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Fragmentation vs Monoculturalism: Gary Saeur-Thompson has been commenting on how the conservatives response to this has been to start fighting for the nation-state to be mono-cultural . There can be no fragmentation of the nation-state as the vehicle and legitimate source of power, as the people are consolidated into a unitary society, culture and state.

It is interesting to note that Scrymarch\'s first response to was to advocate for a decentralised and asymmetric response to terror by creating a smart-mob for defeating it. My initial response was the same. On John Robb\'s website there is an entry on the vulnerability of the electrical system . This vulnerability goes away when the system is decentralised, as any disruption becomes local, not national.

There are competing philosophies here. It is decentralised vs centralised. The centralised system is proving incapable of reacting to, or controlling the decentralised system. It is at its most violent in Iraq, but even in more benign centralised systems, the large central authority is incapable of reacting. Look at the legislation that stable nation-states such as the US and Australia have managed to produce relating to the internet and intellectual property.

The unitary nation-state is dead. The centralised nation-state still has value, but only in capital intensive areas where decentralised systems are still cost prohibitive. Once the technology becomes commoditised, the nation-state, or in fact any centralised system, is incapable of innovating as fast as a centralised system. Witness the Soviet Union, it got out innovated by capitalism, which led to higher individual prosperity and choice.

Australian politicians and commenteriat that are trying to push for a unitary Australian nation-state that is mono-cultural, defined domestically by the \"national security state\" are like Michael Palin faced with a disgruntled John Cleese. They are \"peeyining for the fyords\" and convincing themselves, and others, that the parrot they sold is not dead.

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