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On the US: The USA is ancient compare to the EU. The EU's first days were debated on the internet. The US' were debated by pamphleteers, distributed on horseba
by netcan 11y ago
On the US:
The USA is ancient compare to the EU. The EU's first days were debated on the internet. The US' were debated by pamphleteers, distributed on horseback and had slavery as a side issue midway down a list of policy questions to debated later.
Could you imagine The US expanding its union? Could you imagine Mexico joining, the constitution being re-written?
I don't think we're bounded by what the US is or has done. Even the US isn't. Times change.
On exits
I don't think that option would be taken very often. (A) It would pressure the EU to be what it needs to be, a Union countries want to be a part of. (B) It would change the local political debate. At the moment, the anti-EU Trump^ can safely talk without it meaning anything. I think the EU should be built to withstand border changes, in both directions.
^Interesting how rarely EU politics is debated on HN compared to US politics. Hello brothers from across the Atlantic.
- binarymax 11y agoI would love to see an American/Canadian/Mexican union - with similar ideals of the EU. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime though.
- jqm 11y agoIt seems that would produce little but similar problems to those the EU is having.
- green7ea 11y agoAs a Canadian, this scares me. The only outcome I can imagine of such a union is that the American states would bully our politics to an even greater degree.
- jessaustin 11y agoI would love to see USA broken up into many smaller pieces. Many of our problems are due mostly to our giant unwieldy scale. Those problems wouldn't be solved by absorbing Canadia. I'm not opposed to less drastic unions, however. Super-NAFTA? Free immigration? I'd vote for both of those. The thing we should do to help Mexico first is to end drug prohibition. We'll be harshly judged by history, for the violence to which we've subjected the people of Mexico. Incidentally, many of the pieces into which USA might be broken would end drug prohibition fairly immediately once on their own.