The American system up till now has been nationalism at home and abroad. Americans have been sold the idea that they are members of a nation-state rather than a union of states. People around the globe have been sold the idea that the nation-state is the best form of political organization possible. The American idea for global military and economic domination has been to keep everyone everywhere locked up behind fixed national borders. Meanwhile the American military, American diplomats, American corporations have been roaming the world, openly or secretly, for good or for bad, just as if no nation or any national borders were obstacles to their search globally for riches and power.
The foundation of the system was the nation. Since the Second World War, new nations have joined old nations all over the globe, but economic globalization has brought with it universally available technologies that are sapping the strength of nations. Nothing was more secure once than a nation with citizens who could not communicate with foreigners and who were unarmed and tightly controlled by a national police. Now worldwide communication is easy and everyone can protest against authorities and find weapons to promote political disorder. The state must remain a vital center promoting the freedom and prosperity of its citizens, but the nation-state as such has outlived its usefulness and some of them are collapsing inwardly in civil wars.
We Americans should begin to take our political system seriously. We are not a nation-state. Our 50 states are firmly established with definite sovereign powers and they are not in any danger of collapsing. Our loyalty to our Constitution and to the Federal Government it established is the basis of our unity. We should not be afraid to declare to the world that we got rid of the nation-state once and for all by 1789 and that our union of states is a universal political system that states worldwide should join if they wish to preserve what is worthwhile in their present political condition and to begin to live authentically in a globalized world.
Daniel McNeill usoftheworld.com
The United States of the World, The Theater of the Impossible, The End of All Beginnings, books by Daniel McNeill, are for sale at:amazon.com/author/graceisall
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