The Commonwealth of Kentucky

Since the dawn of human civilization, folks have been telling stories about other dope-ass civilizations that were lost forever. Think of Atlantis. El Dorado, the "Lost City of Gold." Narnia. And now: Wisconsin. It didn't used to be this way.

Decades ago, when I was growing up, we understood that Wisconsin was a real place. It was in our textbooks. It was on our maps, sandwiched in between Minnesota and a big-ass lake. Did we know anyone who had been there? No. I grew up in Canada, and despite Ontario supposedly "bordering" the big W, I didn't know anyone from there who had visited, either. What was even there to visit? Rather than confront the awful truth, we stuck it out, convinced that what our betters had told us was true.

It wasn't until the revolution that we started to find out what was real. In all the chaos, some of the rioters got into the Information Ministry's buildings. So many horrible conspiracies had been inflicted upon us for our so-called good. In those, we found agreements between Canada and the United States, to make up the entire concept of a state. What purpose could it have? To disappear dissidents, it turns out: just like your parents told you that Tucker P. Hotdog went to a nice farm upstate, so too did a bunch of your more radical schoolteachers "take a transfer to Madison." It sounded so unappealing, none of us would dare follow up and drop in on them.