Self-Determination

Well said and thank you Con. Pro Self-Determination: 1 - Self-Sovereignty and Association 2 - Peaceful Independence 3 - Escape from Oppression 4 - Alliances and Cooperation Self-sovereignty: "the quality of living in accordance with one's inner nature or genius." (1) 1 - Every person is the sovereign of their own fate. At the root of self-sovereignty is the natural right of self-determination. Every person has the right to choose how they wish to live; every person has the right to associate with whomever they choose. And so the right to self-determination extends to groups of people. As persons choose whom to associate with, then an association of people may as well choose how it wishes to live, as well as with what other associations to associate itself with. 2 - It must be noted that self-determination of a group requires that the group reside within the area of the group, and that the group must then be a certain majority of the population of that area. In a world where self-determination would be applicable to any area, the people of each nation would decide the majority that any of its areas must internally attain in order to gain independence. In such a system, the majority would not be unattainably high nor would it be too easily attainable. This is because no person would want to limit themselves from possibly gaining independence with a group in a particular area, nor would any person want to make it too easy for their area to become independent without their support. Nations could as well merge with other nations by much the same method. 3 - Self-determination being the root of self-sovereignty, an area may become independent even without the express permission of the larger nation. If the larger nation becomes despotic or ignorant of the needs of an area in particular, then that area has a duty to throw off the chains of that larger government which bind them so as to provide the area with a more respectable government for its people. With self-determination, people choose how to live; that means they may choose whom to hate, whom to love, whom to shake hands with, and whom to shun. However, no person has any right to preemptively harm another person. If a nation were to internally oppress minorities of their own, the areas in which those minorities live would likely self-determine independence from the oppressive nation and optionally even join another consenting country entirely. As stated of an oppressed people in the United States Declaration of Independence, "when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." (2) Thus, nations would need to be tolerant of their minorities or risk losing area, and thus international influence. 4 - On a Global level, as areas gradually gained independence, merged, gained independence, etc. the countries of the world would gradually become more internally peaceful through tolerance of belief or through unity in belief. In a Global system of self-determination, countries would be wary in neglecting people of other countries, because an equal reaction would likely reach them in return. Such reactions would hinder the neglectful nation's competition with other countries via sanctions, prevention of movement, etc. Thus, while some countries would inevitably become hateful, they would be wary to risk their own futures by acting on such hatefulness into neglect. This would all be due, of course, to the existence of alliances, the basic exercise of self-determination between nations, the choice of nations to associate with other nations in order to pursue national happiness. Alliances would as well impede the ability of authoritarian conquerors to unrightfully gain areas or peoples, authoritarianism being the forced determination of the fates of others, the direct opposite of self-determination. Authoritarianism: "a form of social organization...opposed to individualism..." (3) Back to you Con. (1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... (2) http://www.archives.gov... (3) https://www.princeton.edu...