Should Britain and the United States merge?
- Thread starter dumpthemonarchy
- Start date
Of course. People everywhere are the same. We are one species. National borders are there to contain tribes. We could join with any nation. Pick one. Britain is just one of many.
To be honest, Britain has nice rock circles.
Also, love the way grown men say "bonnet" for the hood of a car.
And "lorry" is so masculine. A 'lorry driver" conjures up so many thoughts...
And "lorry" is so masculine. A 'lorry driver" conjures up so many thoughts...
Then there's lift and loo.
The one that makes me laugh though is fanny. Means something completely different over there.
I doubt either knows which is which.
To keep something in you have them bush the wire towards the post, to keep something out you have them push the wire against. Can you tell which is which in the photo?
I'll assume 'milkman' was not one of them.
How can you mistake what clacking coconuts means as far as making others think you were on horseback or what the Black Knight meant when he said it was 'only a flesh wound'? A more sexual series was in the 'Úp Pompeii' one. In America, 'HeeHaw' was the equal.
Fearless Fosdick occasionally would be shot full of holes and delare "Just a flesh wound!" Comiks ain't funny papers no more!
These days it is more likely to be a story of facing sodomy or jumping out of a plane. With an answer of 'a little bit at first' to the question, 'Did you jump?' that pretty much tells the rest of the story.
There should only be five Anglosphere countries, UK, USA, Can, Oz, NZ to start. Ireland may join if they wish later. Maybe not Scotland if they don't want to be in if they decide to separate from the UK in a referendum soon. The Anglosphere is for the Anglo-Saxon countries, who were colonised by Britain and English speaking people. Others at most will be associate members, or observers. It's essentially another European club to compete with the other European club called the European Union. Competition is good. Haiti would have no chance of joining, they have nothing to offer.
Merge is far too strong a term as it implies a political union. I'm not interested in a common citizenship or passport with any Anglosphere country. It extends the cultural union of what we already have and through language. NAFTA already makes it easier for professionals from Mexico and Canada to work, such an arrangement would work to our far greater benefit with Oz, NZ, UK. But not just for professionals, but ordinary people too living in the Anglosphere. We're not the security risks.
Since when is Canada an Anglo-saxon country? We are bilingual and multicultural. I don't want to have anything to do with barbarians like the US and the UK. Look how we got conned into bombing the crap out of Libya. Canada is being used as a front line of attack, like the Anglo Canadians used the Vandoos in WWII - canon fodder for the big boys. Screw that.
Here's good article how Harper is resisting continental integration of institutions, initated by the USA through NAFTA, because they won't likely benefit Canada. The USA has a special relationship with Mexico in part due to a fairly long and tortured history. We have no special relationship with Mexico. Let the USA and Mexico work together for their own national interests. We are unimportant observers here and the sooner we admit it, the better off we'll be.
We do not consider Mexicans to be part of our "North America". Mexicans are not North Americans in our geopolitical vocabulary. Their politics and economic situation we just cannot relate to. Mexico is part of Latin America to us and that makes them separate from our location in Canada. We exclude them because we can't be pals with everybody, why fake it? I say let's cut the BS.
Christopher Sands: When It Comes to Trade, Harper Doesn't Like Three-Ways
When It Comes to Trade, Harper Doesn't Like Three-Ways
Posted: 01/ 2/12 12:03 PM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/christ...iosc_b_1170115.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
by Chris Sands
#news_entries #ad_sharebox_260x60 img {padding:0px;margin:0px}
British Prime Minister David Cameron's veto of a Franco-German deal to address the European debt crisis cheered many British "Eurosceptics" sceptical of the whole project of European integration and jealous defenders of Britain's sovereignty and independence as the best safeguards for the rights of Britons. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been resisting U.S. projects to advance North American integration trilaterally, preferring bilateral talks without Mexican participation. Is Harper advancing a North American version of Euroscepticism like his British counterpart?
North American scepticism (or perhaps it should be "skepticism" following the American spelling) would imply doubt about the transfer of national sovereignty to new, continental authorities and institutions. Yet the architects of continental economic integration in North America have always been careful to maintain national sovereignty, and have built few new institutions (and where institutions have been established, such as the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation of the North American Commission on Labor Cooperation or even the North American Development Bank, they have been kept weak and accountable to the national governments). Proponents of further integration have not advanced plans for a common currency for North America. Critics of continental integration have invoked national sovereignty and democratic accountability, from the centre-right in the United States and from the centre-left in Canada and Mexico.
Canadian prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper have not embraced the Canadian centre-left's sovereignty critique of continental integration that exercised their Liberal opposition John Turner and Michael Ignatieff. Mulroney and Harper embrace free markets and the reduction of border barriers to trade.
Harper is more nationalistic than Mulroney, but his scepticism takes a different form than his Canadian sovereigntist critics. It isn't deepening integration that Harper approaches with caution, but trilateralism. Looking at the history of U.S.-Canadian relations, Harper appears to believe that progress in reducing economic barriers for Canadians has been faster and more profound when done bilaterally with the United States. Maybe it is because U.S. negotiators trust Canadians more, or share more cultural similarities. Perhaps it is that Canada is not seen as a threat to U.S. security or competitiveness. Nostalgically, it may be due to a memory of the shared sacrifice the two countries endured during the wars of the 20th century, or more contemporaneously, in Afghanistan.
Another interpretation is that Harper associates free markets with the Anglosphere, the countries that share a British heritage. American scholar James C. Bennett has made the case that the fundamental rights of private property, contract, rule of law, and limited responsible government that emerged from the Magna Carta in 1215 are the essential basis for free markets and stable integration. Like the Canadian-born Conrad Black, Bennett is both a Eurosceptic and a NAFTA sceptic because the addition of non-Anglosphere countries inevitably reduces liberty and the potential for free markets.
Only Harper and his intimates know for certain what motivates his reluctance to accept the trilateral framework for negotiating further continental integration that the United States has favored under Democratic and Republican administrations since Reagan. It would be wrong to categorize this Canadian outlook as a North American version of Euroscepticism; its principles are quite different. And while Anglospherianism can't be ruled out, this explanation sets up an inevitable clash between the U.S. and Canadian visions of continental integration where Mexico is concerned.
Harper's posture falls short of a rigid Anglospherianism, I suspect. Rather, it is merely a form of "trioscepticism" that doubts that sufficient progress can be made among three, and trusts more in the track-record of bilateral talks as the last best hope for Canadian interests on the continent. As such, it can be overcome by evidence of trilateral progress, and American persistence.
We do not consider Mexicans to be part of our "North America". Mexicans are not North Americans in our geopolitical vocabulary. Their politics and economic situation we just cannot relate to. Mexico is part of Latin America to us and that makes them separate from our location in Canada. We exclude them because we can't be pals with everybody, why fake it? I say let's cut the BS.
Christopher Sands: When It Comes to Trade, Harper Doesn't Like Three-Ways
When It Comes to Trade, Harper Doesn't Like Three-Ways
Posted: 01/ 2/12 12:03 PM ET http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/christ...iosc_b_1170115.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
by Chris Sands
#news_entries #ad_sharebox_260x60 img {padding:0px;margin:0px}
British Prime Minister David Cameron's veto of a Franco-German deal to address the European debt crisis cheered many British "Eurosceptics" sceptical of the whole project of European integration and jealous defenders of Britain's sovereignty and independence as the best safeguards for the rights of Britons. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been resisting U.S. projects to advance North American integration trilaterally, preferring bilateral talks without Mexican participation. Is Harper advancing a North American version of Euroscepticism like his British counterpart?
North American scepticism (or perhaps it should be "skepticism" following the American spelling) would imply doubt about the transfer of national sovereignty to new, continental authorities and institutions. Yet the architects of continental economic integration in North America have always been careful to maintain national sovereignty, and have built few new institutions (and where institutions have been established, such as the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation of the North American Commission on Labor Cooperation or even the North American Development Bank, they have been kept weak and accountable to the national governments). Proponents of further integration have not advanced plans for a common currency for North America. Critics of continental integration have invoked national sovereignty and democratic accountability, from the centre-right in the United States and from the centre-left in Canada and Mexico.
Canadian prime ministers Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper have not embraced the Canadian centre-left's sovereignty critique of continental integration that exercised their Liberal opposition John Turner and Michael Ignatieff. Mulroney and Harper embrace free markets and the reduction of border barriers to trade.
Harper is more nationalistic than Mulroney, but his scepticism takes a different form than his Canadian sovereigntist critics. It isn't deepening integration that Harper approaches with caution, but trilateralism. Looking at the history of U.S.-Canadian relations, Harper appears to believe that progress in reducing economic barriers for Canadians has been faster and more profound when done bilaterally with the United States. Maybe it is because U.S. negotiators trust Canadians more, or share more cultural similarities. Perhaps it is that Canada is not seen as a threat to U.S. security or competitiveness. Nostalgically, it may be due to a memory of the shared sacrifice the two countries endured during the wars of the 20th century, or more contemporaneously, in Afghanistan.
Another interpretation is that Harper associates free markets with the Anglosphere, the countries that share a British heritage. American scholar James C. Bennett has made the case that the fundamental rights of private property, contract, rule of law, and limited responsible government that emerged from the Magna Carta in 1215 are the essential basis for free markets and stable integration. Like the Canadian-born Conrad Black, Bennett is both a Eurosceptic and a NAFTA sceptic because the addition of non-Anglosphere countries inevitably reduces liberty and the potential for free markets.
Only Harper and his intimates know for certain what motivates his reluctance to accept the trilateral framework for negotiating further continental integration that the United States has favored under Democratic and Republican administrations since Reagan. It would be wrong to categorize this Canadian outlook as a North American version of Euroscepticism; its principles are quite different. And while Anglospherianism can't be ruled out, this explanation sets up an inevitable clash between the U.S. and Canadian visions of continental integration where Mexico is concerned.
Harper's posture falls short of a rigid Anglospherianism, I suspect. Rather, it is merely a form of "trioscepticism" that doubts that sufficient progress can be made among three, and trusts more in the track-record of bilateral talks as the last best hope for Canadian interests on the continent. As such, it can be overcome by evidence of trilateral progress, and American persistence.