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Comment by xtrumanx | Hacker News Reader

That was pretty weak arguments against the case of the Chagossians people. I had to try really hard not to downvote because I disagree with your position.

It doesn't matter if western countries mistreat their people sometimes, that doesn't justify mistreating the Chagossians or anyone else for that matter.

Even if you think 200 years isn't a strong claim to a nation, that doesn't change the fact those people lived there and were forceably removed from the islands.

I'm also curious, what is your cut-off point for a "strong" claim to a nation? 250 years? 500 years? 1 AD?

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I would say more than 1500 people forcibly relocated to the Island in the first place to work in the plantation and stayed there for hardly a century.

While there are plenty of arguments on what actually defines a nation from both historic cultural perspectives this one is a far stretch for any acceptable "litmus" test for a nation, even if it's simple because they never had the political legitimacy to being a nation state, not to mention ever had the capabilities of forming one.

Where they've mistreated? yes, do they deserve a compensation? yes, are they a nation? well not really if we are frank about it.

You're a nation if you have a military. These folks clearly failed that test.

Not sure if you're being facetious but Iceland, Costa Rica and Mauritius all fail that test and are commonly accepted as nations.

By that line of reasoning, I should be legally allowed to invade my unarmed neighbor's house, kick him out and claim it for myself.

Your unarmed neighbor's house happens to be on the land of an existing nation, so you would have to deal with their military before claiming rights to said house.

Refer to xtrumanx's comment above.

The one about Iceland, Costa Rica and Mauritius? Certainly those countries have allies who would come to their aid if their land was being invaded by foreigners. I'm not claiming that every nation has their own military, just that they must be prepared to defend their interests in one way or another.

The question of "legally" invading someone's house is odd anyway, because legality implies some authority having deemed it appropriate. In the case of a neighbor's house, it is the government of the country containing the house. I can't think of an entity that establishes the "legal" way of creating/invading a country.

Its exists, and has something to do with who 'recognizes' a country's claim to exist. There's a cool case in Australia where a guy with a large ranch wrote a letter to the territorial governor, styling himself as the leader of his fictitious nation. The governor responded in kind, maybe tongue in cheek, but using the same title. That meant, as Queen's representative, that the Queen had recognized him. Now he has a post office, currency, stamps etc, and Australia has to deal with him on that basis.

I was trying to make an analogy. JoeAltmaier's comment implies that it's justifiable for a nation to invade another and kick them out if the latter does not have a military, because it's not really a nation (by his definition). So my analogy meant that by that line of reasoning an unarmed neighbor has no "household" and it should be no problem if someone armed invades it and kicks the family out.

Of course this is all messed up. There's no reason a nation shouldn't be considered a nation just because it doesn't have a military.

Well, historically its all that's mattered. And if we're going to change the definitions of well-understood things, then lets just get rid of nations altogether. Make them all states of a world union or something. Because as long as they're independent and self-managing, then some of them will prey on others of them, and military will continue to be the final arbiter.

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