Skip to main content

I Like The Idea Of Microstates.


I have long been a fan of the idea of microstates. I think it lets good ideas flourish. You need to focus on those people who live within the same city or small number of cities, instead of focusing on how people feel 3,000 km away...whom you will never meet outside of some national campaign. The UAE could have been part of Saudi Arabia. Kuwait could have been part of Iraq. Singapore could have been part of Malaysia. I'd be for an independent Bali. I'm certainly for an independent Kurdistan. The UN lists the countries with the highest GDP per capita as Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Qatar, Norway, Macau, and Bermuda. Of those, only Norway is a relatively large country. But even Norway just has a bit over 5 million people. Macau and Bermuda aren't even full-fledged countries, but they act as microstates. The richest country in Africa appears to be the Seychelles...a small island nation which also has the smallest population of any African nation. It seems that more change can happen in smaller states, because instead of waiting for hundreds of millions of people in far-flung places to get the same idea, they can just have a cultural change in a city and be able to then make that change politically and economically. If you instead had a government ruling over the entire world, even if it were democratic, there is no way gay marriage would exist. Blasphemy laws would be in place over the entire world. Far from increasing progress, to me, it seems that super-states restrict progress. Regarding all of the real and mostly imagined problems of "Brexit", I have to say this: To me it seems crazy that as soon as a country gains sovereignty over itself, people think that trade will collapse, immigration will halt, people will not be able to visit or live in other countries, etc. Speaking as a person from an independent country, I can say that I have lived in two other independent countries with no problem at all. And I regularly visited still other countries, again with no problem...unless you consider passport checks at airports a problem. I have even imported products from these other independent countries, too! It is amazing! (The map is from the game, "Victoria II".)

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Defense of...Cecil Rhodes?!

You all know Cecil Rhodes, right?  He was a British Imperialist (living from 1853-1902) who founded the De Beers diamond mining and trading company.  Just this morning, I came upon a post comparing him to Adolf Hitler, and claiming that Cecil Rhodes killed at least 60 million Africans.  It has been shared 99 times.  Here is the post: https://plus.google.com/+TonyJefferson/posts/CZ6HW3AxDo6 Unlike many, I decided to do some research on it.  That is my nature.  I don't accept things without evidence given, and even when no evidence is provided, I search for evidence.  If after looking, no evidence is forthcoming, then I discount the claim unless compelling evidence does surface.  After my research on this topic (taking up about an hour of my day and 28 open tabs on my browser...but still an enjoyable time because this is what I like to do), I found that my initial skepticism was well justified and that this comparison is incorrect.  Adolph H...
3 comments
Read more

It's Probably Time to Buy Silver

I believe that now is a good time to start buying silver (or to buy more if you already have some). From around 2000 to 2008, silver had a huge run up in price.  Then, in mid-2008, the price fell until the end of the year, when it started to rebound.  From late 2008 until 2011, it had a huge run up, going from around $10 to nearly $50.  But from May 2011 until the present, the price has fallen again to about $20. It seems like a silver bubble has burst.  However, there are reasons why silver should outperform other investments in the future. Right now, the price of silver is at a "support level".  This is a price which was hard to break through on the way up, and is also hard to break through on the way down.  I don't believe that it will go down (substantially) from here.  Instead, I think that it will be pretty much all up.  (This price increase may start next month or later, but it will occur.)  Why do I think so? Mining prices hav...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Dark Side of the Women's March

The recent Women's March, which took place in Washington and numerous other cities one day after the inauguration of President Trump, may go down as the largest protest in American history. Millions showed up to these events to advocate for women's issues and to protest against Donald Trump. While very few would find fault in a women's march in and of itself, upon inspecting this women's march further, some disturbing information comes to light. The Women's March was thankfully quite peaceful, unlike Inauguration Day when the group Antifa (the "anti-fascists"), although stymied by the police, were ironically able to carry out their own mini "Kristallnacht" (or rather, "Kristalltag"), smashing windows and setting fires in broad daylight. The Women's March appears to have been non-violent and there were apparently no arrests. However, problems start to manifest themselves when we look at the people who set up and spoke at th...
1 comment
Read more