State of Liberty?

State of Liberty?

By,

Jennifer E. Miller

There's been recent buzz about eastern Washington seceding from Washington State. The cascades would draw the border and the east side would be known as the state of Liberty.

It's been proposed before. Conservatives living east of the mountains feel underappreciated and continuously out-voted by the overpopulated urban metropolis. I suppose there is upside to it. The red politicians would cater to the conservative and rural needs of central and eastern Washington. (I could go into all sorts or political hullabaloo here but will spare that.) The biggest concern is whether Liberty could survive on tax revenues from its now scarcer population. And what would happen to all the tax money eastern Washingtonians have paid, you know, for decades? Anyways, it'd have to pass a vote. Would the unofficial voting control headquarters of western Washington actually kick us out?

Another important question is: how would fishing licenses be affected? There would probably be separate ones for Washington State and Liberty. I'm not sure how many people fish on both sides of the state since fishing techniques are vastly different, but it's something to think about. If I'm now a resident of Liberty, I would essentially need an out of state fishing license to fish in Washington; the state I used to live in. And vise versa. Hunting licenses would create the same issue.

Some outspoken proponents, yeah yeah, congresspeople from the east side, are very enthusiastic about the idea of a newly seceded state of Liberty. And their enthusiasm is catching on. In fact, I've seen various internet comments in support of it. Eastern Oregon, desperate to detach from similar red-blue-east-west contradictions, wants to join us; and north Idaho seeks division from psycho southern Idaho. I think Montana would stand its ground. Being remote, it's practically another country anyway. They probably have bigger shotguns. We'll just leave them alone.

At my writers group on Thursday night (May 18th), we briefly discussed how it was the 37th anniversary of the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. After swapping a few stories, someone mentioned the possibility of Mt. Rainier blowing; which would be even more devastating that Mt. Saint Helens. Before Mt. Rainier would blow, the heat from the volcano would first melt the snow, thus, causing massive west side flooding. There would be panic to no end as millions of people would flee the area and could only go in three directions: north, east, or west over the sound if they owned a boat. The peninsula residents would be trapped, unfortunately.

As I pondered about this notion of Mt. Rainier demolishing western Washington, I thought of something so incredibly simple it was brilliant.

"Hey! If Mt. Rainier blew its top, we'd get our state of Liberty!"



Copyright 2017 Jennifer E. Miller