Re: the EU and referendums

I knew someone would believe Camorons proaganda leaflet.

That's very interesting I'm sure; to your many fans at least.

But how is that in any way relevant to what I posted ?

michael adams

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Do you think New York has much in common with Nebraska, or California with Wyoming?

Yes, they have a common language, The EU does not.

The United states are a federation of quasi autonomous states sharing a common language, culture and currency. The European Union is a post communist centralised bureaucracy, with no common language, culture and a currency that is a disaster.

Yet you disapprove of the Euro.

Common language : false. More have Spanish as first language than have English.

Common culture : come on! It's a melting pot from all over the world.

Common currency : yet you dislike the Euro.

The universal dollar hasnt worked too well in the USA. Certain states are basket cases, but with things like a minimum wage, and no ability to devalue currency, they end up needing a huge handout from the federal government.

They do at least have no more than two Official langeaues

Not really. Its European Christian - very Christian in places

Indeed, I dislike the Common Dollar in terms of economic flexibility.

I see you missed the real differences though. A FEDERATION of quasi AUTONOMOUS states.

A US state has a lot more autonomy than a European COUNTRY.

A US citizen can vote the president in and out. A US citizen appoints by election representatives to both the House of Representatives *and* the Senate. Senators and representatives can all be sacked, by election, and impeached, and are subject to federal law.

It's not a bad system, and would work a lot better than the EU we have. Its almost a democracy, whereas the EU only pretends to be one.

Untrue.

And the only likely presidents have many millions of dollars behind them for they can even think of standing.

Very democtratic. Just what you'd like in the UK.

That's what TV advertising does for you. Thank goodness for spending limits such as we have, even if there are ways around them such as we saw with the infamous govt EU propaganda leaflet.

Actually there are usually more than two candidates on the ballot. And for president, you have to separately be a candidate in each state.

Really speaking the Yanks have a King that they elect every four years. If you don't believe that, consider the pomp that surrounds the office.

They are actually hamstrung by their rigid constitution, which is unable to evolve (except in dopey ways such as prohibition). Apart from electing the King, they more or less copied a number of aspects of the British system of the late 18thC. At which time, our King was head of govt as well as head of state. The yanks are still stuck with that.

Mississippi is a case in point. A poor state and as you say, the mechanisms to escape that are not available to them. This is the flaw of any common currency.

But our 'king' has pretty well zero power.

No different from poorer parts of the UK.

Just look at the way rich Londoners etc buy up pretty cottages in villages as holiday homes.

That's my point. The role of the head of state has evolved in the UK since the late 18thC. In the US, it has not.

I'd say it's considerably different. Plus of course some poorer parts of the UK are one-party states.

Overall my point is that it's a question of scale and how a federal state is arrived at. The US states have as has been pointed out, a lot of things in common but parts still suffer from being endemically poor. And they are very state-oriented and don't like Washington, although again the problems of Washington are caused by how the country is structured. So there are times when there is political deadlock and nothing can get done, even when the Federal Govt is heading towards technical bankruptcy. And because mentally they are conditioned to be state-oriented, they have pork-barrel politics on a large scale.

If the EU arrives at being a federal state with its current structure, it'll just be a dictatorship, no matter how it's painted as being democratic, having after all, an elected parliament and Commissioners appointed by democratically elected governments. That's just a fig-leaf. The pork-barrel politics you see in the EU demonstrates that many of the states are in it solely for what they can get out of it - confirmed by the border fences that went up as soon as Schengen turned out to be a flop.

It's its dictatorial nature that will cause the EU to fail, unlamented.

Which was a point Brain made - that these unions specifically the USA was only achieved through war.

The lack of democracy in the EU arises from the fact that the elected representatives, our MEPs, cannot initiate legislation. That can only be done by the commission. The European Parliament can then only comment or reject. Whereas in our democracy our elected MPs form the government, initiate policies and legislation (which is of course framed by the experts in the civil service) and then debated, amended and ultimately passed or rejected. We can then judge them accordingly and express our opinion directly at the ballot box.