"Years from now, supporters of Ron Paul’s ill-fated run for the White House will have no shortage of stories to tell their freedom-loving grandchildren. There was the time a few overzealous Kentuckians printed silver “liberty dollars” with the Texas congressman’s face engraved on one side. (The FBI shut the operation down.) Or the time supporters raised $350,000 to rent a blimp under the mistaken assumption that voters would be impressed by a helium-filled airship. Or even the time they held a virtual march through World of Warcraft to raise awareness of the nation’s constitutional crisis.
To these, the grandchildren will smile and listen politely, nodding as their elders reminisce about “moneybombs” and fourth-place primary finishes. But what they’ll really want to hear about is the story of the place they call home: a little nook called Paulville.
In what is most certainly a first for presidential campaigns, Paulville’s founders seek to bring together like-minded adventurists with the aim of establishing “gated communities containing 100-percent Ron Paul supporters and/or people who live by the ideals of freedom or liberty.” Paulville is not so much a place as a lifestyle. Apart from an affinity for the congressman, residents must also share a fondness for so-called alternative building styles, such as straw bale, rammed earth, and papercrete (known to just about no one as “padobe”)
For years now, secession has fermented among the dairy cows and cross-country skiers of the Green Mountain State. The “Second Vermont Republic,” which claims John Kenneth Galbraith and former Secretary of State George F. Kennan among its supporters, has a flag, a mission statement, and (of course) T-shirts promoting the network’s goal of returning the state to the independent status that it had following the American Revolution. It has also inspired the creation of the Middlebury Institute, a think tank dedicated to the study of “separatism, secession, and self-determination.”
