Short Stuff: The Conch Republic

Back in 1982, Key West seceded from the United States. Don’t believe us? It’s true! Just listen to the episode, will you?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
There's Josh. Let's go Key West, Florida dateline. Uh, southernmost
point to the United States. Smugglers Island, That's what it's
called sometimes. Yeah, because Key West obviously just the location itself,
it's gonna lend itself to smuggling, smuggling stuff in from
other places by boat. And I mean it has like

(00:26):
it's it was a pirate haven for a very long time.
But apparently that the local population really took to that
and just kept it up. But like over time when
they were smuggling just kind of changed. And at this
point in question, this point in history that we're going
to kind of dive into right now, it had become

(00:47):
marijuana and cocaine. Those were what was being smuggled through
Key West, the glorious eighties Keys of Cocaine and Key
West shortest shorts you've ever seen, Oh I imagine. So
uh So, these drugs were coming in through South America,
through Cuba, and then obviously from there it's a it's
a quick ninety miles to get to Key West. There's

(01:09):
a report from the u p I. The uh quote
cruise on fishing boats brazenly unloaded bales of marijuana. High
school utes made big money driving the contraband a hundred
and fifty and mine miles northward to Miami. Drug dealers
held labash champagne parties at Pier House, the Pos Waterfront Hotel.
So these kids were driving the stuff up and just

(01:30):
sitting in the back of their pickup trucks. Well, yeah,
around the island in particularly, I think when they left
to drive into Miami, they were a little cooler, but
it was a tarp over it at least wide open.
In Key West of the time, like the local law enforcement,
the local um UH, like city government, everybody seemed to
either be directly involved in smuggling or turning a blind

(01:53):
eye to it, probably because they're getting kickbacks or whatever.
So they are a fire station that was shut down
because so many firefighters were busted for marijuana smuggling that
they had to shut the thing down, and one of
the fire chiefs was actually putting in prison for it.
So by the by two at the latest, if not earlier,
the Reagan administration said this totally contradicts what Nancy saying.

(02:16):
We're gonna do something about this, and they set up
the South Florida Task Force against Crime, which doesn't really
create any kind of good acronym, which I found a
little f Come on, Ronnie, right, so by two he

(02:37):
uh well not he yeah, Ronnie alone. I'm sure he
named the organization too. They intercepted two billion dollars in
drugs coming through South Florida in just eight two alone.
Imagine how much they missed, you know. Yeah, so they
were really cracking down. They also like basically took over
the city government, um investigated the police, like they really

(03:00):
went into Key West and the Keys in general and
said we were cleaning this place up. And that was
two billion in street value, right exactly. But that always
cracked me up. That's they used to always say that. Yeah.
I think they kind of inflate that to make s
like the manufactured suggested retail part that's RP. So one
of the things they did on this task force was

(03:21):
set up a border patrol checkpoint and between the you know,
the Florida Keys are off the mainland of Florida, so
they would set it up between the Keys and the
mainland at Florida City. Yeah, just right there at Florida City.
On Highway one just south of that and basically effectively
what they did was shut off Key West from the

(03:43):
rest of the United States. Yeah, they raised the only
way in and out. They raised the border up above
the Keys and basically made the Keys like another country.
That's ostensibly that's exactly what happened. And the Keys did
not like this very much. Should we take a break? Okay? Sure, okay, chuck.

(04:25):
So the border patrol is now basically doing drug searches
because they were saying, ostensibly, we have this roadblock to
keep migrants from coming through illegally. Yeah, that was sort
of how they dressed it up, right, But they were
looking for migrants. According to I think Florida history dot org,
they were looking for migrants in the glove compartment or

(04:45):
under the seat of the car or something like that.
So really it was part of this drug crackdown. And
I mean that was bad enough that they were masquerading,
you know, one thing for another, but the effect that
it was having was really negative on the Keys in
general and Key Way in particular. Yeah, I mean they
rely a lot on tourism. You couldn't get n er out.
There was a seventeen mile traffic jam can you imagine,

(05:07):
I thought, I said, seventeen minutes. At first, I was like, oh,
it's not that bad. I'd just be like, I just
drive right into the ocean. Yeah, seventeen miles. Are you
kidding me? So, you know, hotels are empty, restaurants are
not doing any business, bars are not doing any business,
which was a big deal there. It sounds you know,
it sounds silly to talk about restaurants and bars not operating,
but well, that's a big part of your income. It's

(05:29):
a big deal. So they said we've had enough. They
got together and they filed an injunction against the US
Border Patrol. This is the people of the Keys, the
government of the community, the people at large, So we're
doing this. They took him to federal court in Miami.
The court said, no, you can. You can keep that roadblock.

(05:49):
So the mayor of Key West, Dennis Wardlow, which I
looked him up and I fully expected him to look
different than he looked. Oh really, yeah, I expected him
to look kind of like a Jimmy Buffett. I did too,
and he didn't. What does he look like? He looked
sort of square? Did he look like the evil banker
from It's a wonderful life, because that's kind of the
opposite of Jimmy Buffin. No, but I fully pictured like

(06:12):
a guy in like a Hawaiian shirt and no shoes
and long hair. But he looked square. He looked a
little square. That's fine, but it was two He did
on with short shorts, but sent time. So the press
is there. He leaves the courthouse after the defeat and
they said, you know what's going on. What are you
gonna do? And he says, a very I attention grabbing,

(06:34):
ear grabbing thing. Tomorrow at noon, the Florida Keys will
seceed from the Union. So he had a sense of humor,
he did, but he also had a lot of follow
through on a sense of humors. Oh yeah, it wasn't
just a joke, no, because the next day people showed
up to see what would happen. And at noon he
came out and he said, okay, first things first, the

(06:54):
Key West is no longer a part of the United States.
It's its own dependent nation called the Conquer Republic. Yes,
a sovereign nation of the Fifth World. Yeah, and there's
this really great Atlas Obscure article about the Conquer Republic
and they described the Fifth world as um. So you know,
the first World, the second World, third world is everybody

(07:18):
we should say this is an outdated Cold War thing, exactly. Yeah.
So the United States and its allies were first World,
the Soviet Union and its allies were second World on
aligned countries or developing countries, Third World, fourth World, where
people who were stateless. I'd never heard that before. Apparently
Dennis Wardlow had because he said that the Conquer Republic

(07:39):
was the first fifth World nation smart which existed as
a state of mind. He said, we exist as a
state of mind and aspire only to bring more warmth, humor,
and respect to a planet we find in sore need
of all three that. By the way, you guys don't
know this was an exceptional Dennis Wardlow I president. He

(08:00):
sounds exactly like me, Vice Persa. That's crazy. So he
officially changes his position from in his title from Mayor
of Key West to Prime Minister of the Conquer Republic.
And I felt like I had heard this somewhere before,
but I might just be thinking of other crackpot weirdos
like Sea Land and the Pineapple called There's a history

(08:21):
of people that do things like this. Yeah, and we've
talked about a lot of them. Remember Sea Land, Yeah,
not impressed. No, and I had forgotten about them. Did
they declare themselves sovereign? Yeah? Oh yeah yeah yeah. Then
the ocean, it was like a floating up marge or something.
Can you start your own country? I think was the episode. Yeah,

(08:41):
that was it. So, uh, Prime Minister of the Conquer Republic,
and he had a mock secession, a declaration of war
on the United States right off the bat. That's a
big one. He declared war and uh it ended with
loaves of Cuban bread being broken over the head of
a man dressed as a U. S. Naval officer. That

(09:02):
was the war of aggression that the Conquer Republic inflicted
on the United States. So they're having fun at this
point because the press is there, and this is the
whole point, because they're trying to get pressed. They are
they're trying to draw attention to the roadblock. They're also
trying to draw attention to their tourism. Um. And then
after after a minute of this war, Wardlow officially surrenders

(09:23):
the Conquer Republic to the United States. And um, he
went to a Navy base and surrendered right and then
requests a billion dollars in aid foreign aid from the
US to rebuild after the war. Pretty great, It is great.
Of course, the U S didn't give him a dime.
Did you ever see that movie The Mouse That Roared?
It was basically the same thing. Yeah, so I'm guarantee

(09:46):
Wardlow saw that. Probably, um so he they the U
S didn't give any of this foreign aide. There wasn't
a cent given. But that roadblock ended almost immediately, very
quickly afterwards, so it had the effect that he was
looking for. That's right, and they still celebrate it today.
They will issue a passport to you for the conquer Republic.

(10:08):
I saw, and I couldn't verify this. I saw the
same thing in multiple places, so you know, it's like
that they'll stamp your passport, which I'm like, I'm sure
they do, but do you want them to do that?
Because I could see um US Customs being like, what
is this your passports void? Now? You can't just go
stamping a passport with whatever you want. That's what I

(10:31):
would think, But of course I'm not at all. There's
a Pokemon stamp on the next page. I probably shouldn't
have told you that. Oh I imagine that Customs has
seen a Conquer Republic stamp. I I how about this,
if we have any customs agents for the US listening,
If you get your passport stamp with a Conquer Republic
or some other made up stamp, pokemon whatever, like, does

(10:55):
it what you invalidate your passport? You know? Customs officers
are famous for their sense of humor. Sure, they're just
tickled by just about thing. Uh so they also fly
a um a flag with a motto we succeeded where
others failed. And then every April they celebrate still they're

(11:16):
a little nutty down there in Key West. Well they
are island people. They celebrate the independence of the Conquer
Republic still in April. Yeah, for like nine days. And
I looked at there was a guy chance to party
down there. There was a guy named Peter Anderson who
was the Prime Minister. No, I'm sorry. He was the

(11:36):
Secretary General of the Conquer Republic and he was like
a guiding light keeping things going. And he died. But
they still they still do it. I thought maybe they
would have discontinued, but they still keep it up. Have
you ever been down there? Yeah, I've never been to
Key West. I did not realize they don't have beaches,
and that's what we went there for, and we were
kind of surprised. Is it just like little Rocky Islands?
It is a rock and buddy, if you like to

(11:57):
fish or scuba dive or drink, you're gonna love it
down there. If you go for beaches, you're gonna be
unpleasantly surprised. Yeah, well you should take up scuba diverver
Snorklingsherman Fisherman's paradise there. It's it's one of the most
otherworldly looking places I've ever been. It's like a rock

(12:18):
coming out of like uhh yeah, and ocean so blue.
It doesn't it doesn't even look real. It's a neat
place and like there's a really crazy, awesome, like gay
community there. I'm sure you've seen Unseen Man on New
Year's Eve um and it's just a cool place. It's
a neat place. But I like the Keys in general.

(12:40):
Oh one other thing, if you go down there, there
is a museum. I think it's just called the Key
West Museum, but it has no there's Hemingway's House. This
is different. This is some weird, clunky museum that it's
almost like somebody who's never been to a museum said
I'm going to put a museum together, and this is
what they can up with. There's rooms where you're like,

(13:02):
is this a storage room or is this like part
of the museum. It's in an old stone fort. But
there's this one exhibit. There's a bunch of them. There's
Robert the famous doll um who's like haunted and cursed.
They have him there. It's really neat to see. But
there's one exhibit is just amazing. There was a famous
Key West resident who engaged in necrophilia for decades with

(13:25):
the love of his life, could not let her go um,
And there's like a whole thing on him there that's
really neat, And they like redid this mannequin that he
basically turned his wife into trying to preserve her. It's
definitely worth going to. Well, if we're plugging very quickly
weird museums, I should plug the Museum of Umbrella Covers

(13:47):
what and that is on Peaks Island, Maine, right off
of Portland, Maine. Take the ferry out to Peaks Island,
go to the Museum of Umbrella Covers, not Umbrella's Umbrella covers,
umbrella covers. I didn't even know the West is put
your umbrella in a little sleeve. Yeah, that's it. Okay,
it's so you've got a bunch of on them. So
there you have it from Chuck. That's right. Uh, if

(14:09):
you want, no, we don't do that on this do
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