It might seem a pedantic difference, but that does not entail that that central authority has rights, or at least not an unconditional right to exist. One could say a group of people have a right to organize in such a way that there is a central authority IF they do not break some set of rules, like that group of people must have a morally sound claim to the territory they’re going to administer, they must not use that authority to harm others without justification, so on and so forth. The ‘rights’ of the authority are entirely dependent on the rights of the people organizing and using it. Simply stating “Israel has a right to exist” is begging the question in a technical sense. It’s refusing to engage with the qualifications necessary to morally justify authority and simply stating that that authority is legitimate without justification.
Precisely, thank you. The people who form said country and authority have rights, the concept of the country does not. It may be a bit of a pedantic differentiation on thinking about it, but I think it’s important to come to the conclusion that you can justifiedly destroy the concept of a country without infringing on the rights of (and without (fundamentally) needing to harm) effectively ‘innocent’ people in said country.
Thank you, it’s an utterly meaningless concept used only to impose violence on others and claim it’s magically a moral thing.
People have rights, abstract concepts like countries do (or at least should) not.
Anarchist detected
I wish I was as cool as an anarchist, I’m all for a central authority.
That central authority will have territorial claims, and have to defend its existence.
It might seem a pedantic difference, but that does not entail that that central authority has rights, or at least not an unconditional right to exist. One could say a group of people have a right to organize in such a way that there is a central authority IF they do not break some set of rules, like that group of people must have a morally sound claim to the territory they’re going to administer, they must not use that authority to harm others without justification, so on and so forth. The ‘rights’ of the authority are entirely dependent on the rights of the people organizing and using it. Simply stating “Israel has a right to exist” is begging the question in a technical sense. It’s refusing to engage with the qualifications necessary to morally justify authority and simply stating that that authority is legitimate without justification.
Precisely, thank you. The people who form said country and authority have rights, the concept of the country does not. It may be a bit of a pedantic differentiation on thinking about it, but I think it’s important to come to the conclusion that you can justifiedly destroy the concept of a country without infringing on the rights of (and without (fundamentally) needing to harm) effectively ‘innocent’ people in said country.