Should the USA exist?

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Your idiotic gotcha question is bad and you should feel bad.

[Blue3]

You're arguing against human nature man.  Science (and middle school cafeterias) has shown us that humans like to hang out with humans similar to them.  You don't have to like it (or the phrase that's coming up), but it is what it is.

Sure, a lot of people like to hang out with people similar to them.

Not sure what that has to do with nation-states, though.

It's exactly what the concept of the nation-state is built on, for one.

Is the United States, as it exists? Is India? Like I said, that argument applied within a state would result in segregation. Which is unacceptable, I hope we can all agree.

[Redalgo]

@Snowstalker:

Or better yet, its republics could be constituent parts of a regional, administrative subdivision of a global socialist federation - doing away with the U.S. altogether.


@Alfred F. Jones:

The problem there is that the nation-state is a myth. The populations of all countries are multinational.

Ethnic nationalism is archaic and discourages international solidarity betwixt even groups that have similar customs within a shared civilization. Having an ethnic identity is not bad, nor is having a tribal sense of in-group loyalty, but if taken too far (which it very often is around the world) it gets in the way of being rational about with whom to trust, cooperate, and coexist with in peace as co-equal comrades. Superficial differences end up obscuring our shared personhood, moral tendencies, and most basic of interests.


@Starwatcher:

The foundations on which many countries were created are dubious, but now that they are well established I favour self-determination. The United States should not exist but its people generally want it to, and likewise for Israel even if its ethnic nationalism is an institutionalized form of discrimination. Someday I hope they will change but forcing it would be distastefully imperialistic. This is why I usually focus on statehood for Palestine in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of on schemes for a single-state solution.

[H. Ross Peron]

I suggest people read The Next American Nation. America was founded as an Anglo-American and Protestant state but the definition of American nationality has since expanded to include "ethnic" whites, Catholics, Jews, blacks, mestizos, Asians, and so forth.