07-02-2002 02:20									#91
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Well, again we're gonna have problems discussing this because of our wildly different beliefs. But, I think it's reasonable to say that a nation is a nation if other nations recognize it as such.

Isn't that definition a bit circular? So if the world community decides to stop calling the US a nation, it's no longer a nation? And it then no longer becomes "immoral" for other states to intervene in the US? Doesn't this definition allow for the very same world government you believe it prevents? Would intervention somehow have become "moral" in Iraq if the governments aroudn the world refuse to call it a nation?

What if the various criminal organizations decide to call each other nations, but don't acknowledge the states of the governments in the various Parliaments and Congresses and so forth around world? Which set of "nations" would actually be nations?

This really is an extremely incoherent definition.

quote: Now, you ask, where did those other nations come from? Well, they've pretty much always been. Ever since people came together to form primitive governments - to get out of the state of nature - there have been nations. So, my best answer is nations just ARE.

Actually, I'd say that nations were formed because of agriculture, not the other way around. But that's not directly connected to the debate.

	07-02-2002 02:53									#92
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Didn't even notice that part. Hey, DF, most of the world did not recognize the Taliban as a nation. So, the US was perfectly legal in it's action. At least according to that definition.

	07-02-2002 03:52									#93
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OK, OK, poor definition.

The best thing I can say about a nation is just that a nation IS. I really have no capability to debate the origin of nations, or anything of the sort. At least I'm honest, eh?

But speaking of honest, I think you're being intentionally obtuse, Ramo. You know very well what a nation is and isn't. You just disagree with the whole concept of nations and national sovereignty.

	07-02-2002 06:25									#94
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That's not good enough, David. If you say that intervening with another state is immoral, you have to be able to tell me what properties differentiate a state from a criminal organization, and why these properties should have any bearing on morality.

Honestly, I don't know!

quote: I really have no capability to debate the origin of nations, or anything of the sort. At least I'm honest, eh?

It just so happens that I'm God, so I know these sorts of things.