Montenegrins have voted to secede from Serbia. Serbia will let them go. Serbian President Boris Tadic explains, "I supported the preservation of a joint state, but as a democratic president of a democratic republic, I recognize the expression of the free will of the Montenegrin citizens."
Always thought that Montenegro was one of those funny ficticious 'movie' countries that the Stooges or Marx Brothers would use. Has anybody known or met a person from Montenegro?
Thinking of Latveria perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latveria
Could also be secession, depending how you look at it.
ASDF, remember when the Stooges visited the Kingdom of Moronica?
Mick and ASDF: Remember the Marx Brothers' prior trip to Freedonia? The Stooges are just the version for middle school boys-- substituting slaps for puns (yawn).
Anyway, related quotation from R. E. Lee:
"As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.... Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession... Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me."
Buchanan's musings on this are thought provoking.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50338
I am not sure what to make of these various phenomena pointing to the decline of the nation-state, that "great" invention of modernity.
. . . .
Anyone seen "The Mouse That Roared," ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/ ) one of Peter Sellers' best films? The "Duchy of Grand Fenwick" is a poor nation that decides to start a war with the U.S. so that they can quicly lose and then be financially reconstructed by the wealthy nation. But then they end up winning the war. On many levels a film worth watching these days.
Sounds like a brilliant idea for a movie, Brian. I'll have to check it out.
