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Kajin
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:20 pm |
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Whenever I go on my long drives in between school and home, I often find myself thinking of the damndest things. One such recent incident involved what the world would be like if the United States absorbed various countries into statehood. The state of mexico. The state of japan. The state of russia. Every country that merges with the US becomes its own state. It gets to keep its own government in the form of governers and state laws, the citizens of these countries become full fledged US citizens and have the right to run for presidency. Basicially, a very big happy family of countries becoming states within a country.
There are very obvious, glaring flaws that would need addressing, certainly. But there are also more subtle flaws that would need a look into. What happens if we adopt a nation of religious fanatics into statehood and someone declares a holy war on us? What are the racial and political repercussions? What if our actions are percieved as an act of war?
Let me know what you think. I find it an interesting idea if only for a mental exercise to point out all of the significant flaws.
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Simon_Jester
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:06 pm |
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For starters, there are a lot of countries that have a perfectly good reason to say "Hey, US, why don't you become a province of our country instead?" Thus, there is no obvious reason why they should join us (and be subject to our legal system, which they did not create), rather than the other way around.
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Ruan
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:38 pm |
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One of the bad things about nationalism is the thought of 'my country is better than yours'. In America, we are practically raised to believe it to the point of (in some cases I've personally witnessed) some Americans expressing disbelief that someone could possibly want to live anywhere else. Which means, in general, that the thought of being ruled by another country, or even existing in that close of a governmental proximity with that country, goes very much against the grain. Notice that in our own elections the president has to be, as I recall, a native-born American.
That said, it would be very interesting if Mexico, the USA, and Canada all bound together into one mega country.
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Crake
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 11:42 pm |
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Ruan wrote: That said, it would be very interesting if Mexico, the USA, and Canada all bound together into one mega country. What would that be called? Meximerida? UCAMS*? Just America? No I'm trying to come up with a name for this hypothetical country that doesn't sound idiotic. *United Canadian American Mexican States
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chaosman
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:04 am |
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Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 6:45 pm Posts: 1934
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How about North America? It works for the continent.
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Crake
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:29 am |
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No, that would be too easy.
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mr_e_s
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:52 am |
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More likely would be the North American Union, somewhat like the European Union.
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chaosman
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:07 am |
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In one of the Clive Cussler books the US and Canada merged and they called it the United States of Canada. Fiction and unlikely but....
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Passiflora
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:57 am |
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The topic of this thread is in traditional POOP territory, but in the interest of having people besides the usual POOP crowd participating, I'll keep it here in GC as long as the tone stays relatively light. If it gets really heated, I'll reconsider booting it over to the POOP containment unit.
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angrysunbird
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:10 am |
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Well, the State of Japan might be annoyed at only getting 2 senators for its 250 million people, even if it filled almost half the House. I'm not sure how happy Democrats and Republicans would be to find that they suddenly had to for alliance coalitions with the Japanese National Party just to get anything done. In fact, if you threw in the UK the House could completely lock out Americans from any form of power.
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Grillick
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:01 pm |
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I think that's really the crux of the problem. "States" in an American sense are entirely not the same thing as states in a geopolitical sense. Mexico and Canada each are individually divided up into "states" by a federal constitution, and their membership in the United States would almost necessarily require the addition of multiple states. Many other countries are similar, and even unitary government systems like Japan and the UK would likely need to be added as multiple states in order to fit in adequately.
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Kajin
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:27 pm |
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Isnt it fun to shoot holes in something already filled with them? I'm not offended by everyone saying what a horrible idea it is, I just thought of it one day and almost immediately recognized the sheer size and number of gaps in logic that would need to be filled in order for it to become an actual working idea.
One such hole that I noticed upon examination. Say from whatever amount of effort we manage to get this idea off the ground and nations are actually interested in atleast considering joining us. Maybe China decides to join us (just a random pick of the nations in a position to be opposed to us, nothing special.) How can we trust them to remain loyal to the territories of our nation? What if they instead used this time to learn our secrets and use them against us? Is their any way for us to prevent such an annoyance and keep them loyal to our cause? Is our cause of a unified earth foolish and misguided?
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angrysunbird
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:57 pm |
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Kajin wrote: Is our cause of a unified earth foolish and misguided? A unified Earth is the only thing that could possibly stop me. That is why it will never happen! Bwahahahaha! A World unification would have to be a multi step program of blocs combining. For example, first you pull various continents or subcontinents together into regional blocs - the Americas, Africa, South Asia, South East Asia etc. These blocs are possible, look at the US or Europe. Then these blocs negotiate to combine. Unification between nations is possible, it is simply a matter of scale, technique and quite frankly need, and there is little need for that level of unification at the moment.
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Surgoshan
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:22 pm |
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angrysunbird wrote: Kajin wrote: Is our cause of a unified earth foolish and misguided? A unified Earth is the only thing that could possibly stop me. That is why it will never happen! Bwahahahaha! A World unification would have to be a multi step program of blocs combining. For example, first you pull various continents or subcontinents together into regional blocs - the Americas, Africa, South Asia, South East Asia etc. These blocs are possible, look at the US or Europe. Then these blocs negotiate to combine. Unification between nations is possible, it is simply a matter of scale, technique and quite frankly need, and there is little need for that level of unification at the moment. So, Mr. ... Veidt was it? You said you had an idea.
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SotiCoto
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:50 pm |
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Kajin wrote: Isnt it fun to shoot holes in something already filled with them? I'm not offended by everyone saying what a horrible idea it is, I just thought of it one day and almost immediately recognized the sheer size and number of gaps in logic that would need to be filled in order for it to become an actual working idea. That doesn't stop me having nightmares about it. -_-; Sometimes I do suspect that america is trying to impose its laws upon the rest of the world. The only ones it can actually get away with generally are the ones that Europe agrees with (and is trying to do the same with, in some general sense). But for the sake of NOT going POOP-way, I'll leave out my opinions on the middle east situation.
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