Yet Another Falklands Flare Up

[Flying Pig]

History and society, obviously. The same things deciding that the laws of your country stops at the border and if you walk past it and kill someone, you'll be tried in this country and not yours.

Indeed, but that's a question of power; what it really boils down to is 'which country will enforce its law in that area?'. That's not a question of right: the fact that I will be tried in Britain does not imply that I should be tried in Britain.

You're too smart to seriously pretend that what prevents people from grabbing lands for themselves or another country is only the "other country accepting it".
You perfectly now that it's rather because the home country has a claim on its land that is far stronger than the one of one individual.

While that is the case due to the balance of power - the home country can enforce its claim to the land better than the individual - I maintain that inasfar as we are discussing 'right' (which of course is only in question between equals in power), 'the country' has no automatic ownership over the land. I said earlier that government is a social contract - you pay taxes in exchange for a share in what the government offers you - and so, if the occupant of that land will inevitably benefit from the government's services, there is a case to be made that the government can insist that he pays taxes, and therefore remains under their jurisdiction - there's no such thing as a free lunch, after all. However, in an ideal society, I think that that would be entirely true.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I'm afraid you're mixing "legal" and "legitimate". USA had no legitimacy annexing Texas. It was a pure war of expansion, the settlers being simply the pretext.

And you are confusing the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 and the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.

The U.S., France, Belgium, and the Netherlands all recognized the independence of Texas from Mexico (international recognition seems to the the barometer of sovereignty around here)

Santa Anna signed a peace with Texas which held the border for Texas Independence at the Rio Grande. The Mexican government just decided to out ole Santa Anna and claim the treaty never happened (something that would never fly today and really didn't back then since Santa Anna was the legitimate head of the Mexican Government at the time of the Treaty).

So the internationally reorganized Republic of Texas claimed that their border was the Rio Grande while the Mexican government of the week declared the Nueces River as the border of the belligerent region of Coahuila y Tejas. When the U.S. legally annexed the Texas (internationally recognized Republic mind you), the U.S. inherited the legitimate Rio Grande border claim. Thus to "provide for the common defense" the U.S. had every legal right to patrol the Rio Grande.

 

[filli_noctus]

I think you're confusing exactly what it means to 'own' it - each of the members of the nation (which really means 'group of people' in this context; I reject the idea that 'nations' are meaningful constructs independent of perception) owns his own land, and so the nation as a whole owns all of that land. However, each member of the nation still owns his land and can tell any other member to get off it.

It's like saying that Bill owns Number 1, and Ben owns Number 2, so Bill and Ben own numbers 1 and 2. That's correct, but it doesn't imply that Bill has any rights over Number 2.

Legally all land in the UK and commonwealth (with certain rare exceptions) is property of the Crown (a similar state of affairs exists in the US, just replace "Crown" with "state"). The 'owner' of the land only has a freehold that grants rights to make use of the land. This principle is what makes Compulsory Purchase Orders/eminent domain legal under common law.
The subject is quite complex here would be a good place to start if you want to look into it yourself.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's interesting - it's my point again that we don't live in such an 'ideal' society, but rather one in which the state is willing to use its power for its own benefit. Thank you for that, very interesting read.

Actually, I see that your vision would be much worse overall when it comes to "ideal society". Individual people are better at living their individual life than being told how to live, but common representation is better at regulating common society.

'Ideal' was meant in the sense of 'hypothetical' rather than 'perfect'; your point is entirely valid. Clearly, we can't have everything; the ideal society I was describing was one which decided to have perfect rights to self-determination at the expense of other things.

 

[Akka]

Actually, I see that your vision would be much worse overall when it comes to "ideal society". Individual people are better at living their individual life than being told how to live, but common representation is better at regulating common society.