Belgians proudly claimed the world record in February, for the country that has spent longest without a government.

Slab City...is a squatters' camp deep in the badlands of California's poorest county, where the road ends and the sun reigns. These days, their numbers are growing thanks to a modest influx of recession refugees...attracted by do-it-yourself, rent-free living beyond the reach of electricity, running water and the law. Last Free Place in America" lives up to its nickname.

Today happens to be the birthday of one of my all time favorite rebels. So, I thought I’d take us back in time and declare Lysander Spooner the rebel of this week in 1808.

Lysander Spooner was a nineteenth century American political philosopher, pamphleteer, entrepreneur, abolitionist and individualist anarchist. Spooner advocated what he called the “Science of Justice” which held that the initiation of coercion against an individual or their property was a natural crime, but so-called crimes that violated man-made statutes but had no victim were no crime at all.