President Obama’s argument that the Ukraine has a right to territorial integrity at the expense of Crimea’s sovereign citizens’ right to self-determination is a fallacy. All governmental rights derive from the sovereignty of the citizen, each of whom, in my opinion, has the right to self-determination. My view that each individual should be able to opt out of the territorial monopoly we call the modern state is the foundation of my extreme libertarianism, but anyone who acknowledges the legitimacy of the American Revolution understands the right of a people to decide their government. As Thomas Jefferson penned on July 4, 1776: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 17:06:56 +0000
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