Separatist, Independence, and Decentralization movements

[MondoGlobo]

Sometimes people decide they cannot secure their rights within the framework of an existing polity, and must separate from it. Sometimes they live in an occupied country, and the occupying power has no intention of extending the full rights of citizenship to them, or of complying with constitutional principles.

Here's a list of examples from around the world.

Should such self-identified groups ever be denied their desire for independence?

[Gary F. Moraco]

This is pretty interesting.

[John Perkins]

Short answer: No

[Yodhe]

I think that there is a danger in believing that freedom can be manifest in some sense of a homeland, freedom must be internal and individual. The group dynamic is the product of tribal archetypes we have inherited from history, the idea of US and THEM, family and non-family, friend and enemy etc. It also stems from the concept of ownership of land, which I believe needs to be transcended with an appreciation that we share this universe/spaceship earth. We quite literally are all in the same boat, and any lifeboats, escape pods, or seeds have not been invented yet. There is nowhere to run to, we need to learn to get along. The idea of tolerance, and unique identity. It is perfectly natural for people to come together and fall apart, but a fair few commentators have expressed the opinion that doing this in anything other than the all-present groovy now is a fallacy, and leds to a distortion of the original expression in which it was formed. Self identification is one thing, subhuming oneself to a group is another entirely.
I believe that it is important, to realise that same urge for self-expression, is a commonly shared experience of life. It should be nutured, encouraged and celebrated as human culture.
How one does one do this in our current paradigm? I believe by becoming more civilised than the society one finds oneself in, by learning to express oneself through all the facets and facilities of human nature, whether it be art, words, work, or anything else you care to think of.
It seems to be a tendency of human nature to put up boundaries, the function of the ego if you will, but this is a limited reaction to the situation one finds oneself in. That is not to say that one should not also have the freedom to express oneself in a safe environment without fear of retribution.or ridicule.
On the otherhand I agree that there should be a plurality of political experiments so that we can determine which way of living suits one best, to be a guaranteed by the freedom of movement between political states, which is currently the problem of being caught in the net of nation-states. I believe we can alleviate many of the problems of life, by eliminating, or transcending accidents of birth.
I think we need to acknowledge that the solution won't arise from distillation, seperating component human activities and lifestyles into ghettos and homelands. But as the word implies, solution is the solution, by becoming dissolved in the whole, whilst celebrating and nuturing our individuality, which is my principle rejection of Classical Marxist political structures, and the reason I tend to like to think of myself as an anarcho-communist.
I believe that it is also a result of the economic paradigm that everyone seems to take as an inalienable fact that causes the problems, that these groups to various degrees tend to rally against. That we live in the shadow of Maltheus of there not being enough for everyone, when quite frankly there is, there is just a case of gross inept management, and ignorance of such simple concepts that we "invent resources/wealth". Currently wealth creation is mostly limited to a certain class, caste, or profession of people, which in of itself is not necessarily wrong, but when most of us are forced to live in the circumstances of the trickle-down theory it becomes a mockery and form of slavery.

[uncle osbert]

i'm not sure i understand your question. the desire for independence can mean any number of things, but i reflect on our own declaration of independence's phrase; "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". i almost feel as though the country as a whole has skipped over the "pursuit" part, which emphasizes the individual's role in finding their own paths to happiness. instead, i get this feeling that we're expecting the path to be revealed. this is a terrible mistake, but i don't know what to do to surmount it. we're the most informed and powerful generation to walk the earth, yet we've lost that creative impulse. maybe most of us never had it.

much as i would like to blame the problem on economics, i can't. it's still our lack of insight that keeps us controlled. our systems change all the time if you look at them over centuries. but our communication is so quick that i think we've lost the ability to gauge change in our own lives well.

[Gary F. Moraco]

If you cannot read the cartoon at the top it says "If Jesus was a child today..."One of those better be a Wii"

[Gary F. Moraco]

Would it be an accurate statement to say that things wont get better until we all get in line?