History

The beginning:

It was July 9th, 2018. 7 young men were on a school trip to Europe, walking through the streets of Vaduz, Liechtenstein. They joked about staging a revolt and creating a new government. This small joke sparked an idea in their heads, to found a micronation, based on their beliefs of how a government should work. That evening in a hotel in Luzern, Switzerland, they founded the Council of Liberstein, electing Joseph Von as a Supreme Chancellor.

Later on, Von said he wanted to be an equal to his councilmen, thus being put in as the Foreman of Liberstein. From then on, the Council met for 8 state dinners in which they spent hours and hours working on founding documents such as a 20 page Constitution in August, a citizenship test, laws, political parties and more.

From The Liberstein Times article, Council Three: A Political History :

Council One: The Short ONe

When Liberstein was founded, the 8 original member Council was formed as a body of equals with one elected figurehead called the Foreman. Each of the 7 members, including the Foreman, was given a set of Ministries to run and rule. It was simple enough. One interesting thing to note, the Council was founded in Europe. This would ultimately affect the running of the First Council, and it’s short lifespan.

Council One consisted of 8 members:

Foreman Von

Minister Lockard

Minister Soyka

Minister Tvulski

Minister Long

Minister Lorditch

Minister Osborn

Minister Minor

Each had a role. Each had a purpose, and each had an equal say in the Council. We’ll highlight Minister Tvulski, the first Minister of Education. He was the shortest lived member and citizen in Liberstein’s history clocking in at one day.

It was July 11th, 2018. Only a few days after founding, and the Council was in Heidelberg, Germany to meet for their first ever State Dinner. There was a brief dinner, and a brief moment of relaxing, business began. Shortly into the discussion, Tvulski made an off topic statement about immigrants saying “We should keep all the dirty Mexicans out, they don’t deserve freedom.”

“This stopped the discussion dead in it’s tracks as the 7 of us looked at [Tvulski] and asked if he meant it,” said Minister Long, “When he said he did, but as ‘a joke’ we made sure he wasn’t allowed to ever deal with us, or the country again.”

It was directly following this incident that Tvulski was blacklisted, and the Council voted on a shakeup.

Council Two: The Long ONe

The Second Council of Liberstein was the longest lived Council, and the most effective council in the nations history. Consisting of the original 7, it ran from July 11th, 2018 to October 23rd, 2018. It crafted the Constitution, cut out the land that gives Liberstein a home, inducted 40 citizens out of 51, created the IMT and Libercoin, made over 20 allies, crafted an Environmental Protection treaty with over 8 signers, founded political parties, economic platforms, and the basis for government as we know it in Liberstein.

Yes, that is a great list of achievements, plus more not even listed. “It was the Golden Era of Liberstein until the Shutdown. We were getting things done at an extraordinary rate. We conducted 5 official State Dinners and 3 State Outings to tour the land, and work on infrastructure.” Said Foreman Von. “We would spend countless hours at our dinners or online debating, correcting, and forming new laws and governmental procedures, it truly was a work of art as far as a working government goes.”

One achievement that lives on, and will live on as a huge decision maker in future elections is the founding of 3 Political Parties.

The Progressive Party, The Green Party, and The Development Party. The majority party to this day is the Progressive party, with the Development and Green Parties tied for second, leaving the Libertarians and Socialists in last (keep in mind they weren’t introduced until Council Three).

“We saw the creation of political parties as a necessary step,” says former Minister of Treasury John Soyka.

Foreman Von agreed, stating “It was a pure necessity. We saw having a one party state with a 7 member council, more than the amount of citizens we had at the time mind you, who were all equals as Authoritarian, something we tried to avoid. It’s important to remember though, a crucial part in the founding of these parties we know and cherish to this day is that there were more citizens in the government than outside of it. We had to create a word just to describe our situation, it was called a Magnumocracy.”

So Liberstein was a Magnumocracy for about two weeks under Council Two. As Von said, there was no word that described the situation they had found themselves in, so being the ingenious group they were, invented one.

“We had a lot of fun in those early days of the Second Council, and the best part was, we were getting things done at the same exact time.” Minister Long -the only member of the newest council other than Foreman Von to have been a member in all three councils- told us on the phone. “I think that was the secret ingredient to our success, we enjoyed building our government from the ground up.”

It was also the Second Council who introduced and legalized the most amount of citizens yet, 41 citizens applied, and Council Two -with Minister Osborn doing most of the footwork there according to Von- looked and reviewed all 41 tests, and legalized forty out of the 41 applicants. The only one denied citizenship was granted it later on after causing some controversy over freedom of speech, another portion of the shining achievement that was the Constitution.

That’s right, while legalizing 40 citizens, running State Dinners and more, the Second Council ratified a 20 page Constitution. They set up the basic and implied freedoms given to all citizens of Liberstein: Freedom of Speech and Religion, Civil Rights, the Right to own Arms (even instituting a mandatory weapon ownership) and the right to vote and run for office, and so much more.

Another crowning achievement is the introduction of the Libercoin as the national currency, saving the country as whole from despair and destruction after a war, and the dreaded Shutdown. You can read all about that and the Libercoin in our last article “Libercoin: Looking Deeper into a Micronational Economy”.

Council Three: The New One

As of October 23rd, 2018 the “Golden Era” of Liberstein’s Second Council was officially over after the Shutdown for a number of reasons including inactivity, a new council of 5 was elected, and is still looking to fill seats to reach that golden 7 to balance things out.

The Third Council of Liberstein now looks like this:

*This is updated as of 03/29/19, as the list has grown since the original publication date*

Foreman Von (Pro)

Minister Long (Pro)

Minister Solnosky (Soc)

Minister Foreberger (Lbrt)

Minister Gaunt (Pro)

Minister Vyas (Lbrt)

Minister Osborn (Dvlp)

It’s surprisingly the most diverse Council in the history of the nation with two minority parties. However, it has done very little apart from passing two pieces of legislation, changing the National flag design, and instituting the IAI.

The IAI is looking like a major achievement for Council Three, but they’ll have to do a whole lot more for Liberstein to even approach the heights that Council Two had touched, and broke through like a rocket. All we can do as Citizens is press the Council for action, and hope for the best.

Maybe that’s just a pipe dream, or maybe that’s a soon to be fulfilled reality."

Article by Kieth Howard of The Liberstein Times

The Shutdown

Nearing the end of the summer of 2018, they announced the IMT, the International Micronation Treaty. It was to be a diplomatic, and economic alliance group including Liberstein as it’s head. Members included The Virgan Republic, another popular Micronation, and two other nations including the Fyrian Republic. When Minister of Treasury John Soyka announced that he was going to institute Libercoin as the currency for the IMT, a harsh debate broke out. The Virgan Republic wanted nothing to do with it saying “We don’t want to use the Libercoin. The last thing we want is to end up like Europe, no Liberzone!”

It was shortly after this that the IMT was dissolved by Von as a repercussion of an attempted coup by Minister whose name has been redacted. This was the Liberstein-Gottian War. Shortly following the beginning of this conflict, Foreman Von called the unthinkable. Not only did he dissolve the IMT, he threatened to dissolve the country as a whole.

This launched the darkest moments in the country’s short history. The council agreed to step away from the nation for exactly two months time, while the Foreman selected a small group to help him restabilize the nation. Thus, the Shutdown Act of 2018 was passed.

Just like AM radio, Liberstein went quiet.

Libercoin

On October 22nd, 2018, Liberstein rose from the ashes of the attempted coup, the destroyed IMT, severed ally-ships and diplomatic relations, and internal struggle.

In the time between the passing of the Shutdown Act and the resurgence of the country, Chief Economic Adviser John Soyka and the Foreman Declared Libercoin as the national currency. Thus, 1 Libercoin ( も1) was equal to 1 U.S. Dollar. Almost instantly the nation’s economy rose, suddenly profit from Foreign Investment, as well as some Foreign Aid, began pouring in.