[growlNark]

> no one would complain about a US bank not doing money exchange business with entities in the Ukraine or Belarus

Frankly, it's none of my state's damn business who I exchange money with. Their beef with other states is their problem—why are they dragging us through their bullshit?

If they want to collect taxes on it, at least that has the veneer of doing their job properly, and I'm happy to pay it.

[passivegains]

if someone, for example, exchanges funds with a foreign nation to evade sanctions while they illegally occupy another, it really is their state's business.

[growlNark]

Only because the state asserts their existence with violence. We certainly have little-to-no say in how the states in which we live behave, but we're all subject to their whims.

Personally, I have little patience for the pretense that the geopolitical theatre we're all subjected to reflects the people who live in the states represented in such theatre. Baudrillard had it right all along.

[passivegains]

Only because the state asserts their existence with violence.

I'm comfortable saying if a foreign nation rolls military vehicles across a border and starts shelling apartment buildings, those buildings' residents have every right to assert their existence with violence.

We certainly have little-to-no say in how the states in which we live behave, but we're all subject to their whims.

I can't say for certain how much my state listens to me specifically, but if they do, I'd tell them their whims should be such that other states can't do the roll-across-border-blow-up-apartments thing. (to anyone, not just me.) Those are good whims. Everyone should be subject to those whims.

[growlNark]

> I'm comfortable saying if a foreign nation rolls military vehicles across a border and starts shelling apartment buildings, those buildings' residents have every right to assert their existence with violence.

Of course, I have nothing against sovereignty. I just think states greatly overestimate what they're owed for simply not mowing down their own citizens. If my state causes another state to invade me, of course I'll side with the invader—my own state has failed me.