Cities on a Hill

Ron Paul won't be moving to Paulville, reports Politico:

The founders of Paulville recently announced the purchase of the first 50 acres in West Texas on which they plan to build one of their "gated communities containing 100 percent Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty."

One man who won't be moving there anytime soon: Ron Paul….

[D]ropping out and creating an isolated community isn't the answer, says Paul, a congressman from Texas. "You don't want the ideas to be centered in one place," he says. "But it shows how desperate people are for freedom."

Consistent with his beliefs in liberty, however, he doesn't outright oppose Paulville. "I don't see that as a solution, but it can't hurt anything either," he says.

My position on Paulville is the same as my position on every libertarian intentional community: I don't want to live in a town filled with ideologues, even (or especially) if they're ideologues I agree with. That said, better a thousand Paulvilles than a single McCain Nation.

It's not clear, incidentally, that Paulville will appear at all. From the same article:

On Monday, just days after the announcement of the land purchase, the Web site Paulville.org went out of existence. No contact information had been on the site when it was live; phone calls and e-mails to the site administrator over the last several days have gone unreturned.

Has the dream died already? Or, like Brigadoon flashing briefly in the mist, have they already gone off the grid?

Bonus exercise: Imagine life in Edwardsville, Bidentown, the Dodd District, Port Romney, Huckabee County, Tancredo Township, or any other community devoted to the principles espoused by a failed presidential candidate. (Except Giuliani City. We already know what that one looked like.)

[Hat tip: Dan Clore.]