

Same thing with with private equity funds. And at some point, that consolidation of ownership also becomes a threat to our

08:36

Republican form of governance, because, again, JD Vance actually spoke very convincingly this on the campaign trail.

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But we, you know, our ethos, even at our founding until today, has been that land ownership cultivates an ownership mentality.

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It's a place where you practice virtue and practice self -governance, even over a very small sphere.

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And of course, from that, it helps you to build civic virtue, the kind of virtue that you carry with you to the voting booth or to the to when you serve on a jury and that sort of thing.

09:11

Yeah, that was great. I pretty much agreed with everything you said.

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I think I'm an admirer of Roosevelt, which gets me in trouble with maybe some Southern conservative types.

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I accept the critiques of his progressive era leanings, and I would prefer that these national parks be controlled by states.

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And it's easy to say that sitting in New York, where one of the largest state park areas is the

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Adirondack Park. It's the size of it's actually bigger than I think any national park, if I'm not mistaken.

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It's huge and it's state controlled and that kind of thing. And I would prefer to see that in these federal lands.

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But I get it. Right. I get it. I love the national parks. And I'm a very much a conservationist.

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And so to to think about some of these places being purchased by foreign interest is very disturbing that these are in a sense, these are sacred places.

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They are part of our national identity and our story. And just there are there needs to be,

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I think, a mechanism for retaining these for future generations. And there are there should be common lands, too.

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I think in most agrarian societies, that's been common grazing lands and that kind of thing. And I know there's even areas in Europe where that's still managed with like who owns it, while the community does, because we've been using it for generations and we've been stewarding it well.

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So there's no reason to have laws come in and regulate these things because we already have arrangements. But in America, where things,

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I think, develop so quickly and we had massive groups of settlers come and I mean, it's like we just it's like it's maybe a bad example.

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But, you know, the kid who when you're growing up, like, you know, puberty just hits him like he's just like one day he's a kid.

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And like a week later, it's like what happened? Your voice dropped. You got muscles. Right. You know, it's like America's like that.

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America's like the kid that grew up so fast. And when you grow up that fast, you end up tripping and, you know, you're not used to being the size you are.

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And I feel like America is still tripping a little bit. And this is maybe one of the manifestations of that is like we don't know what to do with this land.

11:20

Exactly. But we're very bimodal. Yeah. I mean, we like the as you know, on the eastern side of the country, we've got barely any public lands at all.

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Right. Hardly any. For the, you know, a smattering of state parks and a couple national parks. But then you get out west and you can get to states where the federal government owns over 70 percent of all the landmass.

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And so it's sort of it's a little bit schizophrenic. It's like we had figured it out by the time we got out there.

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And also, frankly, you know, in places like Nevada, you're never going to have the density that you would out east.

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You're not going to have the small farmsteads that, you know, sort of represented the settlement pattern out this way in the west.

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You know, population would cluster along rivers or, you know, usually it was water driven.

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And that's that's a small slice of these states. So it's never going to be exactly in parity, I don't think.

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But but I think it is kind of a weird situation at the same time to go from a state like Tennessee, I think under one percent of our surface areas like under a park and the rest is private, you know, to go all the way to a state like Nevada, which is, you know, very heavily tilted the other way.

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Yeah. We actually have some land trusts in my area that if you came and visited, Josh, I would probably show you because you

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I mean, being a lover of land that you are, we have a very pastoral scenery and it's there's something to be said for the

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Hudson Valley and the Dutch settlement and everything. But there's this group called Scenic Hudson and it's a land trust.

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And it's not the only land trust, by the way, but it's probably one of the big ones in my area. And they have acquired a lot of land, especially along the river, and preserved it.

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And I am so in favor of what they're doing. There's also the Mohawk Preserve near me. It's and I know they probably get incentives and tax cuts and all sorts of things that enable them to do this.

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Actually, they probably aren't taxed. I would I would assume they they're yeah, I don't know how they have it arranged. I haven't really looked into it, but it's they're managed very well is what

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I'm trying to say, though. And it's people who care about the issue. There's public donations and public volunteer work.

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And, you know, I don't I don't know what every state looks like, but that's one of the things, even though I'm in a blue state, that I have to say is done very well.

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And I've wondered whether or not something similar can happen out West where you can have these private organizations that are controlled by Americans who are local that live in the area that can manage these things or the state governments can manage them or you can make some of it private.

13:55

But with stipulations that Americans have to be the ones who purchase this. So maybe walk us through some options.

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What are the solutions you see to this problem? Yeah, so I think that I think you should

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I think so just cards on the table, I think the federal government should sell some of its

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Western land, but it needs to do so in a very thoughtful way that that takes into account.

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I mean, so first of all, you know, start in the states where the federal government owns the highest proportion of land.

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So start, you know, basically start working down and letting those states get a little bit closer to parity with with the average

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American state in terms of private ownership. But but in what in so doing prioritize the areas where federal negligence is actually a nuisance to local residents.

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So, you know, I gave the example earlier of mismanaged Idaho forests and the forest fire problem that tends to spring from that.

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A lot of that is because, you know, the federal government's not clearing out the undergrowth.

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They let it all pile up until all of a sudden, you know, bam, there's a catastrophic major fire that's extremely difficult to control.

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If there were much more frequent controlled burns, then you wouldn't get the catastrophic mega fires that you tend to get right now.

15:17

Similar to the similar to the California issue, which people talk about a lot. You know, so that's a place where you're going to get a lot of like local political will behind it.

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You know, if you're if you're trying to say, hey, we're selling the federal land for the good of the citizens of this state.

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But then the citizens of the state are opposing you. That's a bad sign. Right. So politically, like you need to get the you need to get the citizens of that state behind it.

15:45

But further than that, you know, I think that you'd be better off selling rather than selling, you know, millions of acres peppered throughout the whole country, sell some large tracts in a couple of places and try to reduce it to a number to a discrete number of sales that happen.

16:04

And the main reason you're doing that is because you actually want the federal you want a commission appointed by Trump, hopefully with good advisers on it, evaluating bids to purchase the land.

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And it's going to be a lot about a lot more than just the purchase price. You're going to want them to evaluate their conservation plans.

16:23

Right. So if let's say the federal government wants to sell one hundred thousand acres in the

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Nevada desert, then, you know, me or any other developer who wants to put a bid in as part of that process, we would show that we're financially capable of doing it.

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But then we'd also have to show here's what our conservation plans are. And if you really wanted to get ambitious and I think you should do this,

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I think this would be a wonderful thing. You could actually push the bidders also to say you've got to add a component to your development plans for how this will conserve not only nature, but how it will celebrate

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American history in this particular region. Right. So so you can have a cultural component to it as well.

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Make it competitive and and get people in a virtuous competition for for owning that land.

17:14

So at the end of the day, you can hopefully you sell land where good developers are going to build something that's like nationally inspiring and all the rest.

17:24

I mean, because here's the thing. I mean, this is where I'm most sympathetic to selling federal land. We like in America, we've got a lot of aging cities that have heavy regulation and a lot of them are have been at various stages of their growth, like determined by technological advancement.

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Right. So like you get, you know, you get the inner city and then you get the suburbs that sprung up once cars were available and all the rest.

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And, you know, you end up having these major metropolitan areas where it's really difficult to fundamentally re -engineer how they look and feel.

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But as we, you know, as we move into the 21st century, it's like, you know, the

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I think it's actually something that would be very inspiring for the nation to be able to say we are still capable of building beautiful, human friendly, human scale cities, you know, because because it's just much of the country that's no longer really possible.

18:24

And so, yeah, like that's that's where, you know, I think I think you probably could do this and probably could get the political will.

18:33

And, you know, and then but just push towards a more discreet number of bids where you can do a qualitative assessment, have a presidential commission that that reviews the the applications.

18:43

I mean, it's almost like a grant application, you know, reviews the proposals and awards them to the most worthy applicants.

18:51

Yeah, talk about that a little bit, these American cities, so I'm actually pretty unfamiliar with this idea, although I've heard about it before.

18:59

Yeah, there would be. OK, so I'll start off with like what I know. China has these centrally planned cities, right, that are ghost towns.

19:08

I'm sure you're familiar with that and skyscrapers and office buildings and condos and the whole bit.

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And they with the intention that people would live there and no one lives there. And so that's one of the things libertarians especially bring up as look at the failures of central planning and government planning.

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What are you how is what you're saying different? You would take a land, you would take an area.

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It would be a bid process. So the development's driven by the by the market, by private actors.

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But, you know, there are some there are some good use cases. So so the Freedom City concept was floated briefly in Trump's first administration.

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Obviously, during Biden, it was shelved. And with Trump getting back in the White House, there's been a renewed effort to push on policy, whether legislative or regulatory, to enable

20:00

Freedom Cities to come into existence. The basic concept is that it really it doesn't have to be on existing federal land.

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You could even take privately owned land and sell it to the government and then they lease it back to you. But the basic concept of a

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Freedom City is that it gives you a space where you can actually get selective regulatory relief.

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So for example, if you were a drone manufacturer and you wanted to innovate in drones right now, the

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FAA regulations that would cover you in most parts of the country are extremely burdensome.

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But if you were able to buy a property in a tucked away place, the planes never fly over and you could get a carve out from FAA regulation, then you could do more aggressive testing of drones.

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The origination of this concept was really driven by the insight, which

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I think is fundamentally true, that America is a bit less competitive because of a heavy regulatory burden.

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And so if you could create very selective niche carve outs to some of those regulatory burdens, you can enable innovation to happen.

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And this often happens in hubs. Right. So like if you've got a drone company in one location, then you're going to want all the companies that make the component parts and you're going to want the software company.

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You're going to want all of that in physical proximity for efficiency. And so the thought was really if we want to reindustrialize and see real hard tech innovation, we're going to need new industrial hubs where you have all those different players coming together in the same geographic space and also have the regulatory freedom to be able to move quickly and get things off the ground quickly.

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Another great example, if you had a freedom city that was centered around chip manufacturing, a huge geopolitical issue that we need help on.

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And I think you could get political will to to carve that out, to lessen regulatory burdens where it makes sense and really unleash construction for a chip hub.

22:07

So, yeah, those are some of the examples. That was really the political impetus behind it. But then, you know, further again, the cultural angle

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I'm I'm articulating is essentially a freedom city can also be something that inspires a new sense of optimism in Americans.

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In other words, we are we are capable as a nation of standing up very quickly, factories and these cities to meet critical needs in the emerging technology space.

22:33

So wouldn't I guess everyone would want to be part of that if there's limited regulations, but they would have to bid or they'd have to pay something to be part of this project?

22:45

Yeah, I mean, well, most likely they'd be a developer and and their application would include probably already indications of interest from manufacturers.

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And, you know, if they that you would have to evaluate the reality of their proposal, like, do they have real companies that are ready to move and join this thing?

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And do they have you know, have they thought about all of the parts of the ecosystem that they need? And then you'd evaluate that and approve based on which one is in in the aggregate net going to be advanced

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American interests overseas, you know, as well as as well as all the cultural components

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I mentioned. I know there's a nervousness out there about smart cities where you would have a lot of cameras and AI and abilities to,

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I don't know, turn off, you know, traffic lights based on AI calculations instead of human reaction.

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And, you know, I don't know if this plays into that at all. I mean, it doesn't sound like this concept doesn't sound like it deals with that.

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But any kind of a new city, I think, would have a lot of innovative technology that would be used that, you know, potentially could be used to even though it's a freedom city, if it got into the wrong hands, it could be used to limit freedom.

24:04

Yeah, I mean, I think some of that is I don't think any of that I don't think the security and privacy concerns are like intrinsic to to freedom cities.

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In other words, you know, a lot of them could be retrofitted over existing cities as well. And, you know, there's nothing there's nothing in the freedom city concept that sort of expressly, you know, that intrinsically calls for those sorts of steps.

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So it's really more just that's an area where we're going to need to be vigilant in any new construction,

24:35

I would say, is like if we want to continue to limit or restrain the government's ability to surveil us, to surveil our movements and all of that, you know, that's that's an issue we need to be watching across the board, you know, because I mean, the reality, you know, a lot of international cities, as you know,

24:57

London, I mean, I think almost every inch of London is on security camera CCTV that's very quickly accessed.

25:05

You know, they certainly have the capability to track somebody's movements very closely. And that's that's an ancient city.

25:12

Right. So, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's to me, I think it's more a question of just the

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American people retaining the will to fight for their rights as citizens, for their privacy.

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And I am confident, you know, that is, you know, in a lot of areas, you know, America's Americans are struggling, you know, but we are still very strong on this desire to protect especially our privacy rights, rights to along those lines.

25:41

So I would be I would say it's definitely something to watch. But I think there's reason to believe that these are not going to turn into, you know, sort of surveillance state bubbles.

25:54

Now, you mentioned when we were talking about this, the network state, and I'm curious to know how that like what it has to do with these freedom cities or does it have to do with it?

26:08

Was that just another topic? You know, I mean, it's often lib journalists who write about freedom cities often conflate the network state and freedom cities.

26:16

But but what I mean, partly what we're talking about here in the emerging development of new cities and I mean, even my company

26:23

Ridge Runner is an example of this. But fundamentally, what's going on is with digital technology, it's it's one is decoupling for many

26:34

Americans the question of like, where do I work from? Where must I live? And so that, you know, that that change opens up a lot of new options for people.

26:46

And one of the things that they're doing, like and they're revealing this preference is they're saying we want to like their affinity plays a heavy role in where we choose to live.

26:56

And, you know, you can see that on a very broad with a broad lens by looking at the big sort.

27:02

Right. And the fact that, you know, it's just accelerating since 2020.

27:08

It's not slowing down. There's still millions of Americans that want to move. And increasingly, they're citing political and cultural factors and the reason why they move.

27:17

Right. So conservative Californians are leaving California and moving to Idaho or Tennessee or Florida and vice versa.

27:25

It's a two way street. So the network state is is one way to it's basically an exercise by a venture capitalist

27:34

Balaji Srinivasan to say, here's where here's where I think this is going politically.

27:41

So so he definitely believes that the Internet and digital conditions are going to foster sort of new types of political organization where people who have political affinities all across the world network together and in a way that transcends existing boundaries and borders.

28:01

And they work together. You know, it could be a subset within a particular nation or even an international movement.

28:08

And that ultimately, you know, this digital technology is driving to a place where there's lots of different opt in societies across the world.

28:18

Right. And so, you know, if you wake up and you say, I'm a Christian nationalist, you join the Christian nationalist network state.

28:23

And if you wake up and you say, I'm a, you know, I'm a libertarian Bitcoin maximalist, you join the libertarian

28:30

Bitcoin maximalist state. So it's an exercise in future casting, trying to see where is digital technology sort of taking the future of political arrangements?

28:40

And, you know, I think there's some interesting critiques to be made of his thesis as well. You know, I don't

28:45

I'm actually somewhat skeptical of the idea that you can have an opt in society. I think that part of what makes a society a society is that people don't choose.

28:55

They're just put into it and then they grow up with it. So that's very much a Burkean view. And so, you know,

29:01

I think but but I will say Bology is very insightful fundamentally on the dynamic of how the

29:08

Internet is increasing demand for more tribal affiliation. And, you know, you see this in a number of the charter city attempts are centered around a particular lifestyle.

29:21

Right. So, you know, there's a company named Praxis that's raised five hundred million dollars from some very big investment funds to found a city based around the classical virtues of heroism.

29:32

That's literally like straight from their website. And what is that? I mean, it's it's it sounds wacky, but that is that is a company that's looking out to the future and they are making a bet that that increasing number of numbers of consumers are going to choose where they live based on the vibes, based on the ethos that animates that place.

29:54

So like within that, I think even something more modest, like the freedom cities are swimming in this culture where a lot of people who follow real estate and technology are realizing that, you know, basically it's right now is a more has more potential for new development along new lines than has existed.

30:16

And maybe, you know, since World War Two and really since World War Two, the trend has been suburbanization of America.

30:24

And, you know, now I think people are saying, wow, I can aggregate demand on the Internet and buy an island in the

30:30

Mediterranean and build a city. And it's really it's possible to do things like that today in a way that it really wasn't even 20 years ago, let alone 100 years ago.

30:41

Yeah, as a good Burkean, I don't like what I'm hearing in some ways. I'm just I I don't know the limitless choices and being able to be there's part of me that obviously wants the escape hatch for people under tyranny and wants to find your people.

30:58

But it's got to be your people. It can't. I don't know. We already do this, right?

31:04

I mean, this is already a thing that we have found each other online and some I explain it like this way.

31:10

And I'd be curious to hear your thoughts like online dating. Right. It's not ideal, in my opinion, at all, but it may be necessary at times.

31:20

It may be the best option at times. And when you the success of online dating is whether or not you actually are able to make contact in the real world and forge a relationship that lasts and build a family and the rest.

31:35

Right. It's not you don't want to remain in the online world. Right.

31:40

That's not the goal of that particular tool. And I think the same thing with what you're doing with Ridge Runner. It's it's about getting to this community.

31:49

And you even said it's not about buying a plot in Brewington, although we want people to buy plots in Brewington.

31:56

It's just about getting to be with people that share your your values, your classic traditional

32:04

American values, especially if you're deprived of that in the area you live because it's changed under your feet. And so that's like,

32:11

I don't know, it seems like it's different than the network state, but it is a self sort. Right. And it is

32:17

I guess I would evaluate the success of the network state based on that. Right.

32:22

If it does it actually make a tangible groundfall that can produce a mechanism for people who are born into a society, as Burke would say, rather than a constant array of choices.

32:35

And you could because because what you're describing, it sounds like you just jump from network state to network state and I guess be experiment and be out there.

32:44

And I don't know. We're only given one life. So, yeah, I mean, I think that. Yeah. So I think that.

32:52

The challenges with the network state thesis are similar to the challenges that liberalism has in the sense that like, look at Europe, OK, Europe used to be heavily

33:02

Christian in its public square and then following really over the course of the 20th century, dechristianized and it's liberal now.

33:11

Right. So it's sort of you you they have a secularism. You leave your your comprehensive viewpoints in your house when you enter the public square in Europe.

33:21

And yeah. And now, you know, in the last 20 or 30 years, there's been a surge of Islamic migration.

33:27

And, you know, it turns out in these societies like Islamic is Islam is expansionary.

33:33

It's capable of passing its values on to the next generation. And so in Europe's built a neutral marketplace of ideas.

33:42

And it turns out, you know, the the the viewpoint that's very assertive and aggressive is winning over and against the people who don't bring their values into the public square.

33:54

And, you know, so, too, I think with with the network state thesis, I think if you gamed it out, I think communities that don't treat like membership as if it's nearly an opt in thing, if they believe, no, you know,

34:07

I I was born into this and I have a duty to it and I have kids and I'm going to raise them as if they're part of this community.

34:14

Those sorts of societies, I would think, would beat out opt in societies over time.

34:20

So, yeah, like, again, I'm skeptical of the some aspects of the overall thesis, but I do think it's very insightful at explaining what's happening politically even now in our country.

34:32

It's it's it partly explains, I think, why the big sort happens. Right. I mean, you get a viral story about, you know, how liberal

34:40

California is and then we might get a viral story about how some sheriff in Tennessee was like standing up for freedom.

34:46

And, you know, thousands of people will move on the basis of a viral story like that.

34:52

In fact, in one way, Knoxville, Tennessee, where Glenn Jacobs was the mayor, Glenn was a staunch defender of of liberty during the covid lockdowns.

35:02

And Knoxville has been exploding since 2020. So that's sort of a small example, just substantiating these dynamics.

35:11

Digital conditions accelerate that. And so I think especially when you're in a country like ours and in the state where there's a lot of political flux and political disagreement, digital conditions can help to accelerate people's sorting and, you know, looking for places that are going to be a better fit.

35:29

Again, I think with the goal long term is that, you know, people are going to get established, they're going to put down roots and, you know, ultimately they're going to help, you know, a real human society is going to congeal in a particular place over time.

35:43

Right. Right. Yeah. So to wrap this up, to kind of put a cap on it, obviously, we're past Senator Mike Lee's proposal and we're we're what's the next thing?

35:55

What do you expect to happen? Do you think these freedom cities are going to in the Trump administration become an actual on the ground reality?

36:04

Or do you think what do you think happens? Yeah, I think it will. You know,

36:09

I think that there's a little bit of you know, I think that the Freedom City people who follow this and are interested in I am

36:17

I think we need to like do a good job of articulating how this idea is different than the Lee proposal.

36:22

Right. And so when when when if this is brought back to the public, I think you need to have very clear messaging about the criteria by which you're going to sell land to people and really lead with the, you know, the pro -America,

36:38

America first rationales for why this is a good idea. And I think there's a heavy reindustrialization theme here where, you know, we are you know, where where we really want to enable innovation that will help us stay competitive with China, like in a geopolitical struggle to build chips and build drones.

36:57

That's a huge part of this. So, yeah, I think that I don't think you're I don't think you've heard the last of Freedom Cities.

37:05

I think people are going to be talking about this for the remainder of Trump's term. And I hope

37:10

I hope this is sort of a good explanation to people who haven't followed it closely. You know, the what's really driving it is a desire for America to be able to quickly build industrial commercial capacity to compete with China and other players who are doing the same.

37:28

Excellent, excellent. Well, if people want to find out more about what Josh Abattoy has to say, check him out. You can go to BYZNESS on X.

37:37

That's his handle business. You can go to RidgeRunnerUSA .com if you're interested in the community there in Gainesville, Tennessee.

37:43

And of course, you can also go to American Reformer. So with that, thanks,