Nathan Holmes-King

Nathan Holmes-King (born December 18, 2003) is one of the two current Chancellors of NZRE, serving since 4 August 2016. He is a member of the Center Party.

Early life and education

Nathan was born on December 18, 2003 in Fremont, California, where he has lived to this day.

He graduated high school in June 2019 and became a student at the University of San Francisco later that year, majoring in Data Science.

Republic of NZRE

Nathan and Zack Janczura founded the Republic of NZRE on August 4, 2016, and both of them have been serving as the Chancellors since then. On 24 January 2018, Nathan founded the Center Party, of which he is a member (and the party leader) to this day.

Political positions

This section is written by Nathan in the first person. Note that a lot of these positions are hypothetical and don't have any real implications due to NZRE's small and dispersed population.

Domestic policy

COVID-19:

• I think that individuals affected by stay-at-home orders must be compensated in order for the stay-at-home order to be fair.

• I think that we should have as much control over the manufacture of medical equipment as possible.

Environmental issues:

• I support the Paris Agreement

• I support an emissions trading system.

• I think that fossil-fuel companies should be treated equivalently to tobacco companies.

• I support the usage of nuclear power to reduce emissions, and I feel that the negative environmental impact of nuclear power is significantly overblown.

• I support complete bans on fracking and offshore drilling.

Gun control:

• I support a complete ban on all ranged weapons that can kill humans.

Health care:

• I support a universal government-funded health system. I think that it should not only cover treatment for serious illnesses or injuries, but all health-related expenses, including treatment for non-serious illnesses, visual and dental care, and prosthetic body parts.

• I think that there should be no import restrictions regarding medical devices or pharmacological chemicals.

Immigration:

• I support having a large amount of legal migration.

• I support the process of passive deportation. This is where the individual is not actively deported (unless they are threatening people), but where public services are shut off, people are banned from giving money to them, etc.

Primary & secondary education:

• I support the right of school choice for parents, and I think that it is an incentive to improve bad schools.

Tertiary education:

• I support tuition-free public tertiary education.

Economics

Minimum wage:

• I do not support the idea of a high minimum wage; instead, I think that it should be the government's job to ensure that people have a living wage.

Universal basic income:

• I support this idea, and I see this as the best alternative to the minimum wage.

Labor unions:

• I think that unions should be treated equivalently to any other type of non-profit organization. I support right-to-work laws, which prevent unions from forcing people to join or pay dues.

Taxation:

• I support a progressive income tax rate.

• I support estate and wealth taxes.

Foreign policy and defense

British Isles:

• I support the UK remaining in the EU. Part of that is because of the EU's non-economic policies, and another part is the Northern Ireland situation. I feel like the only way to get around the challenges of Brexit would be to have Northern Ireland re-join the Republic of Ireland. This could definitely open the door for Scottish independence (which I support).

China:

• I think that the Chinese Communist Party's rule is a threat to humanity. I think that the CCP is fully responsible for COVID-19 growing as big as it did, and that they are still covering up the real death toll, and that they haven't taken any action to ensure that another outbreak won't happen. I also supported the 2019-20 Hong Kong protests. Since the CCP can't simply be voted out of office, unlike the Republican Party in the United States, I think that other countries should recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the legitimate government of China.

Korea:

• I think that Korean unification should not be the ultimate goal of South Korean politicians, unless there is no other way to ensure democracy in North Korea. This is because Korean unification would not make China happy, and that Korea has been separated for so long that there is a measurable cultural divide.

• I think that the best way to take down the North Korean regime is the money bomb, which is not a metaphor or a codename: it is a literal money bomb. It involves dropping tons of counterfeit North Korean won from planes over the country, which will cause massive hyperinflation. Even if the government knows that the money isn't real, that won't matter very much, since a very large portion of North Korea's economy is dependent on black-market activity. Once the North Korean won has been hyper-inflated, the government won't be able to support itself with its own currency, so it will have to use foreign currency. That means that the rest of the world can cut off North Korea's access to foreign currency, and deprive the government.

Middle East:

• My preferred solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict is a secular state that encompasses the entirety of the land, but I don't think that either side would agree to that. Since that won't work, I think that a two-state solution is the only possible solution.

• I think that countries have every right to move their embassies to Israel to West Jerusalem, since it isn't claimed by the State of Palestine (which only claims East Jerusalem).

• I think that the Palestinians have not done enough to achieve peace with Israel, since they have rejected 6 peace proposals, including one where Arabs got 80% of the land.

• I don't think that Israel has any legitimacy to its claim in the Golan Heights, since it is located east of the Jordan River, which means that it is not in between the river and the sea, which forms the fundamental basis for Israel's territory.

Russia/CIS:

• I think that Russia is a threat to humanity, as they have interfered in politics around the world in order to gain political power. I support the dissolution of the Russian Federation.

• I think that Russia can only have legitimacy over their claim to Crimea if they allow for the creation of a Tatar autonomous republic/oblast. Other than that, I think that Russia's claim is legitimate, since there is popular support for it.

United States:

• I think that Donald Trump is one of the worst presidents in US history, and quite probably the worst. I think that the US constitutes a threat to humanity under his rule, for many reasons, including nuclear war, global warming, COVID-19, motivation of extremist groups, and corruption in the US government and electoral system.

• In the 2016 election, my first-choice candidate (out of Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Donald Trump) was Jill Stein.

• In the 2020 Democratic primaries, my first choice candidate was Andrew Yang. After he withdrew, I supported Elizabeth Warren. After she withdrew, I supported Bernie Sanders. After he withdrew, Joe Biden was the only remaining major candidate, so I supported him.

• In the 2020 general election, my first-choice candidate (out of Joe Biden, Howie Hawkins, Jo Jorgensen, and Donald Trump) is Howie Hawkins.

• I support statehood for Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. However, I think that the other territories are simply too small to be states.

• I support the right of states to secede from the union. Personally, I would favor Californian independence, but only if there was a Schengen-style agreement with the US.

Government

Electoral systems:

• I think that Tideman ranked-pairs voting is the best voting system for single-winner elections.

• For multi-winner elections, I think that Single Transferable Vote is the best system, mostly because of its party-neutrality; however, I haven't researched a lot of other party-neutral systems.

Voting restrictions:

• I think that education is a better determiner than age over whether or not a person is qualified to vote. This is why I think that that the minimum voting age should be 16 (or 12 with parental consent), but that there shouldn't be age-based exemptions from the education rules.

• I think that there should be a maximum voting age which is equal to the age at which the odds of being alive at the next election are less than even.

Administrative divisions:

• I think that NZRE's provinces should have constitutionally guaranteed autonomy, as a safety net for when the country's national government becomes corrupt and commits crimes; if that happens, then the provinces can replace the federal government.

Micronational issues

Legal status:

• I think that "NZRE Territory" is actually a condominium between NZRE and the macronation that claims the territory.

Recognition of other micronations:

• I think that other micronations should not count as legal entities in the same way that macronations count. Therefore, passports of other micronations will not be legally valid in NZRE.

• However, I think that NZRE should have informal relations with other micronations, and participate in intermicronational alliances.

Social issues

Crime & criminal justice:

• I oppose capital punishment, and I feel that life imprisonment is functionally the same. I think that the primary goal of prison should be rehabilitation using positive reinforcement.

• For my positions on felony disenfranchisement, see the "Voting restrictions" section above.

Women's/LGBTQ issues:

• I support the right to abortion up to 3 months after birth, as I feel that there is basically no difference between the late stages of pregnancy and the first months of life.

• I support Free the Nipple.

• I support the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Filmmaking career

Nathan is working on several upcoming NZRE films and TV series. See the Bureau of Media and Entertainment page for more information.

He has also personally released multiple videos, including a series of Animusic-style animations.

Chess career

Nathan has played in the following chess tournaments (parentheses indicate win-loss-draw):

• 2018 (1-0-0)

• 2019 (0-1-0; tournament called off)

• 2020 (1-0-0)

Controversies

Attempted removal from office

In November 2018, Tom Kap, a NZRE citizen and leader of his own micronation, founded a political party called the Reform Party with the goal of removing Nathan from power, over alleged presentation of false citizenship information and leaking of private citizen information. The movement did not gain any known supporters, and within a few hours, Tom Kap dissolved the Reform Party and officially joined the Center Party.

"My Name is Donald Trump" incident

In January 2019, Nathan released a song with lyrics that criticized U.S. President Donald Trump. Several other members of the League of Micronations saw this as a violation of the LoMN charter, and there was a motion to expel the Republic of NZRE from the LoMN; however, the motion was defeated.

Personal life

Nathan's native language is English. He has advanced (but not fluent) knowledge of Spanish and Icelandic, and basic knowledge of Faroese, Hawaiian, and Icelandic Sign Language.

Nathan is an active Wikipedia editor. He is active on 6 wikis: English Wikipedia, Icelandic Wikipedia, English Wiktionary, Icelandic Wiktionary, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. He has been awarded a Categorization Barnstar on the English WP, and one of his articles on the Icelandic WP was featured in Did you know?.

Nathan has plans to live in Akureyri, Iceland after graduating university.