Catalans who exercised the right of self-determination in their own country are subject to EU arrest warrants issued by Spain. What a good move by Britain to have the wit to give the EU its marching orders. The British Tories are leaving heel marks trying to stay in the EU while pretending to be "negotiating" the democratically demanded exit with the Brussels cabal. Yet public disapproval of the EU is even stronger in France than in Britain, and is as strong as Britain's in Germany.

The aim of the CIA in setting up the EU after the war was to stem the tide of democratisation following the defeat of the Nazi Third Reich. The trick was to ensure that democratic rule in each of the 27 member countries was subject the direction and veto of a Commission consisting of officials foreign to each one of them.

For the origin of the EU, Google "European Union CIA".

Dear Alan,

I appreciate your fear.

Should we kill innocent others so that we don't get killed?
Should we torture innocent others so that we don't get tortured?
Should we control the life of others so that our own life is not controlled?

In principle we should not.
In practice, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
At least can we agree that it's not something to be proud of?

Then, can't we find better means of self-defence?
Perhaps defence alliances between independent groups of free people?

Fear can make us throw the baby with the bath-water!

---

Dear David,

Indeed, it is not right to treat minorities badly.
This is why, if we are going to have states at all, then they should be small, so that no one is included in our territory against their will. Better still, have societies that are not necessarily organised along contiguous territories.

Self-determination in a positive sense might sound bad, but is probably the only way to prevent situations where a majority that consists of people I have nothing in common with and no desire to live among, can dictate laws that deprive me of whatever is most dear to me, including my integrity and moral principles. Compared with that, a democracy is only a nice-to-have.

Ethnicity/race is a poor choice of commonality, but who is to dictate which commonalities to accept or reject?

Current states already assume [stupidly] that people are united by the characteristic of living in a particular large territory: it can't get much worse than that.

Ahhh....what a web we weave...white is black (in the dark) and black is not so bad (in the light)
It's a shame that the idealistic values of youth are cut short by the political pragmatism of confusion through blatant denial.
Carthage was the beginning and things have gone downhill ever since.
We know what is 'right' and we also know 'right' is never profitable
We know there's no such thing as equality, but we claim it to be so nevertheless.
We can't correct because there's nothing wrong....and we make accusations against those who seemingly have it together.
When the masses have no idea, then ideas are the last thing sought by the masses.
Social advances are never a product of democratic process....and they're not about to change now

Dear Yuyutsu,

How do you keep states small? Is there an empire that didn't start out as a small state? How do you keep people from converting from one religion to another or from belief to disbelief and vice versa? How do you keep people from being attracted to other individuals of different ethnic or religious backgrounds?

Small enclaves united by some unity are not stable.

Dear David,

Each enclave should have some constitution (or equivalent) which is initially agreed by all members. This should include any exit conditions, which could possibly be different from one enclave to another: nothing wrong about it because it's all consensual.

Some enclaves may allow people to leave the enclave WITH their land.
Some may condition this on keeping the enclave's territory contiguous.
Others may sell their land when leaving, or perhaps automatically sell it for a pre-fixed price to the enclave itself.
All as stipulated by the respective constitutions.

Same for inviting in new people to which members are attracted: whatever is freely agreed on, so it shall be.

Dynamic territorial changes need not be a problem so long as they are not too frequent, they can even be healthy. People don't tend to change their religion every year.

I also expect it to be common for adjacent enclaves to have [freely-entered] agreements on rights-of-passage, common infrastructure, common currency, common defence and the like: most enclaves will not be total islands.

Yuyutsu wrote:

"Each enclave should have some constitution (or equivalent) which is initially agreed by all members."

The requirement for complete unanimity makes your scheme impossible from the beginning.