Hey Hey
There was some post (for some reason I can't find it now) where I mouthed off about my 'bleak' view of a world where the country you live in and depend on is just a fragile little construct and will crumble or be absorbed as soon as one of two things happen; 1) people stop believing in fairy tales, or 2) a bigger fish happens by.
I have no idea if I was right. In some sense, I hope I was wrong, as I'd like to think that a nation could, in theory, last at least a thousand years without the threat of violence from another nation, regardless of its place in the world. After all, we've worked hard to establish a society where someone could definitely run the course of his or her life without being mugged, attacked or murdered. But establishing such a system within a country is hard enough, and would undoubtedly be harder, if not impossible, on the international level.
On the other hand, maybe it's best to accept resignation from this sort of international goal. Are we expending ourselves for something unattainable and wasting valuable time and talent in the process? Not much lasts forever. Any organism or business will eventually bite the dust. It's essential, really. Why should a country be any different? Shouldn't Darwin apply here?
So, some questions to figure out where we, as PA&L, stand. Please comment, and definitely speak up if I left out a response.
PS: If this seems boring, definitely don't proceed. There are many questions that aren't even worth asking (visit the philosophy forum for a few thousand examples of this) and these might be a few of them. But desperately trying to avoid real work can make the mind wonder about things it has no business wondering about.
-------------------- what's with neocons and the word 'ilk'?
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Maybe here is a little of the federalist in me. Haven't thought this out too much but heres an idea....
I like big nations. I dont think its good for every little ethnic group and religious sect to get its own little nation on a hill. If the world were divided in to 7 or 8 large republics, I think the threat of war would go down. There is the fact that the soviets and americans never did war directly for this reason. If all the countries where the proxy wars took place were incorporated into a large, local republics, there wouldnt be a chance for these "small" wars to break out.
Of course a fear many have of a large nation is that it will tend to authoritarian policies, but I dont see any evidence of this. I think in history either small nations or large have the same chance of being despotic or being free.
Again, I havent really thought this out, Im sure someone will show that its bad.
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