By the way, I think several different issues might be getting confused in this discussion. One is the concept of democracy per se, the other is modern democratic nation-states.
On the one hand, there is the right of people to freely form collective associations, within and through which they may regulate each other’s behavior in a democratic fashion. They could also make this political association correspond to a geographic area, as by collectively purchasing some land. To me, it would be obviously tyrranical to deny people the right to freely form such associations.
Then on the other hand, there are modern nation-states, which are usually characterized by birthright citizenship, and a lack of any mechanism for individual secession from the political association (short of geographic relocation).
Would anyone here object to the former kind of democracy, we can call it “free association democracy” or “opt-in/opt-out democracy”? I am sure that most of the anarchists would not object to this, but I am unsure about the minarchists and other libertarians. I wonder if some of you might believe that democracy per se is illegitimate and that the minarchist state you call for should not allow such things to exist.
As for the latter kind of democracy, I have a thought experiment. Let’s say that the U.S.A. was going to adopt a constitutional amendment decreeing that any citizen could renounce citizenship and secede from the U.S. political system. (One can do so now, but only by geographic relocation, and usually only by moving to another nation-state with a relatively similar political system). Let’s say that this constitutional amendment was ready to be passed, and the only obstacle to moving forward was the need of resolving the debate over what land and possessions people were allowed to take with them when they seceded. The easy answer is, “their” land and possessions. But the more difficult answer must take into account the question: do one’s possessions “count” if they were acquired through the politico-legal system of a modern democratic state? Do possessions acquired while we are not in, to borrow a libertarian phrase, “the natural order”, qualify as legitimately acquired possessions? If so, why? And if not, how would you suggest deciding what land/possessions an individual secessionist could take with him/her out of the political association from which s/he was seceding? How could one decide this in, as Marko says, a “principled” way?
Obviously, I’m asking this question of the hardcore libertarians, minarchists, and anarcho-capitalists…your run-of-the-mill, “let’s trim the government fat”, LP-card-carrying libertarian would not be seriously troubled by these issues. But I am, and I am assuming some posters here will be as well.