Ignoring the massive cost, legal hurdles, and the opinion of the residents/government/outside powers, if you could magically grant independence to certain territories or form new bigger nations from existing ones with no repercussions to yourself, what new countries would you create?
Please treat this as a non-serious post, let’s not get into a massive political debate, those never end well.
Break the Untied States into 55 countries
United Ireland
I hope to see this in my lifetime
Can Ireland have both… All the Islands?
We already missed the deadline for this to be the Star Trek timeline.
Free Ireland!
One world under my benevolent iron fist, ruled from my volcano base.
Dr. Doom?
Doctor Evil, actually.
How about the concept of a nation itself ceases to exist? How about free movement of people, very weak states, consumer cooperatives as the only capital controlling entities who are allowed to buy labor only from worker coops? Economic democracy, competition, choice and so on?
How about a world without kings and non consented rulers, a world where we stop wanting to conquer each other, and instead focus on conquering the limits set on us by nature? How about a world where we build a Dyson swarm, solve interplanetary, interstellar, and dare I say intergalactic travel?
Aight imma go cry myself to sleep now
If there are no nation-states, how do we determine what amount of force is justified for self defense? Who enforces violations of that rule and what are the available punishments? What is our recourse when said enforcers decide to ignore any violence against people who deleted their reddit accounts?
Anarchy is a great ideal, but there are some things governments do that we shouldn’t trust to self-organizing collectives. Unless “union of transphobic gang rapists pedophiles” is something you want to defend.
(Bit snarky, but honestly curious as to your answer.)
Anarchy is a great ideal, but there are some things governments do that we shouldn’t trust to self-organizing collectives.
What makes states more trustworthy than self-organizing collectives?
What stops a self-organizing collective from becoming racist, sexist, transohobic, and pro-rape?
I doubt you or I or anyone else here would join such a collective, but what would be our recourse when one forms and rapes my son or lynches your daughter?
Modern states at least have the benefit of a basic theory that they cannot simply un-person people who live within their borders. I dont see what the ewuivalenf mechabism would be to encourage a self-organized collective from doing so.
What stops a self-organizing collective from becoming racist, sexist, transohobic, and pro-rape?
What stops a state from becoming the same?
Modern states at least have the benefit of a basic theory that they cannot simply un-person people who live within their borders.
What are you talking about? Most modern states routinely strip people within and outside of their borders of rights, deport, murder, or enslave them.
Modern states suspend the rights of individuals to lifer or liberty as a punishment for breaking a rule. Rules like “don’t rape people”.
At least in theory, you can move to another nation or campaign for better treatment in essentially all modern states, exempting a small group of pariah states that still mostly don’t rape people as punishment.
Not a single person I’ve seen has so much as suggested any mechanism whatsoever that would keep “self organizing collectives” from becoming fetit pools of bigotry and violence. We know that will happen because such groups arise in every nation already, but their impact is curbed specifically by the power of the state.
“Get rid of the government and we’ll all do the right thing” is libertarian bullshit to cover their glee at taking things away from others. If you aren’t a pro-rape libertarian, figure out how your proposed system would protect the vulnerable at least as well as modern states do.
Modern states suspend the rights of individuals to lifer or liberty as a punishment for breaking a rule. Rules like “don’t rape people”.
They also do it for rules like “wrong skin color,” “wrong country of origin,” “wrong sexuality or gender identity,” “born into poverty and stole food,” “suffering from drug addiction,” or even “possessed a completely harmless drug like weed.” And the punishment is often the total depravation of rights and forced labor tantamount to slavery.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike from stealing loaves of bread.”
At least in theory, you can move to another nation or campaign for better treatment in essentially all modern states, exempting a small group of pariah states that still mostly don’t rape people as punishment.
This wasn’t a good argument in feudal society when peasants could leave and find another Lord or live on their own, and it’s not a good argument now. Choice is pointless when all your choices share the same constraints.
Not a single person I’ve seen has so much as suggested any mechanism whatsoever that would keep “self organizing collectives” from becoming fetit pools of bigotry and violence. We know that will happen because such groups arise in every nation already, but their impact is curbed specifically by the power of the state.
What mechanism prevents states from becoming fetid pools of bigotry and violence, and how has it been working so far? The power of the state does not curb this behavior, it curbs its rivals while engaging in that very behavior themselves by maintaining a monopoly on violence.
“Get rid of the government and we’ll all do the right thing” is libertarian bullshit to cover their glee at taking things away from others. If you aren’t a pro-rape libertarian, figure out how your proposed system would protect the vulnerable at least as well as modern states do.
Anarchy is not the lack of government, it’s horizontal governance. Hierarchy is not necessary for community policing or restorative justice. I’m not an American Libertarian which is an irrational ideology, as it wants capitalism without the state, which is impossible because capitalism is enforced by the state. Without the state protecting private property there can be no capitalism.
That’s a fuckload of words that barely come close to answering the question of “what in this new system of yours protects against rape gangs”?
Maybe drop your edgy hate-fetish and answer the question instead of attacking other ideas? Because this is the closest you came and it’s handwavey as fuck.
Anarchy is not the lack of government, it’s horizontal governance. Hierarchy is not necessary for community policing or restorative justice.
Listing three Adjectice Noun keywords works just fine as for signaling to others who agree with your abstract goals that you can get a beer together, but does fuck all to convince anyone to join or respect your cause.
I care about boys and girls not getting gang-raped, and such rape-gangs being effectively punsihed so they stop being such and others are incentivized not to follow their lead. Extant states today attempt this through the state monopoly on proactice violence and the various political and legal systems which determine when such violence may be used.
You’re suggesting eliminating “the state”, meaning the thing that results from said political activity and through its various judicial systems does the aforementioned proactice violence. While I agree that this system is imperfect, I am not at all convincded that whatever you are suggesting would be even at least as just because you keep wasting your words on arguing how the current system is bad.
Just because the current system is bad doesn’t mean some other system wouldn’t be worse.
Keep in mind, Israeli invaders (often mislabeled “settlers”) would be an example of self organizers.
Without the backing of the Israeli state they would not be so untouchable.
And would then be touched by which state? Individuals? They organize too - based on race. Who will prevent that organization?
It feels like every hole poked in anarchism is responded to with some level of leadership and organization, defeating the whole argument.
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That’s why I didn’t propose an anarchist vision. I do recognize the need for states. Just very very weak ones.
Nation states are a different case altogether though. You can have a multinational state. Sure, it is easier for a state to continue existing if the landmass it controls identifies as a single nation. That helps give it legitimacy.
I’d recommend reading more about nation states and why nations ≠ states.
In common English nation, state, and nation-state are near-synonyms for the collectives created by people which exercise ultimate authortiy to enforce rules on conduct within a geographic area, with some variation due to the nominclature used by said collectives for their various subdivisions.
I’m not sealioning. I’d love to read either an actual answer to my questions, a treatise on your “non-anarchist” idea, or even just a passionate rant about terminology.
But quibbling over vocabulary instead of answering questions, without even offering a single link or reference and instead just saying " do your own reading", is simply bad form.
We’re here on social media, and if you don’t want to have a discussion silence is always acceptable.
My bad. I incorrectly assumed that the above terminologies were common knowledge. I should’ve provided direct links. Well, here they are:
Difference between nations and states
Definition of a “nation-state”
When I talk about nations and states, I talk from the perspective of these definitions. As you can see, they’re not really synonyms. It’s not squabbling about terminologies. If we have a different understanding of what different words mean, then our logical arguments are going to look very different. I’m not saying that your definition is wrong or whatever. I’m just clarifying how I define these terms in my arguments. That way, you can understand what I mean to say.
As for the “questions” you posed… I’m not sure exactly what answers you want me to provide. I already told you that I do believe that states need to exist. We’re in agreement there. I just don’t think that it’s healthy for society to divide itself among different nations. Seems quite a waste of mental space, resources, etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Apology accepted. Sorry if I was painfully American)
The (very British) definition of “nation” you used isn’t at all sensible with what the OP asked. To use meriam-Webster’s definition as a guide, you meant definition 1.a.1, but there are six other listed definitions.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nation
That being said, a “nationality’ (meaning the same thing you called a” nation") will inevitably arise within any soverign state (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/state, meaning 5.a) which persists for a long enough time. The most obvious example perhaps being my own country, in which a distinct “american” /nationality arose after our civil war, although the distnct non-British nationalities of “Canadian” and “Australian” in those respective countries would also be excellent examples. (As would “british” itself.)
While we’re on odd meanings of words, it’s probably worth mentioning that “race” is an archaic synonym for the same idea, although that usage fell out of common usage some time after the establishment of chattel slavery based on skin color.)
Lemme explain the sensibility even when we use 1.a.1. I said the idea of a nation itself should cease to exist.
An analog would be religion. If someone asked me, “what’s your religion?”. I would say, “I’m non religious”. I wouldn’t reply by saying, “my religion is atheism”.
Similarly, if someone asked me what nation I belonged to, I would say something along the lines of “technically, I’m under the jurisdiction of XYZ state, but I do not identify as a member of any nation.”
I’m hoping that this becomes the majority viewpoint. That’s how my answer is sensible even with 1.a.1.
And as for “will inevitably rise within any sovereign state which will persist for a long enough time”, it’s not true necessarily. Example being myself and so many other people (anarchists, lib socialists, even right wing libertarians). Yes, it has been true throughout history (descriptive), but I’m hoping it isn’t going forward (normative).
consumer cooperatives as the only capital controlling entities who are allowed to buy labor only from worker coops
Who would enforce this?
I was going to say: one nation for the whole world. But your idea covers more ground.
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This is site is gonna be western-centric so I’d not even bother with those countries:
So my answer is:
Hong Kong, Vietnam, Guangdong Province become one nation
Republic of Yue (粵共和國)
Historically we came from a common group of people… so… this make sense lol
A lot of Vietnamese words are similar to Cantonese.
So we just make this a dual-language nation of Cantonese + Vietnamese (plus we’d give protected status for minority languages/“dialects” and allow schools in their regions to use 50% of the time to use their language/“dialect” only, the other 50% they have to pick either Cantonese or Vietnamese as the main language, and also the other one become their sort of like “minor” language studies in college terms… so this de facto means the Northern part of this nation use Cantonese, Southern part use Vietnamese as the main one…
So someone running for president of the Republic of Yue is legally required to pass fluency test in both national languages to make sure people are united…
Oh fun fact: the 粵 Chinese character (as in 粵語/Cantonese) representing Guangzhou and Cantonese related words, and the 越 Chinese character in 越南 (Vietnam) are pronounced the exact same in both Cantonese and Mandarin.
Anyways… I’m gonna tag my favorite HKer on Lemmy @NorthWestWind@lemmy.world
Hope you’d enjoy living in our Republic of Yue fantasy where Cantonese is a national language for once (can you imagine if Cantonese won the debate to become China’s official language? 🥹)
/non-serious of course… but this would be a very funny country… imagine Cantopop with Vietnamese sprinkled inside? lolol
Cascadia! We’ve even got our own separatist journal here in the fediverse, the Cascadia Journal.
All the lines drawn by Europe’s Colonial period are erased in Africa and Mid east and new lines are drawn by ethnic groups or otherwise defined by those groups. After which those new nations create a block of African Union like the European Union works.
Where do we have to sign on?
Every country is broken down one step. Individual states or provinces are now their own country. If still too large, break into counties or the like.
Whack it with a hammer! Break them up!
So you want the whole world to look like the Holy Roman Empire?
Hello Based Department.
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United States’ west coast and Alaska’s panhandle are now Canadian. There is now only one Korea. United States of Europe exists now. Russia is broken up into many separate states regarding the population that lives there. A new state is created somewhere inside China on the border that as now… Uyghurstan I guess.
*How ccould I forget about Ireland?! D: Ireland is now just Ireland.
The territory of Kaliningrad belongs to Lithuania. It’s not like there isn’t enough space in Russia, give me a break.
As a lithuanian, please don’t, we don’t want it x3
I’m sure you meant to write Königsberg, but we don’t want it either (maybe to spite the Russians)
Really bad idea to have a big Russian minority in Lithuania, which is what adding Kaliningrad would do, that could cause some instability issues.
Cascadia
I would give the west side of Amarillo, Texas to the cows where they could run as their own sovereign nation.
They already do, they just didn’t tell you.
California breaks off to hang out with Hawaii. Alaska can come too.
I get that reference
Kurdistan. They have been broken up, and are a nation spread over a number of countries that all hate them: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
In the same vein, Catalonia. The “principality" for sure, with Northern Catalonia (currently in France) and the western strip (currently in Aragon, Spain), with or without Aran (if we can decide our future so should they, though an independent Occitaine is probably a pipe dream, so I’d be partial to a confederation if it’s fine by them), open to a confederation with the rest of the Catalan Countries (Andorra, the Balearic Islands and Valencia) if it’s fine by them; the people in L’Alguer (currently in Sardinia, Italy) should be able to decide if and where they want to fit in.
Also Scotland, though they’re not split.
Any nation without a state that wants to have one (and would have the means to survive as one, but there are some pretty small states out there and most of the ones that aren’t sinking under the sea seem to be doing fine), really.
I’d probably take the Western Seaboard from the USA and Canada, so California, Oregon, Washington, whichever province Vancouver is in, and Alaska, and form a new country out of that.
Might fuck around and take Nevada, too, because nobody’s using it. And also that tiny little dangly bit of Mexico just under California that’s like a little peninsula.
While I’m at it, I’ll take the top leg of Idaho also, just because nobody’s using it.
whichever province Vancouver is in
BC
And also that tiny little dangly bit of Mexico just under California that’s like a little peninsula.
Baja California
I vote adding the rest of Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. I say this mostly as a Coloradoan who wants to be part of the west coast union and realizes the importance of geographical connectivity. But also, you’d get a lot of very cool mountains and deserts in thr deal.
We’ll see, since I’ve already laid claim to mine, you can lay claim to yours and be like buffer country between old America and Cascadia.
In exchange for your country of Blagraria providing a layer of separation between Cascadia and the states, we’ll offer you favorable trade agreements that you can then use to parlay into income from the old America.
And if they do something stupid like trying to attack you to take you over, we’ll have your back with our massive trade financial resources and natural resources.
And of course we’ll make sure to blanket Nevada in solar cells and set up distribution networks and we’ll sell you solar electricity at fantastic prices.
Considering you didn’t know the names of BC and Baja, we’ll be taking those, along with some strips of land to connect them (would be nice to get Banff, too). After all, we would like ocean access for trade purposes.
Its war then.
A, I already called dibs on the land.
B, I offered you more than a fair agreement where you would profit immensely in exchange for providing us a small amount of protection.
C, I would urge you to reconsider, because what do you think East America is going to do when they realize that your country is vulnerable due to a lack of trade income? If you carry forward with this war plan of yours, we’re going to levy economic sanctions on you and the only way you will be able to get materials in is from the north-south corridor between Canada and Texas.
You called dibs with handwaving. The international court of dibs doesn’t recognize such chicanery.
And regardless of your legal standing, I plan to offer unfettered trade access to Redneckistan to the TJ cartel. Combined with the natural skills of our friends in Montana and Wyoming, I think it would be unwise to begin a war. Sanctions or no, I can’t see you coming out ahead bringing Portlandian hipters to the front lines - whether or not their mustache might belong to a civil war general.
Accept our rightful ownership of British Colombia and Baja California (both Norte y Sur) or be prepared to lose even the claim you have rightfully dibsed.
Yup, I would like to see the Californias united.
We have three pieces nowadays. North California (Alta California, today’s “California”) and South California (Baja California, today broke into two). Two were already bad… Let’s move into one, please.
(But don’t let the US administration get ideas).
