In finding this site, I'm now recalling past conversations on topics overlapping philosophy of one sort or another. Today I recalled a conversation I had around models of governance with an individual who insisted that the Constitution ought not bind children born to citizens as they had no say in its ratification. The argument was one of an unethical imposition. I dismissed it at the time as rather delusional -- it posed an insoluble conundrum and violated closely held norms. Is this not the best form of governance? Do children not have a duty to follow social norms, including patriotic obedience to country?

After reading a number of threads here and reflecting on the gaps in my knowledge around ethics, logic and the philosophy of law, it has brought me around to thinking about this claim again. Even then it bothered me because all I heard from myself was FYTW.

In thinking it about it again, I wonder about how we justify obedience to a model of governance that is hardly ideal. Mind you, I believe that the US has the worst form of governance, except for all the others tried. And I do not consider it problematical that I teach my kids a fundamental respect for country at the same time as that for family and for others.

What I wonder is whether, in contemplating an ideal, is there any progress to be made by considering changes to how governance and the age of majority of an individual coincide to produce a more equitable and ethical bond between individuals? Speaking from a liberal/libertarian ideal, are there changes (even at the edge of the practical) that we can talk about in resolving the issue of the ideological chains that we insist our children put on?

The reason this came to my mind was (after reading the anti-natalist thread) in considering how I would react to people born to slavery or to a communist government. I would insist that they do not owe fealty to a system that they earnestly feel mistreats them (not in a sense of an uncommon lapse, human error or well-meaning ill-judgment, but in a fundamental way). That they owe it to themselves to break free of a system of fundamental injustice. In as much as my judgment with respect to what offers us the most effective form of governance is fallible, I have to also allow that an individual may feel our model of governance is fundamentally flawed. Maybe they find the Electoral College anathema. Maybe they consider a benevolent dictator to, on balance, provide a superior approach.

What is my duty to the individual and how does my duty impact how we deal with that person when they are an adult? To say they can vote for change does not provide much solace to somehow who has an unpopular, but deeply held, conviction on how they want to order their life -- and their objection that they didn't agree to put this conviction up to a popular vote cannot be easily dismissed.

The status quo position would be to, as we do in the US, give them a passport and let them decide for themselves where they would live. Not ideal in as much as their country of interest need not let them enter, need not let them naturalize, and even with these, limits the individual in terms of a constrained set of options (we only have about 200 countries to choose from).

Is there a practical option to allow an individual, as a matter of birthright within this country, to be provided a space for themselves (land/property) at majority where they have an option to decide how they will interact with the US? Say at 18 they are provided a 3-year term to consider whether they would be a citizen of the US in the typical way or whether they will establish a certain independence for themselves and how they co-operate with their surrounding jurisdictions. If they choose independence, they take their homestead and calve it from the US, formally. The 3-year term would allow the person to understand and negotiate agreement with the jurisdiction of the US that bounds their territory as well as any other independent territories in the region. They might choose to form a compact with other territories, either loosely or as a merger of territories where citizenship would again apply.

If this is practical it is only due to the fact that we have vanquished so many other ills (famine, plague, ...) that we can contemplate dealing in things previously unfeasible and whose logistical challenges is made tenable by advances in computation and networking.

Mind you, I can only see this making sense as part of a new wave of enlightenment, one which holds the power of the larger surrounding jurisdictions at bay. But if the freedom to decide how we will interact (at the level of individually managed quasi-countries) is understood as fundamental as that of free expression, this may curb the larger jurisdiction from preying on the independent fiefdoms it borders. Rather than taxing the citizen as an imposition of jurisdictional governance, bilateral agreement between equals would determine how roads, education, and military for common defense would be funded.

I can see someone objecting that if it did work, it might in Montana or North Dakota, but how in the world would it work in New York City. Property ownership would have to undergo a radical change if we wanted to turn a 500 square foot studio into its own quasi-country.

Is this unworkable in principle? Has this ever been tried, even in fiction? Other than dealing with the issue of identifying how much land (and from where it would be carved) would be granted to a child, are there others that make this a non-starter from the get go?

I see a pervasive depressive attitude regarding our impotence over our government. Can a new liberalism, a re-commitment to individual freedom and bespoke governance, serve a new enlightenment?