National Sovreignty and the UN

[WOLFGIR]

From Magik:
"Well thanks a lot. Lets not go whole heartedly calling people and nations names here. Lets try to be civil." (Sorry, don´t like the uberquoteing )

LOL, if you keep our history in mind you would see that I am very civil
If you look closer you will see most "old" enemies still bickering and fallmebaiting each other like it was a general forum somewhere

Thing is that my despise is not for the countries, rahter the politicians and all the scandals and corruptness therein
Of course I do enjoy some harshness with my fellow Scandinavians here on and off.

From Magik again:
"You lost me with this reference. What do you mean is texas neutral? have you seen raging Texans running rampant in your streets?"
Indeed I have, they studied technical engineering at Chalmers and got very drunk one night and bathed in a pool on Aveny here in Gothenburg one very warm night

I meant that Europe still has their own standing armies and allegiances whereas the US have one army.

[WOLFGIR]

Originally posted by MagiK: Quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: He's pointing out that Texas doesn't maintain its own army but EU member nations do, MagiK.

I wouldn't be too sure of that. The State tree in Texas is a Gun rack in the pickup.....[/QUOTE]Oki, sorry, maybe Texas was a bad example

[Timber Loftis]

You know, MagiK, you can find most that is sacred in Kentucky in a pick-up truck:
1. State Tree: Coffee Tree (for real) - check the cupholder - good for hunting at dawn. Oh, and the gun-rack, too.
2. State Bird: The dead one in the back of the truck with buckshot in it.
3. State Plant: Tobacco. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]
4. State Flower: Check the glovebox. [img]graemlins/bonghit.gif[/img]
5. State song: Bound to be a Garth Brooks CD in there somewhere.
6. State Motto: Check the bumper for a sticker - you can't expect us to remember a "state motto" can you? Heck, we couldn't even remember our Cub Scouts motto.
7. State Beverage: any good country boy knows to keep the bourbon under the passenger seat so you won't get caught.

[Moiraine]

Ah, but Wolfie belongs to a nation that is a member of the EU - he has the absolute right to criticize it as harshly as he wants. If a US person says harsh words about the US, is it country bashing ?

[Barry the Sprout]

Just to wade in briefly here I'll point out that EU policy and public politics is a quarter of my course... (yes I'm having fun! Why do you ask? [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). You would be suprised, or probably not in fact, how much of the past year my class has just spent debating on what the EU actually *is*. What it certainly *isn't*, according to just about every political scientist to have ever put pen to paper on the subject, is a nation state itself.

For a start the governments of the member states are able to use national veto at any treaty negotiation of the EU. Theories of functionalism and spillover just simply don't describe what has actually happened - delegation of power has been sparse to the EU institutions. Pretty much all the EU does is act as a central regulator for the single market, its powers are not budgetary with a few exceptions. The total budget of the entire EU system? Somewhere around 1% of the GDP of the total member states... and 70% of that goes on the CAP every year, and thats tightly controlled by the individual agriculture ministers.

To say that the EU is anything more than a handy intergovernmentalist institution is stretching the facts slightly. The EU is really more similar to the WTO than it is to the US, something many people have problems seeing.

[wellard]

Coming in late to the debate but here goes

Can Texas, Maryland, Washington ECT all remove themselves from the United States and become independent countries? IIRC I think not.

All members of the EU can remove themselves from the organization even though it would be at an astronomical expense.

So the countries of the EU are still independent, they have just ceded some of their regulatory powers to a unifying body

And I concur with Barry the (Brussels?) sprout. The EU is more of a glorified WTO than a "federal type government".

[pritchke]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: The EU governs its member nations. It has 4 branches of government. It has a two-part legislature. Under its laws, the EU mandates how many balls an English pig farmer must provide in a pen and whether or not a convenience store in Denmark must consider certain products to be hazardous. There is a nearly-singular currency and an EU identity card (the US doesn't even have that yet). If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's bound to say "Aflack" sooner or later.

I actually agree with Wolfgir I don't see the EU as a single country but many countries working together with similar interest, in things such a trade, currency, hazardous materials, things that are of a convenience. The currency is great especially for tourist, and business, having to switch to so many currencies would be a nightmare when travelling between countries is so frequent, as well if they all have similar standards for hazardous materials than it reduces the cost of resources examining materials moving across borders, being checked etc.

If you look similar things are taking place in North America. For the most part the US and Canada are very similar culturally although we can deny it as much as we like. There are talks, of things like a common NA currency, and identity cards here as well. I doubt the currency will ever take place but the NA identity card will likely be a possibility in the future. Our refugee and immigrant policies are almost the same and it would not be difficult to make them standard, we have many similar standards when it comes to toxic waste, various equipment, and the environment as well. The main differences in creating similar policies would be in compromising on the few things were we disagree.

Plus you will have to get rid of that ridiculous British system of units and adopt the base 10 metric system.

[wellard]

quote
"Plus you will have to get rid of that ridiculous British system of units and adopt the base 10 metric system."

I feel this could be a thread of it's own Oh the joyous day of the U.S. finally becoming integrated with the rest of the world.

Wellard.. Born in 64, taught the metric system from kinder garden to collage, raised in a metric world, laughed at all the oldies hanging on to the old abacus era measurements. Fulfils is ambition of working on aircraft at the so-called cutting edge of mechanical knowledge. Then.. Urm sorry lads that will be a imperial spanner you need, throw away your metric stuff, mr. Boeing don’t agree with all this new fandangle modern stuff

Sorry an off topic rant I know. Now back to the reasons why U.S. should dominate the U.N. [img]graemlins/blueblink.gif[/img]

[Jay&SilentBob]

I haven't voted in the poll but wanted to add my opinion.

It would be good if the UN DID have real international power, but there is really only one way to go about this. Give each nation one vote, including China, US, Russia and EU. Sure the EU may be made up of many countries but a way around that is to have internal voting, a majority of the EU countries voting to approve or disprove a UN charter then decides their vote either way. The same with US states if they wanted making a vote and the majority of states carry the vote for the country. Sure if some of the countries don't want to be lumped under the EU bloc then they can withdraw and have their own vote, but every vote should be equal no matter the size. And get rid of all the veto crap, that just disregards the entire voting system! What use is there to spend months or even years on a UN mandate only to find some country can then chuck it out the window in one hour by excercising their veto option. For all intents and purposes the US and the EU are entities that should only have one vote, they can sort it out internally before bringing it to the international stage but thats the only way I can see it working.

[Sir Taliesin]

[quote]Originally posted by pritchke:

If you look similar things are taking place in North America. For the most part the US and Canada are very similar culturally although we can deny it as much as we like. There are talks, of things like a common NA currency, and identity cards here as well. I doubt the currency will ever take place but the NA identity card will likely be a possibility in the future. Our refugee and immigrant policies are almost the same and it would not be difficult to make them standard, we have many similar standards when it comes to toxic waste, various equipment, and the environment as well. The main differences in creating similar policies would be in compromising on the few things were we disagree. Plus you will have to get rid of that ridiculous British system of units and adopt the base 10 metric system.

Funny, I have never heard any talk of NA currencies or ID cards. Heck, they can't even agree on a national ID system for the US. And as I stated on the Metric thread, I don't think the metric system will be adopted here for quite a while.