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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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This seems like it touches upon the same topics as all the secession/independence debates do - who is obliged to get out of the way? Do the people who want nothing to do with the secessionist project have the right to a state of their own, and who has the obligation to get out of the way for that? The idea that any group of people can consensually obtain their own clay on which they only answer to themselves is appealing enough to me in theory, but the practice of it runs into insurmountable problems. Any such group seldom already controls a contiguous piece of land, and fair division algorithms (forgetting for a moment about their asymptotic complexity) only work if the subdivision valuations are independent (so you don't have preferences like "I want parcel A iff I can have parcel B"), which is basically never the case for land.

In concrete terms, you can't build a viable country by aggregating the land held by all ethnonationalists in Europe - so either there is no ethnostate, or someone will have to move, or someone will have to forfeit their freedom of association. All to often, secessionists just wind up arbitrarily privileging their cause - their enemies should get out of the way of their clubhouse state, but they shouldn't have to get out of the way of the enemy enclave stuck in the clubhouse. (See e.g. North Kosovo) This is also what I wind up hearing when these people talk about "white racial solidarity" (as opposed to a more narrowly writ "solidarity among white nationalists") - it sounds suspiciously like a demand that I should have solidarity with them, and join their ethnostate against my will.

Also,

An Irishman can become an American, but a Nigerian simply can’t.

I'm not sure what the working definition of "American" is here; Black Africans have been part of the continent's population since before anything resembling the author's presumable definition of "American" emerged. If he means "White American", then sure, but then the statement is so tautological as to say nothing ("my favoured grouping is defined in such a way that Nigerians can never join").

This seems like it touches upon the same topics as all the secession/independence debates do - who is obliged to get out of the way? Do the people who want nothing to do with the secessionist project have the right to a state of their own, and who has the obligation to get out of the way for that? The idea that any group of people can consensually obtain their own clay on which they only answer to themselves is appealing enough to me in theory, but the practice of it runs into insurmountable problems. Any such group seldom already controls a contiguous piece of land, and fair division algorithms (forgetting for a moment about their asymptotic complexity) only work if the subdivision valuations are independent (so you don't have preferences like "I want parcel A iff I can have parcel B"), which is basically never the case for land.

I don't want to comment on the viability of an European ethnostate or how its supporters are hypocrites by not actually allowing those who don't wish to form part of it to have to move.

However, as someone who is pro-separatism, I would like to to say that the quote above reeks of being a too correct argument. If there's a problem with the people inside a territory not being able to leave, then there's still a problem with that territory itself being part of another larger territory; that means you're left with two choices to solve to conundrum, either the individual is the maximal sovereign unit and there isn't a state at all (anarchism) or you have a one-world government that everyone is stuck with and that's it.

In order to defend the nation state just as it is by saying it's not fair for some to leave the unit and others can't, but without advocating either of the two options above, it seems like you would like you would have to make the case that nation states just like they're now are the result of natural political/territorial/demographical processes, and people have to suck it up or move to another country if they don't like it. I don't deny that plays a role; however, from my (admittedly not deeply researched point of view) history seems to show there's quite some degree of violence behind their creation instead, to say the least.

At the end of the day, you're always going to have people unhappy with the social experiment they were handed, so that practical problem doesn't go away with decentralization but I think it's better at solving it; more sovereign units with less territories makes it easier for both un-popular social experiments but desired by a passionate minority to prop up, and to remove oneself from them .

I'm not sure what the working definition of "American" is here;

Probably, the colonists of the 13 colonies which founded the United States of America, and their descendants. You know, the same thing they meant when they founded the country, and what they literally enshrined in the founding document.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I respect this argument, but it also means that America has been dead for 150 years by now.

1861 + 150 = 2011, the math checks out.

If you want to practice blind allegiance to a sacred document, go to a church/mosque/synagogue. That is no way to run a country.

It is literally the way to run a country, specifically this country in question, considering every single officer pledges to uphold and defend said sacred document prior to and as a condition of serving as an officer.

They don't make you swear an oath for show.