The inspiration for this posting came from reading about a book by Michael J. Trinklein, entitled Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It, published by Quirk Books. As I indicated, I have not read the book, I've just read about it but the book review was so enticing, I'll be hoping to get my hands on a copy of the book shortly.
In his book, Trinklein outlines, with map detail, all of the states that were proposed but never made it to the finish line. His subject matter gave rise to a thought of my own, regarding people, groups, or institutions that I think should be organized together into countries of their own. Please read on.
BP Oil: Let's put all of the BP execs, from upper-mid-level to the top, on a large, floating barge, in the oil-stained and ruined Gulf area. Let's see if they can manage a sustainable living in the morass they helped to create. For their principal economic driver, they can rely on environmental waste collection and the currency could be oil-soaked feathers.
Health Insurance Companies: This country should be where the sun seldom shines, perhaps at one pole or the other. The extreme cold would do well to shrink unreasonable salaries, profits, and egos. In this country, all of the employees, from the top to the bottom would be required to carry individual insurance, with at least a $5,000.00 deductible, accompanied by the constant threat of coverage cancellation by themselves! The perfect Catch-22. And, did I mention, all of the exclusions they would endure due to pre-existing conditions?
The entire Illinois State Legislature, governor and upper-level appointed officials: Their country of residence would be simply obvious - put all of them on a cargo ship that has to anchor off the tip of South Africa, where Somali pirates frequent the waters, looking for ships to hijack. The catcher here is that when the Illinois Legislative Floating Cargo Ship is hijacked for ransom, no one could pay it because the state is practically bankrupt. The perfect oxymoron for legislative morons.
Lastly, all of us humans who possess overly abundant amounts of hubris: The problem with placing all hubris-possessed humans in one country is that the weight of the hubris would cause the country to sink, which is why my recommendation would be to hire BP to excavate the city of Atlantis, ostensibly to provide hubristic (my word) people a place of their own to inhabit. The final prognosis: It will never happen. Perhaps there is a nuclear-waste facility that would accept hubristic humans as residents.
Ancora imparo
