He Started a Country Inside the U.S. Nobody Noticed.

[Music] i think it's a joke but cassandra this video is sponsored by gevalia who decides who gets to start their own country and who doesn't well on christmas eve of 1966 a major in the british army by the name of roy bates decided to take over an abandoned offshore platform off the coast of england and declare its independence he called it the principality of sea land the uk government eventually took him to court but the courts ruled the platform was in fact not part of the uk's jurisdiction and according to sealand thus making them an independent nation this event caused a ripple of inspiration across the world for other people also interested in starting their own countries thus the phenomenon of micro nations was born which brings us to today's adventure a few months ago we heard about someone who calls himself his excellency president kevin baugh founder and president of the micronation of malaysia apparently a tiny self-declared nation currently located in nevada and today we have an official visit scheduled in a formal media interview with president kevin baugh himself but first as i turned 27 this month amar had put together a birthday surprise for me while i was away this is going to make him very very happy his fuel let me explain to you how this all came to you because it was pretty sure that gevalia which is this lovely coffee brand they reached out and they said we wanted to do something with you guys thomas is the biggest coffee fanatic i know he's swedish the brand is swedish it literally has a swedish flag on it and it's arabic coffee sounds more like our household coffee is such a big part of thomas's life that during the fast for ramadan five years ago during project theory what he was struggling with the most it was not having coffee also thankful that they are sponsoring this episode this is gonna be a three-part birthday gift what i don't know what to say that is so cool ready for the second part you now have coffee making god coffee making setup unlimited coffee supply from gevalia like for real is freaking amazing well we have a micro nation to explore let's make some coffee and then uh yeah i would love some customers feels like life flowing through my bloods i'm so happy coffee's working time for the adventure we'll see you in nevada all right everybody smile yeah here we go awakened by gevalia we're ready to head out to reno to take on the adventure all right ladies and gentlemen we are in reno but before we head to malaysia obviously make sure that we roll in with a surprise because we have to really leave an impression with mr president he is the longest president that has ever lived in me he's been on it for like what 30 years i can't tell if this guy is completely in his own world or like does that tongue-in-cheek this is how he signs his emails his excellency president kevin bond republic of malaysia like that's gotta be a joke right i hope it's a joke but also maybe it isn't i hope it's not yeah maybe i hope it's not the more we dove into the history of malaysia the more confused we got especially when we found out that the value of their currency which they call the veloura is anchored to cookie dough just like the us used to have the gold standard in alaska you can convert the malasian velour into cookie dough at a fixed amount so because of this and to make a good first impression we decided that the best way to arrive into the country would be with a treasure chest full of cookie dough [Music] oh i see the flag oh there he is oh my god this is the coolest moment hi guys yes yes how are you good how are you fantastic we're so happy to be here i'm president the president of the republic of malaysia sorry it's my first day this is amazingly first lady adrian chief constable election she's in charge of law enforcement here so uh behavior we came bearing gifts i've always wanted one of those oh my god that is fantastic well if it wasn't diabetic before that's absolutely amazing awesome thank you another great welcome very happy people whoa this is custom this is the art piece that i connect with very very deeply [Music] let's get into it when i go back to 1977. just absolutely what is in president kevin's mind so malaysia was originally founded on 26 may 1977 back then it was called the grand republic of goldstein my friend james was the king and i was the prime minister 15. and you know it shows up what you know 15 about about governments and everything welcome to the republic of malacia that's right behind you is the united states over there too and probably over there too all around us but when you stepped off that street in the driveway you entered a foreign country that's right we saw this movie called the mouse that roared it's about a tiny country that invades the united states expecting to lose because when you lose a war with the u.s they come in and fix your country up right and fix your roads and all that kind of stuff you know instead they capture this little bomb and become the most powerful country owner so they win and we were really struck by the imagination and creativity of that idea so simply we just wanted to have our own country the republic of velocity is what's called a micronation which is a tiny self-declared country located fully within the united states surrounding all sides by that nation we obtained property within nevada in 1998 this became the home to our country and we've been going strong here ever since raise the flag as you see we saw it from a distance too yeah is not like a separatist thing or or we have a problem with the us government no we just want to explore the idea of what makes a country and what can we do with that idea of having our own nation it's really whatever you as the uh the ruler of your of your micronation think that the uh the country should be whenever you enter a nation like ours you pass through customs this is fred our customs guy and that's right he is a mannequin all of our civil servants in molossi are mannequins and that's because they don't go on strike and they don't ask for races and take long breaks or anything like that no complaints from these guys fred does have a few rules that he would like you to know when you come into the country donating a nuclear device within the nation will result into a 500 velour fine it is illegal to play percussion instruments in any bathroom and sunshine is guaranteed to the mess that's right it's important to understand that our weather is always perfect here however we're so close to the us border their crappy weather blows in all the time so it's kind of important to have a sense of humor when you have your own country uh so that maybe the big giant country around you that has a lot of law enforcement and military doesn't get mad at you and decide to come shut you down not saying any names but they're right over there now you're thinking these are really odd rules actually all these rules were adapted from the united states that's right every single one of these rules has been is on some book somewhere over there over the board of the us uh including the detonating a nuclear device thing it's illegal to set off an atom bomb in salinas california otherwise they're going to give you a really big fine i'm not really sure who's going to be left to give you that fine i mean catfisher band we're going to be in a magazine called fhm and they bumped the article about velocity in favor of an article about guys that catch catfish with their hands so check your pockets make sure you don't have any catfish we'll be checking it's a dictatorship it's the most elaborate art piece of all like all these little things that adds the humor to the setup of the country and kind of exposes the outside the world oh there's definitely a little bit of satire here in malacia malaysia does not have an air force or an army we do have a navy the mafia navy and this would be aboard our former flagship the ms wombat turns out that when boats get holes in them they sink so that's why it's the former flagship not always automatically poking fun at the us but i mean they set themselves up as a target a lot so they really do okay so this is the bank of malacia that's right we do have our own bank because we have our own currency our velocity and currency is called the valora and our money is not based on something useless and worthless like gold or silver or platinum something of real value chocolate chip cookie dough as these guys well know having brought us about 700 pounds of the stuff i'm already working out what kind of holiday we're going to have with that that's a lot of cookies i really hesitate to you to use the word hobby but a lot of folks have hobbies and so they like skiing so let me take that next level so i can get the black diamond or whatever it is you know in malacia we want to take the next level see what we can do with our nation and this is velocious jail that's where we put folks that have committed offenses against our nation we're looking for somebody who might have oh i don't know brought contraband into the country let me be that guy he didn't bring your passport but you did bring a catfish you brought a walrus in jail you go sir that's it well that was our stint in jail you can hear them you know they're there they're very happy political prisoners isn't that great all right shut up this is why he's a boss proudly mined by happy political prisoners that's not a commentary on the state of prison system in the u.s i don't know what it is like it's so good it's almost like going to one of those like interactive museums that kind of create a different world for you except he's just fully owning the fact that that different world is his own country this is an air rocket you come over and stomp on it and we'll give you a certificate making you wait for it an honorary molossian space cadet there you go yeah where'd it even go oh there all right who's next oh yeah best astronaut in malaysia right now the more you look around the more you realize the layers of humor and of trying to make it feel as legit as possible while still being you know keeping a sense of humor it makes you think about the state of the world when you're when you're hearing his commentary on things and wars and imaginary enemies that he has and all these things you're like oh wow like that makes me think so much about where how we live and how we do politics and how we do just dealing with foreign countries nuts i'm so happy right looking over there on the wall underneath that cool rusty side this is republican malaysia you see our population which is 35 policies is a family nation the nice thing about getting started to a certain age is they're having grandchildren and your population goes so there you go have a drink of water wow come on over here don't make me come here made with real water not just ours that's right all fails and yes theory just for some reason we shut down i know what i'm doing i'm getting the land next door becoming the neighboring country habib's land the micronation of love do you identify yourself as an artist i mean yes actually kind of in a way i mean it's a different kind of art but yeah yeah we put a lot of ourselves into this into building up this country and making it as real as we possibly can and we're pretty proud of our little country well i would like to thank you very much for visiting the republican velocia hope you had a wonderful time in our little tiny country and thank you very much for visiting our nation thank you thank you thank you thank you for creating this this is this is very very inspiring so you're creating your own definitely your own rules is definitely something that thank you my lifelong dream is to be able to create a city oh yeah and i i've been thinking a lot about how do you bring together community and how do you build real spaces oh yeah like being here is the first time i felt that inspiration ever since i was a burning man 2019. we want to start a micro nation what is the what is the procedure like well okay first off there's really no procedure and you can do just about anything with the idea of having your own country but really just think about what your nation stands for it would align with what we're trying to do with yesterday yeah which is just like putting out a message of love over fear absolutely and this is a fantastic basis to build your country on it really is you guys have been listening to the whole thing if you're interested in joining the micronation that yes theory would potentially start please let us know in the comments yes landia yes landia i like it that's good such an honor you're the first president that we meet and thank you for having us absolutely thank you thank you that was an amazing better than i could have ever imagined i love that he's self-aware but that's the one thing that i was like really hoping yeah because he's taking it seriously but he's also understanding that it's it's not if you're going to call this an art piece this is one of my favorite art pieces i have ever seen all that he's doing it for free we're pretty inspired i'm also so happy to be back doing this if you're making videos oh there's the third part of this guy's surprise we'll do that back in venice what's up baby what are we doing look at that what [Music] for those of you who have been watching yes theory for a long time you'll know that continuing to nurture a deepest sense of belonging within our community has always been at the core of our mission and so after our inspiring visit to malaysia we've decided to leave an open-ended invitation to all of you to help us imagine what the yes theory nation would look like what it should be called where it should be whether a physical or a virtual location and how we should go about constructing it this will be a worldwide project that you are all invited to contribute to and who knows maybe the yes dairy nation will one day have its own country and lastly a huge thank you to gevalia for sponsoring this video chivalria exists to help people live a life less ordinary and awakens whatever's brewing inside chivalia coffee beans are slow roasted and snap cooled to release the most flavor and aroma so go check out the link in the description below to get some yourself and we'll see you next week

Channel: Yes Theory

Views: 2,601,471

Rating: 4.942668 out of 5

Keywords: yestheory, seek discomfort, Gevalia, gevalia pods, gevalia coffee, molossia, country of molossia, smallest country in the world, country inside the US, micronation, strange country, yes theory travel, yes theory country, yes theory spontaneous, yes theory nation, how to start a new country, new country, can i start my own country, nevada, strange places in the US, cool places in the US, travel in america, the principality of sealand, how to start a country, Amazon FBA

Id: U9-et4H1jvY

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Dazza477]

He sounds EXACTLY like Russ Cargill, Head of the EPA in The Simpsons Movie.

[u/Germanweirdo]

Remembering seeing this in Germany on Galileo. It's a "country" no one really noticed because it's not actually a country. Cool, but not what it says it is.