www.ditl.org

Exactly - Napoleon got a short shrift in his attempt to "unify" Europe. Why should a bunch of bureaucrats be treated any differently?

What's wrong with the idea of unifying Europe? For example, if the EU was to suffer a mass infusion of sanity and honesty, would unification not be a positive thing for certain countries (eg, unifying the wealthier, western countries)?
Granted, it won't be a good thing with the current administration, but I don't think unification is an inherintly bad idea.

Rochey wrote:
Alright. In that case, how far do you think the EU should go in regards to uniting Europe? Was making a common currency a good idea? And would a common constitution be a good move?

Hasn't the EU constitution been proposed twice and rejected by the populace twice?

Yes, it has. What I meant was 'would a common constitution that we agree on be a good move'.

Rochey wrote:What's wrong with the idea of unifying Europe? For example, if the EU was to suffer a mass infusion of sanity and honesty, would unification not be a positive thing for certain countries (eg, unifying the wealthier, western countries)?
Granted, it won't be a good thing with the current administration, but I don't think unification is an inherintly bad idea.

The problem is that it's a violation of national sovereignty - the basic principle of a democracy is that the population delegates the authority to make collective decisions to it's government. It does not grant the authority to further delegate said powers to extra-national bodies. Moreover, the various European countries have fundamentally different cultures.

Cpl Kendall wrote:Hasn't the EU constitution been proposed twice and rejected by the populace twice?

IIRC it was proposed once, and the French and Dutch populations rejected it. Recently it's been revived in the form of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the British government is trying to pretend it'd something completely different and doesn't need a referendum. There's considerable upset over it at the moment.

Wasn't the treaty brought back up again in '07, as well? Or am I imagining things?

As for your other post; good points. Can't really argue with that, I guess.
If I may go back to the EU staying as a purely economic organisation, what do you think of the idea of the Euro? Did that help trade at all, or did it make things worse?

The Euro is a good idea from an external point of view - it makes figuring out what money to use abroad easier. From an internal point of view, it harks back both to the issue of sovereignty, and causes inflation problems - ie unscrupulous individuals using the population's lack of understanding of the exchange rate with their previous currency to hike prices up. The various European economies had problems for years after it was introduced.

Moreover, the various European countries have fundamentally different cultures.

But so does the US, but we make it work. We've got a lot of your cultures, and then some and somehow made it work. It's not perfect, and took a hundred years or so to get to where we are, but you guys have the advantages of learning from our mistakes. And we've got european, asian, and native cultures, you just have to deal with european cultures.

ChakatBlackstar wrote:
But so does the US, but we make it work. We've got a lot of your cultures, and then some and somehow made it work. It's not perfect, and took a hundred years or so to get to where we are, but you guys have the advantages of learning from our mistakes. And we've got european, asian, and native cultures, you just have to deal with european cultures.

Making it work is a bit of a stretch, a massive underclass of pissed of minorities isn't a good thing. France and Germany have the same problem and none of the three seem to be doing much to solve it.

Cpl Kendall wrote:

ChakatBlackstar wrote:
But so does the US, but we make it work. We've got a lot of your cultures, and then some and somehow made it work. It's not perfect, and took a hundred years or so to get to where we are, but you guys have the advantages of learning from our mistakes. And we've got european, asian, and native cultures, you just have to deal with european cultures.

Making it work is a bit of a stretch, a massive underclass of pissed of minorities isn't a good thing. France and Germany have the same problem and none of the three seem to be doing much to solve it.

Who's pissed off in the US? Usually it's just petty bickering these days.

ChakatBlackstar wrote: Who's pissed off in the US? Usually it's just petty bickering these days.

The black, latino and native communities come to mind. No it's not at the level where there's rioting but the state of affairs is nothing to be proud of.

Cpl Kendall wrote:

ChakatBlackstar wrote: Who's pissed off in the US? Usually it's just petty bickering these days.

The black, latino and native communities come to mind. No it's not at the level where there's rioting but the state of affairs is nothing to be proud of.

Okay, latino I'll give you. But Africans? We got one running for president. I don't think they're doing too bad.

ChakatBlackstar wrote:
Okay, latino I'll give you. But Africans? We got one running for president. I don't think they're doing too bad.

There is a rich, educated African running for office. There are massive numbers of poor and uneducated Africans in the US *cough*Detroit*cough*, I assume your familar with ghettos. Obama is not represenative of the average African in America, nor is Oprah or Jesse Jackson for that matter.

In addition, those cultural/national differneces in Europe go back FAR longer and have much deeper roots than they do in the US. Except for the fringe groups, all those divisions in the US can ultimately be traced back to differences in enfranchisement. The issues between a Ukrainian and a Pole, for example, are ones of true racial hatred for no other reasons but its own sake.