Now that basic 17th Century Westphalian sovereignty is dead (again) in the American West, we need a new model to understand its new political order. I suggest Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age and its concept of the "phyle" as group which temporarily or permanently establishes a micronation on a given plot of formerly-sovereign federal land.
For those who have not read the novel, The Diamond Age imagines a future roughly in the mid-21st Century where the basic political construct is the phyle. From the Wikipedia entry for the book:
Society in The Diamond Age is dominated by a number of phyles, also sometimes called tribes. Phyles are groups of people often distinguished by shared values, similar ethnic heritage, a common religion, or other cultural similarities. In the extremely globalized future depicted in the novel, these cultural divisions have largely supplanted the system of nation-states that divides the world today. Cities in The Diamond Age appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. Most phyles depicted in the novel have a global scope of sovereignty, and maintain segregated enclaves in or near many cities throughout the world.
The Bundyists and their brothers riding through Recapture Canyon may be called a proto-phyle free to establish its own laws in places formerly ruled by an entity called the United States of America. However, unlike the phyles in Stephenson's novel who largely operate in a state of extraterritoriality, the Bundyist phyle values the operation of its society on a given area of territory, either permanently on grazing land or as a temporary occupation for the purposes of expressing political supremacy vis-a-vis visibly orchestrated events. An ATV ride through sacred Navajo territory, for instance. Given the relative importance of geography for the realization of the Bundy phyle's aspirations, it may be more apt to call this particular phyle a micronation, and its temporary encroachment on other sovereign lands a micronational occupation.
Rather than mourn the apparent loss of the nation-state in our once-sovereign republic, new models to understand political, social, and cultural behavior among micro-communities may be called for. While science fiction often presents exaggerated cases for the sake of commentary, Stephenson's phyle could offer us new tools to make sense of our brave new micronational future.