If I built a MASSIVE offshore platform in international waters off the U.S.....

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Vesayen
Is that really it?

http://www.fruitsofthesea.demon.co.uk/sealand/gallery.html

Yup.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And everyone just kinda leaves them alone .

I don't think anyone has recognized them as a state, though.

[Dis]

I'm going to go over there and demand their lunch money

[Dis]

okay I'm unclear on certain things.

How do they generate power? I suppose they import food and other goods. Couldn't England just tax/tariff these goods?

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And everyone just kinda leaves them alone .

I don't think anyone has recognized them as a state, though.

Britain certainly has, more than once. Germany and the Netherlands have been forced to on one occasion when Britain refused to intervene in a dispute.

Their income is derived from turning the country over to a web-hosting company.

[mrmitchell]

I don't think anyone has recognized them as a state, though.

Why not? You could use ONE and only one soldier to keep the whole damn island in check, and it's not like they could do anything worth bothering over anyways. Man, I wish we had neighbors like those more often. Well, with Canada we do, but Mexico requires about 5 or 6 soldiers to watch it.

[GhengisFarb™]

Originally posted by Dissident
I'm going to go over there and demand their lunch money

Let's just borrow a helicopter and do a night raid air assault drop.

"The entire nation of Sealand has been occupied by a militia group who has demanded $10 from the UN for their safe release.................."



"Okay, how about $5?"

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Their income is derived from turning the country over to a web-hosting company.

State-owned enterprise? Sounds like communism to me.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Germany and the Netherlands have been forced to on one occasion when Britain refused to intervene in a dispute.

That doesn't mean they recognize Sealand as a state. They just may have said, we can't do anything.

Does Britain have a Sealand embassy? Merely acknowledging a place exists and formally recognizing it as a state are two different things.

http://www.sealandgov.com/history.html

Shows that while certain states have recognized Sealand as a de facto state, none have formally recognized it.

Why not?

Probably because they don't want to set the precedent that you can do this. So they recognize it de facto, but not formally (de jure).

You could use ONE and only one soldier to keep the whole damn island in check, and it's not like they could do anything worth bothering over anyways.

Which does not have any bearing on formal recognition.

[Immortal Wombat]

So they recognize it de facto, but not formally (de jure).

So they recognise it. That's all you said. Who's quibbling anyway? The longer nobody says anything now, the more likely they are to get recognised in the future.

St Leo: no, company-owned state. I suspect they had some serious financial problems running SeaLand and were pretty much forced to sell out.