I think that much as progressive blue staters may wish to cut red staters loose, 1865 pretty much holds the US together. You folks never had one of those, really.
Gordon Campbell sure does get around, doesn't he??

Nested inside the "is Canada a nation" question is the hopefully soon to be post-UN world where we abandon the notion that nations should somehow be states; let alone the notion that nations have rights (as distinct from individuals).

Austria-Hungary managed to tick along just fine until all this nation stuff gummed up the works.

And what about the Newfs? Certainly another good candidate for nationhood - nay - a continent of Newfoundland within North America!

Political opportunism at its utter worst. The only person happier with this debate than Jean Charest has got to be Rona Ambrose.

An entire tangent but in 1986 I had breakfasts each day for a week at a B+B in my mom's hometown with a gent in his 90s who had fought the Austrian navy with the British.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the native groups of Canada already had a sort of "nation" status hence the term First Nations and their ability to have differing governance and interpretation of what national/provincial legislations they follow etc..

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 makes it clear that First Nations treaties are with the Crown and not with Her Majesty's government of Canada; a political entity that did not come into being in more or less its current constitutional form until 1867. Similarly, the Constitution Act of 1982 makes it clear that Canada's relationship to the various aboriginal treaty groups is as "nation to nation".

This would tend to render a further gesture in the form of an act of Parliament moot.

Yet also makes them super-nations relative to the Quebecois.

i think 1/4 Canadian males over the age of 39 are named Gordon Campbell. In the 29-39 bracket, it is David Campbell. The 19-29s are Jason Campbells, the 9-19s are Jordan Campbells and the 0-9s are Dakota Campbells. The Davids feel that the Gordons really are too ubiquitous and the others don't care or don't know.

i think 1/4 Canadian males over the age of 39 are named Gordon Campbell. In the 29-39 bracket, it is David Campbell.

Brilliant but, you forgot the Bruce "Ash" Campbells...

Ah, for some excess cash.

Wow. That is #12397571981289475917139592135 on my list of things I need, too.

I rented that a few months back from Classic Video.. umm.. not as funny as I remember it..and I'm a Bruce fan.

Back on track - Harper has them quitting now!

What other word can be used in this manner?<blockquote class="smalltext">The prime minister has said he is using the word nation in a "cultural-sociological" rather than a legal sense.</a>Perhaps "doofus".

The party faithful are now muttering the word "Mulroney" in the ear of the Flea...

Post state nations? You're really going radical today Herr Flea.
Can't quite remember what the difference between a nation and a state is (though there is a critical difference, which is why it is a phrase nation state that indicates the bridging of funtions held by the nation and the state, by def'n). One was cultural/ethnic traditions and tied to locus, the other was the legal and political systems. Or am I utterly wrong? Poli-sci isn't my initial field after all.

Just not going to work. Not for a good long while. Seeing what we see out there, not even just the ME, I don't see how this is even remotely in the cards for quite a long while. Europe has its issues(Bosnia, Turkey, etc.). C./S. America has its regionalism. Asia. Even the US. Some of the world is ready for it (ain't it a bunch of Kiwis and Aussies who have a nation without a locus exp. going on?)but much of it is not.

And why would one ever want to go that way? That's the path to a real McWorld(every place you go a perfect copy of everywhere else---I know, that's not what the phrase is supposed to mean.), if you ask me.

I think nations having rights is typically a good thing. NOt always, but more times than not it is. It can be abused. But the right to say 'Stuff it, we won't do it that way.' is necessary.

ARe empires more palatable then? That's what the Hapsburgs ruled you know. A monarchy or oligarchy demanding and getting what it wanted from very different peoples--including wars that made no sense for 500 years(Paul Kennedy looks at the dysfunctions of this empire in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers). Bad example me thinks. Very inefficient. Very unresponsive to the needs of the two peoples over which it presided---often very divergent needs.
Don't forget the lessons that Kagan points out in On the Origins of War and The Preservation of Peace: people go to war for silly things like pride in identity. Nations serve as a great break on limiting that violence you know. But there seems, in my mind, to be an upper limit to how big you can make your 'tribe'. That's why einworld is impossible.

Or I could be talking out of my butt. Been a baaaad day today.

Funny how <a href="images/music/04 I Believe in a Thing Called Love.wma">this song (3.4 MB, .wma file)</a> popped into my mind as soon I read that one word - Mulroney - if only because that is what I was thinking at 3:36 pm.

Then I thought of this guy:<p><center><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hKgfc1P8X7w"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hKgfc1P8X7w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></center>And buy Jake in a Box and do yourself a favour.

Here is a thought, if the Quebecois are to be a nation, can Monaco be a person?

Some historic examples of the "rights" of "nations":

The German nation has a right to adequate living space.

The Japanese nation has a right not to be polluted by race mixing.

The Serbian nation has a right to practice Orthodox Christianity to the exclusion of other non-Serbian creeds.

Etc.

Add Jews, Masons, gay people, etc. as sources of pollution as is historically convenient and watch the group-rights discourse reach its inevitable telos. As for the world being ready for non-national states I can point to, for example, the twenty or so "states" currently encompassing the Arab "nation". Hence the incessant drip-drip-drip of United "Nations" resolutions against Israel. Then there is the Vatican; made a state under Mussolini and yet with no nation attached.

Just to be clear: I am not advocating a bunnies and light Star Trek Federation alternative. I am firmly in favour of multi-national empires. Of the above examples the Vatican comes closest to my ideal (my ideal being, of course, the Raj).

Some counter examples, Herr Flea:
1) GOing to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2) FInding one's own path on what religious liberty means('Murican, French, Canadian, etc.)
3) The ability to decide one has the right to keep and bear arms.
4) Economic populism---what is good for one's nation, state, or province above that of of the wishes of a distant monarch/oligarchy.

I never claimed that there weren't abuses, I admitted that there were and are("I think nations having rights is typically a good thing. NOt always, but more times than not it is. It can be abused. But the right to say 'Stuff it, we won't do it that way.' is necessary.". BUt illegitmate uses don't invalidate all legitimate uses.

I don't see the advantages here since what you seem to not want is essentially 'tribal conflict'---fights emmenating over pride. Not wanting schismatics at each others throats. The Vatican(RCC) is a big tent with many ethnicities under it who don't fight each other over that identity. But they do fight over other things. Like Simon Bolivar fighting against the Spanish---though both were Catholic.
I think there's a fundemental limit as to how far an empire can reach and make identity irrelevant. I think most nation states are about that size(the US, Canada, and Australia, China, and Hindustan(India) being the exceptions).

My Indian history isn't that great. I remember that there once was no Pakistan. That there once was an East and West Pakistan. That India was predominately Moslem in the NW and Hindu largely in the south with a mish-mash gradient between the two. But the Raj, in my limited readings, was never a peaceful or great place. 'You may build your bonfire but I will build my gallows right next to it.'---or some such. That the Punjab went to war with other sections during the Raj. Maybe I don't know enough. I'm skeptical at the moment, but convincible on the point. Admittedly, my knowledge is rather cursory on this point. Please correct errors.

Flea, have you been watching the discussion over at Cassandra's(Villanous Company) over the role of idealism and feelings of attachment to a chunk of dirt? Some of the arguments present there(particularly that of Grim of Grim's Hall) expose a bit of my thinking here.

In agreeement that group identity and grievance politics can be terrible(um, Genocide). But some level of identity is an inevibility to some degree. Goths vs. Normals. Punks vs. Skins. Dems vs. Reps for example. Even without a connection to some piece of mud there is ill will generated that comes to blows. I'd rather my enemy not become a 5th Generation of Warfare practitioner(John Robb's Global Guerillas is a good place to start for that def'n (for the curious), or tdaxp).

There's good and bad in this. I may be a bit dismissive of that which is good, but I'm not sure the negatives have been properly weighed.

1 - I am not following your argument. Surely, Afghanistan is an example of a transnational force (NATO) and most notably three multi-national states (the UK, the US and Canada) opposing Pushtun nationalism dressed up in religious garb. It strikes me as an example in support of my position. I will concede an argument for an independent Kurdistan, however.

2 - The whole point of religious liberty is that liberty does not have national characteristics. "French religious liberty" almost always equals the predominance of the Roman church and quite often the quashing of, for example, Jehovah's Witnesses in Quebec.

3 - The right to keep and bear arms should be guaranteed by the law, in the United States by constitutional law, and not by membership in an ethnic, class or caste group (e.g. Samurai may bear arms, non-Samurai may not).

4 - "Economic populism---what is good for one's nation, state, or province"... As your own statement observes, arguments for local governance, including economic governance, may be made on polities which are not necessarily in turn based on nations. I would be happy for Toronto to have greater economic independence from the rest of Canada; we could probably afford a stripper factory and a beer volcano.

<i>'You may build your bonfire but I will build my gallows right next to it.'---or some such.</i>

If I could choose any moment in history to support my position regarding the virtue of the Raj over the barbarity of national customs it would be Sir Charles Napier saying:

"Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

I think ry was implying in #3 that the USA is a <span style="text-decoration:blink">‘nation’</span>. <p>And do remember that it is sometimes like radio contact with an Apollo mission as ry's hours are potentially like the dark side of the moon. We have to wait for him to pass through the umbra into the penumbra.

Thanks too for the Villainous Company suggestion... I will check it out when I get home.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the nation-state is the most effective political unit. Poly-state empires tend to go badly(the USSR, modern China(ask the Uigher(sp), the Hong Kongese, and the Taiwanese how that's working out), and much of medeival Europe(back when Britain had holdings in modern France.)).

I agree with Herr Flea that the federalism aspect is a must.

What I don't like is the cloaking of 'benevolent despot' in nicer clothes. The Raj, and the quote I bungled, was an example of how liberalism was infused positively; but the entirely negative, of which there were many, were totally ignored(mercantilism, Herr Flea?).

Best to let things stay small, figure themselves out, and then integrate into a global economy that infuses liberalism when they take part as necessary consequence. All the things we would collectively list as good come from liberal values(old school liberal. Progressivism vs. Conservative being true heir to that legacy being another argument for another time.). That's the only thing that ensures we don't have racially motivated pograms. A 'benevolent dictator' doesn't--power corrupts. Cromwell may not have been a bad guy when he first started out but he sure did become a real bastiche when he hit Aire with the way he ruled it. That's a potential outcome of benevolent despotism that a poly-state empire really seems to me to be about. I'd rather not have a High Lord Protector thank ye. Infuse with liberality and it doesn't matter what system we follow. Any system we follow without those principles at the heart is fated to be abusive.

(goes back behind The Moon)

The world isn't ready for multi-nation states. We first have to raise the standard of living of the third world, lower the standard of living of the first world, and interbreed enough that racial hatred becomes offensive to the majority. And standardize education so that fundamentalist religions become unpalatable.

So, a thousand years sound alright?

Wait, LOWER the standard of living? Why? This one is ludicrous. Reaching something like purchasing power parity is one thing(raising the standard of living in the third world) but lowering the standard of living here?

Fine. Turn in your laptop, cellphone, cordless phone, colour television, almost all of your cosmetics (especially nice smelling soaps and shampoos), most of your feminine hygene products, don't go bar hoping/clubbing for the next 30 years and for the love of all that's holy don't spend your money on the empty calories of alcohol and coffee(send that money abroad), and go work in the fields of Nebraska. Do that and I'll at least take your belief in your argument seriously(the argument is still rather odd, but your belief in it would be assured).

No, the best is to raise everyone's standard of living across the board. There's this funny thing that happens when you get people beyond subsistence living: they have time to care about other things. It isn't immediate. But when it catches on it really goes a house a fire. We'll see it in China(PRC) soon, actually we already are (with the immense wealth people have acrued they now have time to worry about such things as 'sustainability'. They're making the biggest strides in going nuclear to eliminate COx emissions, spending mega on research for non-fossil fuel vehicles. But they sure didn't do that back under Deng and Mao and a lower standard lower than that of the US/Canada circa 1920.). Raise the standard of living. Keep raising it. Keep it at what it's at if what you're afraid of is 'sustainability', but for the love of mike don't lower it (have you thought about how many people will DIE if you lower that standard of living?).

Okay, maybe what you really meant was 'limit first world use of energy in detrimental fashion to attain that standard of living.' That's a noble goal. but if you really mean what you say I reply with, 'You first.' There's nothing more wasteful of energy and indicative of useless activity than blogs and personal computers not used for academic or administrative purposes. You first. You ditch all this stuff and maybe, depending on how you, as test case, work out we'll think about lowering the standard of living.