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Short Stuff: The Conch Republic · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: There's Josh. Let's go Key West, Florida dateline. Uh, southernmost
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: point to the United States. Smugglers Island, That's what it's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: called sometimes. Yeah, because Key West obviously just the location itself,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it's gonna lend itself to smuggling, smuggling stuff in from
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: other places by boat. And I mean it has like
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it's it was a pirate haven for a very long time.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: But apparently that the local population really took to that
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and just kept it up. But like over time when
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: they were smuggling just kind of changed. And at this
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: point in question, this point in history that we're going
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to kind of dive into right now, it had become
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: marijuana and cocaine. Those were what was being smuggled through
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Key West, the glorious eighties Keys of Cocaine and Key
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: West shortest shorts you've ever seen, Oh I imagine. So
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: uh So, these drugs were coming in through South America,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: through Cuba, and then obviously from there it's a it's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a quick ninety miles to get to Key West. There's
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a report from the u p I. The uh quote
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: cruise on fishing boats brazenly unloaded bales of marijuana. High
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: school utes made big money driving the contraband a hundred
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and fifty and mine miles northward to Miami. Drug dealers
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: held labash champagne parties at Pier House, the Pos Waterfront Hotel.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So these kids were driving the stuff up and just
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: sitting in the back of their pickup trucks. Well, yeah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: around the island in particularly, I think when they left
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to drive into Miami, they were a little cooler, but
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: it was a tarp over it at least wide open.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: In Key West of the time, like the local law enforcement,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the local um UH, like city government, everybody seemed to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: either be directly involved in smuggling or turning a blind
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: eye to it, probably because they're getting kickbacks or whatever.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So they are a fire station that was shut down
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: because so many firefighters were busted for marijuana smuggling that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: they had to shut the thing down, and one of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the fire chiefs was actually putting in prison for it.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: So by the by two at the latest, if not earlier,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the Reagan administration said this totally contradicts what Nancy saying.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: We're gonna do something about this, and they set up
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the South Florida Task Force against Crime, which doesn't really
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: create any kind of good acronym, which I found a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: little f Come on, Ronnie, right, so by two he
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: uh well not he yeah, Ronnie alone. I'm sure he
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: named the organization too. They intercepted two billion dollars in
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: drugs coming through South Florida in just eight two alone.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Imagine how much they missed, you know. Yeah, so they
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: were really cracking down. They also like basically took over
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the city government, um investigated the police, like they really
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: went into Key West and the Keys in general and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: said we were cleaning this place up. And that was
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: two billion in street value, right exactly. But that always
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: cracked me up. That's they used to always say that. Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I think they kind of inflate that to make s
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: like the manufactured suggested retail part that's RP. So one
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of the things they did on this task force was
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: set up a border patrol checkpoint and between the you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the Florida Keys are off the mainland of Florida, so
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: they would set it up between the Keys and the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: mainland at Florida City. Yeah, just right there at Florida City.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: On Highway one just south of that and basically effectively
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: what they did was shut off Key West from the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: rest of the United States. Yeah, they raised the only
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: way in and out. They raised the border up above
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the Keys and basically made the Keys like another country.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: That's ostensibly that's exactly what happened. And the Keys did
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: not like this very much. Should we take a break? Okay? Sure, okay, chuck.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: So the border patrol is now basically doing drug searches
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: because they were saying, ostensibly, we have this roadblock to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: keep migrants from coming through illegally. Yeah, that was sort
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of how they dressed it up, right, But they were
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: looking for migrants. According to I think Florida history dot org,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: they were looking for migrants in the glove compartment or
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: under the seat of the car or something like that.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: So really it was part of this drug crackdown. And
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I mean that was bad enough that they were masquerading,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: you know, one thing for another, but the effect that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: it was having was really negative on the Keys in
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: general and Key Way in particular. Yeah, I mean they
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: rely a lot on tourism. You couldn't get n er out.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: There was a seventeen mile traffic jam can you imagine,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I thought, I said, seventeen minutes. At first, I was like, oh,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: it's not that bad. I'd just be like, I just
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: drive right into the ocean. Yeah, seventeen miles. Are you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: kidding me? So, you know, hotels are empty, restaurants are
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: not doing any business, bars are not doing any business,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: which was a big deal there. It sounds you know,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: it sounds silly to talk about restaurants and bars not operating,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: but well, that's a big part of your income. It's
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a big deal. So they said we've had enough. They
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: got together and they filed an injunction against the US
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Border Patrol. This is the people of the Keys, the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: government of the community, the people at large, So we're
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: doing this. They took him to federal court in Miami.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: The court said, no, you can. You can keep that roadblock.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So the mayor of Key West, Dennis Wardlow, which I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: looked him up and I fully expected him to look
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: different than he looked. Oh really, yeah, I expected him
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to look kind of like a Jimmy Buffett. I did too,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and he didn't. What does he look like? He looked
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sort of square? Did he look like the evil banker
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: from It's a wonderful life, because that's kind of the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: opposite of Jimmy Buffin. No, but I fully pictured like
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a guy in like a Hawaiian shirt and no shoes
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and long hair. But he looked square. He looked a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: little square. That's fine, but it was two He did
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: on with short shorts, but sent time. So the press
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: is there. He leaves the courthouse after the defeat and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: they said, you know what's going on. What are you
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: gonna do? And he says, a very I attention grabbing,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: ear grabbing thing. Tomorrow at noon, the Florida Keys will
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: seceed from the Union. So he had a sense of humor,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: he did, but he also had a lot of follow
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: through on a sense of humors. Oh yeah, it wasn't
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: just a joke, no, because the next day people showed
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: up to see what would happen. And at noon he
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: came out and he said, okay, first things first, the
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Key West is no longer a part of the United States.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It's its own dependent nation called the Conquer Republic. Yes,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a sovereign nation of the Fifth World. Yeah, and there's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: this really great Atlas Obscure article about the Conquer Republic
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: and they described the Fifth world as um. So you know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the first World, the second World, third world is everybody
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: we should say this is an outdated Cold War thing, exactly. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So the United States and its allies were first World,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and its allies were second World on
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: aligned countries or developing countries, Third World, fourth World, where
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: people who were stateless. I'd never heard that before. Apparently
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Dennis Wardlow had because he said that the Conquer Republic
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: was the first fifth World nation smart which existed as
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a state of mind. He said, we exist as a
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: state of mind and aspire only to bring more warmth, humor,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and respect to a planet we find in sore need
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: of all three that. By the way, you guys don't
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: know this was an exceptional Dennis Wardlow I president. He
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: sounds exactly like me, Vice Persa. That's crazy. So he
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: officially changes his position from in his title from Mayor
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of Key West to Prime Minister of the Conquer Republic.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And I felt like I had heard this somewhere before,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: but I might just be thinking of other crackpot weirdos
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: like Sea Land and the Pineapple called There's a history
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of people that do things like this. Yeah, and we've
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: talked about a lot of them. Remember Sea Land, Yeah,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: not impressed. No, and I had forgotten about them. Did
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: they declare themselves sovereign? Yeah? Oh yeah yeah yeah. Then
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the ocean, it was like a floating up marge or something.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Can you start your own country? I think was the episode. Yeah,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: that was it. So, uh, Prime Minister of the Conquer Republic,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and he had a mock secession, a declaration of war
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: on the United States right off the bat. That's a
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: big one. He declared war and uh it ended with
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: loaves of Cuban bread being broken over the head of
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a man dressed as a U. S. Naval officer. That
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: was the war of aggression that the Conquer Republic inflicted
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: on the United States. So they're having fun at this
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: point because the press is there, and this is the
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: whole point, because they're trying to get pressed. They are
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: they're trying to draw attention to the roadblock. They're also
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: trying to draw attention to their tourism. Um. And then
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: after after a minute of this war, Wardlow officially surrenders
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the Conquer Republic to the United States. And um, he
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: went to a Navy base and surrendered right and then
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: requests a billion dollars in aid foreign aid from the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: US to rebuild after the war. Pretty great, It is great.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Of course, the U S didn't give him a dime.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Did you ever see that movie The Mouse That Roared?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It was basically the same thing. Yeah, so I'm guarantee
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Wardlow saw that. Probably, um so he they the U
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: S didn't give any of this foreign aide. There wasn't
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: a cent given. But that roadblock ended almost immediately, very
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: quickly afterwards, so it had the effect that he was
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: looking for. That's right, and they still celebrate it today.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: They will issue a passport to you for the conquer Republic.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I saw, and I couldn't verify this. I saw the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: same thing in multiple places, so you know, it's like
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: that they'll stamp your passport, which I'm like, I'm sure
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: they do, but do you want them to do that?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Because I could see um US Customs being like, what
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: is this your passports void? Now? You can't just go
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: stamping a passport with whatever you want. That's what I
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: would think, But of course I'm not at all. There's
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a Pokemon stamp on the next page. I probably shouldn't
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: have told you that. Oh I imagine that Customs has
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: seen a Conquer Republic stamp. I I how about this,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: if we have any customs agents for the US listening,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: If you get your passport stamp with a Conquer Republic
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: or some other made up stamp, pokemon whatever, like, does
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: it what you invalidate your passport? You know? Customs officers
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: are famous for their sense of humor. Sure, they're just
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: tickled by just about thing. Uh so they also fly
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a um a flag with a motto we succeeded where
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: others failed. And then every April they celebrate still they're
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a little nutty down there in Key West. Well they
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: are island people. They celebrate the independence of the Conquer
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Republic still in April. Yeah, for like nine days. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I looked at there was a guy chance to party
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: down there. There was a guy named Peter Anderson who
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: was the Prime Minister. No, I'm sorry. He was the
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Secretary General of the Conquer Republic and he was like
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a guiding light keeping things going. And he died. But
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: they still they still do it. I thought maybe they
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: would have discontinued, but they still keep it up. Have
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you ever been down there? Yeah, I've never been to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Key West. I did not realize they don't have beaches,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and that's what we went there for, and we were
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: kind of surprised. Is it just like little Rocky Islands?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It is a rock and buddy, if you like to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: fish or scuba dive or drink, you're gonna love it
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: down there. If you go for beaches, you're gonna be
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: unpleasantly surprised. Yeah, well you should take up scuba diverver
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Snorklingsherman Fisherman's paradise there. It's it's one of the most
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: otherworldly looking places I've ever been. It's like a rock
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: coming out of like uhh yeah, and ocean so blue.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't even look real. It's a neat
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: place and like there's a really crazy, awesome, like gay
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: community there. I'm sure you've seen Unseen Man on New
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Year's Eve um and it's just a cool place. It's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: a neat place. But I like the Keys in general.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Oh one other thing, if you go down there, there
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: is a museum. I think it's just called the Key
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: West Museum, but it has no there's Hemingway's House. This
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: is different. This is some weird, clunky museum that it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: almost like somebody who's never been to a museum said
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to put a museum together, and this is
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: what they can up with. There's rooms where you're like,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: is this a storage room or is this like part
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of the museum. It's in an old stone fort. But
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: there's this one exhibit. There's a bunch of them. There's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Robert the famous doll um who's like haunted and cursed.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: They have him there. It's really neat to see. But
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: there's one exhibit is just amazing. There was a famous
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Key West resident who engaged in necrophilia for decades with
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the love of his life, could not let her go um,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: And there's like a whole thing on him there that's
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: really neat, And they like redid this mannequin that he
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: basically turned his wife into trying to preserve her. It's
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: definitely worth going to. Well, if we're plugging very quickly
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: weird museums, I should plug the Museum of Umbrella Covers
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: what and that is on Peaks Island, Maine, right off
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of Portland, Maine. Take the ferry out to Peaks Island,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: go to the Museum of Umbrella Covers, not Umbrella's Umbrella covers,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: umbrella covers. I didn't even know the West is put
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: your umbrella in a little sleeve. Yeah, that's it. Okay,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: it's so you've got a bunch of on them. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: there you have it from Chuck. That's right. Uh, if
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: you want, no, we don't do that on this do
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: we know? Short stuff out? Stuff You Should Know is
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