I dont have much of an opinion on Iran either way, but would i think intervention is a horrible thing? In practice, most likely yes, but in theory, I could support it. With some governments, anything is an improvement. Not if the Iranian government was a voluntary institution though.

That leaves the question: does the world at large have any appreciation for that distinction? Not as much as they should, i fear, and that is what we should aim to change, in my opinion. There is little point trying to convince a majority of people religous/racial isolationism, communism, anarcho capitalism, whatever, is something they should approve of. It has been tried before, and it has failed, for good or bad reasons.

The question any voluntary association of seasteads should present a would-be benevolent liberator with: why dont you poll us first, see how eager we are to be liberated? No guarantee they will care, but at least it would give them somewhat of a PR problem, if there isnt a single local cheering on the marching troops.

Agreed that the question of legitimate sovereignty is not always straightforward.

Anyway, the issue from my perspective is imperialism vs. localism, not mullahs vs. democracy. I want to see a world in which people are free to choose their political systems. Getting there will be hampered much more by imperialism and arrogance about democracy than it will by local religious leaders.

It’s often amazing how falsities are stated with such arrogance. Bin Laden has called in various videos for Americans to convert to Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the largest and oldest Islamist group and the forerunner to al Qaeda, has literally written documents detailing their plans for the conquest of Europe (“The Project”) and North America (“General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America”).

From the latter: “The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The current internal dispute in Iran is not explicitly about democracy-vs.-autocracy, but about a perception of massive abuse of the democratic component of the system by force and fraud. There’s a real distinction between, “These people have an icky constitution,” and “Icky characters have used these people’s constitution for toilet paper.”

In the latter case, we don’t always need to go looking for trouble to find some. Suppose the government of Seastead One is abruptly and unconstitutionally replaced by Mr Biggus Gunnus, and the legal entity of Seastead One holds assets within our jurisdiction. Which claim to them should we uphold – the claim of the hapless via law, or the claim of the lawless via force?

Either is a foreign judgement about legitimate sovereignty, with all the unpleasant consequences that entails.

There is nothing to be gained for the people by concentrating power in far off capitals, but there is plenty to be gained for the politicians. In much the same way, it is good for a chief executive of a corporation to merge with as many other corporations as possible in order to pay himself the biggest bonus possible, but that is not good for the shareholders. The moment the shareholders lose control of the business, it is no longer capitalism.

I simply have to shake my head at statements like, “There is no sense or evidence that Osama bin Laden wishes for America to convert and embrace the religion of the Prophet. The Taliban have no designs on Topeka. Yet you cannot say the US Congress has no plans for Karachi.” What universe of self-loathing does IOZ call home?