Hi Wayne,
We had the same thing here, although the situation was compounded (possibly confounded ) by the traditional rights of the gentry and aristocracy (and boy does THAT sound weird coming from Canada!). Under a monarchy, the different classes had both rights and obligations - almost a form of shared sovereignty as it were. While the vast majority of that has disappeared, you can still see parts of it running around.
I would suspect that the crowd Selil is talking about don't have official recognition, but do have cultural recognition via your militia meme (i.e. self organization for self-defense as a recognized "right").
That's my guess also. I'm not sure how it will play out in the long run, but I have a suspicion that we will see some form of "Imperial" layer added on top of increasingly small nation states - probably a sub-set of the UN, but also larger than the EU. Then again, it is also possible that we could see a fragmentation into "Imperial" factions along the NAU, EU, ASEAN, China, etc. line - sort of a reversion to te organizational style and form of the last half of the 19th century. I wouldn't want to bet either way right now.
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