The list you show there is the latest incarnation of most countries. In almost all cases, something similar preceded it.
Heavily centralized nation states create discontinuities in culture. You can see this clearly with countries such as France and Denmark, where you cross the border and suddenly everything is different. For other countries the borders have historical reasons, but are fairly arbitrary. Consider Germany and the Swiss province of Schaffhausen. Why should the people of Schaffhausen be governed under a completely different set of rules than their literal neighbours? I know Switzerland is not part of the EU, but it highlights the absurdity of your claim.
You rage against unaccountable bureaucracies as if they are new. They're not, and they're more accountable than those of the past. The Roman Empire certainly had a great deal of power over its citizens, and I find it hard to take you seriously when you imply that the EU is less accountable to its citizens than literally any government of similar size that has ever existed...
Where have I suggested anything remotely similar. I have compared the EU to USSR because of the similarly unaccountable bureaucracy. I could however be brought to argue that the Roman bureaucracy was superior to the EU bureaucracy. At least the Romans had sense enough to let many new laws expire after a set period. (Usually a year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision)
> Countries and nation states are different things. Prior to the development of the nation state and national identity, cultural changes were much smoother across Europe. That doesn't mean that the cultural differences between regions weren't larger than they are today, but the change was more gradual. It was only with the development of national ideas that it became important for people living on one end of the country to identify with people on the other end.
This has to be the main confusion of our time. Just because every border is not exactly perfect, it must mean that every border that has ever been drawn is completely arbitrary.
This is just a modern liberal pipe dream. The fact is that European countries are roughly placed where the linguistic, ethnical and religious borders were. . E.g Germany may be a new country, but the German language, was definitely a thing long before Germany. (Clearly, with more dialects than are spoken today, but still languages clearly identifiable as being german). You can still today in Germany, see a clear split between the catholic and protestant parts.
Just because something was not called a nation state, does not mean that it wasn't something very, very close to that. A nation state, when it's not an empire, is just the modern version of a tribe. And many places you see tribes struggling to found their corresponding nation state: see e.g. the Basques, the Kurds and the Irish. (First two having failed, third succeeded). You don't seriously claim that there are no Kurds, do you?
Apologies for taking the analogy too far.
> I have compared the EU to USSR because of the similarly unaccountable bureaucracy.
This is an opinion that is hard to justify, but whatever.
> This has to be the main confusion of our time. Just because every border is not exactly perfect, it must mean that every border that has ever been drawn is completely arbitrary.
I'm not claiming borders are completely arbitrary. I am, however, claiming that more often than not, borders are drawn such that they separate tribes that were previously quite close culturally. Other times borders are drawn through tribes.
Over generations, a strong state manages to assimilate the tribe, and tribes on either side of the divide drift apart as individual members drift toward the national identity.
I make no judgment on whether that is good or bad. I am only stating that the concept of national identity accelerates this process. I obviously do not dispute that the German language, and many parts of German national identity, were shared across modern day Germany prior to its current form. I am only arguing that these cultural regions are more flexible than you seem to think.
The problem with the argument that borders are logical delineations between tribes, cultural, or linguistic regions, is that you have to base that on some criteria. If you choose language and culture, we will have to deal with Alsace-Lorraine, again... and so on, and so on.
Everyone has a right to fight whichever state they are subject to, but they don't have some objective moral high ground just because they want to be free of it. Sovereign citizens can make all the arguments they want, nobody will take them seriously. That's one extreme end of the scale. The area is obviously very grey when it comes to real independence movements such as the Scottish or Catalan. However, at the end of the day, all that matters is whether you have the power on your side to do it, and you are willing to pay the price. We cannot establish any logical framework for when independence is objectively warranted, without also allowing things like sovereign citizens. You have to put the threshold somewhere, and as soon as you do, people will fall on either side based on personal opinion and it won't be logical any more.
I wish we could move beyond the "EU bad because it's a super-state that takes away sovereignty" arguments, because it's so silly. They're rooted in a subjective belief that the EU is bad. That's a completely acceptable opinion to have, and it is one that can have evidence presented for and against it. The sovereignty argument is an emotional excuse with no rational basis.
