Carl,
Part of your post is about the myth by which folks justify giving up personal freedom to some government or other. The most common myth is the old social contract. You are right about Rome and the Soci. Rome did not live up to the terms agreed to by everyone. The Swiss are a different story. The land we call Switzerland is a confederacy of regions called cantons, not a single nation. Most of those cantons are geographically isolated due to the terrain. They are more like the ancient Greek leagues than a nation like France or Italy.
Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
A country is a people and a people a country if they figure they are and are willing to fight to back up the point. That's all. If you throw in natives vs recent immigrants you are throwing in an infinitely variable factor which depends solely on personal opinion, eg. my native is your recent immigrant which is somebody else's returned rightful owner.

One of the main causes of the Social War was the Italian allies were offered Roman citizenship and then the offer was withdrawn. One of the ways the Romans ended that war was by giving the allies Roman citizenship. So the allies fought the Romans for the right to be Roman and lost the war but became Romans. All those different peoples fighting to become part of Rome.

And Roman citizenship was conferred upon most of the residents of Roman territories in 212 AD. So you had very many different peoples becoming Romans, from Syria to the Atlantic to Sahara to the North Sea. The empire lasted rather a long time after that.

As far as the Swiss go, they figure they are a nation or a people or whatever and they will fight to back it up. Since there are three languages spoken there which I am guessing represent three different cultures, sort of, and histories but they decided they are Swiss, live in Switzerland and will shoot you in the heart if you mess with that arrangement.