"The Borders We Have"

"Because our nation was founded on the principle of self-determination, we are understandably uncomfortable depriving others of that right. But American independence was based on a doctrine of individual rights, whereas the vast majority of self-determination movements today are based on ethnic group rights. Peoples as different as the Kurds and the Tibetans have made repeated appeals for self-governance in the last decade, but the urgency of their calls relies less on any liberal principle than on the sheer fact of their ethnic preponderance in a region and the violence they have endured."

In the Los Angeles Times, Thomas Meaney and Harris Mylonas argue against supporting independence movements.