h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

UK Barristers and US lawyers met in Philadelphia to discuss this. Look at the BBC magazine's article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15345511

It has a summary on the arguments of both sides, and there are over 400 comments on it.

What do you guys think? I am an American but I don't feel that is the best thing to be and with our current overseas adventures (or misadventures) being what they are I am definately not PROUD to be one.

After having had the opportunity to live in Germany and in Greece for ten years, I know that there are saner places to live and I wish that more Americans had that opportunity to do that and maybe we'd elect better candidates than we have been. (Sorry for the run-on sentence but this isn't in or I'd have a better editor to improve it).

Anyway, I'd like to see what some others think about this. But please don't hold me resposible for our gov'ts activities. I'm sure that the mother country wouldn't have us back, even if our succession was in fact illegal.

That's an interesting article. The comments are pretty interesting, too, even if a lot of them miss the point and degenerate into 'nyah, nyah, I don't like your country.'

The fun thing about moot courts is that they are exercises in historical imagination. As we tell the schoolkids, the Brits had a legitimate gripe about all this. The colonists, who were richer than almost everybody in England, didn't want to pay their share of the cost of defending the colonies against the French and Indians.

Oh, and they wanted to move into the Ohio Valley, which George III quite wisely thought was a bad idea. He couldn't afford to keep an occupying force there.

Jefferson and the others were drawing on truly revolutionary ideas, though - John Locke's principle in 'Two Treatises of Government' that said government was by 'the consent of the governed'.

It's interesting to see how it worked out. The Enlightenment is still a work in progress, methinks.

Don't the British have more pressing problems than doubting whether or not that was legal? It is ridiculous.

And don't worry, I won't hold you responsible for your government's decision as long as you promise to do the same for me.

Well it really was the first time the thing -getting independence from the Mother country worked, without the horrible blood bath that ensued in France, but that was a true Revolution -not a colonist revolt.

I don't think there is a country on earth that doesn't have some skeletons in the closet of history, Bel. It is part of human history,unfortunely. You have to work what is, and go forward in a better direction for everyone's sake.

That's true. Juts like we do here on h2g2.

Hi there. To me this is not much of an issue. Laws are human inventions. They're contracts between people in effect; to the extent that the contract is respected by all sides, the law works. If one side thinks the contract is unfair then it might opt out; in the process of this opting out there might well be some unfairness to the other side. None of this is perfect, and I don't think it could ever be. Still, I think it's a good idea to re-examine the past in the light of new ideas. I also think we must always try to imagine how things could be better.

Well gov't for the people, by the people etc is still getting people demonstating all over the planet. It is unfortunately as in Orwell's Animal Farm ---some appear to be MORE equal than the others and there's the rub.

A misguided sense of entitlement goes a long way to screwing things up for everyone.

I think it's hard not to deduce that it was completely illegal. Which isn't the same as saying it was the wrong thing to do.

Another thing about laws is that they have to be enforcible or they have no practical validity. That's why there was a war. The war proved that Britain was unable to force the colonists to remain loyal. In fact therefore they were able to implement their independence. That's why it's a moot point now. If the South had won the Civil War then they would have proven in fact that they could secede. If any current state could wage a war of secession against the rest of the US and *win* it, that state would then have established for itself the right to secede (and probably by example, for other states also). That's the way of things: laws exist because they have physical force behind them ... if they are challenged by forces they can't match, then their validity is over.

So, if a language is a dialect with an army, as I always contend...

A political theory is only as valid as its proponents can maintain by force of arms, economic power, and Klingon guile?

I suppose that theory will hold until the Galactic Council shows up and arrests everybody for breach of the peace.

Well, if/when humans actually learn to reason with each other, and listen to each other with respect, that might also work.

You're right, of course. Maybe if we keep saying that, somebody will learn to listen.

The colonies' secession was definitely illegal, as it wasn't approved by the UN Security Council. From this it follows that England has any right to reclaim its property. I suggest the SAS invade and occupy New Jersey as a first step. No one outside New Jersey will care or even notice and everyone inside will be only too glad to find an excuse to leave.

This is so true. Besides, they can reinstate that New Jersey Royal Governor fella who wore a dress.

Don't worry. Once we find Paul Revere's WMD's they won't have a leg to stand on.

Hint: Try the Old North Church. There are IEDs in there. Besides, they're stockpiling horse manure...

Speaking of which, has anyone every actually been to New Jersey? I keep hearing about it the way I do about hell - everyone knows about it, but no one's ever been there (to all from New Jersey: )

I actually have worked in Camden and Trenton NJ. They are there whether anyone wants it or not. I have also gone to the Jersey shore as a kid with my parents and brother (mostly to Atlantic City, but once to a spooky back bay cottage on stilts). This was before the mob took over and made a casino mecca of it. I've enjoyed the beaches and my brother's family lives in southern NJ, that is the close to Phila part, not the northern part which is more an extension of NYC.

The comparison to the nether regions is justified in the sense that NJ, like Dante's Inferno, has circles.

Of course, in the case of NJ, the circles are traffic roundabouts...

There are also these metal baskets strategically placed along the highways, into which one must throw tribute in the form of Exact Change. It is therefore as difficult to exit the Garden State as it is to graduate from Purgatory...

I much prefer Delaware - Delaware the backward, Delaware the bucolic, Delaware the sparsely populated...