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YouDebateIt.com -- Is It Better To Be A Divided Nation?
Topic: Is It Better To Be A Divided Nation?

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Opinion #1
Debater: interested
Human Rights
Check the Helsinki Accords for what constitutes a people as agreed in modern times.

The Cornish were a different people two thousand years ago. Conquest and intermingling have made them one with the English. Today, such conquests are illegal.

Blacks in America do not constitute a people for similar reasons; they came from a number of different peoples. Today, they are just one of many immigrant groups who melded to form a people. Whether Alsatians are French and German has been decided by those involved.

Humanity may be "one" people but it is only undivided in its common humanity. There are a myriad divisions through the operation of the will that is an aspect of that humanity.

Do we possess inherent Rights? Ask a dozen philosophers for a dozen answers. If we do, then how are they to be maintained but through national coherence?

Your rights as an American are greater than most because you are an American. They could be better - America lags because of its archaic Constutution.
Opinion #2
Debater: The Wild Goose
Law should be based on truth, not mere convention.
The Helsinki Accords date from 1975. Are we to assume that human rights also stem from 1975? Was there some magical alteration in human nature made in 1975? If the conquest of the Cornish would be illegal today, does this imply that it was legal when it happened? If the kidnapping of slaves from Africa was not legitimate when it occurred, how can it make them part of one "people" now? What if I file the needed paperwork to get dual citizenship- am I mystically transformed into a member of a different "people"? Essentially, in dividing the world into inherently different "peoples", we appeal to pure convention- if a nation exists, this view holds, then its citizens are a "people", and it is therefore indivisible. This view implies that justice is whatever currently existing nation-states say it is. Let me be clear, and say that my rights and responsibilities do not stem from my nationality, but from my humanity. The government does not GIVE me my rights, they are mine by nature.
Supporting URL[s]:
http://www.lewrockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com
http://libertariannation.org
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