Secede? Indeed! The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

I only mention this as I've just returned from a few days in Key West -- or as it's also known, the Conch Republic.

In the early '80s, in a typically futile effort to stem the flow of smuggled drugs and "illegal" immigrants, the US Gummint set up a checkpoint at the Key West end of the famous "Seven-Mile Bridge" that's part of the bridge system connecting the Keys to the mainland, and started demanding ID and passports from people.

The people of Key West, outraged, decided that if the US Gummint was going to treat them like a foreign country, then fuck it, they'd secede from the USA, and began refusing to produce ID or pay taxes. The US Gummint, red-faced, was forced to back down and remove the checkpoints.

Key West/Conch Republic, as they like to say down there, "seceded where others failed".