time for some european politics

[Occhidiangela]

I still don't get it. And nobody has really bothered to explain it. Meh. I still don't understand this self destructive facination with monarchies.

Free trade and an open system of economics. Adam Smith style. Let everybody have a shot at making something of their lives. It is good to see Europe becoming a giant capitalist market. It's good to see the Eastern Bloc getting wiped away.

I am wondering though if we will see a USE someday. United States of Europe. Now, if we can only sweep away some of the last bad elements of the past and find a comfortable blend of democracy and socialism, I think there might be a fair to middling shot at a whole lot of people living somewhat better than average lives. From what I understand, there is still a huge problem of poverty and destitution, especially those who live in former bloc countries that have collapsed and all their promised socialist pensions and care have evaporated.

And in all fairness, Canada has become quite the model of how a country should be. I am starting to look North with some degree of envy.
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The Monarchy issue is the least of the worries. The USE is the vision of some thinkers, leaders, bureaucrats, and Pan Europeanists. That is what this Constitution is aimed at creating.

Doc, the short answer is "bigger isn't better, better is better." Not everyone is convinced that the Constitution, as framed, will build anything other than bigger without better.

Our own case of bigger has, even after two hundred years, significant political fault lines. Europe has the disadvantage of a few thousand years of cultural fault lines to overcome in that regard on its way to a united, modern, expanded version of "The Holy Roman Empire" without the Holy.

Kylaren's point on the addition of ten new players to the field is a key. The core EU nations have been harmonizing political issues for two generations. Quite a few new comers have not. There is a sense in some quarters that, from the get go, that members do not accrue equivalent benefit from sacrificing some of their sovereignty.

Look at it as the imbalance between have and have not, and the perceived flow of capital and employment opportunity, hence quality of life.

Occhi