How about this? The World’s Weirdest Micronations:
Micronations are a lot of things, but actual nations they are not.
Essentially a state that is formally declared yet not internationally recognized, Wikipedia notes that, “Micronations differ from secession and self-determination movements in that they are largely viewed as being eccentric and ephemeral in nature, and are often created and maintained by a single person or family group.” Wikipedia maintains a list of them here.
Writing in Smithsonian magazine last year, Robin Reid explains that:
The difference between the two is recognition; according to The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations, “…a nation is only recognized as a nation if other nations that have been recognized by other nations recognize it.” And micronations are never seen as such by anyone other than their founders and residents (who usually are the founders).As such, micronations tend to be diverse, obscure, and often quite eccentric. From the pirate radio origins of Sealand to the genuinely feudal history of Lundy, both the form and origins of these places are amusingly bizarre.
I know there’s The Boat That Rocked (2009), but that wasn’t really a micronation. Here are the examples from the Huff Post article:
Sealand
Conch Republic
Dominion of British West Florida
Nation of Celestial Space
Global Country of World Peace
Kugelmugel
Ladonia
Principality of Hutt River
Lundy
The Dominion of Melchizedek
Republic of Molossia
Nutopia: The Country of Peace
The Other World Kingdom
So here’s what I’m thinking: Teabaggia! Yes, an island retreat for Teabaggers. They don’t want to pay taxes? They want everyone to be able to carry a gun? They want minimal government intrusion in their lives? On Teabaggia, they’re free to do whatever the hell they want!
Hijinks and mayhem ensue.
I’m also reminded of The Mouse That Roared (1959), starring one of favorite comic actors Peter Sellers:
The best laid plans of mice and men … A cold war satire emphasising the new emerged American Superpower’s use of foreign aid to buy friends and keep then away from the USSR’s influence. Peter Sellers, as the scheming Prime Minister of Grand Fenwick, plots with Peter Sellers, as the scheming Grand Duchess, to declare war on the USA, lose and get that foreign aid. Unfortunately, they forget to tell Peter Sellers, as Tully Bascombe, commander of their mediaeval army. This honourable man does his best for his country and through a series of unbelievable circumstances (well, this is a comedy) to win. Now, who has to give aid to whom?
So what if one micronation island declared war against another neighboring micronation island?
Anything here for a good satire?
Hmmm. Sounds like an opportunity for a remake of the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup
I'm all for that!
Love this idea. This may be the best one yet.
From a character angle, I could see a mysterious stranger who claims to be from a micronation…
From a plot angle, I could see a micronation protesting some toxic corporate policy & demanding a seat at the United Nations (a la The Mouse that Roared)… a once edenic micronation turning into a Lord of the Flies situation when it's overrun by new citizens…
They did a pretty funny version of this idea during Family Guy's initial pre-cancelled phase.
This idea was sort of the basis for a subplot in a Donald Westlake book, which title I don't recall. One of the characters creates her own nation so that she can collect UN development money.
I once lived in a micronation and was the King's paid employee. The Kingdom was Hay-on-Wye and the King was King Richard Booth. For those that have never heard of it Hay-on-Wye is a small town on the Welsh border with England and is famous for its used (or what we in the UK call "secondhand") book stores. Richard was (and remains) a true British eccentric and a one-off. More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay-on-Wye#King_of_Hay-on-Wye
You were joking, perhaps, about the Tea Party people wanting to do this… but it has been a popular notion among libertarians, freethinkers, Objectivists, and so on, for some time now. The main thing they see standing in the way is that they would need nukes to be a sufficient deterrent to invasion by the United States, so that they could be left alone. In a sense, the video game BioShock explored this theme, though with an undersea nation instead of a remote island. In BioShock, of course, it was the people who sought to cheat the system who brought the utopian society down.