The idea of nations and borders is one the time for has passed.
I personally don't care what invisible, made-up lines you were born within or without. Do you?
I personally don't care what invisible, made-up lines you were born within or without. Do you?
Considering the amount of rights you posses correlate directly to what invisible lines you're currently in, I think just about everybody cares, actually. Until nation states actually go away, they are very much important.
And what do you mean by 'rule of law'? Do the decisions of tribal elders count? That doesn't suggest consistency, which is the spirit of the term.
This is completely untrue. States as we recognize them in the modern sense have only existed since the 17th Century in Europe[0], and much later in other parts of the world[1]. Before this time, political organizations consisted of kingdoms, principalities, city-states, tribes, and various other small groupings of people.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization
Well, I said 'nations', in response to the parent saying 'nations'. I didn't say 'states'. If you are going to be pedantic, then be pedantic correctly.
Before this time, political organizations consisted of kingdoms, principalities, city-states, tribes, and various other small groupings of people.
I guess places like Egypt, the Roman Empire, and Ming were all 'small groupings of people'?
That somehow 'Rome', that stretched from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, was merely a 'city state'? Even after the capital was moved to a different city half a continent away? That despite having a complicated system of senators, emperors, provincial governors (or that they even had the concept of 'provinces'!) and so forth, that there was no 'political organisation'?
In the context of the conversation, the OP's 'nations and borders', there's nothing wrong with what I said - 'nations' and 'borders' have been around for as long as we have records.
In other words, maybe national politics needs to be refactored into smaller units to be more tractable and maintainable.
Not to mention that industrial-scale slavery existed in quite a few places well before the modern era. "Returning to" the ways of the past is very much not guaranteed to reduce our oppression.
Personally, I don't want to be "ruled" by anybody and I don't really believe in "law". However, I don't assume possible to believe that people actually would be kind to each other and live in utopia: it is very likely that there will be somebody who will want to make use of other's unprotectedness, so the society will have to regulate it somehow. But the real problem is there is a lot of tasks to be done by the members of the society "together" (like building roads and stuff), and the most active/authoritative people in this society are practically the government, so there will be governments. And who has power, can abuse it. Therefore, it doesn't matter how much I dislike current governments: it is as it is, no use to talk about that.
However, it is relatively fair to want "not to be touched as long as you don't touch others". So I don't really care how those, who are "the government" will solve questions like who controls some territory: as long as there's no war between these countries and I'm not doing anything that was allowed in the first country, but not in the second one (like carrying a gun on the street) I'd like to never notice I actually "left country". Somehow it is possible in Europe (to certain degree: to the less degree that I can wish for, by the way, but nevertheless), but not between USA and Canada, who aren't fighting with each other, AFAIK.
Also, it is trendy to justify everything with some "dangerous aggressive nation out there, being terrorist menace for us". But as it happens, things usually have some reason to happen. And "aggressive nations" aren't that aggressive unless you abuse them somehow: say, by invading their country or at least drawing (without any real purpose: just because you can) obviously offensive pictures on public resources about people they love and respect.
Agreed, but the tail of that particular dinosaur is going to do some horrific damage as it thrashes around in the tarpit. Nation-states are becoming more powerful at the same time they're becoming less useful and less necessary.