# Internationalism: Where can I find some? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354 "2011-06-21T23:21:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/21 "2011-06-22T04:42:29Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Are either of these groups pro-internationalism (at least, prior to the apocalypse)? I thought the Catholic Church had more or less given up on being a secular governing body, and while I don’t know much about the Witnesses, I would think that their belief in an imminent apocalypse would kind of limit how much internationalizing they could get done before the whole planet went up in flames anyways. Are you suggesting that those religions do \*not \*want to convert everybody in the world to their creed? Any brand of Communism you care to name also more or less gave up on being a secular, international governing body in short order. Moaists, Stalinists etc. did not actually think they were going to govern the world. They worked to promote their cause worldwide, as the Churches do. They would have liked to convert the whole world to their creed, as the churches do. Many of the people involved believed it was inevitable that the whole world would eventually join them or die, just as the churches do. But they had given up on becoming secular governing bodies in the near term, just as the churches have. I really can’t see any practical standard by which Communism is Internationalist, but Christianity and Islam are not. And of course we could add many other movements: animal liberationists, Greens and so forth are equally internationalist and believe that one day the whole world must join them or die. The only distinction is that the Communists were more willing to directly kill hundreds of millions of people. The other groups just assume that it is inevitable that non-believers will die. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/22 "2011-06-22T05:39:34Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Are you suggesting that those religions do \*not \*want to convert everybody in the world to their creed? I’m not sure simply wanting to convert people around the world to your religion really makes you an internationalist. The OPs link says “Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all.” Making everyone a Jehovah’s Witness isn’t really a political or economic goal. Catholicism is a little closer, since the Vatican is a political entity. But the political implications of being Catholic are pretty vestigial at this point, so I don’t think it really counts. You could probably come up with a decent argument that the Church was one of the first internationalist organizations though, since it used to represent a voluntary transnational organization that various heads of state would recognize as an authority (at least in theory). But that isn’t really true anymore, heads of even very Catholic countries don’t even pretend their state is in anyway subservient to the Pope. ---
**Author:** ![bahimes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@bahimes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bahimes)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/23 "2011-06-22T12:06:23Z")
Ba’ath party is pretty international from Iraq to Syria, even some elements in the Mahgreb. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/24 "2011-06-22T13:26:15Z")
> [@bahimes](#): > > Ba’ath party is pretty international from Iraq to Syria, even some elements in the Mahgreb. Yes, but the Ba’athists’ Pan-Arabism is “internationalist” only and exactly in the sense that the pan-German **nationalists** of the early 19th Century were “internationalist” with respect to the German-speaking world. And then as soon as they got what they wanted – a united German Empire – the **non** -German world had to watch out! ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/25 "2011-06-22T14:25:08Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, but the Ba’athists’ Pan-Arabism is “internationalist” only and exactly in the sense that the pan-German **nationalists** of the early 19th Century were “internationalist” with respect to the German-speaking world. And then as soon as they got what they wanted – a united German Empire – the **non** -German world had to watch out! There was no united German Empire (containing all German peoples) really until Sudetenland, Austria, and Danzig got incorporated in 1938-9. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/26 "2011-06-23T02:31:06Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > There was no united German Empire (containing all German peoples) really until Sudetenland, Austria, and Danzig got incorporated in 1938-9. :dubious: If you demand perfection, then it never happened, unless you know something about _die Schweiz_ the rest of us don’t. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > If “global community” just means opening a free field for the multinationals, it’ll [turn the whole world into the Third World.](http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug) While the idea that your cite is the entire run of Tom the Dancing Bug amuses, I think you meant the most recent strip: [Permalink](http://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2011/06/17) > [@Blake](#): > > I really can’t see any practical standard by which Communism is Internationalist, but Christianity and Islam are not. > > And of course we could add many other movements: animal liberationists, Greens and so forth are equally internationalist and believe that one day the whole world must join them or die. > > The only distinction is that the Communists were more willing to directly kill hundreds of millions of people. The other groups just assume that it is inevitable that non-believers will die. I think that is the difference. Some men wish for ponies, some say the Four Horsemen are coming, but the real threats saddle up and ride. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/27 "2011-06-23T03:17:40Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I really can’t see any practical standard by which Communism is Internationalist, but Christianity and Islam are not. > > And of course we could add many other movements: animal liberationists, Greens and so forth are equally internationalist and believe that one day the whole world must join them or die. > > The only distinction is that the Communists were more willing to directly kill hundreds of millions of people. The other groups just assume that it is inevitable that non-believers will die. Yes, well, “Internationalism” is not synonymous with “All will join us or die.” ---
**Author:** ![RaleighRally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@RaleighRally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaleighRally)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/28 "2011-06-24T08:45:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Studying the history of the 19th and 20th Centuries, the one thing that always appeals to me about the Communists is that they seem to have had the only [internationalist](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%29) political movement **of any kind** going, the only one that was internationalist **even in theory.** (And yes, I know perfectly well that when Communists got into power they usually seemed to act like nationalists.) > > Is there any other such movement, now? I don’t mean the [Democratic World Federalists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_World_Federalists) or some such hopeful shit, I mean a movement that matters and is consciously working towards – or even, just talking about – global union. There is none such in the U.S., that I know of. The nearest things would be the neoliberals, with their hopes for economic globalization, and the neoconservatives, with their vision of spreading democracy and capitalism worldwide. We need something better. Hi Brian, maybe [The New World Order](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_%28conspiracy_theory%29) is exactly what you are looking for? And this new borderless world could very well be governed from a Very Special Nation, thus keeping its borders for safety. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/29 "2011-06-24T13:17:11Z")
> [@RaleighRally](#): > > Hi Brian, maybe [The New World Order](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_%28conspiracy_theory%29) is exactly what you are looking for? And this new borderless world could very well be governed from a Very Special Nation, thus keeping its borders for safety. The one thing I’ve never understood about the NWO is how people who assert its existence have anything **against** it. Even a negligible little runt of a North American Union – single currency and no hard borders from Guatemala to the Northwest Passage – the prospect somehow **scares** them. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/30 "2011-06-24T14:37:22Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The one thing I’ve never understood about the NWO is how people who assert its existence have anything **against** it. Even a negligible little runt of a North American Union – single currency and no hard borders from Guatemala to the Northwest Passage – the prospect somehow **scares** them. 😕 This is because the larger a democratic entity is the less democratic it is. Citizens have two ways of expressing displeasure with the government peaceably, voice and exit. Voice is voting and speaking out, exit is leaving for a different territory with a new government. If my town government goes nuts I can organize my neighbors to vote the town council out by swing a couple hundred votes, or I can move to the next town with a minimal sacrifice. If the US combined government with Canada and Mexico, then my voice is diluted 33% and I have to move to another continent for a better government. As a practical matter the US is far from an ideal currency zone but a North American Union would be much worse. The EU is currently demonstrating the folly of making currency zone decisions for political reasons. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/31 "2011-06-24T14:56:31Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is because the larger a democratic entity is the less democratic it is. :dubious: What, the U.S. as a whole is less democratic than one of its states is less democratic than one of its counties? Bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/32 "2011-06-24T16:13:46Z")
Democratic in the responsive to the people sense. The point of democracy is that the government is accountable to its citizens. The larger the government the less it is repsonsive to any one citizen. Hundreds of thousands of people marched against the Iraq war and accomplished Jack Squat. The same number protesting a county policy would get change enacted. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354/33 "2011-06-24T16:47:42Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Democratic in the responsive to the people sense. The point of democracy is that the government is accountable to its citizens. The larger the government the less it is repsonsive to any **one** citizen. :dubious: You really need to re-examine your understanding of the concept of democracy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/internationalism-where-can-i-find-some/586354.md?page=1)