Freedomain Radio

It's all very nice to talk about how, as Stef says, "Greece does not exist" (in that the land that calls itself does, the critical masses of people with guns do, and large amounts of people within that area describe themselves as "Greek," yet the nation - the emergent entity of 'nation' is just a concept and has no physical manifestation) and how concepts shouldn't take over thinking, but after thinking a while I've decided that I'd like to submit a concrete example of this, and I'd like to know what you all think of it:

 

Sealand.

 

For those of you who don't know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand

Ask a statist if Sealand is a nation.  If he says no, then ask him how it could become a nation.  Since there is no objective measure of "nation, " rather, sovereignty is decided by the consensus of others, and the only difference between the national status of Sealand and the national status of the United States of America is that one is recognized by more people.  Since people's opinion on something cannot change its non-conceptual attributes, it certainly can't bring Sealand's nation-ness into being.

 

How's that for an idea?  Criticism, or any ideas?

There are micronations all over the place. Under international law to be classified as a state you need only a few things like permanant population, government etc, I cant remember the specifics. There is a micronation that is situated north of where I live, here in Australia, that has been formed under these principles. Remarkably it has gained UN observer status and the Australian government is basically not challenging it because it has a legal basis and the effects of them losing a challenge in court would be huge. Their strategy is to simply ignore it, and from what I am aware they are not taxed at all. They have their own currency and passports and junk like that too.

Damn.  I was too unclear.  It was too late at night when I posted.  Anyway, yes.  But I don't care about legally being a state, I mean that there's no magical property that turns micronations into real nations, aside from recognition.  That is silly though, because people's opinions don't influence objective truth.  There!  That's clearer.  You have a micronation?  That's neat.  But would you concur that whether or not micronations are recognized demonstrates the ridiculousness of saying that Greece exists?

Sure, they are all just concepts, none of them exists in physical terms (although living in Australia which has geographical boundaries of land/water rather than imaginary lines...) but if you give that as a reason for not paying your taxes you are not going to get very far :-)

 

OK