Sunday, October 23, 2005
WESTPHALIA PHONIES
What we all know as "Western democracy" today is rooted in large part on precedents laid down in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia: In simple terms, not only is the secular state supreme, but state citizenship is NOT based primarily on religious affiliation.
However, increasingly, all such "Westphalia" nation-states are discovering that not only do they have citizens for whom that state's "secular supremacy" is anathema, but those citizens also deem their religiously unqualified citizenship as applying to themselves only when it truly serves their purposes. There is little to no loyalty to that state. They are "citizens" only when, for instance, being such perhaps better facilitates their ability to attack that or a similar nation-state, or waving their "Westphalia" passports serves as a means to get themselves freed from, say, detention at Guantanamo.
Debbye at Being American in T.O. notes the issue is now emerging also in Canada:
Read on. . . ¶ by Robert, Sunday, October 23, 2005
What we all know as "Western democracy" today is rooted in large part on precedents laid down in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia: In simple terms, not only is the secular state supreme, but state citizenship is NOT based primarily on religious affiliation.
However, increasingly, all such "Westphalia" nation-states are discovering that not only do they have citizens for whom that state's "secular supremacy" is anathema, but those citizens also deem their religiously unqualified citizenship as applying to themselves only when it truly serves their purposes. There is little to no loyalty to that state. They are "citizens" only when, for instance, being such perhaps better facilitates their ability to attack that or a similar nation-state, or waving their "Westphalia" passports serves as a means to get themselves freed from, say, detention at Guantanamo.
Debbye at Being American in T.O. notes the issue is now emerging also in Canada:
I must be getting old because I thought this was already well known but evidently the issue is that the knowledge has received official confirmation! Or maybe the issue is that Canadians participating in the "insurgency" tends to minimize the claim that said "insurgency" is an Iraqi-based resistance...
Read on. . . ¶ by Robert, Sunday, October 23, 2005
