Another utopian migration planned - to the ancestral home of the Hollands

Group Wants Christian Coup:

"Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff's offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

"'We're going to force a constitutional crisis,' said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

"'If necessary,' he said, 'we will secede from the union.'

"Burnell has not moved to South Carolina himself — he promised his wife that they would stay in Valley Springs, Calif., until the end of next year — but believes that his 950 supporters will rally to the cause. Five families have moved so far.

"Burnell said his inspiration came from the Free State Project, which in October 2003 appealed to libertarians to move to New Hampshire for limited government intervention, lower taxes and greater individual rights. By 2006, organizers had hoped to have 20,000 people committed to relocating to New Hampshire; so far, 6,600 have said they intended to make the move, and only 100 have done so.

"Christian Exodus, Burnell predicted, will be more successful.

"'There are more Christians than libertarians,' he said."

I am rather disappointed that NewsMax.com would use the word "coup" in describing Christian Exodus, from the information in their article and in the ChristianExodus.org website, they seem committed to working within the framework of the US Constitution - the real one, not the one constantly being re-written by the courts. Bad enough when we use intemperate descriptions of those who, even if we wish to criticize them on certain details, could be allies on some important issues - what makes it worse is that unhelpful word coup has been picked up in comments from the left at several blogs and websites.

It is interesting that the organizer credits the inspiration for his project, not to the Bible, but to the libertarian idealists who launched the Free State Movement two years ago to take over Vermont and declare independence. TheChristian Exodus plan is to take over South Carolina and, perhaps, secede.

As legendary NY Yankees manager Casey Stengel famously obseved, "It's deja vu all over again." I remember back in the 70s when libertarians were excitied about a plan to take over some island conveniently located near North American and making it an independent country with a libertarian population and government. Some had even picked out the island they wanted Great Abaco in the Bahamas. They were latching onto an indigenous secession movement on the island and backed a project called the Abaco Independence Movement. The only result was the world's longest bumper sticker - it read "National Health Insurance = Socialism" (if memory serves) and measured about 30 inches long.

My interest in this movement is primarily mercenary. They are targeting Greenville County, SC, and my partner and I have several choice building lots available in the Holland Trace Development on State Highway 14 on the north side Simpsonville. Anything that keeps the housing market strong in Greenville is OK by me.

Strangely, the area they have chosen is already a hotbed of activity by center-right to hard right political activists: Constitution Party, Libertarian Party, League of the South, etc. It even has its own conservative weekly paper, The Times-Examiner. There have been hot political contests in recent years over such issues as city condemnation policies, making Martin Luther King's birthday a mandatory paid holiday for county employees, and high-handed fiscal shenanigans by the county school board. In all these, the property owners and taxpayers have lost out as the local GOP has slid into the hands of RINOs.