Love it or Leave it News: The Republic of Kinney
The ROA is feeling severe shame in not knowing until now that freedom-loving citizens in the neighboring state of Minnesota pulled off a “tongue in cheek” secession ala Key West’s Conch Republic. From Atlas Obscura:
In the mid-1970s the officials of tiny Kinney, Minnesota were desperate to fix their crumbling water system. With no help in sight from the county, state or federal government, they did the only logical thing they could think of: From the barstools of the city’s favorite watering hole, they hatched a secession plan.
The watering hole was called Mary’s Bar, the tavern owned by Mayor Mary Anderson and the unofficial “situation room” for Kinney (population 325). Since they weren’t having much luck getting municipal funding to fix the water, maybe they could get some foreign aid. So in 1977 the Republic of Kinney was born, to secede not from the county, not from the state, but from the United States.
In a weird way the secession “threat” may have paid off. Within a year Kinney got its funding, and it celebrated the radical secession move for years, culminating with a weekend of 30th anniversary special events in 2007.
Awesome.
- Ryan Bundy, one of the leaders of the recent illegal Oregon Mahler Wildlife Refuge occupation, has made a rather dead on the nose defense of his actions. According to Think Progress:
Ammon and Ryan Bundy are each charged with conspiring to lead the occupation, and with a string of other crimes in connection to the bizarre saga. But none of those charges can touch him, Ryan says, because he’s a sovereign citizen not subject to U.S. law.
“i; ryan c, man, am an idiot of the ‘Legal Society’; and; am an idiot (layman, outsider) of the ‘Bar Association’; and; i am incompetent; and; am not required by any law to be competent; and;,” Bundy wrote in one legal filing submitted Thursday.
Two idiots make an incompetent.
- The Sovereign Citizen argle bargle that Bundy espouses in a hilariously inept attempt to evade justice is not new. Like these three lovable scamps who are pleading not guilty in Colorado for trying to defraud the government and banks out of $29 million.
- Matthew McConaughey’s latest film, the Civil War era Free State of Jones is the story of “a secession within the secession.” Meta.
- Brexit may have given hope to the eternal Texas effort to secede (and our hope that it happens) but its also inspiring…Staten Island? Turns out New York City's “Forgotten Borough” has flirted with sedition for years.
- Fortune has a good roundup of recent secession efforts across the country, both serious and comical.
- A new polls shows a plurality of Pennsylvanians want Philadelphia to secede.
- Funny, I think of a busy fall as school events, football, the election, but then again, I’m not an Arkansas white supremacist.
One of the state’s youngest and most active white supremacist groups, the Arkansas chapter of the Southern nationalist League of the South, is planning for a busy fall as well. While some of these secessionists find much to like about Trump's positions on multiculturalism and trade they're not interested in participating too heavily in the U.S. political system - they'd rather secede.