This is a follow-on fictional treatment to the three previous essays on secession available in my archives starting with "Good Morning, Mr. President."

“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.”

~ Abraham Lincoln, (speech in Congress January 1848)

Idaho started the ball rolling and seceded from these united States. A total dissolution of America quickly followed as schisms and fissures erupted across North America. The collapse of the Mexican government caused a tidal wave of immigration to wash in to the southwestern portions of the former country. The great financial collapse of the world economy centered on the fiscal and monetary mischief in DC and Wall Street added yet more fuel to the fire. To tarnish the American reputation even more, hundreds of thousands of American troops were left stranded and penniless around the globe as the economic meltdown in America reduced the dollar to Zimbabwean valuations. To make matters worse, the government in DC instituted blanket loyalty oaths as a precursor for repatriation of returning soldiers who had managed to get home. This in turn caused entire National Guard and reserve units to return to their homes and assist in the buildup of forces in those states to fight the various doomed attempts by the central government to bring the rebellious states to heel.

The US followed in the footsteps of every other empire; corruption, decay and imperial overreach both at home and abroad. The District of Columbia still maintains a tenuous rump government known as the United States Socialist Republic (USSR) in control of the New England/Virginia states but power brownouts/blackouts, food shortages and insurgent activity have caused ambitions to whither to reunite the nation. Rumors of gulags, reeducation camps, oppressive domestic population controls and blanket censorship remain a common narrative for refugees escaping from the USSR. Repeated military strikes and adventures to bring the nation back to its original 2009 configuration failed and consequently, managed to cause the divisibility to exponentially expand. Total combat losses for USSR forces are unofficially estimated at 156,000 killed and wounded and a half-million missing in action. Excepting attempts by USSR guerillas to form pockets of resistance and insurrection, the entire effort has failed. There is some speculation FSA and Alaskan acquisition of nuclear devices on former US bases within their respective borders caused the USSR to pause and retreat but this remains unconfirmed.

The country has fractured into both natural and uneasy alliances. The west coast states formed a tight Green Coalition alliance in what is now Pacifica. Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Montana and Nevada have formed the Free State Alliance (FSA) confederation with very close relations with the Alaska Republic. An immense brain-drain from Pacifica to the FSA has resulted from the ecotopian experiment. The Dakotas remain on the fence as to whether they will join them or sign on with the Midwestern Alliance. The Lakota Sioux will remain their own nation regardless. The American South and Southwest are still in the throes of a multi-sided civil war. Hawaii has reverted back to its roots with the inauguration of King Kamehameha VI and the annexation of all non-Hawaiian property back to the native islanders.

Quebec has broken away and fighting remains sporadic in the western Canadian provinces as the national government continues to press for its supremacy over the rebel Canadian states in the west. There are reports of insurgent materiel and support from the Free State Alliance to British Columbia but these reports remain unsubstantiated.

Mexico has splintered into approximately ten separate states with alliances between the various 31 states that comprised Mexico ebbing and flowing on a daily basis. While the USSR maintain strict drug prohibition, the decriminalization of drug laws in Pacifica and the Free State Alliance has significantly weakened the strength of the Mexican drug cartels to finance their activities.

Fears of meddling on the part of China, Russia and Middle Eastern states have appeared to be exaggerated as those nations grapple with their own economic and social collapse difficulties.

The rapid expansion of oil drilling unfettered by confiscatory taxation and regulatory nonsense from DC has caused an economic boom that may prove to leave both the Alaska Republic and the FSA as the North American "Tigers" economically.

The following interview was granted by Governor Lutrin of Idaho and broadcast on Voice of Liberty.

"Good morning, Governor."

"Good morning, John."

"Ten years ago, I suspect no one would have seen this transpire the way it has. No one would have suspected that the map of America would be this different. Do you think that this has been the outcome the Founders would have wanted?"

"Hamilton would be apoplectic but I suspect that Jefferson would be pleased and, of course, Tom Paine and Sam Adams would see this as inevitable. Why it took so long for the rotten structure to sunder itself, I will never know. Mind you, I did not come into office anticipating this chain of events."

"Has it been a rough ride for Idaho and the FSA?"

"Quite frankly, we sensed that there was nothing easy about the fateful decision to get DC out of our state and out of our lives. I was embarking on a journey that my great-great-great grandfather witnessed in South Carolina in 1860 and we were praying for better results. To say that we were stepping into a void is an understatement. Not everyone in the state agreed with our course of action but I was convinced the people hired me not only to represent them but to exercise my own moral compass and judgment much like the Founders when they seceded from the United Kingdom.

The death and destruction we suffered was tremendous as a result of both insurgents and US [now USSR] armed forces employed against us. Possibly the only thing that kept us from getting overwhelmed was the disproportionate number of US troops deployed overseas and the concomitant crisis where the currency collapse caused many of them to be stranded in Indian country abroad. That, of course, led to some bitterness. Idaho had a reputation as a rather well-armed bastion but the ensuing guerilla conflict against the Federal forces was far more than they anticipated. There were even several assassination attempts against me…"

"One of which you thwarted by killing the assassin yourself…"

"Well, I have always considered it sociopathic to outsource my self-defense to others so carrying a weapon was a daily routine even before the conflict…

I have to tell you that we would not have prevailed if other states such as Montana and Wyoming among others had not joined the fray. I have to say that the number of murdered civilians by Federal forces tipped the war in our favor. I can never mend those families but the massive indiscriminate firepower and total disregard for civilian casualties turned the tide against the Federal forces. I would think that the failures of military effectiveness in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been a consideration but the war on Americans in their own country became a very bitter contest. Federal units may have owned the roadways but once they started to step into the wilderness or hinterlands even in large formations they were picked apart and annihilated."

"There are rumors of Federal forces still in Idaho and the FSA…"

"Very true but those incidents are getting more and more scarce as time passes. Ironically, after the major hostilities ceased nearly six months ago, almost half the Federal forces in the region deserted and joined us once we had enjoined a treaty for repatriation of families and guarantees against reprisals with the DC government during secret talks."

"Why were the talks secret?"

"Six months into the conflict, currency collapses and corruption in DC had so stymied and hampered the war effort both here and abroad, they had no choice but to negotiate but they dare not do so in public or they would have lost electoral support and you know where a politicians’ bread is buttered. We got plenty of concessions and I was able to look the President in the eye and tell him: u2018No, you can’t!’. We could have avoided the bloodshed if we had simply been granted a civil divorce per our request in the first place."

"How would you characterize life in Idaho and the FSA now?"

"Life is difficult especially for those who have lost family, homes and fortunes. But we are rebuilding and we are free. We now have our own private banking system employing real gold & silver to back the specie. We have shut down and sold all Federal government property and are currently starting the second year cycle to bid out all Federal and State lands to private individuals and investors. There is zero government money going into the education system.

Each of the Confederation members in the FSA, and Alaska for that matter, are experimenting with different levels of state governance. In Idaho and Montana, for instance, all the timber interests subscribe to a private consortium for firefighting. Would you invest in a timber enterprise that did not seek to protect their own investment? So we think the incentives are more reality-based instead of the perverse and corrupting laws DC forced upon us.

We have left it up to the counties and subsidiary units to figure out what works best. The Federal Register has no weight here and all the courts are being privatized. The only gun law remaining on the books is if the gun is used in the commission of a crime. We have also imposed term limits on all politicians to one term in their lifetime.

Government is a nasty habit and it will take more than a year to kill the addiction but we feel that the competitive laboratories the states are creating will give us a running start to find the best path. This is the greatest failure of DC rule; it allowed no freedom of choice in so many areas of our lives. We are now free to choose, fail and prosper. We don’t have all the answers. For instance, we have eliminated all our drug laws on the books and have decriminalized possession, sale and production. Utah has not, so we will see how that works out.

The remaining part-time politicians in the statehouse are even offered personal bounties for reducing or eliminating budget items. I would much rather give a politician five percent of a one million dollar program than spend the money on the program in to perpetuity. We are also basing their salaries on an inverse ratio. In other words, the more money they vote to spend out of taxpayer’s pockets, the lower their salaries and compensation. Would I like to close the doors to the statehouse permanently? Sure, but we aren’t there yet."

"Governor, one term means you are out next year. What are your plans?"

"To mind my own business."

“When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

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