> I would offer 50.000k$ to every citizen to abdicate authority trough democratic process and move off the island (or possibly stay and work for me).
History teaches us that there will always be hold-outs and that the most effective way to achieve this goal is through brute force. This is how the U.S. base in Diego Garcia came to be. The islanders who lived there were forcibly deported from their homes in the 1970s by the British who owned the islands.
>History teaches us that there will always be hold-outs and that the most effective way to achieve this goal is through brute force.
That's assuming you want them all of the island and that you need everyone's consent to take over, you just need the majority to be take power trough democratic process and the few that wish to remain could be employed/incorporated in to the state.
True. And yes, please keep thinking of alternatives to brute force. :)
I recently read a fascinating book called "Miles from Nowhere" which described life in the least populated counties in the U.S. One recurring theme is that counties with almost no one living in them are subject to being taken over by groups with their own agenda. For example, a county with only 150 people in it might be the target of a group of libertarians. 800 libertarians may agree to move there to set up a libertarian government. The point the book made was that virtually uninhabited is very different than uninhabited, and that there are still people there who have wishes, dreams and rights of their own.
So what you are describing is actually an act of force. Overtaking Nauru for your own purposes is a unilateral destruction of someone's home. Imagine for some odd reason the entire population of China decided to buy out and relocate to your city and turn it into a Chinese culture and economy. You may have nothing against the Chinese or Chinese culture, but you may wish to simply keep your home city as is.
Democracy is often thought of as peaceful, but it can often be a vehicle for the majority to disregard the legitimate needs of the minority.
Looks like a really interesting book - they do cover the remote bits of Oregon, right? There is some incredible country out there - it can feel a bit creepy to be so far from anything.
Yes, the "empty quarter" or "outback" of Oregon is mentioned, especially the amazing challenges of census workers in the region.
If you like geography, this book is a good read. It's a bit dated, having been written in the early 1990s, but this, in my opinion, turns out to be a good thing. It gives us some great glimpses of how isolated these communities were and I'm sure the Internet has since changed this considerably.
>Democracy is often thought of as peaceful, but it can often be a vehicle for the majority to disregard the legitimate needs of the minority.
But that's the system they already live in, I wouldn't change that, I would just use that system to achieve my goal. I agree that it's not completely moral but that's inherent in democracies, even with constitutions protecting the minorities, they will always be subjected to mob rule.
> You may have nothing against the Chinese or Chinese culture, but you may wish to simply keep your home city as is.
But I don't have any right to do that. I only own my own home/property; 'my' home city as a whole doesn't belong to me. Attempting to control what my neighbors may do with their homes and what kind of social arrangements they'll be allowed to participate in, to the point of trying to exclude entire ethnic groups from settling within some arbitrary boundaries - simply because I feel some personal sense of propriety over what doesn't actually belong to me - is the more direct and clear act of brute force here.
> Overtaking Nauru for your own purposes is a unilateral destruction of someone's home.
No, it isn't. Unilaterally destroying someone's home is a unilateral destruction of someone's home. Purchasing people's homes with their consent, and leaving alone those who don't want to sell, isn't destruction of anything.
I would imagine that the UN woudl say that any contract "to abdicate authority through democratic process " would be invalid and unenforcable. - they will point to the enableing act on 36 in germany and the UNDHR.
For example you can sign a contract to waive your rights to anual leave but its invalid and unenforcable.
History teaches us that there will always be hold-outs and that the most effective way to achieve this goal is through brute force. This is how the U.S. base in Diego Garcia came to be. The islanders who lived there were forcibly deported from their homes in the 1970s by the British who owned the islands.