Talking about my question of *where* a Gulch could be located, Lana wrote "Maybe the real first step is to form a group of serious members and outline the goals of such a community."

That made me realize I'm not even sure what a Gulch government would be like. Suppose somehow a libertarian state comes into existence. How would it be different from the US?:
1. Self-reliance - The first generation there would be self-reliant by definition. The struggle would be pass those values to all the children.
2. Regulations - Maybe some things that are handled by regulations would be handled by courts in the Gulch. Regulations in the US control things that used to be settled by litigation, making the US less litigious than it used to be. Would the Gulch keep some regulations but keep them more narrowly focused on activities that have a clear proven cost on others?
3. Taxes - Most people who think taxes are too high want to maintain spending on at least one of the three largest areas of spending: military, Social Security / Medicare, Welfare for the poor. It's a cliche that politicians like to say "I'll balance the budget without raising taxes, or touching Social Security or the military," Unless we agree to cut all those things, there need to be separate Gulches. That means when some evildoers are laying the possible foundation for WWIII, our response has to be, “we have a small army supported by minutemen if the evildoers come here.” If grandma becomes paralyzed by a stroke, the family and maybe people from her church get ready to open their pocketbooks or provide care once she spends through her $200k life savings in four year's time. I say people can rise to those occasions, but would we have to resist the temptation to look to gov't for a solution.
4. Weapons - In my mind there's a continuum between banning mild weapons such as pepper spray and allowing people to build weapons of mass destruction. Most Gulch citizens would want to allow shotguns, semi-auto rifles, and handguns. There might be debate about someone who wants to protect his house with a UAV equipped with high explosives. If there were a Gulch would the same gun debate persist but just about different weapons?
5. War on Drugs / Terror – The simple solution is to treat drugs as a medical problem for those who seek addiction treatment and treat “terrorism” as a criminal problem using the same court system that tries people who commit murders for more quotidian motives, e.g. to get the insurance money. Would everyone buy into that?
6. Disgusting Behavior – Disgusting behavior is grown adults flirting with 12 y/o boys and girls, someone contacting the family of a murder victim claiming to know how the victim died as cruel prank, lewd behavior in public, burning flags or other items held as sacred to get attention, drawing pictures glamorizing rape, incest, murder, etc. Do we just allow these things as the price of liberty? Do we state somehow in the Constitution, we won't give in and start using force to stop disgusting behavior.

Suddenly I think the biggest problem with Gulch is NOT where to hide it or how to coexist with existing power structures. It's how not to slide back to statism. On all six (6) of those issues, I can see us going from a very free society to right back where we are-- a little island micronation with moderately high taxes, with half the taxes going to defense, and half going to social spending, and all other gov't functions sustained through borrowing. The same people who defend their right to have an automatic rifle, want men with guns to protect the children from drugs and other human problems. That's depressing. If you tell me, "but taxes would be 25% less b/c we wouldn't be buying baby formula for some irresponsible single parents and we wouldn't be subsidizing grandma's medical care," it doesn't make it that much less depressing. Great, instead of sending 40% of our profits in fed and state quarterly estimates, we get to send 30% of our profits. That's a small step toward liberty, but not libertarian paradise.

If I want a liberal paradise where the vast majority are politically liberal, work in jobs related to research, science, and technology, and believe in respecting civil liberties even for unpopular things like polyamory, I already live there. My luck I was born here. I have heard there are rightwing versions all over. How do we get the libertarian version?

Even assuming the Gulch magically existed in the open and other gov't's and peoples of the world left it alone and never attempted to meddle, how would we keep the Gulch from devolving into statism?