FASCINATING WORLD OF MICRONATIONS: HISTORY, DIPLOMACY, AND SOVEREIGNTY

RSnake: 

And then you do. Right?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Then you actually did it and then you know I sort of fell into this to fair. I wasn't Queen for I officially was accepted as a citizen in 2000. I didn't become queen until 2011. So, I was just, I was just a cabinet minister for a long time before the opportunity presented itself.

RSnake: 

I was gonna ask you about that. So how does one become a citizen of a micronation? Like, what you just say I'm a citizen. And that's pretty much it is the rules.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It depends on the micronation. I mean, if you want to start your own, you just yeah, you just make everything from scratch, you write your own passports, you do what you like, if it's an existing micronation. Like with Ladonia, you'd go to our website, we've got a little application form that you fill out and your application is reviewed and processed. And if we deem you to be worthy, then you're assigned a citizen number and you get your paperwork, and voila, you're.

RSnake: 

So, what is that process? I mean, what is the criteria for acceptance?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Basically, I, we have to think that you're telling the truth on your application. We asked people to say why, why they want to join, do they have anything that they can contribute? We're just looking to make sure that it's someone who doesn't think that they're going to get the work past to work in the EU. There are a lot of people that don't understand what a micronation is. And they think that this is going to be a free pass into Europe. And it's not. So, a lot of it is just checking that there are I think people that are looking to build a paper trail to change their names. And we can usually snip those out too. So generally, we're just looking to make sure that you're sincere and that you are who you say you are.

RSnake: 

So, I noticed. So, your husband is not the king for obvious reasons. He can't be the there's no such thing as a king. That's right. But what do we first of all, what's his title? I don't think I know off top my head.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I declared that he would be a prince. Oh, he's a prince. The Queen can't be married.

RSnake: 

That's true. But I know there's other titles. What did those titles infer or give you is that some sort of extra abilities within the political sphere or just nothing.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

No totally ceremonial, it's totally ceremonial, it's fun. And we wanted to make sure that if you if you want to be a noble you don't have to rely on an accident of birth or seek someone out who was lucky enough to be born into it and marry them. So, anybody can be a noble it really doesn't mean anything. You don't you don't get.

RSnake: 

So, can anyone be a prince?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Come on No, no, there's a cap on how high you can go. We actually took the dukes and duchesses out of the you can just sign up for it kind of thing because naturally, everyone wants that and that is now solely within my gift to decide so requires a vast amount of buckets and is

RSnake: 

Good to know. So, back to the like, what does it take to become a citizen? Do you have to renounce your citizenship to become a Ladonian citizen or so you can be a dual citizen?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Absolutely no nation, there's no nation on the planet that's going to allow you to renounce your citizenship to be a citizen of a micronation. Because there are rules against allowing people to become stateless. And as the micronations are not recognized as legitimate states, if you renounce your US citizenship, you can't just disappear into the ether they would that would be statelessness, and they're not allowed to. That's like international law.

RSnake: 

Interesting. So, what happens? If? So, I know, at least there are some forms the United States, have you ever net renounced your citizenship? And people have to say yes, but with the they're sorry, I have to say no, because in this context, I guess they couldn't have even though their intention is to have me how does that work? So, if I were to say I no longer want to be a US citizen.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I'm there's a process you have to go through to do that, you know, that right?

RSnake: 

I did not know that.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, it cost like $6,000. And that's not a guarantee that they're going to approve your application to renounce your citizenship. Because it doesn't matter where you live in the world. You owe them money every year on your taxes until you renounce or no until you're dead, because they're not going to let you renounce. Like it's not a thing. Barry, they don't want to let you go and you make too much money for them to let you go. I'm sure if you were, I'm sure if you've made zero money, and you're like, hey, I want to go be a French citizen. That'd be like, give us our $6,000 and have a nice life. But if you're worth some money to them, I have a strong suspicion they will be like, yeah, no,

RSnake: 

I mean, not that I actually want to renounce my citizenship. For the record. I do not want to Yeah, no. Yeah, definitely for the audience's sake. But I am very curious, what would happen if I tried, you know, just, it's one of those things?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think they take your money for the application. And they'd be like, yeah, no. And that would be the end of it. I know that there are expatriation fees. Like if you try to take your money, even like, there's fines and fees, you have to pay to move your money out of one state to another, I'm pretty sure New Jersey has it. Where if you try to move to let’s, say you want to move to Florida, and you want to transfer your bank accounts, they take 10% of your money. My daughter lives in Canada, she wanted to if she ever wanted to move back to the US, she would lose like 50% of everything she has. And now she's like, I have stuff now. I don't want to lose half of my stuff. Like Well, I guess you're stuck in Canada.

RSnake: 

Wow. That's crazy. So, kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He was he was a doctor and a lawyer. And apparently, he'd made a lot of money. Like, I think 100 million on a single case got 10% of a billion-dollar case that he won, and, and he fled to Canada. And of course, they were after him. They definitely wanted, you know, a huge chunk of those 100 million dollars in taxes. And so, years went by, and they kept sending more and more people trying to get him and you know, and he's like, well, home is where your heart is. And he had all these, you know, he's a lawyer, so he knew how to work the system. And eventually, just years and years and years went by and the I guess the IRS agent who was involved as head of that particular case, finally sent him a letter saying, look, I'm retiring, Congratulations, you won kind of thing. So, we actually managed to make it out.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, I understand that it is possible to just sort of leave and stop paying into the system, but you you're doing so with the understanding that you can't ever come back.

RSnake: 

And the funny thing is I met this guy in a flight to Vegas. So clearly, I feel like he is a special he's a special person. Yes. Not everyone can tell. Yes. Yes, of course. Still very interesting. So, there are micronation conferences as well. Yeah. So why don't you tell us a little bit about those?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, there's, there's a lot of them, actually. Um, so the first one I ever attended was called Poly Nation, which is sort of a political nation. conglomerate. They're the emperor of Atlantean, which is in Australia. organized this was I went to the second version that he hosted. The first one was in Sydney. And then the second one was two years later in Lon don. So this was shortly after I became queen. It was my first big conference as representing the country. It was a lot of fun. There were 15 or 16 micronations represented. Everybody got to talk. It was in Chelsea Old Town Hall. All which was kind of cool got a lot of pictures taken there were professional photographers there that ended up using the portraits in a book. It was super cool. So, there's that there is the microcon, which I am actually Madonia is actually hosting this year. It meets every two years. The last one though, was last year, because of COVID. The 2021 was pushed to 2022. So, we're getting back on track this year. But we're hosting it in its July 1. In Chicago. It's actually in the suburbs, it's in Joliet. But we say Chicago. And then a month later, we're going to have the first micro con ever in Europe. So that's going to be an Ieper Belgium and I'm probably not saying that right I sincerely apologize to anyone I may have offended with my atrocious pronunciation.

RSnake: 

I blame my ever filming that's gonna happen a couple of times in this episode.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I blame my Americanism. So, we're, we've we're hosting to basically we've got the one in the US. And then we've got the second one in Europe. And ever, you know, all the micronations are invited to attend. They send delegations, the ones in the US. After the full day of conferences, we have a white tie Gala, which is super fun, because everyone gets to wear their, you know, their finery. How often do you get to go to a white-tie event.

RSnake: 

Extremely rarely.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, you know, it's white time tiaras. It's a good time we have we get a DJ, you know, that sounds awesome in pictures.

RSnake: 

So, what exactly happens at a micro micronation conference? And what do you discuss?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, a lot of it is introducing other people to your nation. But then there are kinds of practical lectures, I gave a presentation last year on securing your legacy. So it was making sure that you have control and possession of your bank accounts and your intellectual property and your internet accounts and everything is lined up, that you have a will and you have a succession plan that you have a disaster recovery plan, you know, anything that you might need for continuity, so that you don't run into a situation where in our case, our you know, our founder passed away. And then there's a fight over the bank accounts and there's a fight over or someone some disinterested relative thinks they've inherited everything, and they've got the keys to the bank account, and now you don't, or somebody disappears, and they had the passwords to the you know, to the internet, the website, and it just it ruins everything. So, I went through, these are all the things that you have to think about. No one wants to think about dying. But stuff happens, you know, get hit by an asteroid get hit by a bus, there's things that will happen. And if you want this to continue beyond you, you need to treat this like a business and you need to make sure that you have plans. So that's what my talk was about. Some of the other talks are about kind of the psychology of what of the people that get involved with micronations some of them are a little bit more theoretical and academic. We've had a couple students who are writing they're doing like their master's project on micronations. So, they'll talk about what their thesis is, and basically present that to us. We had people talk about how to develop your soft power and cultural diplomacy.

RSnake: 

You know, I would have to imagine politics plays a pretty big part in like how do you how do you get legitimacy in the world?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Like it really got to be a no one knows how me no one's done it yet problem. There are people who definitely believe that they know the magic sauce, but they've yet to prove it. And there are people that are you get people that want to come in, you know, with their crypto plans, as you know, make my currency, my coin, that your national currency and I'll make you rich, you get those things too. So, it's, um, I would love to know what the magic sauce is for legitimacy. However, I do not. I don't know that I necessarily trust the speakers at the Micronesian conferences to deliver that that that magic formula.

RSnake: 

Well, so if that's the case, are you just kind of holding on hope that someone will figure it out or is what's your what's your shorter battle plan in that case?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I hope I figured out to be honest. I think there are a lot of micronations that don't care to try to become legitimate. My thing with this whole thing is the more I dig into it. And the more I look at how politics works and how borders work, it all seems very arbitrary.

RSnake: 

Sure,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

well, there are people that want a borderless society, right? Why do we have borders? What? What purpose do the borders serve? Well, you have to defend them to take care of the people that you have living in your borders. What if those people don't want to live there? Well, they have to, because, you know, they pay taxes, what if they want to pay taxes? Like any reason that is provided. I can say, well, what if they don't want to? Or well, why? Why is it your responsibility to do this? Why? What value are you providing other than taking 40% of their money every year?

RSnake: 

Bottles? [Laughter]. No, I totally get you. Well, if that's the case, I mean, what do you have any ideas on what might work? I mean, is there anything that you're like, wow, this might pan out, I might be able to leverage this.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think there's the whole is nationhood defined by a common cultural, you know, a shared cultural experience and a desire to be for that shared experience. Or is nationhood defined by the borders of the land that you live in? So, there's that question. And a lot of people define nationhood as a shared cultural experience and an A his shared history. And that's the reason that is used for that's why this land is ours. And that's why that's why we get to be a state.

RSnake: 

That's certainly how states started anyway. Well, original states, right, going back when we're, there was like two states, but this state in that state were different because the people were different.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

But what's the original states? And what happened to those? And then why have they changed? And I mean, the borders shift all the time. I think, in the US, particularly, I think we have this idea that every country that's there has always been there. And nothing, you know, nothing ever changes, because these are our borders. And this is always the way it's been. But it's not actually the way it's been. Yeah. So, we were started in 1776. I'm reading that book about Belgium right now. Belgium as a kingdom wasn't really an independent kingdom until like 1830. And they didn't decide what their form of government was going to be until 1831. 1831 is really not that long ago, in the grand scheme of things. And there's lots of other countries that have kind of popped up and gone away and come back. Far more recently than that. So, the idea that, that things can't change isn't accurate. There's, there's got to be a way there's got to be a way to crack into it. It's the UN itself like, well, you need to be recognized by the UN. It's kind of an old boys’ network. Well, you know, international law has to allow it. The international law doesn't allow this, you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it's an illegal invasion. Please enlighten me. When is there a legal invasion? Like, does that exist? No. So why are we calling it an illegal invasion? It's internet, international law is weird. You have to you do have to participate in it to give it validity. And if you don't want to give it validity, who's to force you to acknowledge it, the UN recognition thing, the UN is set up to defend the status quo. So, if you're a member of it, you’re sure shit not going to want to invite somebody else in unless you have a really compelling reason to invite them in. And everybody else has to agree with you. So, it's all kind of like a circle the wagons, we're gonna we're gonna protect our own stuff. It's just, it's hard to break into it.

RSnake: 

So out of curiosity, have you ever thought about creating a more inclusive un? So, it's all of the existing countries plus the micronations?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I would. Okay. So, no, usually the micronation un falls flat, because it's very difficult to there's very few micro nations that are established enough to participate. But I don't think we've ever thought to invite the real countries to it.

RSnake: 

I like people coming to my party since not the other way around. Right? Yeah, that would be interesting. I'm just curious because at that point, now, you're all having the same conversations the same time, you may not still have the same status that you're looking for. But that seems like a doorway to having those conversations with the right people.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, so I know. Flandreau instance, which is in obviously Flanders, and they're in the Netherlands or no, he lives in Belgium. Anyway, Francis, became a member of one of the UN to middies so they have observer status with the UN. And most of us think that that's probably our sideways entry into that realm. But no, we haven't invited the macro nations to attend our events, normally because they ignore us. It'd be interesting if we could make a go of it. Somaliland tends to acknowledge Micronesians who write to them. But then when it's brought out in the media, that they sent a letter of acknowledgement to a micronation. They walk it back. So, there are places that you can go. But not everyone, not everyone. Not all the macro nations will, will acknowledge your presence.

RSnake: 

Sure. So which country said at one point in our conversations before that certain countries, certain micronations are treating this much more seriously than others? And you kind of imply that today as well? Or do you have any sort of favorites that are doing extremely well, that you think kind of are leading the pack.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

And flandrensis is definitely I'm not familiar with that one. There. Like I said, they're in Belgium, they claim a section of Antarctica. And they don't want people living there. They're very environmentally conscious. I don't know you'd have to look it up. Niels is the Grand Duke though. And he is very nice guy. See, Archduke I forget. But yeah, his, he set it up as a not-for-profit organization or a club, I think in Belgium. So, he's got recognition as an entity, not necessarily as a nation. And that's how he applied for recognition or to be able to participate in that UN committee. I believe it's an environmental, UN committee. And he speaks a lot everywhere, we actually end up at a lot of the same events. So, we kind of hang out.

RSnake: 

Interesting. So international recognition, what about recognizing them? So, for instance, Tibet, I know ladonia, has said that they recognize Tibet. Yeah. I'm sure that helps be some degree, if you recognize other countries that are kind of on the fringe.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We would be happy to have really, you know, engage in diplomatic relations with anyone that would be interested in engaging in diplomatic relations. So that's pretty much I know, in 2014, there was an article in Israel, I want to say it was in the Jewish free press that and the headline was recognized Ladonia. And it was a big picture of me, and my mom was my mom was petrified. She's like, someone's going to kill you. Thank you, Mom, I feel so good now. And my friends, were like, you need to you need to, like, tone that down. You know, tell them tell them it was a joke. And like, no, no, they want to I will take whatever we can get, I will be very happy. So yeah, I'll take recognition from anyone that wants to offer it would be.

RSnake: 

What about Taiwan, for instance?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I don't think China would the Bahamas. You know, there's this fine line between I want to be supportive of everyone, especially the underdogs. And I also don't want to get drowned. So,

RSnake: 

Well, it seems that if you're already supporting Tibet, it seems like not a particularly long way to go to support Taiwan.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It's not a long way to go at all. But I think one will get us in more trouble than the other. But I, actually we do. Please, don't.

RSnake: 

You heard it here, folks. The Queen's awards?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

But the police don’t down us part.

RSnake: 

Okay, so back to your borders comment for a second. So, one of the major things I think the borders are for is to ideally put a place in the sand that says if you cross this line, there's going to be a war unless we allow you to cross this line. Right. And so, have you thought about border security for ladonia? Have you thought about enforcing your borders.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Enforcing our borders would be very difficult for a number of reasons. No one lives there. It's inhospitable, it would be difficult to live there. And it's not.

RSnake: 

You have an illegal house there. Why don't you just use that?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Have you seen?

RSnake: 

No, I'm just I was drafty. Since I really getting Yes. And for those who have not seen this thing, it's just you know, it's all holes. It's 100% holes.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

100%holes, there's no electricity, there's no water.

RSnake: 

And it's in Sweden. So, it's very cold.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

No, actually Sweden not that cold, you'd be.

RSnake: 

Really on the coastline there.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, it's, it's a coastal temperature, which means it doesn't it's not like, it's not like Chicago, where it'll be 80 degrees during the day.

RSnake: 

Okay yeah, it's nothing's like Chicago.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, there's not these violent swings. If it's if it's 45 degrees, when you wake up in the morning, it's 45 degrees at noon, and it's 43 degrees when you go to bed. You know, it's, it's not, it never gets hot. But it's never oh my god, my lungs are gonna freeze. So, it's not like it's.

RSnake: 

I probably shouldn't have said that to somebody who lives in Chicago because your idea of cold is a little bit different than the average person’s.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I have literally gone to Sweden during a time when it was like 30 degrees below zero in Chicago. And I was dressed like an Eskimo. And I got there and I'm like, Oh, my God, it's hot. I need like it was and they're like, it's very cold. And this is hot.

RSnake: 

Well, I live in Texas. So, I'm a little sensitive to these massive cold swings.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It's very nice out and right now in Texas. So that's pretty nice. I thought it was going to be surface of the Sun hot. Not so.

RSnake: 

So, what about Sweden invading quote, unquote,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I've done that before. There was a there was another sculpture that was there that they decided they wanted removed. And they sent a wrecker in the middle of the night, a boat, and they came ashore, and they tore it down and absconded with it. So, they've done stuff like that. I don't know that there's huge. I mean, that seems like an act of war. It was and we declared war on them. Did you?

RSnake: 

Are you still at war?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

No, I officially ended the very frosty Cold War in 2014. Because we had declared war on San Marino for some reason, and, and on the United States.

RSnake: 

Oh, wow.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah, that was one I was like, you know, I feel like that's a bad idea. Thank. So, I made a statement at one of the conferences, I read it aloud so that it would get entered into the public record that we were ceasing all our war declarations. We're not admitting defeat, we're just calling it off. Because you know, worse, unpleasant. And there's a lot of war in the world right now. And we just, we don't need that. We don't need that negativity.

RSnake: 

So, but did they come back at a point are they were they happy with the single destruction and that was it.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

That was the single destruction, and they haven't come back, you know, people, random people try to burn it down, that you miss the main artwork, it's, it's been set on fire a couple times, there was a big fire that burned about a quarter of it. But it's, you have to so the only way you can get to it is either by boat. And that's only if the seas are glass, or you have to walk and you have to go up the side of a mountain and then down the side of a mountain. And if you want to set that on fire, you have to bring a lot of gas, like a lot of accelerants because it's wet wood that lives on a beach, it is not inclined to catch. So fortunately, we don't get a lot of people setting it on fire. But it's one of those things.

RSnake: 

where uncomfortable amount of fires in our nation.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Anytime you have a structure made of wood that's sitting out unattended, I guarantee you some tours, it's going to try to set it on fire. Just in Sweden, they have these giant at Christmas time, these giant like goat things that are made out of straw. And every year some stupid American tourists will set one on fire like Oh, I thought it was like burning man. Like no, it really isn't. And now you're never going to get to come back. Congratulations. So yeah, but there haven't been it's kind of a tourist attraction now. So, the government there, they're a little torn. Some of them wanted want it gone. Some of them don't. But it's a protected, it's a protected area. So, you can't just set it on fire. And there's, you would be an effort to tear it down. What are they going to do? How do you get rid of it?

RSnake: 

So how do you if you don't enforce your borders? How do you even know where your borders are? Exactly.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

They're spray painted on the ground.

RSnake: 

Oh, you have a spray paint on the ground. Okay. Have you thought about charging people to see the exhibits.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Or how would we do that?

RSnake: 

I don't know. I'm asking you.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I It would be wonderful, but there's no way to do it. You know, it's a public way. Sort of an Um, you know it even on in low years, it gets about 40,000 visitors, you know, people get on there they have picnics, it's pretty, they enjoy it. But there's just no real good way to charge an admission fee unless you caught them like at the trailhead, and the trailhead is definitely not on our land. And that's controlled by the landowner, and the landowner doesn't like us. So, I don't feel like there would be an agreement there. I don't think that's possible.

RSnake: 

Are you saying your country lives on someone's land?

Quee

n Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, it's technically public land. It's, it's, like I said, it's a forest preserve. So that entire peninsula, I'm trying to describe Swedish geography.

RSnake: 

That's right.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

And it's like here, but a lot of this peninsula was owned by a count. And they have a castle. That's like right there. So, Ladonia is like right here. They have castle right there.

RSnake: 

For the people listening, it's close,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Very close um and that whole area was once belonged to that count. 100 years ago, something like that the counts family, there was a thing where like, nobles were phased out, and it's not, they don't really have power control anymore. And at that time, they put all the land that they owned into a trust, and the governing body of that trust has some of the family members and then some of the local government officials that sit on the board of that trust. And they own this park like area. So, we sit on land, that is a park.

RSnake: 

Interesting. Yeah, I think it'd be hard to enforce.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We've offered to buy the land that we sit on from them, and they will not entertain that discussion at all.

RSnake: 

Either because the price point isn't high enough, or just they.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Just they won't give us a price. I'm pretty sure. I have. I feel good that if they gave us a price, we could come up with the money. And I think they're refusing to give us a price because they're afraid I'll come up with the money.

RSnake: 

Some people just don't want to move.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

They wouldn't have to move. There's nothing.

RSnake: 

That's true. Actually.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

it's, it's a square kilometer. It's tiny. can't build anything there. Like it's just let us have it.

RSnake:

Well, we will get back to that in a minute. But okay, so I want to talk about mentioned Sealand a couple of times. First of all, I think it's worth talking about what they that actually is. My understanding, as you said was it was a Air Force or anti-submarine base, or both or whatever some look out post it was able to see.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, it's like a rig.

RSnake: 

Yeah, it's able to see ships or things in the water or things flying by or whatever as an outpost.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

They could land Air aircraft on it. They would land aircraft on it.

RSnake: 

Yeah, Helicopters.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Uh Helicopters.

RSnake: 

Yeah, there's a helipad on the top. You have to be a very, very, very, very, maybe like a well, this World War Two, so this before Harriers now that was only helicopter. It was tiny. But the idea was they had a 50 cal machine gun on there and the radio so they could defend it reasonably from a small craft. And they could phone in, if any big crafts come by, or if they see anything going by of note, which was, you know, basically just a military base in the middle of the water. And for those familiar with the region, it's sort of between London, if you draw a line between London and like Dunkirk for instance, it's the exact halfway point, it's just a little bit north of there. So that's approximately where it is. So, in that in that channel there, but the guys who started it, they had a crazy, the guy who started I should say, and I think his wife, they had a crazy ride had multiple people try to come aboard and take over the place for.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Some Germans that came aboard and held their son and someone else like at gunpoint. Like it was a thing.

RSnake: 

They were actually they were kidnapped at one point.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah.

RSnake: 

Memory serves. I can't remember the whole details of that story.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

But the neat thing about it, though, is when they started it, it was in international waters. So, they had a claim to it. You know, but since then, England extended their international waters, their own law, they passed their own law to extend their international boundary to encompass it so that they had a claim to it.

RSnake: 

Right. And the way I remember reading this guy, he more or less said that the major problem is This was illegally built in the first place. But it was war time. And so, no one kind of said, Yep, sure, go ahead and build some random land. Right. It was abandoned. Yeah, later was abandoned. But his point was, initially, it wasn't a legal thing. It wasn't like part of the country. So, it was just sort of this because there's international water because it was international waters and now abandoned. It falls under the sort of weird maritime. Yeah, it's a gray area of the law. And frankly, I actually kind of agree that in that situation, it's it is a bit finders’ keepers, you know, in the same way, if you are in the middle of the water, and you see a boat that's completely abandoned, with no markings on it, that's your boat. Now for all intensive purposes. Obviously, if there's someone's name on it, it's a little bit different story. But in this case, if it's intentionally abandoned as opposed to accidentally abandoned, that's a that's a different story. But he claims something called just the gentum law of nations and Terra Nullius. It's no nobody's land, which I thought was an interesting, again, gray area of the law where, you know, it is international waters, it is a permanent structure. It is designed to weather the seas there, which can be quite violent. Why not? Let him have it, I guess. Right. And there's some interesting case law about this. He actually took they took him to court, I guess he went back to the mainland. And they didn't live there all the time. Yeah, of course not, of course. But he went back to the mainland at one point and they arrested him on, I guess, I don't know, trespassing? I'm not exactly sure if it was piracy. Might have been piracy. I don't know, probably a handful of different charges. Maybe terrorism because he was shooting at them at one point?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

No

RSnake: 

I don't think so. Who knows?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I feel like it was some kind of piracy chart.

RSnake: 

Yeah, that makes sense but he ended up beating the case. And it was it was more or less dropped. But by virtue of it being dropped, he said, well, I think I've just proven that I own this. I think I proven that I'm a micronation. That's a real country now. Yeah. It's a it's actually a little hard to say he's wrong. You know, they did kind of let them have it at that point. Well, yeah.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

And I think that's kind of the basis for, you know, claiming that Ladonia was independent was when they fought and fought and fought and fought until finally, they went fine, whatever. And they just started to ignore him. And says, Look, we're still here. My now. Sorry.

RSnake: 

So, I first became aware of them in the 2000-time frame Ish because of a, a new company called Havenco.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

They were gonna put the servers in there in the columns.

RSnake: 

So, they.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Why didn't they do that?

RSnake: 

Well, they did. They actually got it up and running. It just was not a very good business model. Turns out that having cloud computing back in those days was not the same as we have today.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, yeah, they could have cut the cable to it.

RSnake: 

It did have a satellite link, but which is very, very latent. Yes. Especially back in those days, really, really bad. Like multi second latency kind of thing. And so for anything that you'd want to do other than storage of long term archival of data or something, it just wasn't a very great option. So anyone who was seriously running a business would not consider that and if you're really worried about the British government not being able to do something to it, well, it turns out, the British government can do whatever thing they want, for the most part, and maybe it's drop a bomb on it, and you're done.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Right. 

Rnake: 

So really, the only thing that seemed to be good for is things like child pornography, and like other kinds of terrible things, and who wants their name on that. And so it just, I don't think it ended up being a very good business model. And also, it's very difficult to get to so anyone who wants to check the integrity of the servers and make sure they're configured the way they expect them to have good luck getting out there. So, there's a lot of things that just made that kind of not so great, but we were talking to them because we had a business model. One point that was a lawful lot like PayPal, and then we shifted it much later. We probably should have done that business model; I probably would be a very wealthy man at the moment. But the other model we came up with was closer to a fully anonymous bank. But we realized, again, very similar problems, the only customers you're gonna get are child pornographers, and drug dealers and terrorists. So, it did not seem like a particularly great business model. After we got down the technical aspects of it were more or less solved, but the business model again was not so great.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

That seems to be a recurring theme with pretty much any idea that that gets explored. Is it always like, well, who's going to exploit this? Really bad people are going to exploit this?

RSnake: 

Now we have things like, you know, cryptocurrencies. So, we have the Same way as to do all that sort of anonymous banking stuff that we were thinking about before only, like 100 times worse because now it's on a blockchain that anyone can look at. So, but it wasn't interesting concept. That's how I first started talking to those people. And they loved the idea. Of course, we got pretty far in the process of talking to them, but it never ended up going anywhere. I suspect that that's true of a lot of micronations as you get approached by a lot of people who have kind of somewhat harebrained ideas.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Well, right now it's a lot of cryptocurrency people. Like if I had a nickel for every time, I was approached by someone wanting to make a coin, I could buy a really fancy sugar-loaded Frappuccino. Everyone looks at it is an opportunity to make money. And it's it, you know, you have to kind of suss out who is who's got a reasonable approach and who is just kind of a crackpot. And there's a lot of crackpots out there.

RSnake: 

It also seems like other countries might be able to leverage a micronation to kind of deflect their finances like we would prefer if you took the brunt of these deals on our behalf or whatever. And you might be able to creatively come up with ways to get them on your side. A lot of nation-building is about, I don't know, backroom agreements of fact, effectively.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I'm sure it is because like I said, it all seems really arbitrary. So, it's what can you do for the guys that can give you legitimacy?

RSnake: 

I know that there are also some nations in the South Pacific that are starting to get underwater.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

and Tupelo I think is one of them. That's thinking.

RSnake: 

Those types of nations might also be looking for outstretched hands and, you know, friends all over the globe.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, looking for places to go. And unfortunately, most micronations don't have places that they can allow people to go.

RSnake: 

What was gonna be one of my questions, what about buying more land?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Definitely is something that we're hoping we can do at some point, there's a big discussion about where that land would be. It's almost impossible to put it within the United States because the United States is disinclined, to make accommodations for that. You know, when it's one thing if it's a joke, it's another thing if they think you're serious about something because they'll swoop in, like if you start minting your own coins are like, Oh, no, it's just for fun. It's all fun and games until they decide it's not. And then they come in, they take everything. And when they take stuff, they take everything, and then you may not get it back. So where would we buy the land? We have looked at like abandoned villages in Italy, we've looked at abandoned villages in France, then there's the how do we raise the money for it? I did establish a not-for-profit foundation in the United States so that we could handle donations. Because prior to Lars passing, you know, everything was just kind of done sort of, haphazardly. And when I started looking at you know, there's people that want to make donations, I don't want those size of donations running through my personal bank account, because I don't want to be responsible for the taxes on it. I don't want people to think that I'm that this is like some sort of scam or money-making venture for me, I want to keep all of the finances separate in an official fund with its own bank account so that we can show everyone what we're doing with the money. And I don't want to get accused of using this from for my own benefit. Because I assure you this is not for my own benefit. People think I'm nuts. You know, it's an adventure. But yeah, we've looked at we've, we would very much like the opportunity to buy some land.

RSnake: 

So, it's not a matter of not wanting to you just haven't found the location.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We haven't found a location and only recently, like within the last year, year and a half have we had the not for profit, the banking structure to put the money, keep the money segregated from my personal finances and from everyone else's personal finances, though, if some rich guy would like to buy us the land and just gifted to us, that would be super cool, too. And I won't say no. Maybe there'll be a duked a minute for.

RSnake: 

so, another one that I saw that I thought was pretty, pretty funny and worth mentioning was that in 1964, Ernest Hemingway's brother created this raft. Are you familiar with this one rose island? It was 8 8 by 30-foot bamboo raft that he called republic of new Atlantis.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Oh, that one. Okay, yeah.

RSnake: 

And the way he the way he dealt with this, I thought was actually pretty clever. He put a bunch of scraps on one side of his country like food scraps or whatever. And what happened is various different bats would land and eat the whatever food he left there, I guess fruit bats and defecate on it. And when they did that, they created what is called the guano. And there is an act called the 1856 guano Island Act, which effectively says that if you if you as an American citizen find a place that has guano on it an island that has one on one you can claim as part of territorial United States, because it's very important for their war efforts. Because it turns out guano is one of the primary ingredients, and saltpeter, which is part of how they used to make gunpowder, and saltpeter and sugar effectively. And so his thinking was one half of the island is is my country, and the other half has been gifted to the United States. So now the United States is expected to protect my country. Right? I mean, these are, these are the kinds of crazy loopholes people have to go through in order to create these. I mean, I suspect this was entirely just for fun and him joking around. But it was the kind of thing that kind of creative thinking out of the box thinking that I think can get you part of the way there.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think everything is getting you part of the way there and it's only the grace of God that you don't get to the rest of the way. You have to you have to have somebody bigger, willing to, you know, to help you along or to acknowledge you. There's lots of there's lots of macro nations that you might think are unrecognized that aren't I think Montenegro is still not un recognized. Kosovo is still not recognized by everyone. There are Palestine isn't record isn't a member of the UN, I think they only recently got observer status. Monaco wasn't a UN member until the early mid-90s. So, you know, you can be a country without human recognition. But you have to get an you have to get enough people to treat you like you're legitimate to be legitimate. It's really all about perception.

RSnake: 

Yeah, I mean, in the end, these are all rules made by people, right?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah, They're all arbitrary. They're all arbitrary.

RSnake: 

So anyway, Ernest Hemingway, is Brother apparently is does not know his history very well. Because, like almost everything that lives in that region for any length of time, it was hit by a hurricane and destroyed. But it was an interesting experiment. I thought.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah, there's so Rose Island was another one. I think Netflix just did a documentary about it. But it was off the coast of Italy. And it was a stationary platform. But it was it was kind of it was kind of made out of wood and stuff is like a shack and elevated shack. But the Italian government blew it up. So that's always one of Oh, and there was a guy who was going to who declared himself sovereign. This has recently been off the coast of Thailand, I think. And he cut her arrested for sedition.

RSnake: 

I'm not heard that one. Yeah, it's there's a lot of micronations Oh, my gosh, yeah. It's hard to keep track of them all.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It is. You know, Tara Nellis, you were talking about that. Beer to will, is kind of between Sudan and Egypt. And it's, I believe, the only confirmed piece of of no man's land left on earth. So, lots of micronations claim it. But you can't. You can't just claim it and start and start a country there. Because there are people that live there. It's in the desert. You got to go through Egypt to get there. It's how do you just go claim something where you don't live or you've never been? That's, that's I think one of one of the issues with people running around claiming land and saying that it's, you know, a new country. It's like, have you ever even been there? Have you planted your flag?

RSnake: 

Do you have a flag for them? Oh, they all do. Oh, they all have flags?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Oh, every one of them. Oh, the first thing they do every 12-year-old. The first thing they do is get out a piece of paper and they draw a flag. They've all got the flags. There are entire subreddits of micro-national flags.

RSnake: 

really interesting. Hey could you tell us about your flag? I noticed that you're wearing a green pin, can you explain that?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Okay, so there are Two stories. And I will tell you both of them. The first story is the original story because the whole declaration of sovereignty kind of came out of a fight with Sweden. They boiled the Swedish flag until the colors ran together as an act of defiance, that's why it's all green. So, it's a green cross on a green field because yellow and blue make green. Interesting. So that's a little aggressive. Now. So now the story is that written history because we're so environmentally conscious. We didn't want to have to make new flags. So, we just repurposed old Swedish flags by boiling them until the colors ran together. Hmm.

RSnake: 

Depends on if you're a war with them or not, I guess, right? That you tell either story. Yeah. Like the first one. I'll be honest,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I enjoy being let into the country.

RSnake: 

yeah, actually, have you had any been hassled at all the airports?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Nope. Okay. They do not care at all.

RSnake: 

Wow. I'm a little surprised by that. So, Minerva is another one that I this story is probably the one that captured my mind the most out of all of the stories. And probably mostly because of the visuals but there's this guy, Moses, alecky is a Lithuanian porn man, who ended up becoming quite wealthy, if memory serves, and made a bunch of money in the stock market, but before that, his family basically were all killed in World War Two. And so, in concentration camps, he was liberated and went to the United States. And I think he was very disillusioned by both the authoritarian regimes but also what he saw as what the left was going to do someday and they were going to do the same thing. He's he thought of them as the stormtroopers. They're the rights bad, yes, but the left has their Stormtrooper tactics. So, he was adamantly anti-left. So, he ended up finding that there was this toll off the coast of Tongo I think that's right. I think so. And Tanga, Tanga, Tanga, Tanga. I knew it didn't sound right in my head. And he basically said, well, this little chunk of this tall, like, no one's using this thing. It's not near really anything. Why don't I just build a country here?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

If only that would work.

RSnake: 

So, he started, he brought a bunch of likes, Earth diggers up and put a whole bunch of sand on top of the, of the very kind of low-lying kelp, the seabed or they’re whatever the, I don't know what it would be called the, the leaf. Yeah, yeah, there you go. That's the word looking forward to the reef was like maybe a foot off the ocean floor. And so they build it up. So, he could actually have some structures there, whatever. And so, he and a bunch of his friends were out there, and they're like, hey, the parent plant the flag, as you said, he had a flag, and then they left because there's nothing to do on this island. So, they live there. And that's just where they're planting their flag. And so, at some point, somebody saw this happen, you know, someone came by and we're like, hey, what's going on? And they told the Tongan you know, minister or whatever, the president of Tonga, and apparently, he was not impressed. And in these, they sent a boat down, he sent the military, so the military down with God with actual guns, real guns. And, and they, they tore the whole thing down. And so, they came back, I think, one more time and try to, you know, have a last stand there. And they had a shotgun or something. And then the target showed up again, with actual guns again, and said, you know, get out of here. Yeah. And so that was the end of it. And then, there are a couple of things I thought were notable about that one. One is one of the things they said about why it failed, that like we just didn't have enough people who are willing to defend our country. If we had had more soldiers on the ground, we would have been able to hold this territory. Yeah, I think there is, unfortunately, something to that if they had had 1000 armed men and a couple of ships, warships, or whatever. They could have quite easily held that ground from Tonga anyway.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think that's what disappoints me the most about everything that I've been reading, is that the only way it seems that you can start a new country is through force, like there has to be a revolution there has to be bloodshed. Why does it have to be like that? Haven't we, as a species evolved past that? And I guess the answer is no. Because I cannot find an example of a new country that has been created that wasn't created out of some kind of civil war, or armed bloody conflict.

RSnake: 

I have a feeling when space becomes more accessible, you might see some more of that kind of thing happen. You know, this is we're going to create a new country on this rock that I just found in the middle of nowhere. But for the foreseeable future, we're here we're, we're Earth locked?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah. I even think when space becomes more open, the big countries, you know, the US and China, especially in Russia, maybe are going to be like, Nope, that's ours. Nope, that's ours. Nice try. But we're going to take that,

RSnake: 

Perhaps, yeah, I have a feeling we'll have trouble holding it, though. Yeah, it's easy to get, like one ship there, it's hard to get, you know, a fleet of ships to go attack things in different distant parts of the galaxy, or whatever,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

maybe it'll be like the Wild West, you know, or the gold rush when you can go out and just, you know, stake your claim, and, and it's yours. But even with that, you know.

RSnake: 

I know this is obviously way pie in the sky and way out there. But I think there is something this is all laying the groundwork for what happens in the future. So, let's say, I can go to a planet that no one's ever

known even existed before. Why wouldn't I be able to do all that? Who is going to stop me? Because at that point, it really does come down to yeah, we'll show up with your gut. Who You and what army is going to stop me from starting this country? Well,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

that's just it, it's yours until somebody with a bigger gun shows up and takes it away from you.

RSnake: 

Right? Yes. And so, I think that is actually the answer to your question about how to get legitimacy. So, unfortunately,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I show force. I know I've wished for diplomacy and it showed up, I desperately, desperately want there to be a way to do it without force.

RSnake: 

And I'd love to be wrong, but I don't, I don't think you are, see how that would work. Exactly. So,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

but the second you start arming the second, the second, there's any hint of that. Some government's gonna swoop in on you declare you a terrorist, and, you know, then you disappear, and they lose

RSnake: 

the key. So just that you need more guns.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

You need to get them faster, I guess. Not that I would ever do that, because that would be wrong.

RSnake: 

I love so one of the reasons I love this is because to me, this feels academic, but that's still close to home, like obviously, I'm not gonna start any micronations in the near future. Don't worry, I'm not gonna become a competitor. But I do find it extremely interesting to see all the caveats and all the things you have to worry about in the construction of a country.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

that's why I thought it was interesting.

RSnake: 

Like stamps, like you have to have stamps, otherwise, you're gonna get mailed to places like how does that work if you can't, if your stamp isn't recognized, passports, you know, there's all kinds of things.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

And there are people who very much want us to issue passports and issue ID cards and things like that. And I've been very reluctant to do so because anytime we issue something, we find it counterfeited, like Ali Baba, and we don't want anyone my biggest fear is that someone is going to buy a counterfeit passport and pay 1000s of dollars for it from some unscrupulous person and try to use it at a border and get arrested. Or I would feel really bad be they must have been desperate to go to that length, and then see if some government wants to come after someone, they're going to come after the person they can find and I'm probably the easiest person to find. Sure. So, I don't want to be responsible for it. But also, I feel very bad that people would have been duped and taken in. That being said, I did all the research on how you come up with the codes and how you do the designs and what's required there are actually companies that service that make the passports and make the currency and all this other stuff for like the little banana republics. So those are companies you can go to and say, hey, my country, we'd like you to make passports for us. And they say, okay, and then they send you a bill. So, I mean, it's all stuff that can be done. The question is, can you do it for a reasonable amount of money without bankrupting yourself? And then what's the point really going to be if nobody recognizes that or acknowledges it? Like I think you could, I think there are some countries that would be cool with it.

RSnake: 

But there are some so there's Have you heard of camouflage? passports? Yeah. So I think that would be an example of one place that you could it doesn't work the United States. Obviously, I'm not allowed to have a camera flash passport in the United States, just not legal. But let's say I was the in some other country. I don't know Mexico or something where it probably is legal. I'm assuming I have no idea.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Is it legal? Or is it just not illegal?

RSnake: 

Well, for the purposes of this, I think that's fine. Either way, because what's really happening is if I'm in Mexico, and some bad things going down, and someone says, oh, let me see your passport and you hand them a passport of ladonia. It's a very different thing than if I hand them a passport of the United States. Like oh, I don't know what that is. Okay, well, whatever fine, you're not who I'm after you're not the target. And so, there is a point to doing it and I'm certain that a cohort of people would be interested in it. Knowing full well that being caught using it in a context for which it is not going to be accepted. You know, that is up to you to get arrested, that is not up to the Ladonian government to bail you out.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I would sincerely hope, hope that to be the case.

RSnake: 

That sort of a best judgment sort of situation. But if they,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It is just gonna say funny, I don't know if we talked, we didn't talk about our holidays, you have we have a holiday, that's called stealing day. And every time we celebrate stealing, we always say, celebrate strategically. Remember, we're not going to bail you out.

RSnake: 

What do people steal out of curiosity?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Lots of it's right after Christmas. So theoretically, it's a lot of Christmas presents that you wanted and didn't get. I usually use pictures of raccoons stealing cookies off plates. I suggest to people that they steal kisses, steal time, or steal a nap. But I can't be held responsible. If someone decides to do something else.

RSnake: 

I say, let's see. But you are advocating stealing, just to be clear. That is being taken anyway,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

After that is the day of throwing things at each other, usually beer cans, so let's see. Won't Pay your hospital bill either.

RSnake: 

So, in the case of camouflage passports here, sorry, a Donald Walker, claims to have come up with a concept, although I kind of suspected happened before that, but she said that it was used by oil executives in Iraq to flee Jordan as an example. So, I think there is a use case for it. And, to a large extent, you said you don't like it when people use Ladonia and citizenship to start up a paper trail as an example. For false identities, I'm assuming that is what you mean by false identities.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We've had a couple of people where it was clear that they had just recently been released from jail for kind of serious felonies. And I was really uncomfortable, with providing them with documentation that had a different name on it so that they could hide from background checks.

RSnake: 

So but also, someone in my position, I often have to create sort of, I wouldn't call it exactly fake identities, because they're not they're not backstopped by actual ID, but you know, fake email addresses and, you know, fake websites, and that kind of thing for the purpose of doing investigations and talking to people without them knowing who I actually am. So, in that context, it's actually quite useful to have another backstop identity, that's it's fully backstopped in a real location that people can say, Yeah, that's a real person, we don't.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, we have gotten, we get a lot of applications from people that are trans that are looking for an identity that is in their preferred gender. And I don't have an issue with that I have an issue. I really, the ones that I kicked back are the ones where it's clear, it was someone who committed a pretty gross crime, and is trying to keep that off of the radar when they apply for apartments or things like that. And maybe that's the wrong thing to do. Maybe I'm not being generous enough.

RSnake: 

Oh, I'm not I'm not here to admonish you. I'm just more of saying that these are the edge cases that that I could see someone wanting it for in a relatively benign circumstance,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

oh, well, we're small enough that we, you're free to plead your case, right? The things that we get bent out of shape about. And by we, I mean, largely, I look at the ones that get kicked back for questions, and I make decisions on them. But it's Are they too young? Are they not serious? Or are they you know, just being grossly fake? I don't know. It's, again, it's kind of arbitrary. And it's kind of,

RSnake: 

what you've mentioned, not serious a couple of times to me in what do I know when someone just likes playing a joke? Okay, that's, that's, that's largely, but you've also mentioned that in the context of someone starting micronations, as well. What's an example of one of those?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Um, there are a lot of kids that are playing around with communism and they're playing around with sometimes they start playing around with, you know, Nazism, like they start exploring some ideologies that are frowned upon in polite society and, I mean, clearly, they don't want their real names associated with it. Clearly, this is something that they're just kind of using as an academic exercise. And those are, those are things that I personally try to discourage. So, when I'm approached by those kids, hey, can you recognize us? And it's like, no, no, no, I think your mother would be upset if she knew you were doing this. Like, no, no, you're awful. You're, you're a bad person. Yeah. And then there's still people that are just, you know, into the LARP. It's, you can LARP all you want, but I'm over here, I'm going to try to do some stuff. And I don't want to be bothered with your LARP. Box is a dirty word.

RSnake: 

It is. So, one of the problems with these camouflage passports and I think people who are trying to take it seriously is, in at least one case, they actually used a real country's name, maybe not even realizing that that was the case. But it was a real country, sort of it was Rhodesia. Yeah, which was part of Zimbabwe, is now in Zimbabwe. Although the Rhodesians would say that it is indeed still their land, it just has been claimed by Zimbabwe. So, they said that any citizen anywhere in the world who wants to become a religious, citizen, sure, go ahead. There, they kind of embraced it, as opposed to saying don't do this. They said, you know, what we see there's a need for this, we actually, we understand that people might be in a situation where they're worried about, you mentioned transgender, if there's something you're fleeing, for instance, and you want to become a member of our country, we embrace that. So, they actually had a simple application process on their website. For things think it's called Rhodesian dash government.org or something, I can't remember where you could go and you can actually type in this information and become a citizen. Right there. It was a Class S citizen, whatever that means. And they battled, they were in a weird situation where they were battling. Became a real country by virtue of the fact that there was a sort of decree from the UK, it was called a night nigh Nyb Mar, and IB Mar, which is some trans-global no independence before majority rule, trans-global decision, they said that if you want to, if you want to be a country, you have to have the local population and your primary government kind of intermixed otherwise, we're not going to accept you as a real country.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I know that if you're a Commonwealth nation, you can have a local, you can vote yourselves out of the Commonwealth. You know, your local population. And one of the things that kind of occurred to me was, the population of Pitcairn Island is aging, to the point that they're going to, like, eventually die out because they don't have enough young people there. And I'm like, you know, we could show up with a small force of like, 50, and just bags of whatever drugs old people like and I bet we could get down to, to vote themselves out of the Commonwealth and vote us into power and then boom, we've got inhabitable land, but the downside is it's Pitcairn Island, and it's a million miles from anything useful. Well, but it gets you statehood,

RSnake: 

Well, but it gets you.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

but it would get a statehood.

RSnake: 

Well, maybe it's worthwhile, then. Could you hire 50 interns to go do it for you?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I bet I could. I honestly, I could have I have 1000s of people just in us in our English-speaking Facebook group, we could get people Sure. How are they? Are they qualified soldiers? No, but if everybody's over 60, where we're going, you know, how hard does it have to be?

RSnake: 

Well, in the case of Rhodesia, and I think maybe you're in the similar Ish boat, they say they are not necessarily a nation in the traditional sense, they are a transnational, or trans global country. Which to them means we have people everywhere, we have them all over the globe, and every place they are is part of our country. It doesn't mean that the land is ours, but it means our people are there and therefore our country is there. And while we may not have any land in the traditional sense of, they might be thinking of we are actually everywhere, and so they're becoming more of a virtual country than a country if if that makes sense.

Queen Carolyn Shelby:

That really sounds a lot like what we have going on because no one lives in Madonia every all of our citizens, we call them nomadic. So, they all live wherever it is, they're going to live and no one gets to move to ladonia. They get to be a citizen. They get to participate in our elections. They get to create a ministry if that's what they want to do. You know, there's all these things that they can do but they just have to stay put. So, it does sound very simple.

RSnake: 

It is very similar and they seem relatively established by virtue of the fact that they were, again trying for statehood and they really were just turned down kind of on a technicality. Not really. Not really. If it had just been slightly different circumstances they probably would have been. There would have been the country of Rhodesia is still around, I can call. I'm sure they are still around, although their website was down when I last checked, but oh, that doesn't mean anything. Okay, and so

RSnake: 

By virtue of the fact that they were, again trying for statehood, and they really were just turned down kind of on a technicality, not really. Not really, if it had just been slightly different circumstances, they probably would have been, they would have been the country of Rhodesia.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Are they still around? I can call.

RSnake: 

I'm sure they are still around, although their website was down when I last checked, but oh, that doesn't mean anything. No. Okay, and so the other one I thought was worth talking about with guards with passports was the N S. K State?

Queen Carolyn Shelby:

Yes, I met them. You've met them. I met them at they were at Poly nation 2012 in London. And they gave a talk about what they did. And there were people that used their credentials to flee the war. Yeah. You'll have to remind me where it was. 

RSnake: 

It was in Sarajevo. That's right. During the collapse, right. Yeah, during the collapse of Soviet Union, so I guess I was 95. And that was a very interesting case, because they were basically in our project. They were basically a music band, pretty famous band. Actually. LEINBACH is pretty well-known band, plus, they were a kind of an art collective. And they just printed these passports as sort of a kind of a half a joke, and, you know, not like fully joking, but kind of half joking. And, and gave them out to people at their shows or whatever, you know, people could buy on my online, maybe I'm not exactly sure, because this was back before things were very popular online. So, it must have been mostly in person, I guess. And occasionally, they got in the hands of people who actually needed them for some reason, and they use them to flee. And back then, during the fall of the USSR, it actually made sense, because no one really knew what the country names were. So, they're like, Oh, I belong to whatever this country was. And people like, oh, it's, I guess that's one of the new countries because no one knew because there's so many of them. Yeah, just another one of the stands that popped up or whatever.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

They came, they came to pollination. And there was a group from Dresden, that when Germany reunited, these people were all really disaffected, because the housing prices went up. Just ridiculously and they had, they have a block of houses that they've, it's like an anarchist commune. They have no no real leader, and they all vote on things. Everything is like super democratic. There is no leader. But they, they have a music festival every year, and they they come to our micronation events. I wish I could remember the exact name of it, but they're interesting. So the there there are examples of people making a go of things, Freetown. Christianna, is another kind of anarchist commune that's in Copenhagen. And they had a, like a black market for drugs, and weed and stuff. And so, I believe that there on an old was like an old army base. But it was all in, it was surrounded. And the cops basically like let them do whatever it is they're going to do, as long as they stay in their stay in their little area. And it is really, I've been there. It's neat. It's like squatters, and they have businesses and people are, its very hippie, like, it's just it's hard to describe, but they've been sort of allowed too just be there. And they're right in the center of Copenhagen. But I know that the last I heard there were developments that were starting to encroach, and the government's starting to get like, you know, the real estate's really valuable me be you could go away.

RSnake: 

So as the way progress, interesting stuff. So, I want to talk a little bit about what I think is a very minor step between what would be referred to as a normal citizen and a micronation. Founder, which is the sovereign citizen movement. Which is, is deemed by the FBI to be more of a terrorist organ group.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Really interesting. We have a ton of sovereign citizens that have applied for citizenship. And my experience has not been that they're looking to. They're looking to live only by their own laws. Why would you? Why would you want to become a citizen of somewhere else? If you were looking to be like an anarchist, or a country unto yourself? Why wouldn't you just declare yourself a country unto yourself? Right. So, what were you going to ask but like, I have so much to say, because well,

RSnake: 

I that that is sort of the heart of what I was going to ask. So, I mean, first of all, what do you think the major difference between the to our I guess the second question follow on would be, why wouldn't you treat them with as much seriousness as any other potential candidate if the idea is, they are disaffected. And do not believe that the laws of the country, the US in this case, are, are lawful. And so, they want a new, they want a new start without all of the bureaucratic and all the setup costs and complexity with starting a new country, which as you know, is incredibly onerous. Why not allow them in,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We do allow them into ladonia, I generally don't have a problem with them, they seem like nice people. My, my advice to them, when I have the opportunity to speak with them is please, please get a real license plate on your car, please pay your taxes, you live in the United States, I understand that you don't think that the laws are lawful, I understand that you disagree with these things, but you've lived there. And you're gonna get in trouble. And whatever legal loophole you think you found to get out of paying that speeding ticket, or having a driver's license, I assure you that you haven't found one, and you really just kind of need to play ball with them. Because they're, they're going to come down on you. If you were a citizen, let's Okay. So, let's say you're a citizen of Mexico, because I sat through long story about why I was sitting through court sessions. But I was sitting there and a sovereign citizen came in to defend himself and he, he said that the ticket was illegal, and he didn't have a driver's license. And he didn't need one because of the commercial transportation clause and the such and such federal, whatever it is, didn't apply, because he's guaranteed the right to travel. And it was a personal conveyance and all this other stuff. And the judge said, there was another guy who came in who was actually there on, I think, a domestic charge or something, but he was a citizen of Mexico. And just like this other guy, he's not a citizen of the United States, either. He doesn't believe in our laws either, which is fine, but he's still he's still subject to them. And this is a law and you're still subject. So, I don't care if you think you're a sovereign citizen, I don't care if you think you're a citizen of Mars, you're still subject to these laws, and you still have to follow the rules. That's just, that's just the way it is.

RSnake: 

I'm pretty sure if an alien showed up. I don't mean a legal alien. I mean, an actual alien, he wouldn't say that.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

That is probably correct. And I'm pretty sure that was hyperbole. But the point is, it doesn't matter what you're a citizen of, you're still subject to the laws of even if you think the law is stupid, it doesn't matter. And I I really desperately don't want any of my citizens, any of my subjects. I don't want them to get in trouble. And I, I want them to I just want everyone to be safe. I just want everyone to see. But why would why would they join? Like they say that they support free speech, they say they support all the ideals are all on board? Why would they willingly offer to become citizens of another country? So, if they didn't believe in if they didn't like countries.

RSnake: 

If I was trying? Well, I don't I don't necessarily think that those two things are true, necessarily. So first of all, they're just they're antigovernment extremists, but not necessarily all governments. They're just, they believe that the United States should have been a common law, not an admiralty law or maritime law. And there's a bunch of reasons they believe that but effectively, if that is true, then they're basically saying that all law is illegal law, because it is not laws that were made by the United States, it was made by a foreign invader, we're effectively United States has been invaded. And they're they don't believe they believe they're a sovereign, they think that they're independent of foreign law. However, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't join a country or go somewhere else or do something to become a member of some law that they believed in. So in that sense, maybe that's why they're flocking, yeah, maybe because if they feel like their more and more laws are encroaching on them, and, and none of those laws applied to them in the beginning in the first place, they don't believe in any of them, then it would make sense that you might be more attracted to a country with less laws or, you know, more laws that looked and reflected their values.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah, I can see that. I also know though that there's things I don't believe in that I do anyway, to, to get along. You know, I I don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent because my son is in Catholic school. So, to make things better at home, I participate, you know, and I am I don't know if that sounds bad. Does that sound bad that I'm in favor of just kind of getting along on things that don't have to be? It's just not the hill I want to die on. Well,

RSnake: 

That's why they made you the queen? Because you could stop these wars from happening before they even start. And the ones that were ongoing can stop those two. So, one of the things I've noticed that was kind of interesting out of doing this research was a lot of the sovereign citizens end up suing the states that they want to win in California or Texas or wherever, wherever they're at Chicago. Chicago is no state. Should be, there's almost should be,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

There is a separation movement in Illinois, where they're trying to, like, cut Chicago out and make it its own state and then make the rest of it be like South Illinois.

RSnake: 

They tried to do that with San Francisco as well, I believe or the Silicon Valley area anyway,

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

There is a big push to split California into at least two if not three.

RSnake: 

Yeah, I've seen I've seen his proposals. But one of those things that's kind of interesting is these people end up suing the States or the federal government, but specifically the states or boards most interesting. And they end up doing it more than once. They did like 50 times. Time. Yeah.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think they become nuisances.

RSnake: 

Right. And they, they end up creating this, there's this weird carve out in the law where you're, you're the vexatious lawsuits. And you get on this list, which I actually found this list, I was surprised I was able to find so easily, which is kind of like a please don't do business with any of these people list. Because, you know, they're incredibly credibly, litigious. But it was it was California's case; I think it was 64 pages. And they've only had this list for a couple of years. I think it's in 2019 or something. And 64 pages of fine print. And this I mean, apparently there's a lot of people doing this.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

A lot. I mean, there's an entire Have you gotten to the sovereign citizen section of the web.

RSnake: 

I don't hang out there, but I, you know, I visit lots of places.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It exists. And it's, they're very serious. And I think their numbers are growing because there are a lot of disaffected people.

RSnake: 

Well, I think it all falls under this class of what's called pseudo-law as opposed to adjudicated law. And the problem with that pseudo law is you will end up in jail, you will get fined out of existence or end up jail.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

It's not it's designed to protect itself from the lies. So as much as I wish that you could, by force of will or, or force of logic, undo of some of those laws that you disagree with, I think your likelihood of succeeding is perilously thin. me maybe never zero. 

RSnake: 

But,I mean, I'm sure occasionally somebody will have the incredibly good logic and the sway the judge in one direction or another, but I just don't think it's worth it.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think it ultimately creates more problems for you than it solves and does pay your ticket and end up on a list. And then you're getting stripped, and searched at the airport, and it's no fun. Yeah,

RSnake: 

I have friends again, that anyway. So, I don't know. Well, those guys are about as close as it gets to sovereign citizens so maybe they deserve it. But so, let's talk about microstates versus micronations.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

So, the microstate is effectively an actual recognized functioning state that is teeny tiny versus a micronation, which is, you know, purportedly self-declared. I just like to add the caveat. I did not declare Ladonia sovereigns therefore the whole self-declared thing prickles me a little bit Oh, interesting. Well, I didn't I was,

RSnake: 

Under it that's actually very interesting. And I know others have abdicated their throne and one point or another. I forget the name of the micronation up I think it was Northern Australia. River. Yeah. Hut River. Thank you. He died. Before he died, he abdicated it to his son.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

No, I don't think so. I think his son inherited when the father when Leonard passed away. And then the son went and then Australia came down on him like the fiery fist of God because they'd been waiting for the old man to die, and they wanted back taxes and he just went, I can't keep fighting you will sell everything. Take your money, just leave me alone. And that's kind of what happened to it is very sad because it very few micronations outlive their founders. So Sealand has outlived I don't remember what the first princess’s name was Prince Michael is the one. Setting it up. Now I do not remember. I don't remember Patti. His name was Patti. And I think that's short for Patrick. And then ladonia is still an ongoing interest and I fully intend to keep it going. But most of them you know, when the founder, founder goes, so does it so do the will to keep fighting.

RSnake: 

It kind of makes sense usually the first person who started it was the spirit of the thing when spirits are gone, it's hard to keep going.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Now, the self-proclaimed thing No, I have constantly referenced it, especially in print as the self-proclaimed Queen of Ladonia. Not self-proclaimed. That's a libel suit right there. I was, I was elected. I was elected by and there was a vote I am by the will of the people and the grace of God. Queens Ladonia. Interesting.

Rsnake: 

So, I have a quick question. Sorry about interrupting, but how many citizens do you have?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

On the books, we have over 20,000. So, we're rapidly approaching Monaco-level citizenry. That's fantastic. Right?

RSnake: 

Yeah. Yeah. So, speaking of. So, Monaco is a microstate. He hasn't microstates 39,000 Ish. And it's point seven, eight square miles. Vatican City has, I've heard all kinds of numbers. So, it's a little hard to know. But I've heard the most credible number I saw was 439. But I've seen the size 1000. So, I don't really know, residents as of 2018. And point one nine square miles. And Ladonia is, as your most current estimate is 28,000. Members. The last one I had was in 2019, right? 2000. So you've grown quite a bit since then. Yeah. And point three, nine square miles. So, you actually kind of right between Vatican and Monaco? Like, right, between the two.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Dude, I'm telling you be a thing.

RSnake: 

Yeah, I mean it by things like landmass and population. I think, you know if those

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

The problem is we don't have a resident population. And that's the kicker, right now, if I had 20,000 people living in that cramped little, little slice of the side of the mountain, that would be cramped. And, you know, it would be a force to be reckoned with. Certainly.

RSnake: 

Yeah, I think. So that kind of brings me to my sort of last set of questions here. I mean, what, what's next? I mean, what do you what do you do? It sounds like you really need land, need soldiers, need land, need money like you need all the kind of foundational stuff that gets a country going land.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I think if we started with land, other things could fall into place quickly. That, you know, the question is, where do you get land that people would be willing to live on you have, most of us are going to have to keep our regular jobs to support things because we don't have an economy really set up. So anywhere, anywhere, I got land, I could live there. Almost all of the time, however, I would need Internet access because I have to do my job. And I need to do my job. So, I have income. And I assume everyone else is going to be in the same boat. Do we get land? You know, if you're landlocked, then you have a problem with your enclave or you're surrounded by another country. So, anyone that wants to come there is going to have to come through another country? So, do we look for a place that's on the water? Where can we go where the government's not 100% likely to fight back? You know it and then once you start getting big, it's big and successful, some government entity is going to want to come in and take things they're going to want their taxes they're going to want,

RSnake: 

What about that nation that's about to go into the water and say hey, can we have some your islands that are no longer going to be livable anyway?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

That's a thought. It is kind of out in a little remote,

RSnake: 

Very remote but prone to being underwater. But I mean, it feels like there are some ways you could work something with these more imperiled nations that are on their last handful of dollars and their land is falling into the ocean.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

To be honest, I haven't I haven't gotten to serious parts of that yet. I mean, Lars just died in October of 2022 or 2021 21. Yeah, um,

RSnake: 

Round to be underwater. But I mean, it feels like there are some ways you could work something with these more imperiled nations that are on their last handful of dollars and their land is falling into the ocean.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

To be honest, I haven't I haven't gotten to serious parts of that yet. I mean, Lars just died in October of 2022, or 2021. Yeah. That whole time was it was a mess, we’re fighting, we've got a fight going on right now, for control of, it's not really a fight. The HIS WILL did not leave Ladonia or Nimus. To anyone specifically, it was explicitly not mentioned in the will, but his surviving girlfriend and the estate believe that Ladonia is an artwork of finite artwork that falls within the copyright that was inherited by the estate. So, there is a bit of a disagreement over, over who controls that. So, I've been kind of dealing with that and keeping things running for the past year, but I think we're getting close to the other side of that, and I'm looking forward to, to definitely seeing how much further we can push things. So, I'm totally open to reaching out to other governments, I think I just wanted to make sure that I had a secure footing, you know, just a secure foundation to stand on, and that someone wasn't going to come rip the carpet out from under me before.

RSnake: 

You know. And I know you are probably wildly too small with a million other problems to deal with. Are you worried that this is colonialism or imperialism or anything like that, where you are coming into other countries and taking their land and then spreading, and because there's, there's a lot of talk about things like this these days?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Yeah. And that's come up. I know that anytime there's written about like, in the press in Africa, specifically, someone will make a comment about how these are, these are white people, hobbies, and you know, just kind of really horrible things that they say and I don't have a good answer for that. It's, yeah, we definitely have the luxury of exploring these ideas. I have no intention of just going in and taking over some country or taking land away from anyone that's the nice thing about Ladonia the land that we have right now is it wasn't anyone's land to begin with. Like no one was living there. We didn't displace anyone. We didn't kick down the door and say, hey, this is ours. Now. I would never want to do that. If we bought the land that's different people would come because they wanted to come i i desperately do not want to be seen as a as a colonizer an imperialist, maybe. But, but not a colonizer that that to me implies you know, you think you think you're better and smarter than the people that already lived there. I would not want to take anything away from someone who already lived there. Unless like in Pitcairn Island we coerce them into we sweet talk them with drugs or you know, chocolates or whatever it is they want into voting us in but I would want it to be democratic, I wouldn't want it to be drug induced to democracy.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

I heard they like their, their Vikatan

RSnake: 

It's funny old people that is. So, any future projects on the horizon for ladonia? Like

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

We've got a lot of things in the queue. So, we're hosting the micro con, like I said, when and where Joliet Illinois? It's July 1, but the festivities start June 29.

RSnake: 

And can anyone go or do you have to be part of a micronation? Or

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

You can come anyone can kind of want to go so if you want to white tie in Tiara Saturday night, July 1. You can sign up we've got a party only pass or website for this. Yeah, micro con 2020 three.com. Ah, there is Yeah. So good times. It's gonna be fun. Yeah, Pelosi is going to be there. They're in Nevada. Uh, you probably heard of them. West Arctica is going to be their flying drones. This I think is sending. I'm pretty sure they're sending someone. There's a lot of I think we've got 25 micronations. Now coming to the to the Chicago event. And then we're going to have sporting events, feats of strength so you can win glory for your nation. And we're there's going to be a Bowling Tournament. So, it sounds fun. It's good time. So, we've got that. We've got stamped designs and production pending. We've got coins that are going to be minted or thinking about National ID cards, postcards, T shirts, all that good stuff. And we did we were talking to someone about sending up a, a nano payload on a shuttle to the space station for scientific experiments, but that requires a substantial amount of donations. So, I do have the not-for-profit setup, we've applied for federal 501 C three status that's pending. I want to see how far we can make it go, you know, I want this is all about pushing the boundaries and checking to see, you know, because everything seems so arbitrary. It seems like, we just need to keep going until everyone acknowledges that. Yeah, they were real all along. It's cool. Because I feel like that's kind of it, you know, something that's just been around for so long. And it's been, it's been that way forever, then everyone's just like, oh, yeah, that's legit. You know, it's not new anymore. It's always been there.

RSnake: 

So, perhaps, oh. So how do people find you and ladonia and the ladonia.org?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Or any permutation thereof? Because I did get all the domains. We've got a website, we've got to Wikipedia, several Wikipedia articles. That's the best way to go about getting a hold of us. That's also where you can apply for citizenship if you're so inclined, or donate for a title of nobility if you're also so inclined.

RSnake: 

Okay, how much does it cost for citizenship?

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Citizenship is free. Oh, great. Yeah. I really want to make the Plainfield the entry, bar to entry. I haven't eaten all day. I want to make it easy for anyone to participate. So just don't lie on your application. I swear, I'm getting tired of people who are lying on their applications. A lot of times it's kids, you know, it's like, I just found there was a kid who applied from he was in England, I think. So, when we're doing the background check. I found he was on the fourth-grade honor roll in 2021. Like you are not 25 My friend is well you don't know that. Like, send me a copy of you know, a picture of you on your driver's license. Feel free to blot out you know, important things is all right, you got me I'm not 25 as well, so what do I have to be a citizen? I'm like, you have to be honest. And I stopped. Try again some other time around.

RSnake: 

Love it. Well, Carolyn, it's been wonderful to have you.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Thank you so much. Fun. I don't get to talk about this a lot.

RSnake: 

Well. I'm glad you came down. This is awesome. Thank you so much.

Queen Carolyn Shelby: 

Thank you!