You choose to stay. A person may be born in an apartment, but that doesn't mean they can live there rent free for the rest of their life. And yes, you are not just free to walk into some other country and live there. But nor are you are allowed to walk onto someone else's property and live on it.
I'm not sure if your reasoning for this is the same as our mutual friend MM's, but I've been meaning to address it, so I might as well do that here. To take your position, I think you first have to admit that USG is the de facto owner of all US territory. You, MM, and I would probably have no problem admitting this, but most people would have trouble with it.
But even after we admit this, we still need to ask if this ownership ought to be treated as legitimate, and there I disagree with MM.
Why should adverse possession apply? One use for it is to establish who the de facto owner is, but that is of course unnecessary here. Another is to provide more security for property owners -- does the most powerful corporation in the history of the world need that from us? Third, since adverse possession is based on the doctrine of laches, if it applies here doesn't England have a stronger claim to ownership?
Also, if we are applying common law principles, I contend that USG has in the past engaged in massive fraud by pretending it is not the actual owner, and continues to do so today. When we also consider the violent means it has used to acquire and maintain ownership, we have force and fraud -- enough to disqualify USG as a legitimate title holder.
> If USG is not the legitimate title holder of middle-North America, who is?
I admit, the answer is unclear, but it does seem clear that USG is not it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems your reasoning is at least slightly different from MM's, then -- I don't think MM has much of an interest in this question or much of an answer to it, since he has criticized the "Rebellion" but now accepts USG's ownership.
Adverse Possession does not care how the property was acquired. All it cares is that the owner has managed to maintain uncontested possession of it. The states originally siezed the territory from the Brits. The Feds then seized it from the states. Neither usurpation is still contested to this day. No state government maintains that the New Deal is illegitimate.
Adverse Possession is not about making moral claims. It is a way to prevent violence by settling who owns what. Groups would try and manufacture claims and rally groups to regain possession. You see this happen in the Balkans and Middle East with claims going back hundreds or thousands of years.
Of course, in some ways the question of legitimacy of state ownership is silly. Law between sovereigns or between a sovereign and its residents is always jungle law. The strongest wins. By definition, there is no third party to enforce the law.
I don't think I disputed anything in your first two paragraphs, but let me know if you think I did. As you say, the strongest wins, so why rely on something like adverse possession? If you're saying it ought to apply here solely for the purpose of preventing violence, then, as I said, it doesn't seem necessary. USG's military and propaganda arms are powerful enough today as to make this irrelevant.
Of course, if most of the residents are very dissatisfied with their sovereign and are willing to take extreme measures, they have a chance of winning regardless of immediately available firepower. This is where the question of legitimacy matters, because a sovereign will have at least some trouble if its residents do not accept its legitimacy, even if it wins in the end.
This is where the question of legitimacy matters, because a sovereign will have at least some trouble if its residents do not accept its legitimacy, even if it wins in the end.
There are two things to consider in regards to USG's relationship with middle-North America:
a) property ownership
b) management structure
I do not view the property ownership as illegitimate. I do not agree with the libertarians who view taxation as theft. I think such a view is neither justified nor constructive.
USG's management structure is awful. It badly needs reform or a reboot. The goal of a management reboot is not so that us subjects will pay more taxes. It's so that resources will not be squandered. This would end up being good for us subjects, but it would also be in the interest of USG itself. Thus I view a management change as more likely to succeed and less likely to incite violence.
If a management structure is bad enough, an outside group could be morally justified ( though not legally justified) in trying to seize the territory itself. But that would be worst case.
> I do not view the property ownership as illegitimate. I do not agree with the libertarians who view taxation as theft. I think such a view is neither justified nor constructive.
Yes, there are some libertarians who naively, and incorrectly, believe they are the de facto owners of property in the US. That is, they would not even agree that USG actually owns all US property. However, I'm afraid I still don't see why you view USG's ownership as legitimate, unless you are equating de facto ownership with legitimate ownership -- i.e., you don't believe there is any difference between the two.
> USG's management structure is awful...
Agreed, of course.
> ...but it would also be in the interest of USG itself. Thus I view a management change as more likely to succeed and less likely to incite violence.
I'm not so sure about this. Yes, USG could be run more profitably, but severe agency problems exist. Would the leaders of the Catholic Church want their subjects to be told there is no God, even if these leaders were paid large sums of money? Power and influence are worth something to them as well.
> If a management structure is bad enough, an outside group could be morally justified ( though not legally justified) in trying to seize the territory itself. But that would be worst case.
I assume a group of subjects would also count as an "outside group"? If we are using common legal principles, then for the reasons I mentioned earlier, I suggest they would be legally justified as well, even if this might not matter all that much in the real world.
However, I'm afraid I still don't see why you view USG's ownership as legitimate, unless you are equating de facto ownership with legitimate ownership -- i.e., you don't believe there is any difference between the two.
I think the concept of adverse possession is a necessary concept to avoid violence and enable us all to get along with each other. So if de facto ownership exists for long enough, it should be considered legitimate.
Would the leaders of the Catholic Church want their subjects to be told there is no God, even if these leaders were paid large sums of money? Power and influence are worth something to them as well.
Any Moldbuggian plot to reboot the U.S. would require a critical mass of mandarins to acknowledge the intellectual bankruptcy of the current regime. Well, either mandarins or soldiers.
The other option, which is perhaps more plausible, is that perhaps break away republics can form as the U.S. continues to weaken. Those break away republics could innovate new forms of government and provide examples of how to reform USG.
> I think the concept of adverse possession is a necessary concept to avoid violence and enable us all to get along with each other.
If possession is established and maintained violently, I'm not sure legitimizing this is a good way to avoid violence. MM does tend to confuse order with peace.
Example: Jack kidnaps John and forces him to work as his slave. John soon attempts to escape but is prevented from doing so. Under Jack's brutal rule, John eventually gives up trying to escape. Years later, Jack's crime is discovered, but Jack is allowed to maintain ownership of John due to adverse possession. Order is preserved, but the violence continues.
> Any Moldbuggian plot to reboot the U.S. would require a critical mass of mandarins to acknowledge the intellectual bankruptcy of the current regime. Well, either mandarins or soldiers.
If that's true, then yes, a reboot seems about as likely as the Pope declaring his atheism. Well, maybe less likely, because the Pope is just one person.
> perhaps break away republics can form as the U.S. continues to weaken
Perhaps, but a total collapse of USG or even the formation of the fabled NAU conservatives keep droning on about would surprise me less.
If that's true, then yes, a reboot seems about as likely as the Pope declaring his atheism. Well, maybe less likely, because the Pope is just one person.
Well, the reformation did happen. And the Soviet Union did fall. And Deng Xiaoping did say, "It matters not the color of the cat, but whether it catches the mouse". The problem is, that the leaders of these states all had positive examples to follow. The U.S. has no positive example of what a good management structure looks like.
Perhaps, but even a total collapse of USG or the formation of the fabled NAU conservatives keep droning on about would surprise me less.
I'm not familiar with the concept of NAU conserveratives. Mind explaining?
So do you have any ideas about what should happen? Or what will happen?
> Well, the reformation did happen. And the Soviet Union did fall. And Deng Xiaoping did say, "It matters not the color of the cat, but whether it catches the mouse".
Agreed; I wouldn't say it's impossible.
> The problem is, that the leaders of these states all had positive examples to follow. The U.S. has no positive example of what a good management structure looks like.
Maybe you're right. The changes required for USG seem more drastic to me than those that were applied in the Soviet Union or China, though. After all, Protestants are still Christians.
> I'm not familiar with the concept of NAU conserveratives. Mind explaining?
This scares some conservatives to death, particularly the ones who worship the Constitution. I think the biggest change we'd see is different text on some signs, and I'm exaggerating only slightly.
> So do you have any ideas about what should happen? Or what will happen?
My ideal looks somewhat similar to "Patchwork", but without the joint stock corporate management structure, which I believe has some fatal flaws. As for what will happen, I can't say I'm sure, but I'd guess some sort of catastrophic financial collapse and associated instability. As we know, the worldwide financial system is horribly engineered. We can try to be optimistic about what comes after that, but realistically things could get pretty ugly. The parts of the world that are mostly disconnected from the financial system will be relatively okay; spontaneous order could arise in small pockets of the developed world as well, but much of the West could plunge into violence and chaos for some time.
I was born here. And without open borders to make residence in multiple countries, we are not "free" either.