|
This is a purely educational website. Nothing here is legal advice or creates or implies an attorney-client relationship. If you have a specific legal issue, PLEASE talk to a lawyer who practices where you live—laws vary from place to place, and how they're applied varies from courthouse to courthouse. Your local county bar association can probably refer someone who handles matters like yours.
By using this site, you agree that you are awesome. Use of this site also constitutes acceptance of its Terms of Service and Privacy Policies, which are known to medical science as a cure for insomnia.
It's best to keep all discussions in the comments. But if you really need to reach Nathan privately, go ahead and email him at n.e.burney@gmail.com. He won't mind.
THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO LAW and the PEEKING JUSTICE logo are pretty damn cool trademarks and should probably be registered one of these days.
© Nathaniel Burney. All rights reserved, though they really open up once you get to know them.
|
|
Small typo under number 4 – “What you deed…”
Feel free to delete this comment.
Thank you very much! Even after you told me I had to look and look before I could see it.
(I’d say I must be blind to my faults, but I haven’t noticed any.)
Ha, all good, I’ve been there! Thanks for the comic :)
Can a founding myth be replaced? France, eg, transitioned from a democracy to a republic. Was the revolution the new founding myth? France was still France, same people, land, and culture, but a new government that did not invoke the divine. Likewise Japan after Hirohito declared he was not a god.
Absolutely! We’ll discuss why and how (and how not) fairly soon.
Founding Myth as a necessary element for success … That goes a long way to explaining the recent trouble between North Macedonians and Bulgarians (where the latter are quite angry about the former “stealing” their national heroes, language and historical events)
Identity is a huge issue, not only in state formation, but also relations between countries in the modern day. Nowadays, you can have a state containing multiple “peoples” with different identity, culture, language, etc. And you can have a single “people” with shared identity, culture, language, etc. living on either side of the border in two different states. In states with a heterogeneous culture, this can be no big deal. But in many cases, it can cause huge problems.
The example you bring up, of North Macedonia and Bulgaria, is a good one. And both appear to be trying to manipulate their version of history to create origin myths legitimizing their diverging interests going back at least to WWII if not to the turn of the 20th century. And it’s behind Bulgaria’s blocking of North Macedonia’s attempts to enter the EU.
Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, during its run-up to WWII, was another example. The Sudetenland was part of Czechoslovakia, but its population was ethnically and culturally German. Hitler was using it as a pretext to annex all of Czechoslovakia, but France, Britain, and Italy thought if Hitler got the Sudetenland it would end his territorial ambitions and avert a war. Obviously, the war came, and after Germany was defeated, the Sudetenland was restored to Czechoslovakia, which dealt with the ethnic/cultural issue by kicking all the Germans out of the territory and re-populating it with Czechs.
*transitioned from a monarchy to a republic
I sort of like the concept of sacrificing the sovereign (or maybe other officials in power) if things are going wrong. Maybe having some skin in the game (literally) would cause deeper reflection before action.
The late great Roger Fisher proposed the following back in 1981:
Link
The exchange at (5) about “picking up and walking away” is interesting. Today, the right to “pick up and walk away” — to change “teams” — is Article 15, Clause 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights