MeDeFe wrote:How about naming some of the insurmountable problems you see with my proposal of overlapping nations instead of simply asserting that it will never work because you say so? It could lead to a very interesting discussion I think.
GabonX wrote:In certain rare circumstances this may be a good idea (perhaps Jerusalem could be shared between Israel and Palestine at some future date) but over all such a thing would create alot of problems. Certainly if everyone subscribed to the "why can't we all just get along" philosiphy it could work but the harsh reality is that there are people who empower themselves by demeaning others. Quite frankly the Russians would treat any people who considered themselves a foreign nation inside Russia's borders as pee ons.
There are other problems as well. Who would have access to the natural resources of the region? It would be nice if two nations could split them but I don't see this as being very likely. Also, which nation's laws would be applied if a crime were commited. What would happen if Russia allowed capital punishment and Georgia didn't and a Georgian killed a Russian? What if the two countries have different policies regarding what drugs and weapons they allow their citizens to have? Problmes like these coupled with the already violent tension in the region leads me to believe that Russia and Georgia cannot share territory.
Ruben Cassar wrote:Just watch the news bulletin on a daily basis and you will get many examples.
The world doesn't work that way. Your idea is utopian. What you propose is frankly impossible....it's not compatible with human nature. Great Britain went to war because of some useless rocks that they call the Falkland Islands and that Argentina call Islas Malvinas. I won't bother mentioning any other examples because there are thousands (millions) of them.
Also I said it was a personal opinion...I never said "it wouldn't work because I say so". In fact I said it was a personal opinion in my previous post to avoid getting replies like that and still here it comes...
Ruben, don't such problems arise exactly from this habit of defining nations according to geographical boundaries? You say it's against "human nature", but human nature is a habit that can be changed. Change the habit of defining countries geographically rather than by the people that form the political body and the problem will go away, it doesn't have to happen overnight, I realize that that's an impossibility. As Gabon said, in some circumstances it would work in today's world, in others not, but as the modus is instituted in more and more cases it becomes an accepted part of the mainstream political situation.
As for the application of laws in a situation when people with different nationalities are involved in one crime it would most likely be a matter of negotiations between the two states whether the laws of the nation the victim or the perpetrator belongs to should apply (No, I'm not proposing some "one size fits none"-concept). Personally I say the laws of the nation the perpetrator belongs to because there are also "victimless crimes". Similar for laws regulating drugs and weapons.
This is far from a "why can't we all just get along" philosophy, I'm trying to argue from the very premise that there IS potential for conflict between humans, but I am also of the opinion that the reasons that perpetuate these conflicts, especially ethnic and religious ones, are founded on reasons that are essentially arbitrary. The groups that dispute are distinguishable only by the labels they apply to themselves and the other. I have no idea what inherent feature makes a Hutu different from a Tutsi, a Protestant from a Catholic, or a Jew from an Aryan.
In most cases this is essentially giving the people exactly what they ask for, namely the right to live in the specified area under the political order of their choice, it's just that the other group gets to do the same.
They overdid it 
