🚀 go-pugleaf

John David Galt wrote:

>>> The "right of self determination" is a concept that applies ONLY to
>>> individuals.

>> That is simply not true. Several Eastern European countries were founded on the
>>  principle of national self determination-

As have communities currently within other, larger nations.

>So what?  The Nazi and Communist governments were founded on concepts that
>we all know are total bullshit.  National or community "self determination"
>is total bullshit, too.

I'm afraid he's right, David.  The Nazis, Commies, or the big, bad Confederates
amount to "straw men."  Self-determination associated with people's common views
of their great community-at-large (exemplified since the Industrial Revolution
by the
nation-state), or the next-best substitute on a smaller scale (extended family,
clan,
or tribe) exists as a fact.  (People are social, no matter how individualistic
they may
be.)  The Basques, the Irish, and the Quebecois are among those among whom many
are taking great pains to make this known to others (albeit not always in the
way we'd
like to see happen).

Here in the USA in many ways we are effectively a de facto unitary state, a
single
nation, though legally and technically the states are supposed to retain all
their
sovereignty they didn't specifically cede to the federal government.  (Those
states
that were elevated to statehood from territories acquired this same sovereignty
when
they were so admitted.)  However, people don't see themselves as much these days
as Californians or Texans or New Yorkers or citizens (with a distinct character)
of a
smaller-size, lesser-famous state.

Yet at the same time, we definitely have Southerners [Southeasterners],
Northeasterners,
Midwesterners, and Westerners; the regions remain alive and very real and in
many
ways are the largest real community with which people attach themselves or
consider
themselves to be a part.  Within regions there are some distinctions, and it is
at this
level that perhaps one day serious consideration could be given toward
reorganization
or "rationalization" of "state" size, scope, and boundaries (don't hold your
breath, but
it's at this level where it would make sense, along with basing jurisdictions
acccording
to scopes of influence of metropolitan areas).

That's not to mention the obvious communities of "minority groups" of various
kinds,
and other special-interest groups, who often push themselves or are pushed by
activists
to fracture or weaken the traditional community notions.

The ties are less strong than they used to be (thanks to mobility, among other
things),
but some ties do remain.  We aren't all clones, but neither are we mere "atoms."
(That
is where I diverge from what might be called "pure" or "theoretical"
libertarianism as a
working political philosophy, along with at a couple of other places.)


Dave Simpson