Treaty of Westphalia

Politicians, lawyers, bureaucrats of all kinds are dead keen on national sovereignty. Rightly so: they gain their lives' meaning and sustenence from such nonsense; but what does it mean to any of the rest of us? The King of England doesn't take our tax dollars to give to the King of Spain. We live in our own land, as it were, and we decide who will represent us in government, more or less, in the system of liberal democracy that we have decided is better than other forms of possible government. If we dislike our elected government representatives, well, we can throw the bastards out. That's our system, and it works o.k. for us. The rest of the world can make their own decisions according to their own needs for governance. Except when they can't. Except when America intervenes in the internal affairs of sovereign states in violation of the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Or when the politics of others interfere with the Monroe Doctrine. Or any number of other small and petty details. When ther nations upset our interests we might invade them, sometimes militarily, sometimes economically. Why would we do that unless there's an over-riding good reason for it? We might do so because we're evil and greedy. Maybe we'd do so because we're all racists. Maybe we just like to kill people for fun. Maybe most of the criticism that passes for social critique is just a pose. Maybe we don't intervene enough at all in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, and maybe we should.

The greatest benefits to government accrue to those who govern. Maybe we should take back the government for the people who are governed, misgoverned, enslaved by their own rulers, squeezed, bled, and murdered by those dictators who reside within the confines of 'sovereign nations.' Maybe our fellow men are more important than our idiot dhimmi Left fascist poses. And just maybe those we would liberate from their oppressers don't want us to do so. If we try to do so, maybe we'd have to destroy their villages in order to save them, kill lots of people to save others. Now really, is that such a bad thing?

Our "Good Neighbour" policy gets us just about nowhere in terms of good relations with our southern neighbours, and a better policy is to scrap the fiction and simply incorporate Central and South America into the greater United States of the West. But they don't want to be ruled by others. Nor do we. No reasonable adult wants to be ruled by outsiders. Thus, we must be equal citizens united and intermarried. Men and women around the world are much the same at birth, and it is not for us to deny them the rights free men enjoy simply because of the accidents of geography dictate that some must be born into slave-systems. We who are free to choose our governance must also be responsible for those who cannot. We needn't rely on our bureaucrats to decide who shall be free and who shall live in the Cave of Islam. Free men and women can make their own decisions regarding whether they will free their fellow men and women--regardless of the local hegemony and the international bureaucrats. Enough neighbours. It's time to move along and get married. America is not a nation but it is only a place of geography of the mind. Chronos has had his day. It's time for men and women to cut free of that menace to the world, to slay the dictators regardless of their little fiefdoms and satrapies, and to mingle with the world and its people, whether they like us or not. When the world's children are our own children we will not sit back and allow the traditional rulers of sovereign states wage war on our own.

Governers will cry the blues, proclaim the sanctities of international law, cite treaties and amendments, case studies, and even threaten force. Blow hard. Private men and private women must act in privacy to marry and have children with the world's population. All children must be heirs to the revolutions of Modernity. Those with entrenched privilege and those who live in the idiocy of primitivism will obviously resist. The dictators will howl furies, proclaim the sanctiies of culture, cite the Koran and Sira, ahadith, and even threaten force. Blow up yourself.

If our life of Modernity is right for us, it is universally right. If we do not bestow the right of freedom to the children of the future while we can we will gain the undying hatred of Humanity for the foreseeable future. In terms of governance, children are a blank slate. If we allow them to be raised as slaves, they will hate us. For allowing that to remain the case we should hate ourselves.

Below we'll look at the relevant sections of the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648, to see where the legal idea of national sovereignty is written. Also, (next day)we'll see how some of our own political history in Henry Kissenger's ideas; and we'll finish with a piece on imperialism, pro/con from the Economist.
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The Treaty of Westphalia; Oct. 24, 1648:
Peace Treaty between the Holy Roman Emperor and The King of France and their respective Allies.

The treaty was an attempt to put an end to 100 years of intercine war between European rivals. The unintended consequence was the legal beginning of nation-states rather than states based on the rule by kings and squabblers from various places fighting for each others' territory. The plan was like musical chairs: the music stopped, and you sit where you are. You do not hereafter grab someone elses' chair. Nationalism didn't suddenly arise from this treaty, but it does represent the beginnings of whole, sovereign nations as a legal concept. It was a convenience for rulers, not for populations at large who thought of themselves much the way the Moslem umma does today: as united not by race and language and common history but by religion. America is an exception to that rule, being not of one race, religion, or language but of all for all, a universal nation of the mind.

Sovereignty of rulership gives rise to petty local dictators sanctioned by international law. Who benefits by that other than lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians, and the petty oligarchs? We argue here that universality of freedom and Modernity are the legitimate rule of nations and people, not artificial boundaries settled by lawyers. Therefore, not recognizing borders and states as legitimate, we argue that to invade another's land in his favor is progressive and legitimate. To spread universal Good and Modernity to those outside our legal bounds is moral. We need a new treaty, one that is based on the Walkerian filibustering of Modernity, i.e. the armed invasion of other places regardless of the legalities and the resistence of the privileged oligarchs therein.

The following excerpts from the Treaty of Westphalia show the current international legal position. The whole treaty is available at the Avalon Project at Yale University Law School as below.

I.
That there shall be a Christian and Universal Peace, and a perpetual, true, and sincere Amity, between his Sacred Imperial Majesty, and his most Christian Majesty; as also, between all and each of the Allies; but chiefly between the Electors, Princes, and States of the Empire on the one side; and all and each of the Allies of his said Christian Majesty, ...on the other part. That this Peace and Amity be observ'd and cultivated with such a Sincerity and Zeal, that each Party shall endeavour to procure the Benefit, Honour and Advantage of the other; that thus on all sides they may see this Peace and Friendship in the Roman Empire, and the Kingdom of France flourish, by entertaining a good and faithful Neighbourhood.

II.
That there shall be on the one side and the other a perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty, or Pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these Troubles, in what place, or what manner soever the Hostilitys have been practis'd, in such a manner, that no body, under any pretext whatsoever, shall practice any Acts of Hostility, entertain any Enmity, or cause any Trouble to each other; neither as to Persons, Effects and Securitys, neither of themselves or by others, neither privately nor openly, neither directly nor indirectly, neither under the colour of Right, nor by the way of Deed, either within or without the extent of the Empire, notwithstanding all Covenants made before to the contrary: That they shall not act, or permit to be acted, any wrong or injury to any whatsoever; but that all that has pass'd on the one side, and the other, as well before as during the War, in Words, Writings, and Outrageous Actions, in Violences, Hostilitys, Damages and Expences, without any respect to Persons or Things, shall be entirely abolish'd in such a manner that all that might be demanded of, or pretended to, by each other on that behalf, shall be bury'd in eternal Oblivion.

IV.
...That nevertheless, neither the Emperor, nor any of the States of the Empire, shall meddle with the Wars which are now on foot between them. That if for the future any Dispute arises between these two Kingdoms, the abovesaid reciprocal Obligation of not aiding each others Enemys, shall always continue firm between the Empire and the Kingdom of France, but yet so as that it shall be free for the States to succour; without the bounds of the Empire, such or such Kingdoms, but still according to the Constitutions of the Empire.

LXIV
And to prevent for the future any Differences arising in the Politick State, all and every one of the Electors, Princes and States of the Roman Empire, are so establish'd and confirm'd in their antient Rights, Prerogatives, Libertys, Privileges, free exercise of Territorial Right, as well Ecclesiastick, as Politick Lordships, Regales, by virtue of this present Transaction: that they never can or ought to be molested therein by any whomsoever upon any manner of pretence.

LXV.
They shall enjoy without contradiction, the Right of Suffrage in all Deliberations touching the Affairs of the Empire; but above all, when the Business in hand shall be the making or interpreting of Laws, the declaring of Wars, imposing of Taxes, levying or quartering of Soldiers, erecting new Fortifications in the Territorys of the States, or reinforcing the old Garisons; as also when a Peace of Alliance is to be concluded, and treated about, or the like, none of these, or the like things shall be acted for the future, without the Suffrage and Consent of the Free Assembly of all the States of the Empire: Above all, it shall be free perpetually to each of the States of the Empire, to make Alliances with Strangers for their Preservation and Safety; provided, nevertheless, such Alliances be not against the Emperor, and the Empire, nor against the Publick Peace, and this Treaty, and without prejudice to the Oath by which every one is bound to the Emperor and the Empire.

LXVII.
That as well as general as particular Diets, the free Towns, and other States of the Empire, shall have decisive Votes; they shall, without molestation, keep their Regales, Customs, annual Revenues, Libertys, Privileges to confiscate, to raise Taxes, and other Rights, lawfully obtain'd from the Emperor and Empire, or enjoy'd long before these Commotions, with a full Jurisdiction within the inclosure of their Walls, and their Territorys: making void at the same time, annulling and for the future prohibiting all Things, which by Reprisals, Arrests, stopping of Passages, and other prejudicial Acts, either during the War, under what pretext soever they have been done and attempted hitherto by private Authority, or may hereafter without any preceding formality of Right be enterpris'd. As for the rest, all laudable Customs of the sacred Roman Empire, the fundamental Constitutions and Laws, shall for the future be strictly observ'd, all the Confusions which time of War have, or could introduce, being remov'd and laid aside.

LXX.
The Rights and Privileges of Territorys, water'd by Rivers or otherways, as Customs granted by the Emperor, with the Consent of the Electors, and among others, to the Count of Oldenburg on the Viserg, and introduc'd by a long Usage, shall remain in their Vigour and Execution. There shall be a full Liberty of Commerce, a secure Passage by Sea and Land: and after this manner all and every one of the Vassals, Subjects, Inhabitants and Servants of the Allys, on the one side and the other, shall have full power to go and come, to trade and return back, by Virtue of this present Article....

LXXVI.
...: so that no Emperor, or any Prince of the House of Austria, shall, or ever ought to usurp, nor so much as pretend any Right and Power over the said Countrys, as well on this, as the other side the Rhine.

CXXIV.
...: and it shall not be permitted to any State of the Empire to pursue his Right by Force and Arms; but if any difference has happen'd or happens for the future, every one shall try the means of ordinary Justice, and the Contravener shall be regarded as an Infringer of the Peace....

CXXV.
And that the publick Peace may be so much the better preserv'd intire, the Circles shall be renew'd; and as soon as any Beginnings of Troubles are perceiv'd, that which has been concluded in the Constitutions, of the Empire, touching the Execution and Preservation of the Public Peace, shall be observ'd.

CXXVI.
And as often as any would march Troops thro' the other Territorys, this Passage shall be done at the charge of him whom the Troops belong to, and that without burdening or doing any harm or damage to those whole Countrys they march thro'. In a word, all that the Imperial Constitutions determine and ordain touching the Preservation of the publick Peace, shall be strictly observ'd.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/westphal.htm
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If you actually read all that and cared I'll give you my sympathies if you feel that you are cheated when I stop here for the day. The whole treaty has roughly 130 articles, and it deserves to be read as a whole work. Our purpose here is not to defend the treaty or its precepts but to deny them validity today. We argue that the above treaty violated the Human spirit of universal rights, not simply the rights of the few to lord it over the masses within the confines of a particular political space; and therefore, we argue that regardless of the international treaties favoring the ruling classes of the the oligarchs that as private citizens we act in pursuit of our own happiness and that of the oppressed everywhere to invade those nations and places of oppression and free the people for the benefit of themselves and the telos of the Modernism of our triune revolutions.

Tomorrow we will conclude this essay on the greatness of Western colonialism. We can move outside the confines of our own thoughts as mental Westerners and bring our modern revolutions to the world masses for the benefit of all. We can ignore the legalities of privilege and take up our own venture as individuals in support of freedom and modernity on behalf of universal Mankind.