Doug Casey once said he thought there should be 7 billion independent countries in the world – one for every human being on the planet.  Just what is a country?  The first thing that comes to mind is a group of people with a common culture that live in the same place that voluntarily band together for their mutual benefit.  Sounds about right.  However, how can 300+ million people in the US have a common culture?  Can we even say that we all live in the “same” place?  We are arguing about if we even speak the same language and can talk to each other in English.