Via TPM, I was sent to this website, [fair warning: crazy people on the other end of that link] to find this image:
We’ve already discussed the project depicted here — several times, in fact. It’s the Citadel — that Wingnut fantasy of a Dungeons-and-Dragons-and-Bushmasters retreat in Idaho where no liberals need apply.
All fine — if it were up to me, I’d encourage every gun nut to retreat to their bastions — whether up in the Idaho panhandle, where generations of actually competent folks have found it so easy to construct self-sustaining livelihoods …or in GlennBeckistan, that to-be self-sustaining (sic!) entertainment and intellectual hub to be constructed somewhere in Texas.
Go! Here’s your hat; what’s your hurry?
Seriously. If they would only do the rest of us the favor of retreating to their own private Somali-o’s, our politics and our societies would be that much saner and safer.
But we knew that already, and that’s not what caught my eye.
Nah.
Here’s the story: As I’d just opened the picture above, my son happened to come into my study. He asked what I was looking at — it seemed to him a sketch from one of the medieval combat games he likes and knows I don’t, and he wondered what would possess me to bother with such a thing.
I told him that, no, this wasn’t history or fantasy,* but rather somebody’s actual idea of someplace that would serve to protect them from an overweening federal government. He just looked at it pityingly, wondering, and he asked me, “have these folks never heard of cannon?”
And damn if that hadn’t been literally my first thought on reading the caption “Interior Defensive Walls & Towers.” I mean, artillery much?
The stupid. It burns. With the white-hot-heat-of-a-thousand-suns.
*Well, it is. But not that kind.
redshirt
Where’s the food coming from? Also, what serfs will live just outside the walls? Monthly RINO’s?
dmsilev
Should we tell these nitwits that there’s a good reason why it’s been several hundred years since curtain walls and stone towers were useful fortifications?
We should. Because when liberals tell them that, they’ll double down. And why should England and France have all the castles?
dr. bloor
Is a background in spousal or child abuse required for a position as an armed guard in their schools?
arguingwithsignposts
drooooooooonnneeeesssss!
Also, I’m too lazy to google, so who the fuck is John Parker?
Bort
Do I get a price break if I get one of the perimeter houses? I figure those will be first to go when the zombies and/or blah people attack.
ranchandsyrup
some day, the Citadel will have to battle Glenn Beck’s yet to be named Galt’s Gulch Ripoff without the talent in TX. Because there can be only one….
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I am absolutely not getting out of the boat, so I’ll have to ask here: what is the purpose of the interior defensive walls? Are they already anticipating internecine strife? Guelphs and Ghibellines with guns?
g
Nice layout.
Of course, since they’re in a rural area that is historically prone to wildfires, that “single gate entry/exit” is going to work out really fine for them.
I can see the traffic jams will be road-rage inducing even on a non-fire-danger day. of course, with everybody packing….
Roger Moore
Sure they have, but they aren’t really building the thing to protect against people who have cannon (or aircraft). They’re building it to keep out the hordes of minorities who are overrunning the country and taking good stuff away from honest, God fearing Real Americans(TM).
ruemara
Why are these hippies creating a farmer’s market? Real patriots live on Chik-Fil-A and cheetos.
dmsilev
Also, too, any serious medieval castle builder would look at that design and laugh. For starters, only one gate? Not much defensive depth to the keep, I mean arms factory. And no well inside the inner keep? FAIL.
Though I must say I like the idea of the ‘Firearms Museum and Reflecting Pool’. Fascinating combination.
Chris
Good. Now someone write a novel that includes this compound being stormed by force.
dmsilev
@arguingwithsignposts:
The good alien in Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension.
different-church-lady
In 12 months time that place is gonna be just like Escape From New York, I gar-an-tee.
Tone in DC
Maybe these wingers just want to reenact Ruby Ridge/Waco/Grant in Richmond.
JCT
@dmsilev:
First thing I noticed as well.
It’s like a gun fetish amusement park that you can live in.
schrodinger's cat
My friend who moved to Idaho, to be with her aging mother is really unhappy there, now I see the reason why.
ding dong
So,like,where’s the ER and trauma surgery unit for all the gunshot wounds which will be caused by the stupids?
Rustydude
The paranoia inside would be off the charts. Could you imagine the Citadel residents worrying about someone from the outside having infiltrated their bastion of freedom? I sure can.
LOL @ 3 walls. Totally D&D.
Ohio Mom
@ruemara: That’s what I was thinking. I remember when only places like the People’s Republics of Ithaca and Tacoma Park had farmer’s markets. They’re definitely mainstream now, an essential amenity.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Not really true. Curtain walls and stone towers aren’t that helpful against serious military foes, but they’re still very useful against poorly armed irregulars, e.g. stockades to protect against Indian attacks. If you’re worried about society collapsing, poorly armed irregulars are a much more reasonable threat than an organized military armed with heavy weapons.
catclub
About 100 detached houses
How many apartments in that town center? 500?
Yeah, I see these people as predominantly apartment living hipsters.
dr. bloor
Meet the neighbors!
dmsilev
Hahahaha:
No money down, no credit check, huh? What’s the resale value on a year’s supply of crappy survivalist food, 2 AR-15s and 2000 rounds of ammo, a generator, and a composting toilet? Because I could totally see signing up under a fake name, stripping the place of all of the housewarming gifts, and walking away.
David Hunt
My literal first thought was to quote the 90’s television show Babylon 5: “You may not have heard. They’ve invented these things called ‘aircraft’. They drop these things called ‘bombs.'”
Rey
@redshirt: I was wondering the same thing. I figured they’d buy it, but with what? Then I saw that they’re gonna have a gun factory, so I guess the idea is that area farmers will quite willingly and gladly part with a portion once the Citadel’s representatives explain what a dangerous world it is now and, gee, it sure would be a shame if something happened to your livestock, and you should probably just let us take your daughters with us behind the walls where it’s nice and safe.
catclub
Anyone else point out that it is just a giant grift by III Arms? I see fraud suits and timeshare salesmen.
Was that in an earlier thread on BJ or somewhere else?
MikeJ
I’m fascinated by “town center” and “neighborhood”. I don’t think there are enough houses in the neighborhoods to support that many businesses in the town center. Are some people actually going to *live* in the town center? They’re going to have an urban/suburban split inside their own walls!
redshirt
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: In case the FEMA/UN Goons breach the outer walls.
What if the daughter of John Q. Patriot starts dating some hippy from college – can she bring him home?
Perfect chance for Obama to get agents on the inside.
pseudonymous in nc
I told him that, no, this wasn’t history or fantasy
Well, fantasy in the sense that it’s almost certainly one of those scams that separates Tru Patriotz from their money than a real thing. See also, Admiralty Flags, etc.
Bostondreams
@arguingwithsignposts:
Considering their emphasis on ‘Minutemen’ (ha!), this is probably the John Parker to whom it refers.
Chris T.
Needs more buildings labeled “armory” and “ammo storage” and “firearms shop” and “firearms factory” and “firearms repair” and “firearms storage” (that’s not redundant with armory, not at all!)…
Tod Kelly
heh. From the website:
“Our children will be educated instead of indoctrinated.”
Yeah, because if you build a walled city where no one with differing opinions is allowed in and only a certain and narrow view of history and political is taught, the last thing you’d want would be any kind of indoctrination going on.
Tod Kelly
heh. From the website:
“Our children will be educated instead of indoctrinated.”
Yeah, because if you build a walled city where no one with differing opinions is allowed in and only a certain and narrow view of history and political mindset is acknowledged, the last thing you’d want would be any kind of indoctrination going on.
Roger Moore
@redshirt:
FTFY.
? Martin
Nice to know that we’ve relegated urban planning to 12 year old boys armed with D&D handbooks.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Actually, I suspect their primary purpose in building this thing is to allow their members to live in the childhood fantasies they never grew out of. Think children shooting aliens/zombies/Imperial-stormtroopers/Soviet-invaders/whatever in their back yards. Whether or not it would work in real life is besides the point (much like the question of whether my water pistol would really have cut through stormtrooper armor), since it’s all just fan service.
catclub
@dmsilev: “If you are bringing more than 2 adults”
Assumes facts not in evidence. These people are children.
dr. bloor
@catclub: Think I saw something about this on GOS. Basically, you’ll end up owing your soul to the company store.
redshirt
@Roger Moore: Hippy Negroes.
scav
You know who else tends to have an urban pattern of closed off defensible neighborhoods in a city? traditional Arabic cities)
Could this be a whole new way to go Godwin (Earl)?
Alas, I had to jump back pre-crucade, more’s the pity.
and I’m still getting a chortle from this.
Jay S
Those houses seem cheek by jowl for prickly people like these. Where’s the gardens for produce? No animal barns? Surely they won’t be counting on access outside the walls come the apocalypse?
Forum Transmitted Disease
Don’t see any area for growing food. Or grazing cattle.
Or a hospital.
I think taking these folks out would take a few weeks tops, and you wouldn’t even need cannon. Just a bulldozer parked across the only road in and out of the place could do it.
The Bearded Blogger
1) I want a moat! and alligators!
2) Farmer’s market but no farmland… Galties think by creating a charter for a food corporation, food will magically spring up, no need for any actual work?
Of course, that would be the solution for keeping out the messicans
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Jay S: Jinx. Great minds think alike.
Cermet
The layout look’s like a Nazi death camp – even has the death camp factory – fun.
redshirt
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Or churches. WHERE ARE THE CHURCHES?!
This is an Obama ploy, I figure. Get all the Patriots together in one place so he can Dronez them.
Rey
First prize is a tricked out Bushmaster. Second prize is an extended ammo clip. Third prize is a bullet to the back of the neck.
Poopyman
You’re missing the point, Tom. The point isn’t to create this citadel, it’s to sell shares to the rubes. Then, wonder of wonders! It’ll turn out that the whole enterprise goes bankrupt. Funny, that.
Leeds man
Needz moar motes. Wiff laser-equipt alligatorz.
Keith
I just cannot imagine this being stocked with anyone but senior citizens and the occasional Congressman (not mutually exclusive). It’d require too much money (no money down/no credit check deals work out that way) to attract the typical blue collar gun enthusiast and is straight up built like those Florida retirement communities.
weaselone
@Roger Moore:
This. They aren’t really anticipating an attack by the US military or even the Chinese. They’re expecting the country to descend into Mad Max style chaos. The walls are to keep out the hordes of primitively armed liberals and minorities who will show up to take their stuff once they have finished rendering the USA a dry, dessicated husk.
Alternately, they’re planning on eventually acquiring helots to compensate for the fact that none of them intend to do anything but brew alcohol and sell weapons. The helots would do the actual work and likely outnumber the denizens of the citadel by a significant number. The walls would serve as protection in the event of a revolt as most of the helots would live outside the walls. Some helots would be needed to work in the citadel itself so the internal walls would provide defense should the helots in the citadel attempt to overthrow their masters.
Leeds man
@The Bearded Blogger: Beat me to it. Basterd.
roc
This is like one of those Lawyer jokes, right?
“What do you call 5000 Rugged Individualists separated from the rest of the country by a 20′ wall?”
? Martin
@catclub:
Of course it’s a giant grift – teatards are involved.
scav
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Roads? Parking? Walmart? McDonalds?
bemused
@redshirt:
No Churches…too funny.
Bubblegum Tate
Any kid who played Crossbows & Catapults back in the day would laugh at that layout.
Shalimar
If every member has to be armed against the government, you don’t have to worry about civilian casualties. They wouldn’t survive one air raid.
dmsilev
From their FAQ:
Will The Citadel feature people dressed up as adorable mascots Bushmaster and Extended Clip?
Rey
@? Martin:
Hey now, the first thing a 12-year-old with a D&D handbook would know to do is plan a defense against
airstrikesdragonstrikes.ranchandsyrup
Now I know where to site my combination tri-corner hat/hoveround/pocket constitution factory.
West of the Cascades
The good: it will be difficult for the government’s black vans to get through the perimeter and interior defensive walls.
The bad: it may be less difficult than intended for the government’s black helicopters to do their business.
catclub
@roc: Me! Me! I know!
“A good start”.
GregB
I see nothing labeled flag pole and not a single war memorial or anything labeled patriot/freedom/liberty.
I have also heard rumors that the barbed wire is facing inward!
Not to mention it doesn’t appear they have any safe place for a shooting range.
It reminds me of the moron white supremacists in the 90’s who drew up a map for a white utopia in the upper west but failed to give themselves any access to an ocean.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@dr. bloor: Has anyone considered that this may be an all-too-clever plan by the Obama administration to get the most extreme of the right wing to inter themselves in
FEMAer, Freedom Camps?trollhattan
May I suggest Colleen Harris be among the first group of Citadelistanians?
.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/01/13/5111394/70-year-old-woman-held-in-killing.html#storylink=cpy
The only way to protect a husband against an armed bad wife is an armed good wife, so bigamy it is!
Dave
This is juvenile shit. From a military history POV, these idiots designed a wall system where the towers can’t even support each other.
Vauban would give this plan a F-
West of the Cascades
Does anyone else see this as a the perfect setting for a more modern playing out of “Lord of the Flies”?
Liberty60
OK, I will attempt a serious thought about that which is a joke.
The conservative project officially claims lineage of “traditional culture”, unofficially Euro-centric.
Yet compare this town plan with a truly traditional city, like Florence, London, Paris, or Moscow.
In traditional European culturesthe Church and State were the twin poles of power- not surprising that most cities had a town square anchored by a palace on one end and church on the other.
Churches don’t seem to be a big part of this city.
But more, this was clearly drawn up by a suburbanite, someone who is steeped in the contemproary American culture of functional zoning, and commuter culture.
Notice how the houses are carefully kept wide apart fromt he town center- so presumably getting a quart of milk involves getting in a car and driving.
Functional zoning was an outgrowth of the Progressive Era fixation on scientific order, which emphatically rejected the traditional European town plan based on Church and State authority.
But moreover, it shows how the contemporary conservative movement is not at all conservative- they have lost all touch with actual “tradition”. They literally have no idea what it is they want to restore.
They draw fanciful Medieval towers and stonework, but can’t escape their own 20th century mindset. They want to recreate a past that never existed, anywhere.
? Martin
I want to see what the building estimate for the fortress masonry work is, and then the revised estimate after the early depositors demand that no mexicans be involved.
k488
Talk about drinking the Kool Aid. When I look at that map I hear the Reverend Jones saying, “Mother…Mother…Mother…”
Soonergrunt
@Tom Levinson,top:
The first thing I thought when I looked at that was “a single battery of 105s could make life miserable and short from well outside small arms range.”
And shock waves bounce off walls, so there’s that double-whammy action going for you inside the internal curtain wall.
Roger Moore
@weaselone:
Three guesses about what racial/ethic group the helots will belong to.
Bubblegum Tate
@catclub:
Oh yeah, that was well established in one of the earlier threads. Now, its all about mocking the stupidity of the grift and the even greater stupidity of those who would fall for it.
jl
Where’s the moat?
KenZ
@? Martin:
I’d give more credit to the 12 year olds. The would probably create something much more defensible in every sense.
scav
And they’ve gone full medeval, the 40 acre lots are outside the walls with the option of “Microsuites” (with communal aka Marxist kitchens and baths) inside for the dread SHTF jubilee. But no provisions taken for foodstuffs in those everybody into the Citadel moments (warehouses? internal pasturage?).
Chris
@dmsilev:
Yes.
Many, many, many ways. Probably more than you even realize.
janut
@Jay S: Don’t worry, they’ll be eating each other.
el_gallo
These folk seem to have designed a nice little prison for themselves. For comparison:
San Quentin
johnny aquitard
These dumbasses think these interior walls are for defense against The Scary Others, but such walls only facilitate greater control of the dumbasses who will inhabit it. See: Baghdad and its miles of walls and checkpoints.
jl
@The Bearded Blogger:
I see you beat me too it.
But alligators in Idaho?
How about a moat with rabid otters?
cathyx
Who doesn’t want to live in a place with likeminded individuals who share the same values as you do?
cathyx
Who doesn’t want to live in a place with likeminded individuals who share the same values as you do?
catclub
I seem to remember that the Branch Davidian compound came a cropper when the government tried to serve papers on one of their members. Are they going to declare independence?
I also noted that April 19 will be a local high holy day.
So I figure another target demographic is deadbeat dads.
? Martin
@GregB:
Of course they do – outward, toward anything that moves. Stand your ground!
dr. bloor
@Liberty60:
You mean I won’t be able to stick my ass out the front door in the morning and shit on the curb?
Jay in Oregon
@Chris:
This needs to be turned into a map for (insert-name-of-popular-FPS-game-here).
With the players playing UN troops.
Roger Moore
@redshirt:
The church is labeled “Firearms Museum”. It’s where they get together to worship the Almighty Gun, all praise be unto Him.
trollhattan
They check the climate map, yet?
http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/Images/72DPI/id.jpg
Frickin’ cold there; no idea what the growing season between last and first frost is, but I’ll bet it’s darn short.
Maybe they think they can plant cows and pigs?
ranchandsyrup
Here is the church.
We ain’t got no nuns.
Open it up
and see all the guns.
The Bearded Blogger
@scav: Aaaah… it’s the disneyland for the crazys… dystopialand?
@Leeds man: but the lasers are a nice touch…
@dmsilev: Conservatives aren’t against community or sharing, as long as it is with the right kind of people.
J.D. Rhoades
@Roger Moore:
According to their website, they’re building it as a place to go when society collapses because of all the minorities.
And of course, they assume all those minorities will all be too dumb to find and use cannon when the whole thing goes to pieces.
JPL
Communal living!
Marc
“Farmer’s market” is what takes this from sad right-wing fantasy to Onion-level superparody.
jl
@The Bearded Blogger:
A moat full of rabid otters with laser beams strapped to their heads!
Rey
@Marc: Perhaps the “farmer’s market” is where they purchase the “farmers” who will grow their food.
? Martin
@el_gallo: Don’t inflame. San Quentin is nothing like this place. It has a chapel, a library, a gym, an infirmary, and a fire station. And it has far fewer walls.
redshirt
I love this topic. So much fun.
It would be awesome IF this is ever built (yeah, right) to buy land outside the Citadel and store my large catapult collection there. Just for storage.
trollhattan
Also, too, Where is #6’s apartment, where does the new #2 work and where do the store the big white ball? I hope they have the rotating teeter-totter spy thingie.
Hungry Joe
Ground will be broken with much fanfare. An acre or so will be scraped clean. Construction will begin … and eight months later the giant CITADEL sign will be sagging and there’ll forty feet of Outer Wall, half a dozen concrete slabs surrounded by weeds, and some cleaned-out bank accounts.
Roger Moore
@J.D. Rhoades:
You’d think they might take a look at the ethnic makeup of our armed forces before making that kind of mistake.
The Bearded Blogger
@Liberty60: I’m not sure ANY conservative could give a detailed account of the state of affairs he supposedly desires, beyond platitudes like “traditional”…
scav
@Marc: Wyatt Earp and the fight at the OK Farmers stall.
The Bearded Blogger
@Liberty60: I’m not sure ANY conservative could give a detailed account of the state of affairs he supposedly desires, beyond platitudes like “traditional”…
johnny aquitard
I notice how the arms factory is isolated in a corner away from the residential areas with its own set of walls, watchtowers and gate — just in case the workers ever get uppity and demand better working conditions, they can lock the place down.
The walls won’t keep any federal agency out, or the US army for that matter, but it sure will give them the upper hand against their workers even if they are armed with rifles.
g
@Liberty60: I thought about that, too, Liberty60. Say you live in the SEQuadrant and work at the factory, You’re going to walk to work? In Idaho in the winter?
I don’t see any public transportation there, so I guess you’re going to drive. And no commie car-pooling, either, so it’s going to be one road-rage heaven at shift change, getting all the cars from each quadrant through each little access gate.
trollhattan
Who wants to start a pool on the date the Citadel people
askdemand Google blur their location on the sat map?GregB
Can we get an African-American business group to invest in some land and a trebuchet factory in relative proximity to the Citadel?
Jay S
@Bubblegum Tate: Actually, I’m having a hard time figuring out how the grift works. The no money down lifetime lease contract seems tough to enforce if you don’t actually build something, and I find it hard to see them getting actual investor/owners to build this or to rip off in pretending to build it.
Poopyman
I see “Water/Power” but no sewage treatment, so shit moats it is!
Also too, what are they going to power the power station with? A slightly used Russian ship reactor?
swoof
So does “limited” mean one super Christiany church? Is it OK if the NOI builds a big fucking temple outside the Citadel?
Cermet
The only real issue is power – electric and fuels; where are these gonna be gotten from? If outside than they are 100% dependent on people outside their little hell hole. The can’t store any real amount of gasoline so cars are not really viable. Electricity will be their real issue – both cost and make then this need will make them totally vunerubale to outside attack … the stupid hurts. Everyone forgets energy.
Chris
@The Bearded Blogger:
This times a thousand. They have no fucking idea what they want other than to return to an idyllic and vaguely remembered past that never actually existed in the first place.
dmsilev
@g: And remember that the HOA rules require that all adults be armed at all times.
What could possibly go wrong?
? Martin
@trollhattan:
Rover (the big white ball) isn’t ‘stored’, it maintains a constant eye on the
inmatespatriots.redshirt
@Poopyman: DRILL HERE DRILL NOW DRILL FOREVER!
SpotWeld
You know what I don’t see shown there. Water and sewer lines.
(I’ll assume power is distributed by above ground pole).
You know what a really dumb thing to put over water and sewer lines is? Big huge heavy walls that require deep impacted foundations.
Or will this be another case of morons who just keep digging in, ’cause with all this sh*t there must be a pony somewhere.
Fred
Looks like the place could house dozens of people. If everybody can come up with $50,000,000 each they should about be able to build it.
I like the way they have a special logo to give the arms factory star status. The idea must be to support the place with gun sales to the outsiders. Who will they sell to when the Kenyan Socialist Muslim Nazi Communist Anti-Christ establishes His world dominion, siezes all the weapons and sells all the white chritian children into slavery or whatever His evil intent is?
They should christen the amphitheatre, “The David Koresh Memorial Rally Center”. Time to honor a true martyr to the cause of monumental crackpotism. The man was a prophet to all right thinking people who want to exercize their God give right to stockpile insane amounts of armaments and marry a gazzillion wives for fun and profit.
It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you!
JPL
Does each homeowner receive a 300 page booklet outlining various covenants? Freedom comes with a book of rules.
g
@J.D. Rhoades: they assume all those minorities will all be too dumb to find and use cannon when the whole thing goes to pieces.
Actually, I can’t see a reason why “the minorities” would want to storm them. I can just imagine the sad sack Citadel denizens, endlessly awaiting, eagerly, for their chance to shoot a supposed invader. I pity the UPS deliveryman.
during the 1993 LA riots, there was a guy in my mixed, inner-city Seattle neighborhood who was just ITCHING for the chance to blow away someone storming his citadel. He seemed truly disappointed when our neighborhood was peaceful.
Rey
@Poopyman:
With their own shit, of course, just like Bartertown.
jl
@Hungry Joe:
You mean they won’t even get as far as the foundations:
Ruins of Belvior fortress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belvoir_fortress.JPG
I as hoping for something more like this:
Krak des Chevaliers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Krak_des_Chevaliers_01.jpg
that would be cool, up in Idaho.
Joel
@Dave: I don’t know, the walls have that sort of zig-zaggy “Jaguar’s Teeth” motif that the Incas built at Sacasyhuaman.
? Martin
And no need to waste powder in a cannon on this place. Just barricade the main entrance and walk away. They’ll never figure out how to get out, and they kill either other in the decision making process, leaving the last members to die of starvation.
Woodrowfan
@Rustydude: Twilight Zone, The Monsters are on Maple Street??
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@dr. bloor:
We have Twitter for that, now.
trollhattan
@? Martin:
“White Rover, white Rover, let Adolph come over.”
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
Yeah, in one of the earlier threads I pointed out that these sort of “utopian” communities nearly always fail, usually in a hail of lawsuits. In this “utopian” community, the hail will be gunfire.
This is grift on a grand scale. The guy who is putting this thing together is a convicted extortionist.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Roger Moore @J.D. Rhoades: I guess they also don’t realize that minorities know how to build a trebuchet either.
redshirt
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Pshaw! You think the LIBERAL Twitter will be allowed in The Citadel? Or Daily Kos? Or even liberal sites like Fox News?
I’d love to see their internet filter. FREE REPUBLIC ONLY.
dmsilev
@? Martin: Yeah. Real castles and such always had multiple ways out, just in case some ill-intentioned folks set up camp outside the main gate. Or, as noted earlier, in case a wildfire comes bearing down on the main gate.
Woodrowfan
The new Idaho Zoo!
Morbo
Why use a modern howitzer with expensive ammunition when you could punch a tuber through a window with a potato cannon and sit back and watch the lot of them shoot each other when they can’t figure out where it came from?
Eric U.
this place isn’t even going to get to the model home and community center stage that is the terminal state of so many real estate scams. I foresee a broken down bulldozer and a batch of dirt piles as how this one will end up.
Hungry Joe
Reminds me of when my friends and I built a fort and nobody tried to knock it down. Huge disappointment.
Of course, we were nine years old.
Cacti
“Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.”
-George S. Patton
? Martin
@Cermet:
They should make 100W incandescent lightbulbs mandatory in all rooms. Because freedom!
zombie rotten mcdonald
two days after they are all inside, I say we mount a stealthy SEAL sneak attack to put a big-ass lock on the OUTSIDE of the gate.
Barney
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Hell, yes, internecine strife will be compulsory. My guess is the neighborhoods with yards will club together to force a voting law based on ground area, on the basis that, like states in the US senate, those with more real estate should get more votes per person. In retaliation, the ‘town center/farmers’ market’ area, with low-vote apartments but control over the main gate, will impose a toll on everyone wanting to come in and out of the
psychology experimentFreedom Citadel. The north-east sector will secede, including the arms factory and will start converting it to cannon manufacture, thinking to demolish the inner walls of theirenemiesfellow homeowners’ associations. But the western zone will seize the school, holding the north-east and town center children hostage. The south-west shanty-town wisely decides to use its proximity to the outer wall gate to get the hell out while they can, building a ramp over the inner wall with the rubble from their houses, and discarded copies of Guns and Ammo.After public executions in the amphitheatre by the town center faction, a free-for-all firefight develops on the Green. Once the south-western refugees bring word to the outside world, the authorities arrive to find the children are the only survivors, but the last book they read was Lord of the Flies, and they’ve taken it as the founding constitution of the new republic they’ve set up in the north-western slum. There is a suspiciously large supply of salted meat …
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Poopyman:
I just really enjoy when one of these Sadlyisms shows up somewhere else.
wasabi gasp
Maybe they can catch a deal on a fixerupper.
GxB
@k488: Had the same thought, except Jim Jones was actually a leftist loon as I recall. Funny, I don’t think there’s been a true lefty kook of any note since.
As for the compound itself, I hope they build it. I’d donate money myself if it passed the grift sniff test (it doesn’t.) All it’d need are hulking security robots and little girls toting hypos full of “Adam”…
[…not a D&D reference but I got to strut some dork cred here…]
MikeJ
@Shalimar:
Air raid hell, they wouldn’t survive one Abrams tank. I doubt they’d survive one humvee full of USMC.
The Dangerman
I visited their application at that website; one question is:
“Are you now, or have you ever been a member of, or associated with any racist group or subversive association that espouses the violent overthrow of these United States or any individual State?”
It’s not clear to me if that is a qualifying or disqualifying factor.
I see some epic applications being delivered to them; this has the potential to make McCain’s (golf) ball reviews look tame.
ETA: Right now, application fees are $231, with all but $33 refundable if the application is rejected. Surely there can’t be enough stupid shits to actually believe that this will ever be built, right? RIGHT?
scav
I’m wondering about that open air amphitheater in Idaho — all the oldsters scootering over to it for Lawrence Welk tribute bands and Ted Nugent in a tobedetermined state of existence.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Indeed….note they only have one year of stored food….they’re forgetting that sieges could last several years and that was only if/when the fortress had some means of getting food in from the outside world. Plus, once disease strikes and it always does in a siege having no hospital would just be stupid. Speaking of which, how many doctors do you know would want to live in a community like this? They would have to kidnap doctors and nurses for a place like this.
Fluke bucket
Without looking through the literature how about churches? Are there no churches?
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Or you wanted to go the other direction and didn’t fancy walking all the way around the town to go that way. Remember that fortified towns- and make no mistake that this is a fortified town, not a castle- were places to live first and military encampments second. Towns were usually placed at transportation junctions (and became junctions when they hadn’t started that way) so they needed multiple gates to access all the roads that came there.
? Martin
Somewhat more seriously, it’s interesting that they develop this whole presumed shared support community system, and then waste about 75% of their available neighborhood space with fenced yards for each family. The whole point of a fenced yard is so you can isolate yourself from your neighbor and not give a shit about them. The mere presence of those fences would upend the whole plan. They seem to have some vague notion that there should be shared public spaces, but don’t actually commit to them or understand their utility.
Again, exactly what a 12 year old would design.
But please oh please let this get built. Plus Glenn Beck’s rival libertarian mini-nation in Texas.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I think this Citadel is an excellent place for our
GolgafrinchamsGaltian Supermen to congregate.johnny aquitard
@Liberty60:
Good observation! Yes, what I called ‘pod’ development.
Most post-war suburbs are similar to this plan, with each development having very few access points, and every ‘pod’ requiring arterial roads, that dump into larger ones, with designated commercial zones (malls) segregated and isolated from the neighborhoods, such that a person often can’t walk from their house behind a mall to the mall itself without going way out of their way and crossing at least one no-man’s land of high-speed busy vehicular traffic. Often there are not even sidewalks.
Along these areterial roads you often see literal walls, wooden barriers for privacy or concrete block ones for sound control. And then there’s the gated community..
It says something about the cultural factors that produced such development.
g
“If yes, you get a discount!”
MikeJ
@The Dangerman:
I would imagine most of them claim their whites only club isn’t racist, it’s “racialist” or whatever they call it now.
JWL
This idiocy strikes me as a future episode of American Greed in the making.
Liberty60
@The Bearded Blogger:
The community imagined here is pretty much a cultish dictatorship, where any heterodox ideas are savagely suppressed.
Notice how this isn’t a city plan drawn up by experts in the field, or an outside voice with experience in town planning;The rules and bylaws aren’t the result of a group of citizens debating ideas; it is entirely the work of a single mind, a single purpose and viewpoint.
Rey
@Barney:
Sucks to your ass-mar! I’ve got the Bushmaster!
Anoniminous
@cathyx:
I’m all for crazed gun-toting lunatics exiling themselves to Idaho and triple walling themselves in, with one exit, with other crazed gun-toting lunatics.
I mean … what could go wrong?
trollhattan
Anybody know how much it costs Israel per mile to build that wall of theirs? I’m guessing these yahoos could pay for a few yards of one.
Or, they could do a version scaled down to match their budget–like Stonehenge in “Spinal Tap.”
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@West of the Cascades: Kudos to your for a lit ref….and absolutely, see comments above regarding cannibalism. Also, too, where is the tree stump/stage where the crowd can be addressed using the Conch?
PaulW
Does sewage and trash all go to the Water/Power or is there another location for that?
Interesting that they have a gun factory on the premises. Where the residents will most likely be expected to work (non-union wages, natch) 12 hours a day 6 days a week to pump out all the ammo they can sell (after all, the gun stores are running out of ammo).
Where’s the baseball / soccer fields for the kids to play sports? Are they expected to just work the firing range for their relaxation?
One last thought: Depending on how high the outer and main walls are… this is kind of a death trap if invading forces are able to get through the only two gates into the Citadel… I suppose every resident is expected to die where they stand when the UN Black Helicopters come for them. Which, of course, is a great way for invading forces to get over walls in the first place…
“Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man” – Patton
Roger Moore
@Liberty60:
A well armed community is a
polite communitycommunity where people are terrified of offending the local groupthink.Humbert Dinglepencker
Trebuchets. I vote for trebuchets. I didn’t see any fire department facilities, so a few rounds of burning hay into the town center ought to do it. Rats deserting the burning ship.
k488
@GxB: True about Rev. Jim, and he actually accomplished some good in SF before he went off the rails, if I remember. Still, when the end is near, loons is loons.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Liberty60: Yes, this was my thought when someone mentioned earlier about the towers being so far apart. Show me a real walled city with such long walls…they would be incredibly vulnerable.
Roger Moore
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ:
Can’t you see the Amphitheater just off the John Parker Green?
Oltrol
This is all great fun, but you are missing the most basic point.
It is only going to have to keep out marauders.
People who are looking for food and shelter, and (brains), and who might use force to obtain those basic needs.
Just like in the movie the survivors took refuge in a Mall.
That movie was a cinematic powerhouse called…..”Dawn of the Dead”.
Or more loosely, “Dawn of the Takers”.
MikeJ
@Humbert Dinglepencker:
Diseased animals would be fun too.
Mart
Reminds me of Neu Schweinstein, a castle built in Germany from the mid to late 1800’s as a vanity project by the local person of approved bloodline. It is alledged the locals eventually murdered the guy for bankrupting them by building the silly thing.
Artillery was the reason why they stopped building castles long before that, and that was well befire smart missles and F-22 stealth fighters.
BTW – Neu Schweinstein is very pretty – the model for the Disney castle; but seemed a waste of time to tour since it is ahistorical. If you like to tour a well perserved German castle – need to see Burg Eltz.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Barney:
/shudder
Maude
Where are they going to put garbage? Are there gas stations for the vehicles and a repair shop?
Snow removal?
Omnes Omnibus
Have these people ever read a military text? Do the words “interlocking fields of fire” escape them? Also too, that place would be chest deep in raw sewage within a couple of months.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Hmmm, something like the acolytes of The Bomb in “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”?
GxB
@Humbert Dinglepencker: If the siege engines don’t work, it begs the question, what could we use in effigy to get inside the walls? A large wooden -rabbit- -badger- horse?
eta: wtf happened to the strikethrough? Ya take some time away from the intertubes and the world goes all topsy turvy-like.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Oooh – look at those nice BIG interior houses, each with masses of lawn space. I’m going to hazard a guess here that while all animals are equal, some will start off being more equal than others, and if they don’t like it they can sell their dinky little shacks back to the Citadel at a substantive loss so the next rube can move in.
‘Cos nothing says “Freedom” like living in a walled ghetto in a walled village owned by armed men who get to make the rules to suit themselves.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
The dearth of actual military knowledge that this concept betrays leaves me with little doubt that this is basically a grift in progress.
They spent too much time watching “The Postman” I think.
Jay S
@The Dangerman:
The FBI should be good for four or five.
redshirt
@GxB: Large statue of Reagan.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@johnny aquitard:
You just described the suburban Arizona–all of it. One can get lost in these walled in communities never to find a real thoroughfare again. It’s enough to make one want to run over the kids walking in the street for lack of frigging sidewalks.
The prophet Nostradumbass
What are the schools for? I thought these nut jobs were all into homeschooling?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Roger Moore:
hey’re building it to keep out the hordes of minorities who are overrunning the country and taking good stuff away from honest, God fearing Real Americans(TM).
They do realise even blah people know about mortars these days, right?
One sniper rifle covering the main gate, one mortar with a lot of ammunition, and suddenly your Citadel is looking more like a cage…
RaflW
@weaselone:
Too bad it’s really Exxon-TransCanada-Peabody Energy, et al, that’s doing that.
GxB
@redshirt: In a goatse pose.
The Other Chuck
@MikeJ:
Those are already inside the walls. They’re also known as “residents”.
Zifnab25
Um… who is going to pay for this humongous boondoggle? I’ve seen richer men than the Idaho City Rifle Society bankrupt themselves trying to build Ye Olde Medieval Castles.
? Martin
@The Dangerman:
Disqualifying.
Idaho is hip-deep in neo-nazi groups that would love to own this place. I don’t think they trust a collection of such individuals to pay their rent on time.
kerFuFFler
Who needs guns when you have weapons-grade stupidity?
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW:
These people know that something is not right with our society.
But they miss who is responsible for it every single fucking time.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@MikeJ:
With the number of loaded weapons, they might not survive an Abrams MOVIE.
f space that
O@Humbert Dinglepencker:Trebuchets would be very cool.
KS in MA
@Roger Moore: Silly! The helots will be their daughters!
MikeJ
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Cloverfield is why I don’t keep weapons in the house. Never again!
gogol's wife
I can’t believe how much you guys have been able to get out of this one diagram. Hilarious.
Emma
@MikeJ: I vaguely remember a movie of the “real medieval shit and not the Disney crap” style where they took down a town by pitching a diseased cow down its well.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@schrodinger’s cat:
Born in Boise, lived in Lewiston then Clarkston (WA) and Spokane. I’ve stomped all over Idaho and the best way to describe it, especially the panhandle area, is the Alabama of the northwest.
It’s a beautiful state filled with miserable people. The Citadel will fit right in there.
jp7505a
Your son made my day. Absolute Genus !!!!!!
Poopyman
@KS in MA: I believe the word you’re thinking of is harlots.
And I’m sure they’ll slip a few of them in, too.
elm
Their idea of a fortress is hundreds of years out of date.
jon
Crazily impractical for any long-term siege, especially with only one road leading in. If things go bugshit (or whatever their term is,) they’ll be like the guys in Mad Max II/Road Warrior: stuck inside a compound while Mr Humungous threatens them with rape and murder. And Mel Gibson’s retired, the kid with the boomerang will be happily eating rabbits while he watches folks die, and the gyrocopter guy doesn’t have a landing site.
notoriousJRT
I note they are looking for “suitable incentives” from the county in which they will locate their nutopia. I did not read on to find out what such incentives must be…
Olivia
@Cermet:
Well, they will just plug the electrical cords into the outlets, silly!
Rey
@jon: You’re forgetting that the Road Warrior compound was an oil refinery, i.e., contained useful commodities. Just what does Citadel have that the Teeming Hordes couldn’t find most any other place that isn’t in the middle of Pigfuck, Idaho?
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s because it’s a lot better for your ego to believe that you’re being threatened by a Vast Left-Wing Muslim Conspiracy whose single-minded obsession is the destruction of YOU and your Way Of Life personally…
… than to accept that the people screwing you over are just regular businessmen, who neither know nor care about your way of life and aren’t really out to get you any more than people who build roads are out to steamroll prairie dog towns – the prairie dog towns just happen to be in the way, and business is business.
It’s also more comfortable to lay all the blame on people from outside your tribe (however you define it) than to consider the far more uncomfortable notion that there’s something wrong with your tribe.
Hence why they try so hard to miss the point.
Nathan
Gosh it doesn’t even look like they have a chain-link fence around their “Water/Power.”
I think this place could be taken down by the “Im in ur base killin ur d00dz” guy.
Roger Moore
@KS in MA:
You’re thinking of harlots.
redshirt
@Rey: FREEDOM! And as a liberal you know how strong your desire is to crush it, right? Imagine after the Fall? x1000!
Roger Moore
@Rey:
Guns. Lots of guns.
MaryRC
@MikeJ: Most of their revenue, they hope, will derive from tourists who come to see — I don’t know, the Firearms Museum and Reflecting Pool, I guess. So most of the town center will be taken up by hotels, shops and restaurants catering to tourist traffic. The planners talk about this on their prospectus.
They’re also touting other firearms-themed tourist attractions, including gun fairs and hunting. Not on the John Parker Green, sadly, but in the hills and forests of beautiful scenic Idaho. In other words, you have to leave the Citadel if you want to take advantage of the many local attractions for sportsmen.
No telling what happens when you get back too late for curfew and find the drawbridge closed. They hunt your wife and kids on John Parker Green? Still on the drawing board, I gather.
Jay S
@Jay S: Against my better judgement I looked at the sites financial plans. There’s the application fee, and then the lucky duckies that pass the entrance exam are obligated to pay 1/4 of the eventual lease until ground breaking begins. Then you are stuck with 1/2 lease until completion. The are claiming to have the property lined up mid 2013. So the FBI guys may be in for a few grand over several months.
I read an article on the Nigerian email scams suggesting that they were so poorly written to limit the responses to the most gullible and least likely to cause trouble. Maybe this scam/plan uses the same premise? OTOH I wouldn’t want to deal with the Patriot wanna be(s) that figure out they’ve been had.
elm
@Jay S: I’m pretty sure that’s it. It’s a plan designed to appeal to only the most gullible and foolish people on the planet.
Jay S
@Roger Moore: Food as well, food you’d have to be desperate to eat, like powdered eggs, but food. It’s part of the Golden horde mentality.
wasabi gasp
Switch out the arms factory logo for a graphic of a bitten apple and this kooky plan just might work.
BruceJ
@Roger Moore: Ahem. Poorly armed irregulars can still come up with truck bombs.
And well-educated, poorly armed irregulars will figure out how to make trebuchets. Just imagine…off in the forest they hear a KA-whongggonngonngong and a Fiat loaded with anfo comes whistling thorugh the air:
GxB
@MaryRC: I’m kind of hoping they put a monorail around the outside walls so we can take a ride and observe them in their natural environment. Provided it is heavily armored and bulletproof glass and all. But the reflecting pool is what really cracks me up – Count Dracula reflected more than those crazy fuckers.
gnomedad
@Roger Moore:
Fixed.
pseudonymous in nc
@dmsilev:
Mickey Mauser. It’s definitely going after the survivalist cosplay rubes.
Jay S
@MaryRC: I could almost see tourism working if they ran around in period costume. I’m not sure which period, maybe they could rotate through a few, from medieval through Mad Max.
chopper
they should name it ‘woodbury’ instead.
JustBeingPedantic
@roc:
Inmates.
Beauzeaux
@Keith: Speaking as a senior citizen I’m a good deal more interested in being near a hospital than I am in being near a firearms factory.
gnomedad
@Poopyman:
Springtime for Galt.
PaulW
In all seriousness, this reminds me of the 19th Century attempts at Utopia communities that dotted the U.S. both before and after the war. The only ones to survive longer than a hiccup were the Mormons and the Shakers… but the Mormons had to change their rules to adapt, and the Shakers eventually died out because their celibacy meant no future generations.
Read up on the list of American Utopias… and count how many lasted more than 2-3 years.
Calouste
@Cacti:
As I said on the other threat, Patton didn’t fight on the Eastern Front. It took the Nazis 8 months to take Sevastopol, even though they had Stukas and an f’ing 800mm gun. And of course, they never took Leningrad even though they tried for 900 days.
notoriousJRT
@jl:
salvage
…
It’s a fucking prison.
They want to imprison themselves.
Uh, people, let’s get the Kickstarter going.
Liberty60
@Jay S:
They will never…EVER…figure out they have been had. Guaran-damn-teed.
GxB
@gnomedad: Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Free-dumb party!
YellowDog
It’s a big grift and will never be built, but imagine the fun. What could go wrong with a bunch of angry, gun-toting loons who have nothing but time to drink and argue with each other?
Ed
“Each neighborhood will have similar housing for visual uniformity and aesthetic appeal”
FREEDOM!!!!!!
gelfling545
@Chris: I expect that one of those ways is that after a week’s stay most people will be ready to return to reality.
qwerty42
So … Winterfell or Stalingrad or Fort Phil Kearny or what? I appreciate the idea if getting a lot of really, really paranoid people out of normal society, but what kind of weird utopia do these folks plan to build?
Jay in Oregon
@Liberty60:
And that is why wingnut welfare is the juiciest grift of all.
RaflW
@trollhattan:
You are number one.
jon
@Rey: On a somewhat de-evolutionary tangent, The Road informs us that if things go really bugshit, people are made of food.
hoodie
When TSHTF, I’m going back to Sunset Boulevard
Jay in Oregon
@GxB:
It sounds like “Republican Party Reservation” from Transmetropolitan.
Avery Greynold
@Ed: The phrase “neighbors keep their noses out of other neighbors’ business” doesn’t fit with the maintenance of “visual uniformity and aesthetic appeal.” I hope the aesthetics review and enforcement committee has tanks.
srv
Where are the railroad tracks for the people who live on the other side of the tracks?
Can’t use Rearden Metal for roofing.
Mustang Bobby
I give it six months before somebody starts three tunnels: Tom, Dick, and Harry.
And to go to my other cinematic reference, where are the parapets to fend off the Orcs?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@The Dangerman:
ETA: Right now, application fees are $231, with all but $33 refundable if the application is rejected. Surely there can’t be enough stupid shits to actually believe that this will ever be built, right? RIGHT?
I’m going to hazard a guess here that NO-ONE is rejected – they’re all going to be pending and pending and pending and pending…
Soonergrunt
@GxB: But it’s not under water…yet…
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@MikeJ:
Diseased animals would be fun too.
i, Sit back and control access so they can’t get out of the walls.
ii, Plug up the sewage outlet – which, strangely enough, doesn’t seem to have been considered in this diagram.
iii, Wait.
They may have a year’s quantity of food – but after it’s passed through their bodies, it has to go somewhere…
GregB
I think we need to start a rumor that this is actually being financed by a shadowy George Soros outfit that wants to dupe the wingnuts into self-deporting into pre-built FEMA camps.
Besides don’t these fools know there is a massive underground UN base in Idaho filled with Gurkha troops?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Ed:
Are they aware that they are building an armed soshulist paradise? No property ownership, a uniform building code, ‘be-a-believer-or-be-thrown out’ rule set and the like? Hell, they even have the town factory, the only option there for a ‘good’ job in a town with few options.
An aside: I wonder if there will be enough room on the roadways for all of the Hoverrounds.
Dave N.
@Jay S: I think you are greatly overestimating the intelligence of these Patriot wannabes. These are the people who still believe that Reagan single-handedly beat back the Soviet menace with nothing but his star-spangled loin cloth and the Spear of Destiny.
David in NY
I used to make stuff like that when I was 12.
PurpleGirl
Where is the closest stone quarry? If the walls/towers are made of stone they need a close source for the stone, otherwise it will be expensive to ship in the amount of stone they’ll need.
Are they planning for some masons in their population mix? Even after the walls/towers are built, you need to maintain them and repair them. Gonna need some masons.
Another thing — the entry way through the outer wall is some distance from the entrance to the city; there appears to be no road there. So people, trucks, cars, etc. will tramp down a path between the two points? Gonna get muddy if it rains.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@Emma:
@MikeJ: I vaguely remember a movie of the “real medieval shit and not the Disney crap” style where they took down a town by pitching a diseased cow down its well.
You’re probably thinking of this.
jibeaux
@salvage: I lol’ed.
Bendal
The only part of that ‘citadel’ I would approve of from a defensive standpoint is the outer wall entrance isn’t right across from the main gate.
However, considering how the arms factory is on the far side of the compound, imagine how many large delivery and shipping vehicles are going to be coming and going through that main gate every day. Now imagine how all those large vehicles are going to clog up the one and only road inside the walls.
Defensively, this is some neophyte DM’s idea of what his ultimate walled city in AD&D ought to look like, except he forgot the inner keep. You know, the center fortress that overlooks everything else? There isn’t one here; the walls are on their own. The interior defensive walls are useless. If someone breaches or comes over or bypasses the outer main wall, the smaller walls don’t accomplish anything. The DM also forgot about aerial attack, but maybe they thought being on a mountain would help.
There’s no way on this planet can they possibly afford to build all those walls and towers either. We’re talking tens of thousands of cubic yards of concrete, earth and stone to build just the outer wall, and tens of thousands more to build the interior ones. Then who’s going to ‘patrol’ all those walls? They won’t be making or growing stuff while they are “on patrol”, you know.
Soonergrunt
@Mart: When you tour it, the guides will tell you that he was murdered by his court advisers (the Bishop prime amongst them) for propounding the idea that all subjects of the Kingdom of Bavaria should have free schooling from elementary to college level.
It has the virtue of being somewhat more believable. Ludwig II and his father, Ludvig I were both highly progressive for the era.
Just Some Fuckhead
pretty sure i saw one of these community plans back in fourth grade when we were learning about feudalism
JWL
@Mustang Bobby: Indeed. Can you imagine what living in that nuthouse would be like for smart teenagers?
gbear
Imagine being the guy who grifts a bunch of angry, gun-toting loons. He’d better have a super-secret hideaway to vanish with the loot. It’s going to have to be super-soundproof too so the sound of his non-stop howling laughter doesn’t give him away.
If it does get built, I can see this as being the village’s fate given that every building will be loaded with ammo.
Mustang Bobby
@JWL: Most assuredly so. Start the casting call for “Taps II”.
jibeaux
Omg, they say they’re going to have one of the finest and most comprehensive libraries in the nation. And theyre minting their own silver and gold coins. This was drawn up for our amusement maybe?
MaryRC
@scav: The microsuites are for people who will live and work outside the walls until such time as the SHTF when they can take refuge in the Citadel, knowing that the permanent residents will let them in and won’t have already appropriated their provisions for themselves. Ha ha ha ha. Suckers.
redshirt
@jibeaux: Every Glenn Book will be available! Unless of course Glenn Beck becomes a traitor to the cause, since he’s also founding his own feudal society, apparently. Then there will be no Glenn Beck books, nor mention of him.
Sgaile-beairt
okay, there is no map scale but if you go by the house sizes this is a teeny tiny compound, less than half a mile across….that is like a 10 min walk from side to side….i know everyones rightly talking abt the defenses against outside attack, but….look at that arms factory!!? anyone think that proper safety precautions be taken?? john galt needs no regulations right??
….i’m thinking halifax 1917 or mnybe Delft 1654….only its so small there wldnt be anything to take a n ‘after” picture of…
Sgaile-beairt
also where is their water coming FROM?? if outside then the siege will last maybe 3 days when ‘TSHTF” bc all anybody has to do, is, cut the water lines….if they are building on top an aquifer, that has its own set of problems, there was this place called Ubar once….
Sgaile-beairt
also (too), holy shit, the iIi arms guy is in WV now!!
Roger Moore
@Sgaile-beairt:
It isn’t actually a map; it’s an “artist’s conception”. They claim they want to get between 1 and 2 square miles within the walls. OTOH, they say they want 3,500-7,000 families within the Citadel community. Even assuming that they’re on the low side for the number of families and the high side for the size of the town, they’re still looking at a population density above 5,000/square mile in town. I think 7-10,000 is probably more realistic. That’s a perfectly livable density for people who have adjusted, but I suspect that most of the kind of people who want to move to the wilds of Idaho are not going to like being packed in that densely. Add lots of firearms into the mix, and I can see a very unhappy community.
Tumbrel For Hire
Is that map from a mid-90’s issue of GamePro?
Also, an Ampitheater? Is Guy Lombardo still alive?
PaulW
@jibeaux:
We’re talking about a group of people who actively try to purge 90 percent of our libraries’ literature section, won’t shelve anything from the 100 Dewey Decimal, nothing from the 290-299 range, pretty much the 300-399 shelves, nothing from the 580s, nothing from the 700s, and pretty much everything that’s not anti-Clinton anti-Obama books in the 973 section.
Soonergrunt
@Roger Moore: “Add lots of firearms into the mix, and I can see a very unhappy community.”
Not for long.
Roger Moore
@Soonergrunt:
And with a rather loose interpretation of “community”.
Suzanne
This is HILARIOUS.
Masonry construction is REALLY expensive. They,re probably going to build some shitty concrete block “castle”. How tacky.
I note that there’s no library on that site plan. MUAHAHAAAAAA.
I wish that a bunch of these would be built and all the crazy people would go seal themselves within the walls, never to emerge.
Bob In Portland
Cable or satellite, or do they just wait for smoke signals?
Sgaile-beairt
@Roger Moore: huh. that would not fly w any construction co, planning committee, or real estate development co that i have ever worked with but, well, they tend to be bigger on actual maps w satellite pics, to-scale renderings, & site surveys bc they are going to be paying big bucks for it & want to know, that its gonna work first….
….even if its 2 miles acrs, thats still barely medieval city core size, let ALONE modern, infrastructure!! and every medeival city i ever visited (several) & read abt (lots more) outgrww its walls repeatedly, very fast, and all the agricultural land will need to be outside, LOTS of it to self-support and again, brings us to….where is the water coming from, & how is it getting there?? farming is not like fArmville!!
El Caganer
@notoriousJRT: “Could we interest any of you boys in this radioactive landfill?”
PurpleGirl
@BruceJ: Remember cow flinging on Northern Exposure when piano flinging didn’t quite satisfy.
Sgaile-beairt
@PaulW: doesnt 700s include martial arts??
El Caganer
@Liberty60: Sure they’ll figure it out – they’ll just blame the wrong people.
NonyNony
@Sgaile-beairt:
You’re overthinking this – you’ve put far more thought into it than the Citadel designers have.
I don’t think they’re building a self-sufficient community – it sounds more like a gated-community combined with a LARP than a self-sufficient community.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@PaulW:
We’re talking about a group of people who actively try to purge 90 percent of our libraries’ literature section, won’t shelve anything from the 100 Dewey Decimal, nothing from the 290-299 range, pretty much the 300-399 shelves,
[sotto voce] Purging the 300s-399s would probably wipe out 90% of your average library in itself…
Tumbrel For Hire
This place needs more columns, towers, and gun museums or people will start to talk.
stinger
@Cermet: That was my thought, too — just finished reading a book about Treblinka, and this map is practically the double of the map of that extermination camp.
And who wouldn’t want to raise their kids in a “neighborhood” cheek-by-jowl with a munitions factory??
Cheryl from Maryland
Dumb fucks. Don’t they realize ring forts are passe after gunpowder and cannon? All the cool kids have star forts now.
Now, I’d be impressed if they followed the fortifications of Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, but I guess the idiots felt Mssr. de Vauban was not worth considering, him being a cheese eating surrender monkey. As it is, a couple of cannon, some water source poisoning, the blocking of the only ONE! gate, and they would be toast. A Forlorn Hope wouldn’t even be necessary.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@dr. bloor: Meet the neighbors indeed – Fort Mill is right next door.
Comforting thought knowing this mook can’t wait to bail.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@dr. bloor: Meet the neighbors indeed – Fort Mill is right next door.
Comforting thought knowing this mook can’t wait to bail.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@dr. bloor: Meet the neighbors indeed – Fort Mill is right next door.
Comforting thought knowing this mook can’t wait to bail.
Sgaile-beairt
….and this could be a problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Home_Air_Force_Base
Legalize
I noticed that there are no athletic facilities planned. No gym. No ball fields. No running track. I expect they will have training sessions on rickety monkey bars though. Perfect.
Wilson Heath
Hey. Wait one fracking minute.
Where do they get their Brawndo from? What, are they supposed to just drink water?! Like from the toilet?!
Sgaile-beairt
for kicks, google “delft explosion’ & before / after pics, to see what a mere 60k lbs of gunpowder does to a fortified city, when it goes off all at once….also the ‘before” map of Delft is v v informational, about this kind of city planning (hint they made a functional moat first….))
Elizabelle
Did you notice that the state of Idaho looks a little bit like a gun? At least from this schematic from the Citadel’s site.
These fools will be living in the barrel.
RepubAnon
@arguingwithsignposts: John Parker was a Red Lectroid from Planet 10 in the movie: Buckaroo Banzai, Across the 8th Dimension. Who knew that they’d name a park after a space alien?
Here’s a clip: John Parker is the guy in the silver jacket
http://movieclips.com/RFo6-the-adventures-of-buckaroo-banzai-across-the-8th-dimension-movie-transmission-to-the-president/
Marshall
@Mart:
King Ludwig II payed for Neuschwanstein with his own funds. If he was killed by anyone (a minority theory), it was by Prussians for political reasons, not Bavarians out for revenge. (The Prussians had recently taken over the running of Bavaria, as part of the forcible unification of Germany.)
It is not hard to find his picture in Bavaria, and from what I can tell he is still somewhat revered.
Dexter's new approach
I see the greatest reality TV show ever!
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Dexter’s new approach: I would watch. I would feel shamed and dirtied by it, but I would watch.
Wilson Heath
Will the restaurants in the town center be the wingnutopia equivalent of those in “The Demolition Man” — i.e., every restaurant is Cracker Barrel?
redshirt
@Legalize: Michelle Obama wants Americans to exercise. Ergo, exercising is liberal and shall not be tolerated within The Citadel.
Emma
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: That’s it!
patrick II
@The Dangerman:
What is 250,000,000 x 27%?
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt:
That explains why the military is so into exercise. Because it’s liberal.
Your explanation carries with it all the stupid we’ve come to expect from the 27%, though.
Yutsano
@Sgaile-beairt: Not really. Mountain Home is about 30 miles east of Boise, which is nowhere near where they want to build this place.
This one, however…
Suzanne
@Wilson Heath: Fine dining at Waffle House and Outback Steakhouse. Two-for-one on the Awesome Blossom!
cckids
@scav:
Sounds like an episode of the X Files. Shenanigans will abound.
scav
@cckids: Bit of a Hotel California vibe when seen in isolation like that. Sudden realization. If they’re all leasers and not technically landowners, do the PatRiots™ have that real investment in the local community needed for full voting voting privileges in their idealized system?
PaulW
@Sgaile-beairt: They don’t need that wimpy hand-to-hand stuff! Not when they got fire-powah!
PaulW
@Phoenician in a time of Romans: actually depends on the library. Some places the 600s are larger… some places the 800s. Now granted a libertarian library won’t have much of an 800s area outside of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein. They’re definitely not going to have much need for sociology, gender issues, population studies and statistics, political sciences, law, trains and communications… so there goes the 300s.
El Caganer
@redshirt: Except exercising your Second Amendment rights.
Tonal Crow
They forgot the shooting range. How can they possibly represent this as a city for wingnuts without a ginormous shooting range?
Ellyn
It will be a true confederacy of dunces.
Argive
@cckids:
There actually was an episode of The X-Files concerning a suburb somewhere in CA where any deviation from the neighborhood CC&Rs was grounds for a powerful resident to summon a monster made of garbage to murder the offender. I would rather live there than in the Citadel.
Ken
Yes, yes, as a design for a fortress, a town, or even a gated community it’s a complete loser. But that’s not what it’s for, is it? As a design for a way to separate the marks from their money, it’s great.
But I damn with faint praise. This is not a design for a scam; the image is the scam.
Sgaile-beairt
@Yutsano: f-15 combat radius = 1k+ mi or double w external tanks….more than double entire length of idaho…. wldnt even have to meet fairchild’s tankers to get home, after….
Sgaile-beairt
@PaulW: well there is that….but you know, they all have Ninja fantasies too!!
Dexter's new approach
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I would watch. I would feel shamed and dirtied by it, but I would watch.
Why treat it like an asian porn game show? Think about it like, say, Gogols’ “Dead Souls” where it just reveals the different wingnuts’ nature.
? Martin
@Dexter’s new approach: Indeed. I keep telling my wife that Big Brother would be WAY more entertaining if everyone in the house had some kind of mental illness.
This is really just my idea, but with guns added – which is way more better.
Soonergrunt
@Yutsano: You do understand that Air-to-Ground assets at MHAFB can cover that distance rather quickly, yes?
Four F-15Es could take off at 0900, blow this place off the map, and be chocked and blocked back at MH in time for lunch.
And note–for a community dedicated to rifles, rifle marksmanship, and the supposed freedom that this grants, they’re giving away their best, most important capability by surrounding themselves with high walls. Rifles need good long clear interlocking fields of fire. I know the whole thing is a scam, but it’s not even a very good one. The people they are trying to scam probably at least some of them understand how rifles work and how to employ them at least on an individual basis.
Unsympathetic
Where’s all the nifty castle stuff? Aside from the fact that nobody cares about Idaho, I mean.
This citadel must have murder holes. [Yes, that was actually a thing.] Real castle walls were actually three walls – the inner inner wall, the inner wall, the distance between those two filled with fill, and the outer wall called the shield wall. And crenellations, otherwise it’s just a big rectangle.
And all staircases are counterclockwise going up so that you can swing your sword going up the stairs and not hit the wall – and of course you swing with your right hand, because as we know, left-handed people are evil. [Fun medieval fact of the day: Sinister in Latin means “on the left side.”]
Will this thing have cisterns to collect water, or would that be too green for them?
This entire idea can also be defeated by Monty Python.. with a dead cow full of disease.
The ironic part about what your son said, Tom: Earthen walls that are thick enough can in fact withstand cannon fire indefinitely. So the next step after the castle was also the predecessor to the castle: Earthen walls framed with wood.
Here’s a castle in France they’re making using the old techniques: http://www.guedelon.fr/en/
Soonergrunt
@PaulW: I don’t think Heinlein would make it into many libertarian libraries. Once you get past the powered armor and the nasty bugs, it’s all about duty to one’s society and culture.
Monty P
“It’s only a model!”
TenguPhule
I have seen Starcraft base setups more sensible then this.
Xenos
The interior walls and fenced-in yards make this undefendable. If the gangbangers from the end of Scarface start climbing the walls there is no way to get defenders from one point along /the walls to another. As soon as the seige engine pulls up against the wall and opens it gun ports it would be a turkey shoot on the defenders.
El Cid
What do they do if no one’s interested in attacking them?
Is it like “The Village” from Shyamalan where people have to sneak outside and wear, I dunno, blackface and threaten to sully the Citadel’s precious daughters?
Do they hire Civil War re-enactors to pretend to mount a gathering threat on a distant hill?
gwangung
@Soonergrunt:
You’re assuming that a) they could read all this itty bitty words between the nice shiny covers, and b) they could put two and two together and figure out what they mean.
Sgaile-beairt
@Unsympathetic: its no krak des chevaliers, that’s for sure!!
Nick
To all the people saying “Where are the churches??” — presumably that’s what the amphitheatre is for.
Graeme
@catclub: They’ll need a lot more than that for 7000 families!
Mike G
This layout looks highly defensible until someone invents the aeroplane.
But I don’t see any Wal-Mart. Rednecks aren’t going to live in a town without a Wal-Mart.
No matter, the place will quickly go bust under the cost burden of maintaining all the defenses, if it ever gets built. Idiots who think the Pentagon is funded with magic Jesus dollars will get a rude awakening when faced with paying themselves for a ridiculously over-muscled security state in their own neighborhood.
tensor
For an idea of what was really “a castle and a keep,” see this old-fashioned version:
“During 2000 years of history, the Castle has been a Roman Garrison, a Norman stronghold and in Victorian times was transformed into a gothic fairytale fantasy.”
You really, really don’t want to start at the latter end and work your way backwards. Trust me on this.
Alex S.
Communists
joes527
Dunno why everyone is talking about external assault as the weakness here. Take 1 citizenry composed of rugged individuals. Give them a fuck ton of rules about how they can live. Add guns and wait.
“Citadel rules say you need to mow your lawn more often.”
“My friend Bushmaster says I don’t.”
AnonPhenom
‘Cause unlike the wingnuts, he knows how to use the Great Google.
Pseudonym
Don’t know if someone mentioned it before, and don’t really care… but I wonder if TSHTF in reality, what the minimum size a community would have to have before it could support manufacturing of firearms and ammo with no outside support. That would seem to involve a lot of mining, metallurgy, smelting (heh), machining, etc. It’s easy for Bushmaster et al to make AR-15 knockoffs right now with the existing industrial base, but when society collapses and most people are reduced to subsistence farming I doubt their local blacksmith will be up to the task. It’s an interesting hypothetical question though, the minimum size of a community that could support firearms manufacturing, given no significant trade outside the community. A few thousand people? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
bjacques
The Klingons will give them rifles to use against the natives of Glennbeckistan.
McJulie
Stupid, of course, but something just hit me. Why do you sequester yourself in a walled community with special rules just for people who think like you do? When you feel like you’ve lost the outside world.
They’re admitting defeat.
Zach
@Roger Moore: More to the point they are preparing for the final breakdown of society. What they are doing is much more rational than hoarding gold. They are setting themselves up with land that they have a chance to defend once it is no longer defended by the rule of law.
I agree they are wacko for other reasons, but if you don’t think society will continue buying land/gold is meaningless because you can’t do anything with gold and land is only as valuable as the use you can get out of it.
kerFuFFler
@AnonPhenom: Thanks for the link! Very interesting.
Kathy in St. Louis
@JCT: Yes, that did stand out immediately. What will they be reflecting about? Blowing things up? Being blown up? AKs? This is really a nutjob nirvanna.
Kathy in St. Louis
I really hate to mention this, but aren’t state legislatures already doing this? Aren’t they gerrymandering the hell out of our country so that you live mostly with folks who think the way you do politically, and the rest of the people who happen to live by you just better be quiet because they have no say? The only difference is now you live with like-minded folks and there’s a wall that separates you from anyone else who doesn’t think exactly like you do.
See Ave Maria Florida set up by Tom Monaghan of Domino’s.
Barney
@? Martin:
I can tell you haven’t seen any of Celebrity Big Brother in the UK. Trust me, it’s not entertaining – though it does have the possibility of sparking international diplomatic incidents.
chris y
Out of curiosity, what’s the scale of this thing? If the standard buildings are about 15 feet long, which is as big as I can imagine these people actually having the skills to build them, then it’s about 9 acres (about a quarter of the size of Çatalhöyük, the famous early neolithic town in Turkey). But if they’re envisaged as MacMansions, then it’s a whole different ball game, you’re going to need trucks or horses and all the infrastructure to support them, which I don’t see there.
Also, where do they get the water for that tank by the amphitheater (which isn’t an amphitheater – amphitheaters are round, like the Colosseum, but never mind)? There’s no mains supply any more, remember.
Tata
A walled city needs a doorbell or it’ll be awfully hard on the landsharks.
Bendal
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Vauban and his peers’ designs became so elaborate, though, that eventually the scale and scope of the defenses began requiring more defenders than the city could contain within them.
Actually, given that their idea is to fortify 1-2 square MILES with a surrounding wall and towers, it sounds like they are following Vauban’s philosophy. With such a wall, they’ll need so many people just manning them for security purposes that no one will be available for cooking, growing food, raising animals, or working in the sweat-shop; oh, I mean “munitions factory”.
Cpl. Cam
The blahs don’t have cannons, silly.
Cpl. Cam
The blahs don’t have cannons, silly. And, in their fantasies, they always helpfully swarm the walls en masse to be mowed down by machine gun fire.
Julia Grey
Sounds like the Home Owner’s Association from Hell.