But Vermont is so cold!

Otherwise, this is kinda cool/funny/filled with win. When the article gets into the nuts and bolts of how it would work and how VT could be self-sustaining, it's pretty fascinating.

The Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont - TIME:

"The President on Wednesday may have reassured Americans that the state of the Union is "strong," but, just the week before, a group of Vermont secessionists declared their intention to seek political power in a quest to get their state to quit the Union altogether. On Jan. 15, in the state capital of Montpelier, nine candidates for statewide office gathered in a tiny room at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, to announce they wanted a divorce from the United States of America. "For the first time in over 150 years, secession and political independence from the U.S. will be front and center in a statewide New England political campaign," said Thomas Naylor, 73, one of the leaders of the campaign.

A former Duke University economics professor, Naylor heads up the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as "left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy."

...Second Vermont Republic's gubernatorial candidate is Dennis Steele, 42, a hulking Carhartt-clad fifth generation Vermonter and entrepreneur. He owns Radio Free Vermont, an Internet radio station, and honchos an online venture called ChessManiac.com. Steele says that, if elected, his first act in office would be to bring home Vermont's National Guard from overseas deployments. "I see my kids going off to fight in wars for empire 10, 15, 20 years from now," said Steele, who served three years in the U.S. Army. "People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes..."

Steele and the secessionists have nothing but contempt for Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, who are otherwise considered among the most liberal members of Congress. "They've done nothing to stop the wars," says Steele flatly. Thomas Naylor was more pointed: "Every time a Vermonter serving in the National Guard gets deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, likely to be hurt or killed, Bernie and Patrick are there to commemorate the departure and have pictures taken."

...the candidates each stood at the podium to deliver a remarkably unified message: The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise — engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens — and they wanted no more part of it. "The gods of the empire," Steele told the room, "are not the gods of Vermont."

...Seven secessionist candidates declared for seats in the state senate."