Introducing: Escape From Zaqistan

Flashback: History's Unintended Consequences

iHeartPodcasts and OZY

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 818 Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2024

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Deep in the American desert is a tiny, tiny, tiny nation: The Republic of Zaqistan. Guarded by robots, Zaqistan nonetheless welcomed new citizens for more than 15 years - until it fell into ruins. Now the eponymous founder wants to rebuild. Join hosts Ryan Murdock, Gabbie Watts and Zaron Burnett on a journey to uncharted territory … to the nation of Zaqistan…and the upside-down world of micronations. Along the way, they meet some crazy characters - the President of Molossia, the Sultan of Slowjamastan, the Princess of Sancrotosia to name a few. Follow Murdock as he risks life and limb in the name of nation-building, and find out the answer to the question: what exactly is a nation, anyway?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In 2003, Zach Landsberg bought a piece of desert land on eBay and started his own country.
0:07.1	I took the flagpole and just planted the flag.
0:10.3	I just kind of looked out of like, this is mine, this dirt and this desert brush.
0:14.2	Like, I own this.
0:15.4	It wasn't quite so simple, though.
0:17.0	In our country, this would be against the law.
0:18.9	This would be treason.
0:19.6	This is where government and the American dream kind of clashed.
0:22.2	We ought to find you and run you out of the country for starting your own nation.
0:26.2	Zach persisted.
0:28.1	You know, and they're just like, you can't have these.
0:30.0	And I'm like, well, man, are you seizing every Disneyland passport that comes by?
0:34.3	And they're like, that's different.
0:35.8	It's like, how? And they're like, we know
0:38.1	where Disneyland is. We don't know where Zackistan is. It turns out, Zach's not alone. I am King
0:45.4	Ernest Immanuel. I am the Queen of Ladonia. I'm Jackson I first, King of Capraberg. I am the
0:50.3	Supreme Leader of the Grand Republic of Muntonia. All over the U.S., people are starting their own micro-nations.
0:56.3	Please don't stand in the troops.
0:57.8	We are a peace-loving nation, and we wish to cooperate with the United States in almost every way,
1:02.6	except for the taxes and laws.
1:04.5	And now, with America on the brink of whatever comes next,
1:08.6	Zach's looking to open up his borders.
	...

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