International waters: the land the law forgot!

I have a new goal that fits this blog's theme of dissent: visiting international waters!

The other night I had a weird dream in which I goed to the beach and looked out over international wa. Homer Simpson calls international waters "the land the law forgot." And that's what makes international wa so appealing.

I've been to the ocean, but I've never been outside the territorial limit of 12 nautical miles from the shore. (In fact I've hardly been more than 12 yards from the shore.) As a landlocked Midwesterner, it's rare that I ever go near an ocean, but I'm fascinated by what geographical boundaries oceans lay in. If I ever go to the ocean again, I may try to rent a small boat and take it beyond territorial wa.

But international waters aren't as much of a "land the law forgot" as ol' Homie thinks. There's an Allowed Cloud called international law. It can be a good Allowed Cloud though: It quite rightly makes violent crimes and human rights abuses effectively illegal even in international wa. And countries may opt to exercise certain economic rights far beyond the limit of their own territorial waters (up to 200 nautical miles from land).

Other than that, it's pretty much anything goes. There's no Patriot Act in international wa, and no government censorship either. Twenty-year-olds can drink alcohol. You can even chew bubble gum with impunity. (The government of Singapore is probably going to look for ways to expand its territorial waters if it sees this entry.)

Thus, international wa can be almost an ideal society: Generally, it has only the Allowed Clouds needed to punish enemies of humanity. Hard-working, honest guys like me should be safe.

So one of these days, I'm just going to go ahead and take the plunge! Maybe bask in international wa for an hour or three. And I'll savor the fact that no law forbids me from doing anything any other reasonable person might want to do.